Sprint has improved dramatically

Every year around Christmas here, I complain that the shopping area has horrible service with Sprint.  As of the Christmas season 2018, I can complain about it no longer.  We didn't get 100 Mbps service but the service was never unusable as it had been in the past few years since I arrived in 2014.

Further, I had jury duty in Stockton, which has generally had the worst of everything and I had a solid 4 bars downtown, especially on the 7th and 12th floors of the court house, but even on the ground it was exemplary.

I haven't had a lot of praise for Sprint, except for EVDO/3G in 2005 when the others were far behind them, and several years later when WiMAX was delivering data well before LTE was available in even a few places.

I'm pleased to say that the company has done better lately and I'm not sure why but I hope they continue to improve.  I'm almost okay with the T-Mobile merger, as long as we don't end up on GSM.  I hate having a voice conversation with anyone on T-Mobile because of the way it distorts and echoes.

VoLTE (Voice over LTE) should have been implemented already, so that we could rid ourselves of GSM and CDMA.  I expected it would be in place in 2015, even if it wasn't widespread, but it doesn't seem to have gone very far at all.

Update 2019.02.24: Sprint is now advertising that LTE Advanced is in use.  They also have "Calling Plus" for Android-based phones, which appears to be VoLTE, as they mention that you can use the internet while on a call, etc.

Apparently, 5G service will be launched in a few cities in May.  It seems that they've not bothered with Philadelphia or Miami, which is a big change from earlier times.

Don't you love how AT&T/SBC is finally going to LTE Advanced and is calling it 5Ge, as if it's something better than everyone else.  It's similar to when they enhanced their 3G service and called it 4G, even though it wasn't much different from T-Mobile.   By the original definition LTE Advanced is 4G, and we're not quite there yet, as far as a nationwide implementation goes.  I still see 1xRTT on occasion.

Update 2020.02.17: Apparently, 2020 is the year that 5G will penetrate our lives.  According to news, Verizon couldn't cover the Super Bowl stadium with 5G service, so I'm not sure how great it's going to be.  I'm still waiting for 4G/LTE Plus to be everywhere--and for 2G to go away.

Update 2020.04.24: The Sprint/T-Mobile merger happened and the two companies are cooperating on LTE, but will remain two operations otherwise.  I'm glad that they're not getting rid of CDMA.  I wonder if MetroPCS is still using CDMA, as they were prior to their acquisition by T-Mobile.  They were known as the worst carrier, but I'm not certain that they were the worst.

In any case, it should be interesting to see how everyone's service goes.  Hopefully, it's better and Verizon and AT&T sweat some.

Sprint has decided to hide coverage deficiencies on the map with 100% LTE, then Spark

I came to this area about five months ago.  I noticed that the majority of this city of 70,000+ people were covered by 3G, while the adjoining city of 22,000+ had strong LTE.  I also noticed that Sprint seemed to be working their way up California SR 99, but skipping this area north of Modesto and resuming near Sacramento.

As time progressed, they added LTE capabilities and they've slowly crept into my apartment, but I'm still at many times seeing 1xRTT as LTE and 3G/EVDO fight over my phone.

I mentioned this to @sprintcare a while back, noting the huge roaming area encompassing the shopping area on the east side of the city.  I was told to look at AIRRAVE as an option.  It isn't a portable option and it doesn't fix the lack of coverage.  It could only cover it up.  Since that conversation, I started another with @sprintcare, as I noticed that the map showed LTE coverage while the behavior of the network had not changed.

They told me that there were no towers in the area.  I told them that the maps didn't show that any longer.  They told me to look again and again.  I finally made screenshots of the map at the cross streets I told them, and the map near my apartment, on the edge of the roaming area.  They never replied.

What roaming area?

What roaming area?

It's apparent that marketing is more important than truth.  I assume my previous conversation about the roaming area caused them to falsify results on the coverage map.  What else (and where else) have they modified the truth?

Update 2015.01.23: Two days ago, there was almost no service and my phone spent almost the whole day on roaming, not only near home, which wouldn't be unusual, but in other areas where LTE is usually strong.  According to an acquaintance on Sprint, service was also bad there, so apparently, it was up and down California SR 99, not just where I live.

What was naturally amusing is that @sprintcare told me that there were no reported problems.  Cable company, much?  I made the comment that since September 2000 when I became a Sprint customer they only admitted to one problem.  Later, they decided that there was an outage.  They didn't mention that it was over multiple cities.

Turbo 1xRTT? Spark? I wish.

3G map shows roaming area

Voice is fair but data is 100%?

I was shocked to find that they updated the map to show Spark, not only over my city, but the highest performance over my apartment.  It was amusing to see 1xRTT while viewing the new coverage map details.  I believe that they might have a plan for Spark here, but I think they're jumping the gun with their marketing efforts.  With the roaming hole, they shouldn't be able to claim coverage anyway but their map legend has no extra provision for Spark or LTE roaming.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have three frequency LTE coverage?  I haven't exactly seen it working yet, although parts of the San Francisco Bay Area are working quite well.  I've seen something upwards of 30 Mbps on occasion.  I'd be really impressed to see upwards of 70 Mbps, especially since Verizon is working on two frequency LTE coverage, on capable devices, which my MiFi 5510L is not.

Update 2015.05.16: Spark is apparently working in parts of this town.  I saw 30+ Mbps a couple of miles west of my apartment.  I'm still struggling to keep a signal at home, and end up with 1xRTT or No Service far too often.  I've been told that I should take my phone to be serviced.  This is like "The problem is in your set." responses from the cable company that won't acknowledge their problems.

I would imagine that my service would be just fine here, if they had the other tower emplacement.

Update 2015.11.13: They apparently removed the new equipment about a month after it was working and restored the old equipment.  I'm guessing that they wanted to show that they had the coverage, but only planned to map it and remove it, probably so that they could help the area around the headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas.

It is a good idea to give their employees good service, especially since they aren't paying full price for services.  That way they can claim that there is no problem with service, because they have no problem with service.  It's a bit like Congress--if the executives had to live with our poor conditions, they'd probably be willing to do more for the everyday people.

Parts of the San Francisco Bay Area are very good, but there is no consistency there.

Sprint is still amusing me instead of amazing me

Since I moved to a rural area of California along I-5 and SR 99, I haven't seen more success in a great network experience than I had at the last place.

In fact, Sprint doesn't even have a store here, though they have 3 kiosks in malls (two of them in the same mall) about 15 miles from here.  The Sprint reseller in this town is next to SR 99 and is on the edge of LTE and a large roaming area.  The fact that I'm on another edge of those area is frustrating.  My bedroom has LTE near the street and 3G toward the back of the apartment complex and the phone searches for service in the middle.

Truth be told, Verizon is not really great here, so I'm not getting any real satisfaction on the computer or tablet.  It's just less worse.

Occasionally, I'll send a tweet to @sprintcare.  Recently, I asked @sprintcare why their reseller didn't get good coverage (there is a roaming hole near the shopping area), and I was told that the majority of the 95336 area was in the Fair rating.  It is, but that is Sprint's rating for "Virtually unusable".  Using Yelp to Check-in often results in a time-out after 3-4 minutes.

He completely ignored the large roaming area in town and told me to go check their AIRAVE device.  The last time I looked, it was not a portable device that I could take with me.  It also required a wired internet connection, which they were unwilling to provide the last time they pushed me toward the option.

Tell me why it is my responsibility to fix their network problems by paying more to use a device to work around their shortcomings.  I'd really like to know.

That said, I can see the LTE signal becoming stronger.  In recent days, it's working in the living room.  LTE works fine in the San Francisco Bay Area (around 50-75 miles away) in most places.  I have hope.  They're just not working as quickly as I expected.  It's already September and many places are not working with LTE as they should be.

I need more patience but this is something that is stretched far too thin since say, 2008, when I moved out of a strong area, before the death grip of Nextel took hold.

Update 2014.10.29: They have increased their LTE reach into my apartment, although it too often changes to 3G when I try to use it.  Service is slowly, incrementally improving.  I still receive too many timeouts at stores.  Sometimes, even in stronger areas.  I see too many times when the service switches between LTE and 3G and it's basically unusable unless I force it to ignore LTE.

Update 2014.11.18: The hole in Sprint's coverage is now gone from the map.  They've filled it with non-existent LTE.  My apartment is covered, also, with the strongest LTE possible--none of that Fair business.

Best LTE, yet frequent time-outs

Perfectly covered, yet 1xRTT often

Obviously, all of this time I'm spending on 1xRTT is in my imagination.  The multiple time-outs are also imagined, apparently.  It couldn't be the work of simple easily flowing orange on a map, because no company would ever cheat.

The only thing making sure I don't go to T-Mobile is that their service here isn't very good, either, and they're still working over a rather insecure GSM.  When VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) becomes available, I'd be glad to jump ship, although I don't talk much, but it only takes one call to give away information that someone else can use to empty your accounts and CDMA may not be great, it's secure.

Going to Verizon would be expensive and going to AT&T would be stupid, since it's likely they will still overcharge, plus as many people here complain about them as love them.  Verizon's service for my mobile hotspot is good but not incredible.

Update 2014.12.09: I had a little chat with @sprintcare recently and they said that the roaming area is still visible to them.  When I finally Tweeted the maps I saw (like those above), they didn't reply at all.

I went to talk to someone at a Verizon store and they played a little game on the price of service, at $40 more than I had found on their web site.  I was uncomfortable giving that person a commission for withholding the best deal from me.

I went to the local Sprint reseller and said "Give me a reason to stay with Sprint." and he did but there is a still a lot of hope for the future.  However, I saw something on CNBC's app today where they finished the Stockton area and the service is much better.  That city had horrible service.  10x from 0.30 Mbps is a good improvement for 3G service.

The only real problem with the report is that they jumped over the city where I live, choosing to modify the map.  They may do more--they should do more because the Sprint reseller is also on the edge of the roaming zone.

Now that I have a three band LTE phone, it seems as though the service is somewhat better.  They weren't planning to turn on Spark (three band LTE) over here, but if they have 800 MHz and 1900 MHz, that would be good.  If the 2500 MHz band they got with Clear isn't supported here, that's okay.  If it's only 1900 MHz and 2500 MHz, that would be so-so.

2015.02.14: After a roughly 450 mile trip to San Diego and then, to Disneyland, and back, I think that Sprint still has much more to do across the state.  However, it's good to know that they're taking care of the area around their headquarters continually, since the people working for the company aren't paying as much as the other customers are.  At least, they're not blaming their customers as AT&T always do.

Sprint, it's been a month (4 actually), where are the enhancements?

It's been a month since I got this on January 21.  I still have nothing to show for the poorer performance while they've been working on the network, although other areas 15-30 miles away already show that LTE is available.  I was in Connersville, Indiana earlier this week and, LTE was showing up there.  They were practically denied coverage at all previously, even though Sprint sold phones there.  What kind of company does that, and then, has the nerve to charge for roaming?

When I was in Eaton, Ohio earlier, I noticed that their LTE services have degraded dramatically to what should have been good 3G/EVDO speeds.  I was in Indianapolis, Indiana the other day and they've had their LTE upgrades for about 1 year and I was getting many timeouts.

The coverage map has changed, though the LTE indicator did not indicate LTE in some of the places.  In fact, actual coverage seems spotty, even in small towns, as though the equipment they're using isn't as powerful as the 3G/EVDO equipment they were previously using.

Closing from the west a while back

LTE stops close to the state line

The cows and horses really don't seem to have LTE available, as it wasn't indicated on the phone as I drove through that area.  As soon as I crossed the state line, though, the 5 bars turned to 1, then zero.  Obviously, LTE is closing in on the area but it's got some distance to go, and probably, a lot of time until it's really stable.

Of course, part of the problem is that Sprint is claiming that LTE is 10x faster than 3G.  Since their 3G speed is in the basement (0.10 Mbps?) many days, I guess 10x (1.0 Mbps) isn't out of reach.  If it's to be believed, the new AT&T/SBC said during their latest financial call that something like 97% of new phone purchases in the latest quarter were smart phones.  Maybe obviously, that would be a lot of potential data usage.

As I checked the coverage in rural Ohio near me (5 miles east?) in more detail, I discovered that they have Good and Fair ratings to LTE service--these were in the fair rating.  Is pathetic LTE coverage with little hope of better coverage better than no LTE coverage?

The PING response is slow but I can't complain otherwise

Update 2014.02.25: The downtrodden Trotwood, OH area (outside Dayton, OH) had substantial LTE today.  It's too bad nothing else is looking up in the area.

Update 2014.03.01: I was in the Sprint store today, trying to cancel the contract for my problematic Tri-Fi mobile hotspot.  They suggested that I call customer service, as they were not authorized.  When I was talking to the customer service representative about canceling, she said that it usually takes 30 days from the finish of the upgrades for things to show up.  Of course, I mentioned about the text message and how it's been 30 days.  Things may look better soon, but the mobile hotspot couldn't even connect partway through the day.

Verizon's LTE seems to be fine here

The odd thing is that I had the iPhone 5c reconfigured to allow the personal hotspot feature to work, and it was as smooth as silk.  However, I got a cheapo hotspot at the Verizon reseller and my first Speedtest results were 12.7 and 4.25 Mbps, from an LTE network that's been active for most of a year here.  When I went back to tell the people at Sprint about my experience with the iPhone vs. the dedicated hotspot device, they were surprised.  Then, we were talking about the LTE enhancements just across the state line, and I mentioned that the cows were enjoying them, and they had to laugh.  I'm sure they're unhappy with slow and poor developments because they have to face the angry customers.  I'm keeping the phone with Sprint, but for the moment, I think I'll keep the Verizon hotspot.

Downtown Hamilton, OH

West Main St, Hamilton, OH

Update 2014.03.05: I noticed LTE in Hamilton, Ohio, which seemed to have been ignored, even though it was in-between cities that already showed LTE was in the testing phase.  It looks as though it will be a big summer for Sprint.

Update 2014.03.09: More of the Dayton, Ohio area is covered now, and it seems that even more cows and horses in the country have LTE, even if some parts of towns are not yet covered.  I guess they're making better milk because they're happy, well-connected cows.

Update 2014.03.12: I went to Winchester, Indiana and while I was eating enchiladas, I thought that they might have LTE available, since the "data speed upgrades" have been done, but the coverage map shows LTE just outside of town, but not reaching the town itself.  In many parts of my travels of Indiana and Ohio, I still find service practically non-existent or on roaming because Sprint just doesn't have coverage.

I've only ever been two places in the past five years where the phone said "NO SERVICE" and they were both in the tri-state area.  I could almost understand about a state or national forest but near a U.S. highway?  I suppose it's like the cable companies not wanting to pay for wiring to low density areas because it doesn't pay, but I could swear that there were provisions in spectrum agreements that wireless carriers would provide service.   I may be confused but are there loopholes that say if 1 of the big 4 have service in the area that none of the others need bother?

Update 2014.03.25: Two months have passed and still nothing.  Performance is generally acceptable overnight, but just that--acceptable.  The best I see now is about 30% of what it was at its best, which was close to the limits, and it's about half of the typical during that same time frame.  Am I to believe that there are hundreds of people using their data-sucking devices in the middle of the night?

The whole "up to 10 times the speed of 3G" is something that they did with WiMAX.  They're saying that only the Spark areas (three LTE bands, 800 MHz, 1900 MHz, 2500 MHz) will see the maximum speed, which makes sense if they can use all three frequency bands at once.  With the Tri-Fi mobile hotspot, I was only getting WiMAX over the 2500 MHz band and I regularly saw between 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps, depending on the area, and that was inside a building (motel, restaurant, etc.) where the signal had a lower ability to penetrate.

What I'm seeing from Verizon LTE at home (about 2 miles from the same tower Sprint is using) is anywhere from 12 Mbps to 15 Mbps.  This is likely from two bands, including 700 MHz, which has an easier time of getting into a building than 1900 MHz or whatever they're using on the higher end.  Maybe, next month.

Update 2014.03.27: An hour ago, I got a text message from Sprint saying that I should expect more service interruptions and the wait will be over in the next few days.  What that really means, I don't know.  What I hope is that dual-band LTE will be here, active, and as fast as it should be.  Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of bad service from Sprint.  I was still getting 1xRTT service in some locations in the past two weeks.  They ought to have enough old equipment now that they can push it out to the towers that don't have equipment from, say, 2006 or 2007.

Oh geez.  I went to Eaton, Ohio to get a haircut and eat pizza.  The LTE didn't reach nearly as far and was only really available on the main north-south road through town.  A month ago, it reached well into the countryside.

It's there on Main Street

The speed does look like 10 times 3G

Except that the 3G speed is really good right now

When I returned to Richmond, Indiana, I got a bit of a surprise sitting at the stop light: LTE.  I went to my Speedtest app and before I went far past the next light, about 200 feet from the main road, LTE was gone.  I guess they'll have it at full power in a few days, as they mentioned.  I guess they wanted the store staff to try it.

Update 2014.03.30: I'm seeing LTE show up for an instant several places, including home but as soon as I try to use it, it disappears.  I've checked the updates on the map and where there were none two weeks ago, there are seven eight now.  It's a bit surprising about the distribution of data speed upgrades.  They apparently added a couple of towers out by I-70, but the south of town still has zero towers, and another tower in the poorer section of town received two upgrades.  The tower closest to the Sprint (and Verizon) store and the shopping centers still receives minimal help with 1 data speed upgrade.  Service during the holiday shopping season was unusable.   While they changed the coverage map to show new deployments across the state line, LTE no longer shows up there on my iPhone 5c, at least.  You'd think that it would be better if it's on the coverage map.

Update 2014.03.31: As I was sitting at the stop light where I first discovered LTE in town, I used Speedtest.net to measure it.  The PING was 51ms, downlink was 4.78 Mbps, and the uplink was 0.74 Mbps.  Once again, LTE disappeared about 200 feet from there.  I hope this isn't full strength because it certainly doesn't match anywhere else I've tried and Verizon's signal certainly goes further--i.e., to my house about 2 miles away.  The towers with 2 data speed upgrades each are in the least congested areas, so that might be helpful to people who don't have a device to take advantage of it for a year or two.  I mentioned to the @sprintcare people that I figured LTE would be enabled about the time I was moving away, and that it wouldn't be active where I was moving.  It may be better than that, but if the current situation is all they'll do, it's a sad, sad state of affairs.  I hope they'll yell "April Fools!" and turn up the power on April 2nd.

Update 2014.04.30: Yesterday, this town was moved to the active LTE list, even though not much is covered and the tower near the Sprint store is barely working with LTE.  It is better lately for 3G service but putting it back to not quite the best performance is a bit underwhelming.

Sprint LTE: +40 = 340 locations

Sprint continues to make progress on LTE implementation, adding 40 more locations.

The locations seem odd but it looks as though they're just on the way to converging with other implementation paths.  The University of Oregon and Walmart central country (Northwest Arkansas) have Sprint LTE now.

I'm amused that the person who wrote the press release missed the mistake with Mobile, Alabama.  Besides that, where are they finding these new state abbreviations?

At least, a few of the smaller metro areas have gone live.  Hopefully, they're able to learn from the implementations and make the upgrades go more smoothly.  It would be good if they could make them go more quickly but accuracy is more important.  What good is a quick implementation if it's down after they go live with it?

I'm still expecting this area to go live in 3-4 months with Dayton and Eaton, Ohio already showing some LTE (even where the cows and horses roam), along with parts of the Cincinnati area but with the bitter cold (-14 to -18 degrees F tonight), I doubt much is being done.  Hopefully, they installed the new antennas/antennae during the summer, since it's much easier to work in the climate-controlled electronics room.

Even after they go live, they need to finish what they started, as it's hardly complete.  If they can go live and issue a press release on only 30% coverage, they certainly need to do a lot to finish.  Still, with the data upgrades on network.sprint.com it's easy to see that they're making quick progress before they are ready to go live with anything.  As I've seen in certain locations, they seem to be re-distributing old equipment in order to increase 3G/EVDO coverage instead of remaining with 1xRTT in certain backwoods locations.

Update 2014.03.15: I've seen more of Indiana and Ohio lit up with LTE, at least in test mode.  Coverage is mixed, meaning a few feet can mean a huge difference.  I was trying to use Yelp in a parking lot and couldn't get anything and it was showing 3G on the phone.  As I was leaving, at the stop light on the main road, I had LTE and while it was slow, it was responding.  I was surprised that I had a call dropped yesterday, but of course, it was at a critical time and the indicator showed 1 bar and 1xRTT.  I can count the number of dropped calls in 13+ years on one hand, and most of those were on the other end.  This time, the other end was a land line.  I wonder if most of Ohio will have LTE by summer.  It looks as though southwestern Ohio and the adjoining areas in Indiana will, although coverage will be variable, as always.  There aren't enough towers.

I checked coverage for two areas I have frequented in Indianapolis since LTE went live there.  One is in a strong area with several tall buildings.  Performance is bad.  The other area, including the Sprint store, is in a weak part of the coverage for some reason and it's only a few miles apparently, but it's bad enough if you happen to shop in the area.

T-Mobile US: The other major carriers are shit

It's easy to be a loudmouth.  Sometimes, you're right and other times, you're wrong.

John Legere and company have made T-Mobile better and that's evident in their recent numbers, where they've gained both prepaid and postpaid customers.  It was the best they've done in eight years, if I remember correctly.

At CES, Mr. Legere complained that the other major carriers are basically shit--their plans, their policies, their service.

I don't disagree 100% but there is a huge difference in T-Mobile and the rest--coverage.

When T-Mobile covers as much as any of the others, and they can keep everything as wonderful as they say things are, then I'll believe them.

It's a lot like the Europeans who live in a country the size of one of the states of the U.S.A. who say how easy it is to put everything into place.  Sure, it's easy to cover when you have an area that you can drive in 6 hours north to south or east to west.  Try covering an area that takes three 15 hour days to drive east to west.

I agree that Sprint has been terrible.  It's struggled a lot while having to deal with Nextel issues, and it went from being the number one 3G data provider to number three.  Once again, coverage matters.

I might have been with T-Mobile years ago, but when I asked about the service, I got a "No, we don't have 3G service yet." in response.  They've come a long way, and so has the new AT&T since its Cingular days.  I'm remembering 38 metropolitan areas were covered when Apple was readying its iPhone with 3G data capabilities.  When the first iPhone became available, Cingular had to upgrade their GPRS/EDGE data because it wasn't good enough.

As far as I'm concerned, it will still be 2016 before issues are settled and LTE will be good for the majority of users.  That is a long time and there will be a lot of B.S. and chest-thumping until that time.

By then, there probably won't be any feature phones and data usage will have increased to match the capabilities on the network, and we'll still be complaining.

Update 2014.03.08: RootMetrics put out a report citing their summary for the U.S.A., with a combination of areas they measured.  It's not all-inclusive but it certainly says something about what is real in mobile phone and data services.  It doesn't look as though T-Mobile was on top.

I bought an iPhone 5c (over the LG G2) and stayed with my carrier, Sprint

There is always hope, but sometime, it's almost minimal.  That's how things are today.

Friday, I went back to the local Sprint store and traded my iPhone 4S for an iPhone 5c.  Everyone working at the store was wearing an LG G2 t-shirt.  I really thought about buying a G2 or the Google Nexus 5.  I wasn't 100% sure about either for various reasons.  They're both big.  The Nexus 5 didn't have Otterbox or similar brand cases, and it only came in a 16 GB capacity.  The G2 had 32 GB capacity but I was uncertain about operating system updates and the various complaints against the interface, even though it has the Sprint ID crap on top of the Sprint version--something I know that didn't get in the way too much.

You can call me cheap but the iPhone 5c fits my conservative feeling about technology.  I've already read too much about weirdness with the iPhone 5s, as I read about troubles with the iPhone 5 when it was new, and I generally don't go for the first of Apple's trial runs because I've paid painfully for being first.

The iPhone 5c is slightly more technically than the iPhone 5, in a newer design.  It has 2 bands for LTE, rather than 1.  If Sprint were deploying all 3 bands soon, and LTE was my main goal, then the G2 or Nexus 5 would have been better choices.  However, the 1900 MHz and 2500 MHz bands will do, with the 800 MHz band coming later.  The Sierra Wireless/Netgear mobile hotspot I have only does 1900 MHz for LTE and 2500 MHz for WiMAX, and only 1900 MHz for EVDO.  By the time I get my next phone, everything will be settled.

Still, US199.99 for the 32 GB iPhone 5c and a trade-in value of $143 for my iPhone 4S, made a difference of $56.99, which is a cheap price to switch a generation (or two, if you look at the timing).  Of course, I had to buy another AppleCare+ plan for $99.00 but that's not bad, and then, a cable with a Lightning connector.  It wasn't cheap, but for the quality, it wasn't expensive really.  Monoprice would have a better deal, but I didn't order it ahead of time and deals at Target or Best Buy were worse than Sprint.  I ended up giving all of my extra iPhone 4S accessories to a friend who still has his.  At some point, Lightning cables and accessories will become common, and therefore, inexpensive.

The only thing that doesn't seem a great deal is the Ottberbox Defender case for US$49.99.  Of course, it's changed for the new form.  What seemed sloppy in the iPhone 4S case is taut and what was taut in that case is now loose.  The screen protector is no longer hard plastic and there is a gap, so you must press the plastic against the display.  Does this protect it better?  I don't think so because dust can enter through the opening for the Home button and the speaker/front camera opening.  Oddly, the porthole for the Apple logo is not correctly placed.

The fit of the case is so much better overall and the Lighning port cover doesn't close accidentally as did the cover for the 30 pin connector.  The case is gray and white, so that seems a bit more appealing (at the moment) than the older, black-only case.  In fact, Otterbox has several color combinations available by special order.  I doubt retailers will carry them all.  (Update 2014.01.05: I've changed to the Ballistic SG MAXX, which has apparently been renamed Hard Jacket Maxx or something like that, plus added an Invisible Shield screen protector because the Defender screen protector made it difficult to work the phone.)

As far as usage goes, the phone feels faster, as it should stepping from the A5 processor to the A6 processor.  It would have been nice to get the A6x but it probably generates too much heat in a small package.  Besides, the cost was likely too much to add it and price the phone were it is.

I had a chance on Saturday to gauge LTE, when I was at a Panasonic photo/video workshop at a camera store in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.  I was recently at that store for a product introduction for Olympus, and LTE wasn't healthy.  At 0.75 Mbps, I found it mostly useless.  Sprintcare advised me that two towers were down and putting strain on single tower.  Saturday, a couple of months later, I got 1.0 Mbps, which certainly doesn't even look like 5 Mbps or 10, 15, 20, or 25 Mbps that this technology is supposed to allow.  Obviously, the buildout is still in its infancy.

Further into the suburbs, I got not quite 3 Mbps, and there were gaps in coverage along the way.  When I was in Greenwood Park mall, one end switched all the way down to 1xRTT (thankfully not the circle since iOS 7 but it's labeled 1x), but near the Sprint kiosk, there was LTE available, not that it worked very well, but it was present.

I was told to expect LTE here in 6 months.  Given my 60+ mile drive home, I have no doubt that it will be deployed along I-70, as it went quite a way, covering several small towns along the interstate highway.  It stopped in the middle of nowhere, not at an intersection along the highway, which seemed odd to me, but I'm not a communications planner.  With about 38 more miles to get to the town where I am now, it looks like progress is actually happening in a very backward area that only got 3G service in early 2009.

When I was outside Cincinnati today, in the Springdale area, I noticed the LTE indicator on the phone.  Cincinnati is not an announced area, as far as I know, and the WiMAX there is more overloaded than the 3G service, so it was surprising to see the results.

As for the increased resolution, there is room for an extra row of icons and using my backup from the iPhone 4S, it looks a bit lonely toward the bottom.  I wish that they would let me expand the favorite apps at the bottom into two rows.  It's not as though it's a hardship, but it could be more convenient.  Apple is learning, but learning so slowly that the rest of us need a class on patience.

I'm sure someone out there thinks that I'm ridiculously stupid for staying with a CDMA phone.  Here is my reasoning: There was a demonstration of how you could use a $15 phone and a little bit of knowledge to fake a GSM tower and listen to conversations.  It's not that I make a lot of conversations, secretive or otherwise, but it's ridiculous to open yourself up when you give that credit card number over the phone and a third party is listening.

They call CDMA old, but GSM goes back to the 1980s--further than CDMA really.  I'm excited about VoLTE--voice over LTE technology, where we can give up both GSM and CDMA but it's going to be later in the decade.

Update 2013.11.26: Two weeks have passed already?  The phone has proven itself.  LTE, where available, works well.  I don't see that the phone can fix communications problems but at least, it's not making them worse, as it seemed to be with the iPhone 4S or the LG Optimus S.  Perhaps, Qualcomm is better now or it's just that the antenna configuration is much better.  I'm holding the phone the same way as always.  For a moment yesterday, I was thinking of my Sanyo PM-8200 with the pull-out antenna.  That phone had amazing sound but flip phones could be thicker then.  Having a phone that sounded better than a landline phone was incredible at that time.  It was only when I got to the premium Samsung A900 that my expectations went down.

I was going to say that my problem with compass interference had completely gone away, but I can only say that it's minimized.  I haven't seen the actual message about compass interference, but I find that the map is looking the wrong way occasionally.

I haven't seen anything terrible, which is both great and expected of what is mostly a 1 year old phone with some enhancements.  When iOS 7 is more mature, I expect that it will be as good as a phone can be.

My 2013 Google Nexus 7 tablet will fill my need for Android.

Update 2013.12.06: My pro rata bill came and that's always a time for panic as it is big.  The bill was almost exactly the same, except for the US$36.00 activation fee and AppleCare+ for US$99.00, and of course, there was additional tax because of those two.  It's a bit more (~US$60+) than my bill from two years ago when I got the iPhone 4s when they started charging the smart phone premium data fee but I don't recall much about the changes.

Service has been unhappy and great in alternating cycles.  LTE is still months away, though it works in the small town of Eaton in Ohio about 12 miles away, though no longer in the Cincinnati area.  It would be great to have a really good response from the devices, although the iPhone 5c generally works better than the mobile hotspot.  How any carrier buys products to work with their supplied connections, and they don't really work together well, I will never understand.  All the carriers seem to have the same problems and it's never their fault, just like the cable company.

Update 2014.01.05: I am definitely not pleased with service lately.  It's likely because of holiday shopping and ongoing upgrade work, but service at  home is unusable at times.  I don't mean that it's pathetically slow.  I mean that it's time to shut off the phone slow because nothing is getting data.  The mobile hotspot is worse for whatever reason.  Checking the network.sprint.com website shows me that cows and horses about 6 miles east of here have LTE service and it's arriving from all sides, but when tiny towns have the service and a town of 35,000 doesn't, it makes me wonder what the priorities are.  The phone is great however and hasn't disappointed at all.

Update 2014.03.26: After spending several months with the latest version of Android (4.4.2) and recently updating the iPhone 5c to iOS 7.1, I couldn't be more pleased that I didn't get an Android-based phone.  There is always something just a little bit off about Android.  Thankfully, the tablet isn't bad as its 2012 counterpart was.  I like the 2013 Nexus 7, and it's a much better piece of hardware than the iPad mini but it would be good if Google fixed the operating system, so it wasn't a pig and the battery wasn't half depleted if I leave it off the charger all night.

The iPhone 5c has recently taken up mobile hotspot duties and it works well enough, but there seem to be some flaws in the functionality in iOS 7.1.  Otherwise, the phone is quite good, which should be expected since it is a warmed-over iPhone 5 with dual band LTE.  LTE works quite well, and I've seen over 12 Mbps with it.  However, at home, I'm still struggling with service.  I suspect the technician is the same one who couldn't get 3G/EVDO working on schedule, and can't keep the network working consistently either.

I'm no longer using the Otterbox Defender case.  I switched to a Ballistic SG MAXX case, tossed the screen protector, and bought an Invisible Shield screen protector.   It was a lot of money, but not wasted.

Update 2014.11.26: It's been over a year with the iPhone 5c and it's still a good phone.  Thankfully, the rather broken iOS 7.x has been replaced with the somewhat broken iOS 8.1.1 finally.  I think Sprint is still my biggest hurdle, but I don't see good alternatives.  My service is only really bad at home.

Given that I'm using the SG MAXX case (and they've changed the name of that model), there have been no destructive drops.  I'm pleased that the case is both strong and that I can remove it easily.

If there is one odd problem with the phone, it's something that seems to have happened recently.  Syncing with the computer has become flaky.  I switched from the long, Sprint-supplied cable to the original, short Apple-supplied cable and it is more reliable, but not 100%.

However, part of the problem could be that I upgraded to OS X 10.9.5 about the same time as I upgraded the phone to iOS 8.1.  It could also be that my MacBook Pro is often in the backpack with me, but that shouldn't loosen just the USB ports.  I'd expect that it would loosen practically everything.

32GB seems not to be quite enough, possibly because the apps are arriving in 32-bit/64-bit combos with enhanced artwork for the upgraded resolutions for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.  I have a little bit over 16 GB of music (256 Kbps mp3 encoding), so the rest of the storage is related to apps.  Asphalt 8 and Galaxy on Fire 2 (HD) take a lot of storage for data.

In any case, I'm still pleased with the iPhone 5c.

Sprint is more worried about their executives than their customers

I keep hearing about the wonderful improvements to Sprint's network.  They're happening everywhere, but apparently, where I go.

Sprint made a big deal about having LTE available for the Super Bowl last year.  This summer, I was on Georgia Street in downtown Indianapolis with the Tri-Fi mobile hotspot and my computer trying to do some work before an event.  0.75 Mbps (or 1.0 Mbps on 2013.11.09) on LTE didn't seem quite right, even by pathetic standards.  I was told by the @sprintcare team that two towers were having problems and that the third tower in the area was being stressed more than usual.  It's possible.

As I've said in the past, putting one tower in a town and saying that you have coverage is not the same as having useful coverage, but I know that Verizon does that.  Seeing someone with a phone showing "4G LTE" taking two minutes to switch to 3G (EVDO) to actually do the work is sadly amusing.

No one has really good coverage right now, so it's all about who doesn't have the worst coverage.

I was thinking to myself "Why can't Sprint handle their current customers' needs now?"  I decided to take a look at the network.sprint.com site and check on 3 metropolitan areas.

• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Overland Park, Kansas
• San Jose, California

I'm near Cincinnati and WiMAX (4G) is just as overloaded as EVDO (3G) is.  I've yet to see any LTE (4G LTE)  coverage (that changed with my 2013.11.13 visit), but I don't always take my mobile hotspot with me.

Overland Park is where Sprint's headquarters are.  It's in the Kansas City metro area.  The KC metro area is about the same size (~2.3 million people) as the Cincinnati metro area, so I thought that it would be a good comparison.

San Jose is the third largest city in California with just under 1 million people.  It's in the San Francisco Bay Area, but at the furthest south point.  WiMAX is present and worked reasonably well for the first 6 hours of my 3 day stay there.  It was supposedly repaired before I left, but wasn't working correctly, so perhaps, the problem is that the technicians can't be bothered to test.

I must be confused.  If the KC metro area is no bigger than the Cincinnati metro area (and Overland Park isn't that much of the metro area), why are they receiving roughly 4 times the enhancements?  They're even receiving more than San Jose, California, which has about 4 times the population.

The only thing I can reason is that the executives complain about their inconvenience and plan around themselves.  I can't imagine any other logical explanation because I would think that they would want to convince people who aren't Sprint employees to go with their service, especially when Sprint employees get a discount (100%?) for service, unlike typical customers.  It also seems that with the recent addition of 70 new LTE locations that many were planned as vacation destinations for Sprint executives.

I had learned in the past that they had no way to gauge data performance.  I suspect that they're just not collecting any information, so that they can't be blamed for what they don't know.  Having worked with internal networks at various companies, there are tools for Quality of Service (QoS), so I find it difficult to believe that the major carriers aren't using similar tools on their data networks, except to escape blame.

Oh, and by the way, marketing has created a new boasting area to talk about their plans for tri-band LTE: http://faster.sprint.com/category/spark/?INTCID=TSC:UHP:103013:spark&adSelectData=1:Module_spark_103013

I'm with a lot of the comments that say "I'll believe it when I see it." but they talk about 2014 and 2015.  2014 isn't that far off, but I have a feeling that I won't be seeing LTE at home until 2016 at the rate they're going.  Whether it will be reliable or not is another matter.  I don't consider any data communications technology sufficient if it struggles to get my e-mail, although I've been told several times by Sprint support (not customer service) that if sometime during a 24 hour period the data rates are within their advertised numbers, they are acceptable rates.

Update 2013.11.11: I had recent conversations with local Sprint employees and ended up extending my relationship with the company by buying a new iPhone 5c.  They said, according to the local network technician, this area will have LTE about 6 months from now.   Whether it will be working (well) or not is another matter.  Returning from Indianapolis the other day, I noticed that the phone was showing LTE for all but about the last 38 miles of my drive, so it seems they're working their way across the state.

Update 2013.11.13: I was in the Springdale area, just outside Cincinnati and was surprised to find LTE.  Speedtest.net told me that it reached a little over 10 Mbps at the peak, and settled on 7 Mbps.  That's good, but as with my experience with WiMAX being overloaded in the area, they're going to need a lot of capacity.

Springdale, Ohio

Update 2013.11.26: I was in Eaton, Ohio today.  It's a town just big enough by state law to be designated a city.  LTE was working there but has not been officially announced yet.  My previous experience is that the town had 3G data service prior to where I am now, since Sprint had bought the area's wireline business, apparently.  Verizon had bought the service in this town.  In any case, it seems that LTE is closing from all sides and it's going to be pleasant until everyone moves over to LTE.

Eaton, Ohio

 I really love the Sprint Zone app.  It's so precise with the Free Memory figure.  Additionally, the Data Connection is hard-coded to show 3G no matter whether 1xRTT is there (even roaming), or LTE is the current connection.  It doesn't matter how many times I've mentioned it to them.  It's like the Sprint Speedtest.net vanity page saying that connections are in Megabytes per second, rather than Megabits per second.

3G connection while LTE or 1xRTT is active...hmm

Update 2013.12.27: I was able to use Sprint's LTE in the Dayton, Ohio area today.  It was less than spectacular, but the availability hasn't been announced yet.  Since they don't actually provide much coverage when they announce an area, I don't think it will be good for a while anyway.  Indianapolis, Indiana was announced quite a while ago, and it's consistent with what a good EVDO connection should be.

Update 2014.01.21: I got a text message from Sprint today:

I'm actually somewhat hopeful that things are changing, even though bandwidth seems severely constrained at the moment.  On Monday, I was in the small city of Eaton, OH using their LTE, which has yet to be announced.  Instead of the 7 Mbps I was receiving previously, I only got 2.48 Mbps, and there was a hole where 3G/EVDO showed up that wasn't there previously.  It almost looked as if they'd re-deployed equipment already.

LTE is finding its way into every area

Of course, the text message I received says to me that out of 4 towers in town--there should be at least 5 but they've ignored a large area south of town--should be equipped but I'm not exactly convinced.  I was expecting everything from the noted area on the coverage map east to the Ohio state line to be covered, but that may be more hope than reality.

Update 2014.12.02: It's been a bit over a year and the company has made some progress toward their LTE buildout.  That's a good thing, but they're still failing.  They're still far too interested in helping themselves than helping their paying customers.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, my phone usually works on LTE and generally works well.  There are still some really ugly problems but they are fewer than I'd seen in other parts of the country.  Being that I live about 75 miles from San Jose, there are more ugly problems the further away from California's third largest city.  Surprisingly, I had very good service in San Francisco itself, which is a tough city to cover.  Since WiMAX has been decommissioned, along with Nextel's iDEN network, Sprint has two more frequency bands to use.

However, the numbers of the changes to towers--their "upgrades"--still show too much activity around their headquarters, compared to taking care of their paying customers.  I would assume that Sprint employees don't pay a lot for service, so why are the rest of us paying to help them when many of us are still dealing with poor service?

I've noticed that they're not interested in showing us where LTE is being deployed any longer.  The only press releases I've seen lately as concerned with telling the story that they have good service in individual cities.

Why am I on 1xRTT so often if LTE is everywhere?

Where is the roaming zone now?

In my own town, I noticed that they hid a large roaming zone from customers' view, even though service is often unusable.  Apparently, the @sprintcare people were not informed, so they kept telling me about the roaming zone, only stopping when I showed them the coverage map I could see.

Sprint LTE seems to work

I was in the Indianapolis area today, and as I had checked the Sprint coverage page last night, saw that they had gone live with LTE.  The funny thing about their data maps, unlike their voice maps, is that they don't show relative signal strength.  It's all covered in orange, when in reality, it might not be covered at all.

My current home coverage is like that.  It' shows up as a blanket of 3G goodness when, in fact, I often get unusable service.  The voice coverage shows me on the edge of great voice signal strength.

I took my mobile hotspot (Sierra Wireless Tri-Fi, as they call it), into the pizza place where I went to eat lunch, along with my laptop computer.  It connected slowly, then disconnected, then connected again.  As I was trying to actually use the connection, the hotspot disconnected from the computer.  C-R-A-P.  This is the second device, as the first one was confused about whether it was fully charged or not, and disconnected regularly.

My guess is that the disconnections happen when the towers are overloaded.  Despite their assurances, I think their capacity upgrades only minimized the horror and they needed 6 or 7 more to put things back to where they were before they started selling Apple's iPhone.  They've been selling smart phones like crazy.  Apparently, nearly half of people in the U.S.A. are using smart phones.  I saw almost great speeds on Christmas Day, so it makes sense.

There was a handy Sprint store around the corner, so I stopped to talk.  I casually asked why it wouldn't connect to LTE and the representative told me that the towers were only about 30 % of the buildout.  That seems consistent with Verizon and AT&T boasting LTE coverage when there wasn't much.  Sad, isn't it?  Still, some is better than none, as long as it works.

After I'd finished my regular shopping, I headed to Sam's Club for gasoline and to see if there was anything else I desperately needed.  $3.079 wasn't bad for regular, since I'd seen up to $3.219 on the way there.

I tried the mobile hotspot again, and it showed the 4G symbol.  Since I knew Indianapolis didn't have WiMAX, I was quite pleased to be connected to LTE for the first time with the device.  I'll upload the screenshot but the PING came back as 70 ms, with a download speed of 4.65 Mbps, and an upload speed of 3.81 Mbps.  Considering the technology, it's slow, but if I'd checked my 3G connection, the LTE speed would look wonderful.  I'm hoping to see much better.  I tried Verizon's LTE in West Carrollton, Ohio and the download speed at that time was ~5.8 Mbps but it was a more mature buildout by that time.  I considered it too slow for the money Verizon charged, and considering that I had minimal coverage in my own town at the time, it didn't make sense.  Since then, they added LTE but it's only good if you happen to be where it works.

Now, I'm thinking that Sprint may try to compete with Verizon since the two have this town sewn up.  T-Mobile doesn't even have 3G service here and there is no MetroPCS or Cricket.  AT&T has 3G service but that could collapse at any moment once their customers upgrade to 3G data phones.  It's not likely they'll have LTE here until the end of the century.  I don't even think that they had EDGE here until 2006 or 2007.

If nothing else, the pizza and breadsticks were good.

Update 2013.11.11: It's going on 10 months since I wrote this.  I see Sprint covering more of the state of Indiana, but service in Indianapolis is anything but exemplary.  Downtown, near where they showcased LTE for the SuperBowl, I've seen service as low as 0.75 Mbps and the other day, it was running at 1.0 Mbps down.  I also got 2.88 Mbps in the suburbs where the buildout didn't seem to be finished.  However, service in the mall was better near the Sprint kiosk, and often dropped to 1xRTT elsewhere.

I'm on my third hotspot now, and this one doesn't seem to be better.  Why doesn't the equipment for their towers work well?

I'm interested to see how Verizon is doing.  About a year ago, I went to visit someone in a small town to deliver a few things.  She was showing me her Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III and I noticed that LTE was lit.  She tried to look up something and it paused for over 1 minute, switched to 3G/EVDO, and returned results finally.  So much for more coverage.  Putting LTE on one tower just doesn't do more than stake a claim.  It has to work.

Oh, and I just had pizza and breadsticks there again the other day.

Love/Hate Sprint

Why do some people just not care?

Thursday, I called customer service because, after weeks of poor data connections, everything was failing.  I could not use my data connection on the mobile hotspot or on the phone, and even voice calls were distorted.

The person was remarkably interested and was working to help me.  He said that they had tower problems in the area (a first! well, the admission, anyway) and that engineers were working to resolve the situation within 72 hours, though those were working week hours.  (If you have problems on the weekend, there is no problem?)  I was really having trouble understanding the conversation because it was distorted but we got through it.

This person called several days in a row, asking about my connection and last night, another person called.  She mentioned that the work on the tower had been completed and wondered how things were.  I mentioned that it was mostly back to the way it was a week ago, but with some distortion during the phone call.  I mentioned that things had taken a turn for the worse about 6 weeks ago, so she looked into the tower information further.  She was seeing a lot of problems with requests being rejected and proceeded to open another ticket for that matter.

I got a call this morning and this third person wanted nothing more than to close the ticket.  Nothing I said mattered and she wanted yes/no answers to everything, as though asking "does this fit into our easily-achievable brand of marketing happiness?" actually works for people subscribing to their services.

After my recent trials of AT&T and Verizon, I know I'm better off with Sprint.  I just have to wonder how some people keep their jobs.

For a while, I've been in contact with another Sprint customer service representative, this time from the social media team.  He responded to an e-mail from a few days ago, and I updated him on the situation with "go-away-girl" from this morning.  He called later, apologized and said that her supervisor would be noted on the situation, and that he was able to see the outstanding problems and that there was an internal ticket open on the situation, but that the tower is due for at least one capacity upgrade on August 4th.  That goes with what I was already told the previous evening.  I can only hope that things come together.  When I joked that they could just drop in LTE connectivity, he didn't laugh, but said that they had a strict roll-out plan.

The company's ticket on my most-used tower must still be open.  Some of the day time speed is up there again, but Sunday/Sunday night/Monday morning, it was unusable again.

Update: I'm in the Philadelphia, PA area and I'm trying WiMAX, their original 4G technology.  It's used extensively in South Korea, Taiwan, Russia, and parts of Japan.  The trouble with Sprint's WiMAX is that it's in a higher frequency that makes it difficult to penetrate buildings.

So, I tried it in York, PA and it connected but that's all.  It didn't really work in the motel room, next to the window on the second floor.  Here I am now in Christiana, Delaware and it's working better than the 3G/EVDO or the motel's WiFi connection.  It's only registering average download speeds of about 2.8 Mbps but I just got 4.65 Mbps down with only 0.56 Mbps up and that's higher than the previous test.  I get that much from EVDO on the upload and I've exceeded 2.8 Mbps on download.  4.65 is almost as good as I was getting from Verizon's LTE in West Carrollton, OH and they're supposed to be sooooo amazing, right?

I haven't heard anything from Sprint, so I assume that they finished and my "it's working okay but not as great as it was" was enough to say goodbye.  Okay, whatever.

Mobile Hotspots and Me

I've been using a mobile internet connection since late 2006.  I got a new mobile phone, the Samsung SPH-A900 or Blade.  (This was later Lex Luthor's phone on Smallville.  I felt so evil.)  The one feature that intrigued me was the "phone as modem" capability.  I did some checking and got it to work using Sprint's 3G EVDO technology.  It was faster than the 3 Mbps DSL line from BellSouth that I'd been using, except in PING response speed.

Once I had things set, I discontinued my DSL service and never looked back.  Then, I moved again to a rural community (to help with my parents) where Sprint had no 3G service.  Often, their 1.5G speed was worse than dial up.  They were slated for 3G service the month before I arrived, but something wasn't working and the technicians didn't understand what was happening.  In the middle of a freezing, snowy January they figured it out.  I would go from 2 Mbps to dial up speeds about once every 6 weeks, call customer service who told me that there was nothing wrong, but they would send me PRL updates, etc. and the phone would work better for 6 weeks.  There was "nothing wrong with their network" over an LG Musiq, LG Lotus, LG Optimus S, and finally the iPhone 4S.  I didn't draw the same conclusion about their network.

In these last 3 years, it's become slightly more stable, and with an iPhone having EVDO Revision A technology, I'd seen downlink speeds of 3 - 4 Mbps fairly regularly and I'd once or twice seen downloads through Firefox exceed 500 KB/sec.  Someone in the neighbourhood apparently got connected to Sprint recently and my numbers dwindled to unusable--shutting off the phone unusable.  Besides that, Apple's iOS 5.x mobile hotspot is unstable.

Back on June 6th, I decided to do something about the situation.  I ordered a Sierra Wireless Elevate from AT&T.  I'm not very trusting of the company since they were Southwestern Bell + PacBell + AmeriTech + BellSouth and who knows what other baby Bells.  I went against my feelings.

The device arrived on the 8th and it arrived with the SIM card installed and I just needed to tailor it to my needs.  Despite the slick marketing, it wasn't very fast using HSPA/HSPA+.  Granted, it was much better than unusable but for all their hype, it was barely faster than Sprint at best and it rarely achieved the best time, despite a lack of users.  Once they had as many users as Sprint, they'd be in trouble.  Then, they gave me the first bill and I was a bit shocked that they charged me for data usage while it was being shipped to me.  It wasn't that the money was so high, but that I was paying for time when I didn't have access to it.  Several times, it wasn't connected for whatever reason and a power cycle (power off/power on) was necessary.  This was a refurbished unit, so it should have been working much better.  I returned the whole thing and cancelled the contract.  I must pay for the usage but supposedly, I shouldn't have to pay for anything else--supposedly.  The usage was rather high.  In 10 days, I'd used slightly more than 2.5 GB--half my monthly allowance, and overages were $10 per 1 GB.

I went to a corporate Verizon store in the same town and bought a hotspot.  This was made by ZTE.  I was uncomfortable with all the complaints about the latest Novatel Wireless MiFi LTE device.  Verizon has a 10 GB plan for $80, as well as the typical 5 GB plan for $50.  This ZTE device (#890L) has been out about a month, so it might not be so foolproof, and I'm definitely a fool.  By the way, all of these devices support LTE, where you can find it available.  The ZTE device does not keep track of data used, so you're on your own to look for overages.

Unfortunately, I didn't take the computer with me, so I didn't get to experience LTE right away.  However, I wouldn't be returning to a house with LTE available so, did it really matter?  When I returned home, I set it to charge and connected and personalised it.  It worked fine but Verizon's EVDO/3G service is slower than Sprint's and it's just as overloaded as Sprint's.  Oops.

I had a download of over 800 MBs waiting that I wasn't going to ignore and since I was on the last day of the billing cycle (last day to start?), I tried downloading.  It showed 2 hours, 15 hours, 3 hours, 1 day, and levelled off at 6 hours and change.  Whoa!  I went to another location closer to the main road and it was just as bad.  (Since I wrote this in June, Verizon Wireless has implemented LTE service in town. I don't know if it's good or bad, but a friend has a Samsung Galaxy S III and it shows up as having LTE service available.  I guess I should have been more patient.)  I headed back toward the town where I bought the device, where LTE was active, and the download finished the final ~700 MB in 20 minutes.  I tried speedtest.net just after that and it recorded something a bit over 5 Mbps--not blazing speed in my experience, though there was a peak of 25 Mbps for maybe half a second.  That's not exactly what I'd expect from the nation's fastest 4G network but better than what I'd seen from their 3G network, of course.

One problem I've noticed with the ZTE 890L is that connected to EVDO/3G and using battery only, once disconnected it needs a power cycle to be usable again.  It doesn't happen connected to a power outlet.  Another odd thing I've noticed with the Verizon network in town is that they seem to be on EVDO Revision 0 instead of Revision A, even though they claimed years ago that their whole network was faster than Sprint's because they were on Revision A.

My exploration and experimentation is complete.  Sprint had the best speed in town and perhaps after their capacity and data speed upgrades, they'll be faster than Verizon here.  They'll probably be faster than AT&T, if AT&T actually get some customers and therefore, get the congestion.

I ended up returning the Verizon device about a week from when I bought it.  I'm now using another Sierra Wireless device from Sprint with a huge (over double the size) 3700 mAh battery for long life (and long charging) that cost $99.99 after rebate.  They call it "Tri-Fi", as it supports EVDO/3G, WiMAX, and LTE; the latter two being considered casually as 4G technologies.  I like that it keep track of data during the session, as well as overall usage.  I'll see how it works in a WiMAX environment since I'm planning a trip to Philadelphia.

Update 2014.03.02: This ended badly overall, and I've changed again.