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I live in a 4g area (chicago), yet there are spots where either there is no 4g, or the signal is just bad. When I walk through these areas, my evo does not switch to 3g, instead it gets nothing. Anyone have a similar problem and/or know a fix for this? Another example is when I go to some suburbs that definitely do have 3g, but do not have 4g, I don't get data at all. I am running stock evo right now.
At my home in Haverhill, MA it works like a charm outside....full boat signal and it flies speed wise.
Walk in the house and the signal drops to a fragile connection.
Assuming it was just a fluke at my house, I tried it this morning in Boston as well while going to a project meeting.
Same thing...wonderful signal outside with great up and down speeds....walk indoors and POOF...it's gone.
What good is it if it only works OUTDOORS?
Are others finding this issue as well?
I have started a thread on the SPRINT website about this as well since it seems that SPRINT actually does monitor those threads and gives them attention...
http://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/44204
That's because WiMax operates on a 2.5GHz band, which is terrible for penetrating structures and solid materials. This has to do with the wavelength being used -the waves are more likely to be blocked/absorbed by particles in the material than to diffract around them.
APOLAUF said:
That's because WiMax operates on a 2.5GHz band, which is terrible for penetrating structures and solid materials. This has to do with the wavelength being used -the waves are more likely to be blocked/absorbed by particles in the material than to diffract around them.
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QFT - they should have used a licensed band of radio spectrum. Oh well, I'll never see 4G at my house anyway.
Here in Las Vegas, the Clear 4G market has been active for over a year. I have full 4G bars at home, inside and out. I have 1-2 bars of 4G at work, inside and 3-4 bars, outside. I had the Clear service until Sprint came out with these Epic 4G phones.
Have you used the Sprint tool to monitor 4G coverage for your area? The green cloud is pretty accurate in showing exactly where you get only outside coverage and where you get inside building coverage as well. I can attest to it's accuracy. My home in Texas is barely in the outside green coverage and no inside coverage at all. My son verified that he cannot get the signal indoors, but can get it outdoors.
As the market matures in MA, you will see more towers "turned on" to provide better 4G coverage. That did happen here in Vegas!
Kcarpenter said:
QFT - they should have used a licensed band of radio spectrum. Oh well, I'll never see 4G at my house anyway.
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2.5 Ghz is licensed spectrum. Perhaps you're thinking of 2.4 Ghz?
Ditto on Vegas being great on 4g coverage... I was out there for a week... stayed on the 12th floor and all the way down to the casino I had screamin fast internet... I just wish sprint would pick up the pace on LA - OC coverage... suppoedly wimax towers were going to be put on every walmart, wonder if that's still gonna happen
Awkwardly, the evo never had the issue.. I did notice one thing, the power of the signal is weak but that's cause it might not be an official band.
Sent From The Moon...
I live in a "4G" city, and I am disappointed. According to Sprint's coverage maps I'm supposed to have 4G inside my home, but I don't. Also, driving even on freeways has dead pockets.
That forces me back to 3G, which on the Epic has well-documented poor performance, especially on uploads.
I do get decent 4G indoors in a downtown office. When 4G is hot, it's hot -- about twice the 3G speeds I got with T-Mobile's HSPA+ on a Vibrant. But T-Mobile's 3G service is more consistent, with better infill coverage and indoor penetration. Overall, I think I got better real-life service with the #4 carrier. I may go back.
boomerbubba said:
I live in a "4G" city, and I am disappointed. According to Sprint's coverage maps I'm supposed to have 4G inside my home, but I don't. Also, driving even on freeways has dead pockets.
That forces me back to 3G, which on the Epic has well-documented poor performance, especially on uploads.
I do get decent 4G indoors in a downtown office. When 4G is hot, it's hot -- about twice the 3G speeds I got with T-Mobile's HSPA+ on a Vibrant. But T-Mobile's 3G service is more consistent, with better infill coverage and indoor penetration. Overall, I think I got better real-life service with the #4 carrier. I may go back.
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Im getting the Epic today in the mail, and ive already been missing tmob. The vibrant did get great speeds and in a wider coverage area. If im dissatisfied with the service in two weeks, ill just get another vibrant.
I live in Vegas and the WiMAX service sucks the big one. You can't maintain a connection while driving and because data doesn't smoothly transition, you get horrible data service. It's the outdoors network. Suburbs, no 4G, buildings without a 4G tower perched up next to it, no 4G.. driving down the street, no 4G. It's really poor. Sprint 3G coverage is ok, but the 4G is just plain horrible and there are no signs of it improving soon. They've colocated on all of the towers they can, so they will be building new ones if they want better coverage and as of right now cash is low at Clear.
lazytexan said:
Have you used the Sprint tool to monitor 4G coverage for your area? The green cloud is pretty accurate in showing exactly where you get only outside coverage and where you get inside building coverage as well. I can attest to it's accuracy. My home in Texas is barely in the outside green coverage and no inside coverage at all. My son verified that he cannot get the signal indoors, but can get it outdoors.
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I'm a little surprised the network is "launched" in DC, where it's so spotty I cannot get coverage at work (south of Dupont Circle) or at home (Waterfront) despite what the Clear map shows. Very frustrating.
even worse for me..im in an area that says "inside connection" and is dark blue..yet every time i turn on 4g.it will try to connect..then it may connect..and as soon as i pick up the damn phone..i get a "4g disconnected"..ish sucks man..very dissapointed
Here's a little one about how sprints gonna drum up a lil more money and help out good ol #4 in the process http://www.mobiledia.com/news/73500.html
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
T-Mobile isn't doing anything 4G until 2012. They've already stated it. To help out number #4 you'd actually have to be the one able to give the help. Sprint isn't building a 4G network for a reason. They can't afford to. Sprint is only #3 because of Nextel, a horrible purchase.
jlbiad said:
I'm a little surprised the network is "launched" in DC, where it's so spotty I cannot get coverage at work (south of Dupont Circle) or at home (Waterfront) despite what the Clear map shows. Very frustrating.
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DC isn't an official 4g market Sprintwise so don't blame them yet.. I know there's service and I am also from the area and felt comfortable paying extra because I knew there was some service, but no point in complaining if Sprint hasn't advertised your city.
Buyer beware! For some reason Richmond, VA is covered...
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anyone know if tmobiles hspa is better than sprints wimax
By actual performance yes, but by technicality and service, that's not necessarily true.
What was nice about t-mobile hspa+ upgrade was they even sped up 3g service for regular 3g users. But their network is spotty unless you're in texas pretty much.
My friend with a t-mo TP2 never gets reliable speeds. Its always fluctuating. Idk about the G2 though with its hspa+
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I was under the impression that hspa+ requires certain hardware like wimax so the only phones that actually utalize the service are the g2 and mytouch 4g. Technically neither wimax nor hspa+ is really "4g" by the official definition, however, from what I've read, wimax is probably the closest we have right now. Hspa+ is an upgraded 3g network, like 3.5g. Both will run faster than 3g though so its more about what area you live in and the kind of coverage you get than which is faster. I know sprint doesn't have coverage in a lot of areas, but I'm not sure about tmobiles network.
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Yes and no..the reason why wimax right now is that speed is because sprint is only running it in 10mhz of spectrum..if they run it in larger mhz it will be faster...
overall though while HSPA+ on t-mobile you might get faster speeds it will diminish greatly..HSPA+ is not as efficient as wimax, thus cannot support as many simultaneous users as wimax can.
And yes HSPA+ upgrade should offer some benefit to HSPDA devices as well even if they cannot utilize the HSPA+ speeds..
Wimax is also suppose to offer lower latencies...but I don't know if that can be seen or not..I do get around 100ms when I test which isn't too bad...but some got a lot higher...
The great thing about hspa+ and hsdpa is that the switch is made without affecting the user. There's no need to turn anything on or off and there's no message popping up in your taskbar. You can go from GPRS to EDGE to UMTS to HSDPA to HSPA+ or any combination of the 5 without doing anything. Your internet just gets faster or slower depending on where you are. Tmo has good building penetration and MUCH faster speeds than any other network today.
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Herd sprint is leasing the 4g curently for verizon and tmoible(gsm cdma) I don't care its what I was told. As far as speed? Id like to see 4g at all.
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i have the g2, on my epic in my area i would get 2.2-2.4 Mbps on tmo in same area i get a much larger coverage of the hsdpa speeds and i get about 3.5-5.0Mbps down. i have yet to see hspa+ in my about phone but i do get faster speeds with tmo.
the thing i like is its using the same radio so i get the increased speeds without loss of battery unlike wimax
Shadomastr said:
I was under the impression that hspa+ requires certain hardware like wimax so the only phones that actually utalize the service are the g2 and mytouch 4g. Technically neither wimax nor hspa+ is really "4g" by the official definition, however, from what I've read, wimax is probably the closest we have right now. Hspa+ is an upgraded 3g network, like 3.5g. Both will run faster than 3g though so its more about what area you live in and the kind of coverage you get than which is faster. I know sprint doesn't have coverage in a lot of areas, but I'm not sure about tmobiles network.
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+1 for mentioning the truth of 4g!
I loved my G1 with its internet speeds and voice reception when I lived in New England and its speed kicked the **** out of Spring 4g service but when I moved out to the midwest I couldn't get 3g barely anywhere yet alone HSPA+ and Sprint is much better overall out here. So pretty much its better as long as you live in a highly populated area that they deem is worthy for their service.
I had the G2 but due to my house being in a t-mobile black hole I decided to switch to sprint.
I live/work in an area that has both HSPA+ and Wimax and in the areas that I had a strong signal, HSPA+ would d/l at 2-6Mbps and with Wimax I average 4-5Mbps.
For me, T-mobiles coverage was spotty. Sprints has been much better.
As for the ease of switching between networks, I had a really hard time with t-mobile staying on HSPA+ even when there was a decent signal. It was much more prone to staying on the slower 3G network unless I manually forced it to stay on HSPA+
IMO, Long term, since Wimax and LTE will be the prevailing technologies, T-mobile will most likely be changing their network over at some point. HSPA+ is just helping them to buy some time so they don't fall to far behind in the carrier data race.
It all depends on what market you are in. I live in the midwest and TMobile coverage sucks all around. ATT isn't much better. ATT still doesn't even have 3G in the city I live in, which is only 10 miles north of the biggest metro area in the state. (I laugh at my one buddy who has an iPhone) It's basically Sprint, Verizon or US Cellular if you want quality coverage here.
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shabbypenguin said:
i have the g2, on my epic in my area i would get 2.2-2.4 Mbps on tmo in same area i get a much larger coverage of the hsdpa speeds and i get about 3.5-5.0Mbps down. i have yet to see hspa+ in my about phone but i do get faster speeds with tmo.
the thing i like is its using the same radio so i get the increased speeds without loss of battery unlike wimax
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I'm not sure what your 4g signal is where you live, but even in Denver, where 4g isn't official yet, i get anywhere from 4-9 Mbps. Then again, it isn't Live yet, so it could go down as more people start using the 4g service.
bighuta said:
I'm not sure what your 4g signal is where you live, but even in Denver, where 4g isn't official yet, i get anywhere from 4-9 Mbps. Then again, it isn't Live yet, so it could go down as more people start using the 4g service.
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Thats about what I get here in Baltimore and we had WiMax first. I average about 6-7 Mbps inside my house
Funny, I live in philadephia, pa area. I have epic, 2 of my friends have tmobile {hd2 and tmobile gs phone}.
I get 2-4 mbps, they get 3-4, shockingly their upload is better as well. Seems their faster coverage is better on the outer areas of my 4g coverage and get it where I can not sometimes[suburbs and south nj]
Sent from my Epic 4g powered by EE Froyo, Emotionless Beast themed!
Sprint wimax seems pretty useless here in san francisco. It gets pretty good data rates when it works but you pretty much have to be outdoors in the open. The main problem though is that it's very spotty and every time it falls back to 3g or switches back up to 4g there's no connectivity AT ALL for at least 30 seconds or so, which makes it more or less unusable. I just leave it turned off. Also the battery doesn't even last half a day with it enabled.
One problem I've noticed w/Sprint 4G in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale -- your connection drops & IP address changes whenever you 1)get ip lease from a tower, then 2)move somewhere more than 1 tower-hop away into a new tower's area with 3 bars of signal strength.
The moment you hit 3 bars, the connection drops to release your ip address back to the first tower... but the phone will have no connectivity at all for a few seconds, and won't try to reconnect to 4g for a few minutes unless you manually toggle 4g off & on to force an immediate reconnect.
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Not the fastest 4G but like I said, it's still in the rollout phase....
Before Columbia?!! Ughhh. Congrats though!
anybody know when Columbia, SC will be getting 4G coverage?
Cool, I didn't think Sprint was still rolling out Wimax.
We have had it here in Atlanta for a while. Its so spotty and is always looking for signal. I never even use 4G.
Kevin K said:
We have had it here in Atlanta for a while. Its so spotty and is always looking for signal. I never even use 4G.
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I can testify to this statement. 4g coverage here in Ga is pretty much a joke, I actually called Sprint expressing my frustration for lack of connection at my house (inside and out) when their coverage map says its so great. All they did was put in a service call, I gave them radio numbers etc etc and after all that they told me "the area you live in is subject to a weak signal and that is why you have 4g issues, we will notify Clear Wire about the issue". In other words they told me that I live in a ****ty reception area and I am SOL.
Its to a point now I don't care if a port/custom rom doesn't have 4g, I can't use it anyway.
Same here 4G in Tampa. Spotty, useless "poor" or never connects at all. Not worth it. Outdoors is sometimes ok, but in a car or indoors forget it.
It's actually decent in San Antonio, but we were one of the launch cities for Clear internet so maybe that's why. When I'm outside or in the car, even when moving, it pretty much stays connected until you hit the city outskirts. I work in a metal building inside a warehouse, so in here I get no connection but that's understandable.
When?!?! Does anyone have any idea if they even plan on having it here? I love how they advertise that they are the nations favorite 4g network, but they seem to have the least amount of coverage, and even their 3g signal here is pretty week. The only place in Michigan that has 4g is Grand Rapids, and that's almost 3 hours from Drtroit. Seems stupid to come to the state and not put it in the Detroit area. Verizon, ATT, & T-Mobile all have 4g coverage here. What is Sprint's major malfunction? Of course they have the weakest selection of phones too. Always seem a step behind everyone else.
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4G is basically at a standstill for Sprint right now. The company deploying the service only has funds to keep the lights on... No more building. Basically Sprint is suppressing them to get a better stock price and most likely buy them out.
Sprint actually does have 4g in a few places here in Detroit,they just dont advertise it yet because they don't have the network finished yet. Go to sensorly.com and look at the actual coverage maps. I was connected to 4g in warren yesterday on my evo.
You do know that sprint is supposed to be switching from Wimax to LTE. That will goof things up big time.
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msnuser111 said:
Sprint actually does have 4g in a few places here in Detroit,they just dont advertise it yet because they don't have the network finished yet. Go to sensorly.com and look at the actual coverage maps. I was connected to 4g in warren yesterday on my evo.
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Thanks for the site. I just looked at it and am disappointed. I am just outside the coverage on there also. If only I lived a few miles to the East. I would be all set.
I use clear.com/coverage. They also have an app.
Here is the Sprint WiMax tower which has about 6 mile radius. Clocked 3.5Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up 200 feet from it. You can see the two 180 deg dishes pointing in both directions in this street view.
Here is the other in Centerline on Chrysler grounds. I haven't confirm it but from the clear.com website radius, center location would be in this spot. And here is the dish from the street view.
4G
More Than Likely Sprint's LTE Wont Be Fully Covered Here Either