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.

Apple's stock price on the downslide, re-evaluated

If you've read my entries on stock pricing, you might remember how I talk about stock "anal"ysts.  They can't follow trends.  They can't follow forecasts.  They don't notice the run-up in Apple stock price prior to an announcement and the sell-off after the announcement.  However, they know everything there is to know.

Apparently, the new iPhone 5c has caused Apple to be on the way out of business.  It's too expensive for emerging markets, and it's likely too expensive to make.  So, three of the world's finest stock brokerages/investment firms have downgraded Apple, after which the stock price dropped due to a sell-off.  (Update: As of the end of October, the stock price has rebounded and Apple has sold too many of the iPhone 5s and not as many of the 5c but they are re-working production to help with the demand.)

Could Apple go out of business because of one product?  It's not likely.  I think they learned their lesson with the Cube.  Those were hard times and yet, they didn't go out of business.  They just threw away some money and frustrated some people.

Is the iPhone 5c too expensive?  (If you have to ask, you can't afford it?)

I've only seen the unlocked price for T-Mobile and that was the 32 GB version for US$649.  That seems US$50 too high, compared to other phones selling on-contract for US$199.  Is T-Mobile in an emerging market?  No, and we don't know the pricing for every country, do we?

I don't expect that everyone in the world will be buying a premium phone, and while cheaper than the iPhone 5 or 5s, the 5c is still a premium phone.  At the lowest level, it has 16 GB of storage, most of that is usable by the user.  Compare that to a free Android phone that maybe contain anywhere from 512 MB to 2 GB of storage, and may only have 170 MB available to the user.  I recall this quite well from my LG Optimus S, which wasn't free at the time and gave me frequent messages about a lack of available storage.  The original 8 GB Google Nexus 7 tablet was infamously short on usable space.

So, will someone who can barely afford to eat buy an iPhone 5c?  I wouldn't think so.  Food is important.  Will someone with a good job who already eats well and lives cheaply buy an iPhone 5c?  I'd bet they'll take a serious look at it, along with a look at some inexpensive Android-based phones.

Can someone who eats well, owns whatever they want, and manipulates people into buying stocks that they may not want understand how the rest of us live?  I doubt it.  Of course, they could eat snails because they like them, and the poor could eat snails because those are available.  Maybe, the rich really do understand the dirt poor.  That was sarcasm, if you didn't notice.

How Apple will survive is anyone's guess.  More innovation would be good, and for me, more bug fixing.  Being conservative on popular products isn't a great way to handle things, but I don't see a bunch of people dropping Apple products.  Those who like Google and Android are there already, and the undecided will search and try things.  I'd like to try the LG (Optimus) G2 or Google Nexus 5, but after my Nexus 7 "fun" and my LG Optimus S, I'm not sure I can live with a broken phone.

Update 2014.12.11: Apple has recently had all-time record stock prices.  This week, they're falling, but the company is still doing well.  It seems that they're still the company in the world with the largest valuation--on paper anyway.

I got one of the new iPhone 6 models with 64GB of storage.   I can understand why it is popular.  I'm still finding it a pain to switch but it's better than switching to another company's phone.  I like Android but my 2013 Nexus 7 tablet hasn't been incredible, with version 4.3.x, 4.4.x, or 5.0.x.  The operating system is getting better but it's still a bit like a product in its infancy, unfortunately.  You'd hope that it would be more mature.  It's probably a lack of real-world testing.  Apple does very little real-world testing, but it's a bit more than what Google does.

I wonder what will happen with the Apple Watch.  I suspect that will really cause the stock price to drop.  The good thing is that they don't need agreements with anyone else to make it work, a la Apple TV.  By that time, Apple Pay should be firmly entrenched.  I haven't used it yet.  I don't trust iOS 8.1.1 completely and I know that 8.2 is in the beta process, and of course, there will be an 8.2.1.

I'm guessing that Apple Pay will help offset Apple Watch.

Still considering another phone

July 1st has come and gone.  Its only real significance is that it opened up my new phone upgrade window.  It's a long time until my contract ends in November, so Sprint has made things available much earlier than their previous 22 month period.  My two previous phone switches happened around 12 months from the prior change, as I was part of their Premier programme.

Apparently, they weren't making enough money but they made a lot of customers happy.  Of course, smart phones have an ETF of $350 and feature phones are at $200, I believe, but they weren't getting enough of that within 1 year, so the price of happiness was too high, indeed.

I currently have an iPhone 4S with 32 GB of storage.

I'm thinking about:

• LG Optimus G(2)
• HTC One
• Apple iPhone 5S

Of course, the iPhone 5S won't be out until October or so.  Apple has just revealed that they've added the iPhone to the university sale that they do in autumn, so until the current supplies are gone, no one gets the new products.  This also explains why the MacBook Pro wasn't revised at WWDC, as all products they feel are desired by students will be discounted and after stock runs out, the revised models will be announced.

In any case, I want something fairly current but I'm not sure how far I would want to go.  The displays of all three will be high density displays.  I'd like a tablet but it's too much extra to carry, especially with the laptop computer.  A high density display on a phone will allow me to read and write Japanese, Chinese, and Korean more easily.

Update 2013.07.08: About 1 month from now, there is an announcement from LG, which is expected to be the Optimus G2.  I noticed that Sprint has reduced the price of the Optimus G from US$199.99 to US$99.99, according to my contract upgrade.  It's still a quad core phone and it sucks battery life as with all the rest--will the new one need a humongous battery and still suck the life out of it?

One thing that concerns me is that Android always has a problem where some app doesn't work with some phone.  These two phones are well known but will all apps work with them?  They have a good chance, but is that enough?

Of course, it has taken time for various apps on iOS to support the iPhone 5 and newer iPad displays.  It matters but there may not be a problem by the time October/November arrives.

Speaking of app compatibility, the HTC One lacks the menu button.  This seems a major flaw, even though some developers have gone out of their way to provide a solution in their applications.

I have a fourth option: do nothing and let the contract expire.  I'm not 100% enamoured of Sprint's service in this area, and my mobile hotspot (Tri-Fi!) regularly has trouble, probably because it doesn't support the lower frequencies and neither WiMAX nor LTE are available at home.  I doubt they'd appreciate losing a 13 year customer, although it would just be the loss of my phone at the moment, as the mobile hotspot has until July of 2014.

It seems to me that they could put better technology into a place that suffers from more trouble, rather than putting poorer, cheaper technology into place.  The signal used to be quite good, but their current technology leaves the mobile hotspot hanging by a 1 or 2 bar thread, where the phone will have double that.  The lower frequency counts, apparently.  Of course, how many times have you seen the number of bars change when you actually started to use the device?  Then again, one the phone, the number of bars represents the voice signal, which could always be fine, while the data signal would be in the toilet.

It's sad to return home from a trip where I was getting around 10 Mbps on WiMAX or LTE to see the connection struggle with e-mail.

I seriously doubt the deal with SoftBank will help in that department.  They'll still consider a small town unworthy of investment, even though the Sprint executives probably live far enough out of Overland Park, Kansas/Kansas City to be consider rural.  I doubt that they have a problem anywhere they go.

Update: 2013.09.10: iPhones 5s and 5c have been announced for September 20th availability.  Could I do with the 5c, which is mostly a warmed-over iPhone 5?  I suppose so but the extra power of the 5s sounds better.  I still haven't seen the LG Optimus G2 available, but Motorola's Moto X is.