Database Users

[Q] 3G Problems

Is anyone else experiencing problems with 3G staying connected today in the Philadelphia / South Jersey area?
4G is working and stays connected but my 3G data connection keeps dropping. The 3G icon will disappear from the bar when the connection drops. I have a good signal, or so it seems, and i'm in an area where I typically never have a problem. I am running the latest stock OTA firmware without root on 0003 hardware. I have tried rebooting and updating my profile / PRL.
Any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated...

danbriggs said:
Is anyone else experiencing problems with 3G staying connected today in the Philadelphia / South Jersey area?
4G is working and stays connected but my 3G data connection keeps dropping. The 3G icon will disappear from the bar when the connection drops. I have a good signal, or so it seems, and i'm in an area where I typically never have a problem. I am running the latest stock OTA firmware without root on 0003 hardware. I have tried rebooting and updating my profile / PRL.
Any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated...
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Hmm... people think that sprint "may" be planning some kind of network change due to slow speeds everywhere. Could be whats happening there?

aimbdd said:
Hmm... people think that sprint "may" be planning some kind of network change due to slow speeds everywhere. Could be whats happening there?
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i hope this is what's happening.

Not having problems in philly today, buy had tons of trouble last week. Maybe its related to areas? I'm south/south west philly.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Phoenix is in the ****ter right now. .02mbs average speedtest...

GatoEnFuego said:
Phoenix is in the ****ter right now. .02mbs average speedtest...
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new york as well, one thing that seems to fix some issues (not all of em) is going into the keypad, dial ##3282# press Edit Mode enter your msl then go into data profile, press the menu key and press reset, that seems to help a little...
if u need ur msl code download msl reader from the market (free app)

Thanks for the feedback... For now at least my connection is solid. Today was the first time I've ever experienced this issue.

Sprints network is suckin all over the place for the past month or 2. Youll going to be waiting a very long tome.to use anything that involves data usuage. Your lucky if you get to watch a full you tube vid without getting an error message. Sometimes when i send a pic message it just stays sending for hours. I called and complained...they gave me a $30 credit for bad servide. I also told them even though they issued me a credit and if the issue is not resolved in 2wks i will be cancelling my contract with them and i better not get a cancleation fee for doing it cause it is not my fault. Rep ....actually i think it was a supervisor that said it is a coverage issue im having and blamed it on out towers, wich is bs cause ive called.several times and complained. So either A. they take to long to fix.issues or B. It happens way to often and i cant use my phone for.the reasons i bought it for. I actually dropped the call cause of poor service while on the phone with another rep.
I gave sprint a chance...now its back to verizon. Prices are great on sprint but what good is it if i never have service.

skillzo1 said:
Sprints network is suckin all over the place for the past month or 2. Youll going to be waiting a very long tome.to use anything that involves data usuage. Your lucky if you get to watch a full you tube vid without getting an error message. Sometimes when i send a pic message it just stays sending for hours. I called and complained...they gave me a $30 credit for bad servide. I also told them even though they issued me a credit and if the issue is not resolved in 2wks i will be cancelling my contract with them and i better not get a cancleation fee for doing it cause it is not my fault. Rep ....actually i think it was a supervisor that said it is a coverage issue im having and blamed it on out towers, wich is bs cause ive called.several times and complained. So either A. they take to long to fix.issues or B. It happens way to often and i cant use my phone for.the reasons i bought it for. I actually dropped the call cause of poor service while on the phone with another rep.
I gave sprint a chance...now its back to verizon. Prices are great on sprint but what good is it if i never have service.
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Thats pretty much how im starting to feel at this point. I just keep thinking if im going to switch I need to go ahead and do it while they still have the unlimited data. Trying to see when the Thunderbolt is going to drop.. I see a lot of people saying Feb some time.

Im lucky that I live in KC where the sprint campus is. Our service is always running great. Except the building I work in sucks for signal. Walk outside and I go from no bars to full bars.

The data network has been complete **** in Idaho for a month! Its driving me nuts!
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Anyone feel like reporting this issue to.engadget? Feels.like.maybe that is the only way we will get some real answers on wtf is going on.

I'm northwest of Philly, Gwynedd to be more precise. I just just got .26 Mbps down and .48 Mbps up. I think that is pretty sucky and I have to tether my iPad all day to that speed.

Im in philly (west) & Im ok. 4g is a lil slower than i originally experienced, 3g is just ok. Either way it has been a slight "slow down" since i first got my phone. I kinda have just been tolerating it....

I agree with philly. When I first got my evo I was amazed at the speed of everything. Especially 4g. When ur 4g speed tests start to match your t-mobile buddies 3g speed test there is a problem. It seems to have dropped quality over the last month here in Austin tx as well. Hopefully Feb 7th is good news. I just upgraded two of my lines with two year sa.
Sent from my rooted HTC EVO using the xda app!

My email about Sprint's degrading 3G speeds to Dan Hesse's Office

Below is my lengthy, but I think fair email about my past year with Sprint's nearly unusable 3G data network in my area.
To whom it may concern in Dan Hesse's office at Sprint:
Dear person reading this email, I have unfortunate news about how your network performance has been slowly degrading at the towers around the valley that I live in.
First off, here is the account info:
I live in in South East , which isn't the billing address (which is the office), but the home where I live when I'm not at the office.
When we signed up with Sprint last June, it was our first time using your network. You offered affordable family plans and had great service, according to your coverage maps and Consumer Reports ratings except that has ultimately not been the case the majority of the time.
As you can see for yourself, according to the coverage maps below (from sprint.com), there's perfect or nearly perfect voice and 3G data coverage at the billing address:
The first month or two that we had our EVO 4Gs, your network performed great and we were very happy with the service, but then in Sept. of last year, the 3G data completely stopped working/was slower than dial-up at the tower by the office. After calls to tech support, several techs claimed that the towers in the area had just been upgraded/updated...I asked: to what, dial-up?, since it wasn't just the tower by the office, it was the majority (and by majority, I mean 70%+ of the time) the 3G data barely worked or was slower than dial-up from the towers in and all around the Caldwell, ID area. Dropped calls were also a often occurrence.
When the Airvana Airave was released, I called in to tech support again, explained the situation and the tech found that we were experiencing upwards of 10% dropped calls, which is much higher than the avg. Also, tech support as never once admitted that it might possibly be the towers/network that's the problem; it's always: your phone must have issues, it mustn't be updated, ect., which I could see, except the same poor network performance was happening on all 3 of our EVOs, as well as all of my friend's EVOs in the areas. Several of them had also gotten the same story/runaround from tech support, too. Anyhow, relations sent us a free Airave, which was very nice of them, and that has made the phones work at the office/billing address, except the CSR in relations said that the coverage was 'very spotty' at that address, which I clearly don't see in your advertised coverage maps. With the Airave, 3G actually works and the calls are better, except the only reason for this is because it uses our ISP/internet to do so. The tower's 3G is still incredibly slow and much slower than advertised nearly a year later. I'm not at the office very often myself, so I can't provide you with speed test recent results, but I would suspect them to be in the 100-200k range.
Next, lets talk about the horrible service at the house. Home address is:
The service here (mainly data/3G speeds) haven't been any better than at the billing address; the sprint.com coverage maps also say that there is perfect or nearly perfect service here.
Surprise, surprise, it's also the tower that doesn't work in this case! By the way, there is an app called Antennas in the Android Market that locates which tower the phone is currently connected to, then plots it on a map - in case you were wondering.
I've called tech support and gotten the same story about how it must be the phone, not the tower...of course. Yes, my (previous) phone was rooted, but fully updated with the latest radios, PRI, NV and PRL), but other's EVOs on the plan are not rooted (but still fully updated) and they receive the exact same type of degraded service, therefore, it makes no difference to be rooted or not, even though the techs insist that it does. Finally, I gave up trying to communicate with tech support; retentions wouldn't send another Airave out for the house, either. The 3G data speeds have been hovering around 75 - 100kbps (1/6th of your lowest advertised 3G data speed, which is 600k) for almost a year - sometimes they reach upwards of 300kbps in the early hours of the mornings. For instants, one day I installed the latest Google Maps update which was about 5.75MBs; it took 28 minutes to download while I was out and about, but still in the radius/connected to the tower by my house...that's about 190kbps and probably a slightly more accurate speed test than using the Speed Test app since it was a larger file download.
Anyhow, I was in a 50MPH t-bone motorcycle wreck last week when a driver crossed the road directly in front of me when I was 10 feet from the intersection. In the wreck, my EVO was completely ruined and I was forced to get a new one. I just got home with a brand-new, fully updated, not even rootable (yet) EVO (I've been in recovery, without a phone, and haven't been home for 8 days) and guess what...the 3G data speeds have dropped even lower at the tower by my house since I was home last. Now, I can't provide a screen shot of the latest speed test results (because you have to be rooted for screen shot apps to work), but the results aren't good. The highest 3G data speed result is 23kbps, with the lowest being 4kbps; upload is slightly higher (typically is/has been) with 89kbps high and 37kbps low - that's out of 10 tests over 5 hours (every 30 minutes). Those speeds are completely unacceptable and less than half the speed of dial-up. Sprint's advertised 3G speeds are 600 to 1400...I'm getting 25.
And this continues, since its not just the towers by my house or the billing address, its about half of them, if not more. Like I said, I have several friends with EVOs who live in ; some of the EVOs are rooted, some are update, some aren't, ect. They're all experiencing the same lackluster service, even though they're in 'good' coverage - ALL depending on what tower their phone is currently connected too!
I finally stopped in to some of the local Sprint stores the other day and asked the employees there: What's up with the horrible 3G speeds? The guy at one store lied to me and showed me how he was getting perfect 1800kbps 3G speeds...of course the store had an Airave hooked up in the back, which the phone was connected to (when connected to an Airave, phones make beeps when initiating calls). The other 2 stores smugly agreed with me about how the speeds are super slow, even on their phones. On a side note, I really wonder how the hell you've been selling phones, except I know its most likely because 90+% of the customers don't know that its the crappy 3G speeds that make their email take forever to load, for Facebook to display a photo, ect.. One store did tell me that all they knew was that all of the towers from Portland, OR to SLC, UT were being updated and the ones here should have been fixed months ago.
Now, I know I'm not the only person experiencing these problems while also paying monthly for Sprint's completely and utterly unusable 3G data speeds, here, or in other parts of the nation. I know I'm not the first to email Dan's office about this problem with these same types of problems, too. I know what the replies from Dan's office have been about these types of network problems to other's. I don't expect a canned response. I don't except or want to get the runaround about the problems. I don't want to hear about how they'll be fixed by the 1st of some month in the near future, since that promise have always been broken when given to others. And I don't want a new phone because this one is the reason while I'm experiencing poor network performance.
What I expect is:
- A network/tower tech in my area to call and talk directly to me - I do do computer and tech work for a living and have read hours of information on forums and the internet; I know what I've been experiencing and I know what I'm talking about.
- Monthly discounts on all (3) lines until I receive your advertised 3G data speeds and service the majority of the time, not just when the phone is connected to an Airave our about 1 out of 7 towers.
In the end, I'm just your customer, asking for your advertised speeds and coverage, with no lies, runarounds or bull****. I'm not mad, just disappointed at how nothing has been resolved in almost a year. This is not how a business should be run.
Regards,

Man you sure do whine a lot. First about your bike accident, which I'm more than willing to bet was your fault and now about this.

Evo4eva said:
Man you sure do whine a lot. First about your bike accident, which I'm more than willing to bet was your fault and now about this.
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Not my fault; couldn't have been my fault, so STFU.
You try living with 3G speeds half the speed of dial up, in fact, cancel your home internet and sign up for Netzero's dialup because I'm sure it'll save you a few bucks a month; I hear they even have a free dial-up optimizer that gets you an extra kbps or two.

Hrshycro said:
Not my fault; couldn't have been my fault, so STFU.
You try living with 3G speeds half the speed of dial up, in fact, cancel your home internet and sign up for Netzero's dialup because I'm sure it'll save you a few bucks a month; I hear they even have a free dial-up optimizer that gets you an extra kbps or two.
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just ignore the troll dude he is a n00b hope they give you a response will watch for one from you to see what they say and sorry about the wreak man!

I'm actually curious as to what the response will be.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA Premium App

Evo4eva said:
Man you sure do whine a lot. First about your bike accident, which I'm more than willing to bet was your fault and now about this.
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Wow. Lol. That's all the input you have to give back?
Anyway, I'd like to see what the response is also. I had problems for about 2 months and after about 20-30 phone calls they came out and fixed the towers and haven't had any problems anymore. Hope it works out for you!
Sent from the Evo using XDA Premium

Evo4eva said:
Man you sure do whine a lot. First about your bike accident, which I'm more than willing to bet was your fault and now about this.
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Troll of the day
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App

Hope you get a quick response. Please update us

Evo4eva said:
Man you sure do whine a lot. First about your bike accident, which I'm more than willing to bet was your fault and now about this.
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Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
I hope your stay at xda is a short one.

Evo4eva said:
Man you sure do whine a lot. First about your bike accident, which I'm more than willing to bet was your fault and now about this.
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SMH!!
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App

Color me unimpressed with 3G speeds, too. Though this is my first 3G capable phone, so I don't really have anything to compare it to.

dsf3g said:
Color me unimpressed with 3G speeds, too. Though this is my first 3G capable phone, so I don't really have anything to compare it to.
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i am shocked that its your first must have really liked the old one lol

ckoadiyn said:
i am shocked that its your first must have really liked the old one lol
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My old phone was a Chinese copy of an HTC Touch 3G... but without the 3G. It was a fairly decent phone as far as Windows Mobile 6.1 phones go. I still use it at the gym as an MP3 player with a set of Sennheiser MM100 bluetooth stereo headphones because its A2DP music quality is far superior to my Evo. Before that I only had flip phones. I was on T-Mobile then.
The Evo, of course, outshines the old phone in every other way. It's a bonafide, pocket-sized Android tablet.

I too, want to know what the response will be. Please update this thread when you receive a response.

my 3g speeds have sucked every from Sacremento in the north, san diego in the south, tucson in the east, and all along the western coast from San Diego to Monterrey.
WHere did I get a good speed? Anytime I roam on the verizon network, and anytime I am in Mexico......Yes, it works great in Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada...
This latest update seems like it helped fix my speed though. Its still not the best, but hey I last checked in Tucson (yuck) and will check several locations between here an Los Angeles as I drive towards home!

Ahh, I miss Ensanada....
Great town to party in.

Hrshycro said:
Not my fault; couldn't have been my fault, so STFU.
You try living with 3G speeds half the speed of dial up, in fact, cancel your home internet and sign up for Netzero's dialup because I'm sure it'll save you a few bucks a month; I hear they even have a free dial-up optimizer that gets you an extra kbps or two.
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Lmfao
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I'll keep y'all posted on any replies from Sprint!

As soon as you used the word "bull****", you invalidated the entire email.

IMHO, you will probably get a canned response with no followup. The wording and flow of your message was more akin to what a kid would send in. But good luck, I hope you do get a real response, along with some satisfaction.

Verizon contract

I called Verizon the other day to complain about internet speeds being slow. The Rep stated I was showing to be in a marginal signal area(never worse than -85) the Rep said they would note this on my acct and they would let me out of contract (I am at 9 months) . Why would Verizon just let me out of contract with one call? Any ideas to why, I just find it odd for it to be that easy?
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

yolo2die said:
I called Verizon the other day to complain about internet speeds being slow. The Rep stated I was showing to be in a marginal signal area(never worse than -85) the Rep said they would note this on my acct and they would let me out of contract (I am at 9 months) . Why would Verizon just let me out of contract with one call? Any ideas to why, I just find it odd for it to be that easy?
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
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Maybe they are working on the whole customer satisfaction thing.

Maybe they want to get as many people off of unlimited contracts as possible. And then when you decide to come back because you see that the other carriers are most likely nowhere as good of signal. Also, I live in a very strong signal area and at times my signal drops for no apparent reason. So, take that for what you will. I'm just saying.
Sent from my extremely fast Thunderbolt that is abusing my battery like a whore abuses crack.

I second Jaytronics. They want you off your unlimited data contract. If you change your mind and try coming back to an unlimited plan you will probably be screwed.
I very rarely have more than -79, but I don't lose connectivity. Does your phone lose service, or is it just slow internet? If you live in an LTE area, try talking them into a cheap upgrade to Droid Charge.
Anyway, unless you find a better deal somewhere else or you just can't live with your phone the way it is, I'd stick with the unlimited plan you have with Verizon.

Try making that call again and I bet you get a different response....
Just saying Verizon is never consistent and every rep you talk to gives you a different story.

Yeah I am on unlimited data, that's what I was thinking but didn't think that be worth pushing me to another provider, I live in northern MN and its pretty much Verizon or at&t, which I came from cuz there data speeds are much slower even when I have slow internet there still slower...no lte planned here n likely a long long way off....but I am thinking I don't want to loose my unlimited data...I wasn't planning to switch they just kind of pushed the idea...thanks for your input guys..
Heck at&t just got 3g here back in March of this year, Verizon had 3g since July of 2010
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

About 3 years ago I moved from Florida to the corner of Southwest Virginia. We went from 10 years of excellent Verizon coverage to next to nothing (our phones actually would die in the middle of the night searching for service). We renewed our contract in March and moved in May. They let us out of the contract fairly easy. All they asked for was a letter stating we had moved.
They were great to work with back then and now Verizon has increased coverage and we came back (thankfully I have the unlimited data plan and won't be backing out of that).

On the subject of slow 3g speeds I have noticed a slow down for the last 2 weeks so far. I normally listen to pandora radio when ever I'm outside exercising and I have had periods where it took 5 minutes or longer for a song to load. I kept checking the 3g status and it was still on and my signal was strong. Before I could get songs to load up and play within seconds of either skipping them or starting the program.
Anyone else notice this?
Sorry for hijacking your thread.

I rather try to find ways to get a free good phone with complaints.

boomertwo said:
On the subject of slow 3g speeds I have noticed a slow down for the last 2 weeks so far. I normally listen to pandora radio when ever I'm outside exercising and I have had periods where it took 5 minutes or longer for a song to load. I kept checking the 3g status and it was still on and my signal was strong. Before I could get songs to load up and play within seconds of either skipping them or starting the program.
Anyone else notice this?
Sorry for hijacking your thread.
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I think this problem has been getting worse over a period of time, not exactly sure when, maybe its network congestion ? Too many heavy data users?
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

I Am Marino said:
I rather try to find ways to get a free good phone with complaints.
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I may try and attempt to get a new phone out of them, it be sweet if I could get the inc2 or the thunderbolt, possibly one of those would work better, better radio?
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

anyone seen any network improvements?

All I heard was how sprints network is getting fast and blah blah blah but has anyone seen speeds that are actually faster? Mid Ga doesn't seem any better. I looked at the sight and see upgrades being done but I can't tell at all. Am I crazy or am I getting ransacked

sprint.com/network
Put in your zipcode to see recent and planned local upgrades.
Is that the site you've used?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I've been on sprint for like 15 years... Sprint sucks! All i here is they are getting better, more towers bla bla bla.. I would rather be data throttled than have no signal... I have to June i believe than i jump ship... Sorry I'm not trolling i just felt my blood pressure rise...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium

troyolson92 said:
I've been on sprint for like 15 years... Sprint sucks! All i here is they are getting better, more towers bla bla bla.. I would rather be data throttled than have no signal... I have to June i believe than i jump ship... Sorry I'm not trolling i just felt my blood pressure rise...
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
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Hey man we all have opinions and freedom to do whatever we want ...

austin420 said:
sprint.com/network
Put in your zipcode to see recent and planned local upgrades.
Is that the site you've used?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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Same place. They show upgrades happening but I don't see it. Its frustrating. I have 6 towers near me and get pathetic to OK coverage on base, but off bade its pretty good. Problem is I used to be on Verizon and they are strong in my area. I hate to switch back but I been w spring almost 2 years now, my wife has been w them 7 years. I am pretty close to cancelling this and moving on. I really like sprints line of phones but w 3 lines, I feel I can do better unless they have real changes they are making. I am holding on to the hold of the 800mhz I have seen floating around and was under the impression that that's what network vision was bringing me. Now 5 months after talk of it...still no great data. When everyone on Verizon is sucking data slam up. A consistent 1mb where ever I go isn't extreme to me when that's pretty much how Verizon treated me years ago. Now all my Verizon friends at seeing 2+mb

Same here...they upgrade some sites but nothing gets better. Even tech support said they upgraded one tower and was able to give me details. Still sub 100 kilobit speeds from this tower.

Well according to sprint next month I should have better service... needless to say if I dont see any difference then I'm gone cause I work 50+ hours a week and have no service wat so ever so if no improve bye bye sprint
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Where I live it's a struggle to get over 100 kbit on the 3g and 1 mbit on the 4g when it's available but It is better than AT&T.
Sprint unlimited is a joke, it's like offering unlimited mileage on an auto lease and then you find out it's a yugo that can't go much faster than 1 mph.
I can't break 1 gig a month because the data rates are so slow.
My plan is to drop sprint when my contract is up. You can sign a new contact and get cheaper prices on high end phones.

Wow 100kb? Yuck, I would have left them long ago. Hell, I roam at 130kb! I know sorta because I work on an air force base and in some spots data is non existent. I may ride it out until June...if it isn't happening, I have to leave sprint. Too bad they don't read forums haha. Hurry up Sprint! Stop buying iPhones and buy some damn towers!

stkiswr said:
Wow 100kb? Yuck, I would have left them long ago. Hell, I roam at 130kb! I know sorta because I work on an air force base and in some spots data is non existent. I may ride it out until June...if it isn't happening, I have to leave sprint. Too bad they don't read forums haha. Hurry up Sprint! Stop buying iPhones and buy some damn towers!
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That is about the speed I get too most of the time, damn right, 14 billion to bog down your network some more, real winning company... **** the iPhone anyways...

I noticed my 4g signal ha become stronger over the past six months. This week I found I no longer lose 4g in the backroom at work and my 3g has started working a tad more in areas there was once none. Overall speed is the same just more coverage.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

R3537L1F3 said:
I noticed my 4g signal ha become stronger over the past six months. This week I found I no longer lose 4g in the backroom at work and my 3g has started working a tad more in areas there was once none. Overall speed is the same just more coverage.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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That's positive. Hopefully something will come to my area soon . I was fishing for feedback. I do like sprints price. And have always had voice coverage, hopefully data coverage expands here

Its all about location. Sprint service isn't that bad guys.... I get great service in Omaha, NE .. however... 4g is virtually non-existent, which is retarded considering im required to pay for it. I have had verizon, alltel (when it existed), StraightTalk, AT&T.... I would say Sprint and StraightTalk (YES STRAIGHT TALK) provided the best service for me in terms of dropped calls and data. AT&T is a joke.
When I was using straight talk I had their nokia smart phone....if I recall correctly.... im pretty sure their 3g service ran off verizon towers, im not sure though.

A tower was marked recently as having recieved a data speed upgrade within the past 6 months near my niece's high school. We were there for a basketball game, 6pm to about 8pm at night on thursday. I did a speed test and saw 1200kbps. I was impressed. By my house it is still 200-300kbps at times dipping down to less than 100 or in the middle of the night peaking around 450.
From the looks of things the upgrades should be heading towards towers in my area soon. I am curious to see how it goes, as I would love to get better 3g speeds. I have some crappy 4g right now but its so spotty and the battery drain so significant 4g is just pointless to me.

Is there a site like this for Verizon? In case someone would like to (hypothetically) change prl's and force roam to Verizon in certain areas? It would be handy to know.
austin420 said:
sprint.com/network
Put in your zipcode to see recent and planned local upgrades.
Is that the site you've used?
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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3G is gotten lil better.

Better where I am at. Nothing like what I would like but better.... on the funny side, My brother is staying with us and he has Verizon, talk about slow service in this area. You can cry and ***** all you want, all carriers will have problems. Why not over pay for them. lol

Mines slower. After the EL30 update. Modem issues thou. I hope not, I like the latest and greatest.

I live in Los Angeles. I've noticed my 4g improve in reliability, but decrease in speed.
My 3g is abysmal. Like, almost worthless. Once in a blue moon I'll get 200+ kb/s, but usually it is sub 100.
Calls/texts are generally fine though.

http://imgur.com/M1hgf
I'm not seeing a huge problem with Sprint, I did 3 tests like this and they all came out roughly this fast. I live in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and I can stream Pandora without any interruptions back and forth from my 40 min commute. When I head to my dads place (its 3 hours away in the middle of nowhere) I can still stream Pandora basically skipless the whole way. I hardly ever use 4g though since its a battery suck and overkill 99% of the time, and it doesn't reach into my apartment . I also don't roam very often, automatic system select rarely works with data without some fiddling. I only use roaming at my dad's house since verizon is the only provider out there. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with Sprint

Sprint VS T-Mobile or Tmobile and Throttling

So, its just about time to upgrade to upgrade my Sprint Phone (Evo). I got it coming up in May, unless something changes I might be going with the SG2, just looks great and it has capabilities for LTE as well as Wimax.
I just got a new job that lets me get a discount on T-Mobile, and I after looking at their plans, it would save me a few bucks (literally like 4). I have heard rumors that HSPA+ is slighly faster than Wimax but I never compared the two.
So HSPA+ faster than Wimax?
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I use my phone 90% of the time as a router. My college blocks everything so I am always on tether. I just looked it up and used 16GB last month, and that seems to be the lower average. My point is that Sprint's unlimited truly means unlimited with no caps. T-Mobile throttles after 2GB or 5GB according to the plan. How much of a throttle? Is it significant?

It throttles you down to EDGE speeds, so 2g. Around 20kbps, which won't load a black and white smiley face on your screen for 20 seconds. If you're going to use more than 5GB's per month, stick with Sprint.
T-Mobile throttles at different tiers on different plans, from 100MB-5GB
Speeds on HSPA+ seem to be faster for me on T-Mobile than on Sprint in Portland, Oregon. That could be different for you, but T-Mobile's 42mbps HSPA+ Is closer to LTE than WiMax in my opinion.

In some areas T-Mobile also forcibly compresses all images pulled down in web pages regardless of your data usage and data plan. There is no way to turn this "feature" off.

Well first the SGS2 does not support Wimax and lte...no device does except for a hotspot...
Imho you will be better off not getting the SGS2 and instead using your upgrade on a truly new device that the hardware spec is not a year old almost. That is unless $ is a big factor and you don't want to spend $250ish on a device...
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Did some research and found you are right. It is really disappointing because I had a Sprint tech and a Sprint sales rep tell me point blank that the SG2 was Wimax and LTE. Can't trust people nowadays.

Battery consumption is much better with HSPA+ vs LTE.
TheBDub said:
It throttles you down to EDGE speeds, so 2g. Around 20kbps, which won't load a black and white smiley face on your screen for 20 seconds. If you're going to use more than 5GB's per month, stick with Sprint.
T-Mobile throttles at different tiers on different plans, from 100MB-5GB
Speeds on HSPA+ seem to be faster for me on T-Mobile than on Sprint in Portland, Oregon. That could be different for you, but T-Mobile's 42mbps HSPA+ Is closer to LTE than WiMax in my opinion.
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Goes to up to 10.
synaesthetic said:
In some areas T-Mobile also forcibly compresses all images pulled down in web pages regardless of your data usage and data plan. There is no way to turn this "feature" off.
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False.

iball8888 said:
Did some research and found you are right. It is really disappointing because I had a Sprint tech and a Sprint sales rep tell me point blank that the SG2 was Wimax and LTE. Can't trust people nowadays.
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Yeah no problem, didn't want u going out and buying a device being that misled...
It's a shame when that crap happens to ppl.
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sgt. slaughter said:
Yeah no problem, didn't want u going out and buying a device being that misled...
It's a shame when that crap happens to ppl.
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I used to be a Sprint store technician, and when the Epic Touch had the Loss of Signal issue (which has long been fixed, officially), Sprint's Tech Support over the phone told me that I should have bought an iPhone because Android always breaks. Word for word. I was like, ok so give me an iPhone, I'll give back the Epic Touch. And they said no.
These days you have to fend for yourself unfortunately. Chances are, if you're an XDA user, you know more than a carrier's tech support.

chrischoi said:
False.
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Explain. I suffered this issue for four months and had to switch to AT&T to avoid it.

To the OP. I tried switching to t-mobile twice because IMO they have better phones and prices. but both times I had to switch back. my story: i knew tmobile had the 5gb data cap on teh monthly 4g plan i wanted so I checked my sprint data usage for 5 months and noticed i am only using 2-3 gb a month. I figured great so i went and got the Htc amaze after 6 days by data usage was over 1.5 gb. I went to the store and asked them is it possible that the data reading on the phone and website could be wrong? my setup was the same on my sprint evo and my htc amaze so it wasn't a program that could have been using that much data so i returned the phone. 2 weeks later i went back to the store drooling over the amaze but knew i couldn't get it because i would go over the 5gb easy. I spoke with a rep and he said he uses data heavily and never goes over so i said ok ill try it again maybe it was the phone. this time around i didn't tether at all except for 5 min to test it out. hardly used Pandora and made sure my setup was the same as the evo. this time i gave it 10 days and i was already over 3gb. i was half ass using my phone and still i would have been over. I have searched about this called tmobile and haven't come up with a good reason why this phone was using so much data. a buddy of mine went to att and i told him that he would def go over but after a few days he said no man im good . at the end of the month he called *****ing that he went over the att cap which was even lower than tmobile. until the come up with a prepaid plan that gives 10gb i have to stay away. oh yea and when they throttle you the above comments are correct its edge speed and way to slow for anything but email and light web surfing.

iball8888 said:
I just looked it up and used 16GB last month, and that seems to be the lower average. My point is that Sprint's unlimited truly means unlimited with no caps. T-Mobile throttles after 2GB or 5GB according to the plan. How much of a throttle? Is it significant?
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I think this will be the main issue.
When I pass 5GB, I get throttled to EDGE (2G) speeds. For most purposes this is like running out of data. You're going to be stuck at 2GB or 5GB. Email is fine at EDGE speeds - anything else requires too much speed.
Stick with Sprint, as it seems the savings aren't really significant, anyway.

IMO Sprint sucks if you're not in a Wimax area and the Wimax isn't that great anyway.. Sprint's EVDO network is an absolute JOKE. I figured since I'm not covered by Wimax I'd switch my E4GT to Boost to save money, but Boost's(Sprint's) EVDO was nowhere near as fast as T-Mobile's 3G.. It really sucks because my E4GT is hands down the best phone I've ever used, but the internet is almost unusable it's so slow.. I'm putting it up for sale soon to switch back to T-Mobile.

Speeds really depend on where you live. I have spotty 4g in my area but never need it. at my house i have to use wifi but in most places i can stream Pandora without any buffering. everyone always talks about speed but as long as you can stream music and video without and buffering whats the issue? unless you are tethering to your pc and downloading torrents speeds over 250kps will stream just fine.

This is how Verizon does it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDxJoGv3FLA&feature=channel
Now that is throttling right there. They send me a new phone and it does the same. They have lied to me 3 times now, one that was just needed a reset, that I just needed a new phone and they don't throttle. I had only used 12GB and they do that. OK thats BS

itsjefflol said:
IMO Sprint sucks if you're not in a Wimax area and the Wimax isn't that great anyway.. Sprint's EVDO network is an absolute JOKE. I figured since I'm not covered by Wimax I'd switch my E4GT to Boost to save money, but Boost's(Sprint's) EVDO was nowhere near as fast as T-Mobile's 3G.. It really sucks because my E4GT is hands down the best phone I've ever used, but the internet is almost unusable it's so slow.. I'm putting it up for sale soon to switch back to T-Mobile.
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Gonna be leaving right before the network takes a giant improvement with the network vision deployment set to be complete by end of next year....3G speeds 1-3Mbps....most all 3G coverage blanketed by LTE.....
Check S4GRU.com for some details on the rollout schedule. This isn't the sprint.com/network crap that's shown this is completely different and involves backhaul changes from the ancient T1 based to microwave/fiber based...
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T-mobile rocks over Sprint for data, coverage and price
flexte said:
To the OP. I tried switching to t-mobile twice because IMO they have better phones and prices. but both times I had to switch back. my story: i knew tmobile had the 5gb data cap on teh monthly 4g plan i wanted so I checked my sprint data usage for 5 months and noticed i am only using 2-3 gb a month. I figured great so i went and got the Htc amaze after 6 days by data usage was over 1.5 gb. I went to the store and asked them is it possible that the data reading on the phone and website could be wrong? my setup was the same on my sprint evo and my htc amaze so it wasn't a program that could have been using that much data so i returned the phone. 2 weeks later i went back to the store drooling over the amaze but knew i couldn't get it because i would go over the 5gb easy. I spoke with a rep and he said he uses data heavily and never goes over so i said ok ill try it again maybe it was the phone. this time around i didn't tether at all except for 5 min to test it out. hardly used Pandora and made sure my setup was the same as the evo. this time i gave it 10 days and i was already over 3gb. i was half ass using my phone and still i would have been over. I have searched about this called tmobile and haven't come up with a good reason why this phone was using so much data. a buddy of mine went to att and i told him that he would def go over but after a few days he said no man im good . at the end of the month he called *****ing that he went over the att cap which was even lower than tmobile. until the come up with a prepaid plan that gives 10gb i have to stay away. oh yea and when they throttle you the above comments are correct its edge speed and way to slow for anything but email and light web surfing.
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I picked up my HTC Amaze (a 42.2 mbps device) on T-mobile in early January, and I live in a California city that has T-mobile HSPA+ 42.2 mbps coverage, just to be clear. When I bought my Amaze, I had to re-up my contract and at the time, I was asked to choose between a 5GB plan per month ($25 on top of the monthly $40 value plan) and a 10GB plan per month ($50 + my $40 value plan). So for price, it is impossible to beat T-mobile for the service you get.
I use my Amaze daily to go online, download and upload large files (I am a graphic designer) and watch videos and stream music. For the last 5 months I've had my phone, I've come close to 5GB twice. That is with heavy usage and this last month having a nearly two hour Skype conversation with a friend of mine where I used 2GB in one sitting!!! I also use my phone with the free WiFi Hotspot feature that comes with the 5GB & 10GB data plan as my computer's internet provider. I don't have a physical cable in my house, just my Amaze.
As far as speed, my friends with iPhones on ALL 3 NETWORKS (Sprint, Verizon and AT&T) all get slower speeds than I do. I was challenged by them and shut them all up in contests against google searches, Siri vs Google Voice Search and Speedtest.net. I have also speedtested the nicer handsets by Samsung and HTC running on AT&T and matched or beat them in my city in a few places around town. Sprint's speed was not even on the radar, barely chugging at 1mbps usually. I pull over 12 mbps usually everywhere I go, with upload speeds from 5-8 mbps on average.
As far as data, I have never gone over my 5GB but see how others could, and I bet when T-mobile gets LTE Advance up and running I'll add in the extra 5 gigs.
The greater points I'm making are the following:
A) Sprint's network it a sham. Even when they finally get around to offering LTE in California, which will be who-knows-when, T-mobile will have switched on its LTE advanced release 10 network, with HSPA+ 42.2 mbps backup, nationally. If you're a Sprint user, jump ship now or when T-mobile lights it up in 2013.
B) It's pretty darn hard to use up 5 Gigs per month if your not a power user. I don't know how someone with the HTC Amaze and the Usage monitor that is part of T-mobile's apps and in the HTC phone itself can't determine what was eating up data. That just doesn't make sense. You can easily pinpoint what's using your data by using the included Usage setting on your phone. And if 5GB isn't enough, get 10! But that option does exist.
C) T-mobile may not offer unlimited data speed at 4G, but get a 10GB plan and you will fly over the speeds you get on Sprint and save money while doing it. You could pay one price on Sprint for 1.5 mbps download speed unlimited (SLOW), or you could pay the same, maybe a little less and get 10GB at 4G speeds on T-mobile... and then in 2013 enjoy them lighting up a national LTE advance network that will arguably be the speediest LTE network on the planet.
D) The HTC Amaze is one bad-ass MoFo of a phone.
That is all.

for me i switched from t-mobile to boost because of their lack of 3g/4g in my town on t-mobile i was always on edge it is very slow, i switched to boost and i have EvDO now, its not the best of the best but atleast i can open a website now without my screen timing out. :good:

Product F(RED) said:
I used to be a Sprint store technician, and when the Epic Touch had the Loss of Signal issue (which has long been fixed, officially), Sprint's Tech Support over the phone told me that I should have bought an iPhone because Android always breaks. Word for word. I was like, ok so give me an iPhone, I'll give back the Epic Touch. And they said no.
These days you have to fend for yourself unfortunately. Chances are, if you're an XDA user, you know more than a carrier's tech support.
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You know what, they did the same thing to my dad. There was a hardware issue with his OG evo (a great phone during its day) where the speaker was going too quiet. The sales guy basically was telling him how it's because it's an android phone, how much better iphone is, etc.
Honestly I think the reason they are doing this is because they literally bet their future on the iphone. They are guaranteed to be paying apple 16 billion dollars over the next 4 years, regardless of whether or not they actually sell that much money worth of iphones. You better believe that they are going to try their damndest to sell them.
Anyways, I'm thinking of ditching sprint for t-mobile myself. I live in phoenix, which has zero 4g coverage from sprint. Several years back they told me that they would be deploying wimax here shortly. Where are we now? Nowhere.
I called them earlier today to cancel one of my lines, and they kept asking me if I want to use it for a data card, or if I just wanted to hold on to it "just in case" etc. I told the lady that I am thinking of switching to t-mobile, gave her all of these reasons why, and she brings up the "unlimited data" talking point. I kind of chuckle under my breath, and then tell her that their 3g service is really slow, their 4g service barely compares to other carrier's 3g service, and finally, they don't even offer 4g in my area, which is the 6th largest city in the US. She then tells me that they are going to be offering it here soon, so I tell her that that's what they told me a few years ago.
Yeah there are "rumors" that phoenix is due early in their second rollout, however similar rumors kept surfacing about wimax coming to phoenix next an entire year after it finished rolling out everywhere else. Other smaller towns outside of the valley (and I mean like over 70 miles away) got it, but not in the valley area.
In any case, I am on my third "4g" phone, and still have not ever had 4g. Even if LTE came soon to my area, I'm not terribly excited about it, mainly because the LTE gnex has a quarter of the battery life of the HSPA version when both are actively using 4g. I don't care if LTE is 10% faster, it's a huge f*cking battery drain.
Anyways, I'm not a heavy data user, so 4g hasn't been a huge priority to me. What is annoying is how I have to fight sprint's billing department every other month because they always manage to screw up something on my bill and overcharge me. I've been dealing with this for the last 7 years and I am tired of it. Sprint sucks, 'nuff said.
I really want to jump off of sprint, but I am hesitant because I don't know if t-mobile's voice service is more spotty, because according to sensorly their coverage is about 80% of that of sprint in my area. However, t-mobile would save me $40 a month, and because of the company I work for, I will have the activation fee waived.

Sprint coverage is so spotty. According to the coverage map I'm suppose to get 4g in my neighborhood and I don't. 98% percent of the time I'm on slow 3g. With T-Mobile I'm on 4g everywhere I go and its a good feeling to pull out your phone and handle your business with ease and speed unlike sprint.
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