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Sprint Claims 65% Network Speed Boost Over Last Year

Sprint continues to insist the company is making headway in delivering users the network they'll actually want to use. Though Sprint has consistently lagged behind AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in most network performance studies, Sprint Chief Technical Officer John Saw claims in a new statement that the company has seen its network speed performance jump 65% in the last year. Saw based that claim on Ookla's Speedtest data, which suggests Sprint saw an average download speed on its network of 23.9 Mbps last month, up from 14.5 Mbps one year earlier.

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Saw credits the deployment of small cell technology like Sprint's Magic Box, as well as expanded deployment of air poles and strand mounts.

"One of our biggest accomplishments this year has been tackling the small cell challenge," Saw said. "We did this by developing a host of solutions that address the roadblocks that have plagued traditional deployments."

Saw proceeded to promise that the company would continue its efforts to reconfigure all of the company's towers so they support Sprint's three primary spectrum bands: 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz. The company is also promising to bring "thousands" of new cell sites online to expand its overall network footprint. Saw says the company also plans to "aggressively" deploy technologies such as 256 QAM and Massive MIMO, which he claims will dramatically improve speeds in 2018.

"In 2018 you’ll also see us roll-out 256 QAM and 4X4 MIMO nationwide for greater spectral efficiency and faster data speeds," Saw promised. "These critical ingredients will join three-channel carrier aggregation (using 60 MHz of 2.5 GHz), already available today in more than 100 top markets, to form the Sprint recipe for Gigabit Class LTE service."

The problem for Sprint is that the company has been promising that users will love the network that's just around the corner for the better part of the last decade now, so customer trust in such statements is fleeting among all by the most devoted brand enthusiasts. Sprint certainly didn't help this problem by spending most of 2017 chasing down a competition-killing merger, though hopefully 2018 features Sprint refocusing its efforts solely on building a better network.


Most recommended from 45 comments


Tch81
join:2015-08-10

11 recommendations

Tch81

Member

Spring's math dept sucks

Have a VZW work phone and a personal Sprint phone. Lemme tell ya, that 1% difference is freaking huge!

The Beer
I Love It When A Plan Comes Together
Premium Member
join:2001-07-24
Lincoln, NE

8 recommendations

The Beer

Premium Member

Towers

Please build towers, towers.... more towers. It's like a broken record. The sad thing is if they had just swapped out most of the Nextel towers with PCS gear we would not be where we are today. Sounds like USCC roaming is like on net traffic now so I guess it's a start, but it's still not native coverage.

Our town is STILL 3g. Not a real big factor to my fam we moved on

Anon1aed9
@2607:fb90.x

5 recommendations

Anon1aed9

Anon

Speed study

I have been conducting surveys within Austin Texas for broadband wireless providers such as Verizon and T-Mobile.

Here are the six month results.

This is averaged out over 4 locations four providers

Verizon
Download 44.8mbps
Upload 1.8mbps
Consistent data stream. Appears to be proxied out of Dallas data center.

AT&T
Download 31.7mbps
Upload 8.8mbps
Consistent data stream. Appears to be proxied out of Austin tx data center.

T-mobile
Download 44.8mbps
Upload 16.2mbps
Consistent stream. No proxie detected. Appears to be direct stream locally.

Sprint
Download 4.85mbps
Upload 0.88mbps
Appears initially to choke before bandwidth opens up. More stable when vpn is open. Dual proxie with unknown endpoint. Appears to struggle in most of the 4 points of access in Austin.

Anonfbe3d
@spcsdns.net

4 recommendations

Anonfbe3d

Anon

Don't know about 65% improvement but it has boosted in my area

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Am seeing 100+ more often, though 35-50 is more common, and that's fine with me. Of course it's not everywhere but I do travel and am fine with Sprint. Wouldn't be sticking with them if not.

kdwycha
join:2003-01-30
Ruskin, FL

3 recommendations

kdwycha

Member

Really?

When using Sprint here in Tampa I couldn't even stream simple music like SiriusXM or Apple Music. I would get about 400kbps.

I really doubt they can beat T-Mobile speeds.