Sprint drops its 600kbps data throttle on video streaming, but there's a catch

[Trik'Stari]

.....why is it so hard to comprehend the concept of "if you have congestion, upgrade your network so that you don't have congestion".

 

Seriously. This is like watching retards hump a doorknob.

[Simons]

Throttling unlimited data or high speed connection users are the most stupid thing i've ever heard, thank god we dont have that with my ISP, they guarantee that you get what you pay for.

If you can't provide the connection you are selling people, how about you either upgrade your network or simply adjust it down?

 

I'd personally be pissed as hell, if I were paying 160$/mo for the 500/500mbit connection, and it got throttled in any way.

[flibberdipper]

Wait, what network does MetroPCS use?

 

Either way, this is hilarious.

[TopWargamer]

Wait, what network does MetroPCS use?

Either way, this is hilarious.

Metro runs on T-Mobile's network, unless you're still using a Metro CDMA phone, then you're on their legacy CDMA network, which is being phased out very soon.

[flibberdipper]

Metro runs on T-Mobile's network, unless you're still using a Metro CDMA phone, then you're on their legacy CDMA network, which is being phased out very soon.

Ah, thank god.

[spartaman64]

i really want to give them a pass for this because they were the only ones who supported net neutrality 

[LukaP]

.....why is it so hard to comprehend the concept of "if you have congestion, upgrade your network so that you don't have congestion".

 

Seriously. This is like watching retards hump a doorknob.

This is the only time they can make a road analogy to this (as in well roads get congested to just get used to it) apart from the fact that upgrading your system is a button easier than upgrading roads, since all they have to do is add more hardware at every antenna, not like, you know, even dig or anything...

 

i really want to give them a pass for this because they were the only ones who supported net neutrality 

No. Noone gets a pass for being stupid. Even if they were smart in the past

[GzeroD]

This is the only time they can make a road analogy to this (as in well roads get congested to just get used to it) apart from the fact that upgrading your system is a button easier than upgrading roads, since all they have to do is add more hardware at every antenna, not like, you know, even dig or anything...

 

 

That is not how that works . you can only have so many concurrent signals going over the same bandwidth before they become unintelligible to the additional antennas. With too few bands adding more towers in congested areas will do nothing.

[LukaP]

That is not how that works . you can only have so many concurrent signals going over the same bandwidth before they become unintelligible to the additional antennas. With too few bands adding more towers in congested areas will do nothing.

 

Youre not even getting what im saying. You didnt get it earlier today, you dont get it now.

[GzeroD]

 

Youre not even getting what im saying. You didnt get it earlier today, you dont get it now.

Well with a fundamental understanding of how wireless data transfer works i can tell you . WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS NOT RIGHT.

I "don't get it" because you telling me to make assumptions that are patently false.

[TopWargamer]

 

Youre not even getting what im saying. You didnt get it earlier today, you dont get it now.

He's right though. Adding more towers on the same frequencies won't do anything, because the bands/frequencies in the area are still the same, so traffic is still just as congested no matter how many towers you put down. Sprint just needs to flat out add more bandwidth to their network by 1) adding more LTE spectrum to congested areas, although they get outbid by Verizon and AT&T all the time, so, tough or 2) refarm their CDMA network. The latter will cost less and they'll be able to turn that out quicker than adding different LTE bands.

 

AT&T does what @GzeroD is talking about. They add more LTE bands/spectrum to congested areas in their network to reduce congestion and provide more bandwidth. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility

 

Plus AT&T is also slowly refarming their 2G GSM network to 3G/4G LTE. T-Mobile has been doing this for about a year now (I believe), as is Verizon with their legacy CDMA network, although they started doing this only a few months ago (I believe).

 

As for Verizon running on only 2 LTE bands, but primarily on 1, well, that 1 LTE band is 700MHz, which is the cream of the crop in terms of spectrum, and it covers almost all of their network. So that helps A LOT, but going back a year or 2 ago (or whenever it was) Verizon launched XLTE, which was when they introduced band 4 LTE (also known as AWS, which runs on 1700MHz/2100MHz) to help the congestion on their network. 

[LukaP]

He's right though. Adding more towers on the same frequencies won't do anything, because the bands/frequencies in the area are still the same, so traffic is still just as congested no matter how many towers you put down. Sprint just needs to flat out add more bandwidth to their network by 1) adding more LTE spectrum to congested areas, although they get outbid by Verizon and AT&T all the time, so, tough or 2) refarm their CDMA network. The latter will cost less and they'll be able to turn that out quicker than adding different LTE bands.

 

AT&T does what @GzeroD is talking about. They add more LTE bands/spectrum to congested areas in their network to reduce congestion and provide more bandwidth. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility

 

Plus AT&T is also slowly refarming their 2G GSM network to 3G/4G LTE. T-Mobile has been doing this for about a year now (I believe), as is Verizon with their legacy CDMA network, although they started doing this only a few months ago (I believe).

im not saying adding more towers. Im saying adding hardware to support other frequency bands and channels that have been ratified to existing towers. which is not hard.

[GzeroD]

im not saying adding more towers. Im saying adding hardware to support other frequency bands and channels that have been ratified to existing towers. which is not hard.

They cant do that for frequencies they didn't pay for the rights for. the FCC would literally shut them down. they keep getting out bid for new bands. Which I mentioned earlier.

[LukaP]

They cant do that for frequencies they didn't pay for the rights for. the FCC would literally shut them down. they keep getting out bid for new bands. Which I mentioned earlier.

THEN PAY FOR THOSE FUCKING FREQUENCIES IF YOUR BIDS ARE TO LOW RAISE THEM OR STOP ADVERTISING SPEEDS YOU CANT REACH HOW HARD IS IT TO GRASP THAT FUCKING CONCEPT IM OUT FUCKS SAKE IDIOTS

[TopWargamer]

im not saying adding more towers. Im saying adding hardware to support other frequency bands and channels that have been ratified to existing towers. which is not hard.

It's not as simple as that. Each wireless carrier has to bid for LTE spectrum/bands. Unfortunately, both Sprint and T-Mobile always get out bid by Verizon and AT&T for newer spectrum, which means that Sprint and T-Mobile get very little whenever an auction comes up. 

 

Now, again, Sprint does have their CDMA network, which is spectrum that they already own. They could refarm it to support LTE, which does get rid of CDMA coverage in a refarmed area, but in return you get LTE. This is what T-Mobile is doing since they get out bid by Verizon and AT&T is every auction. It's a smart move, and while it is more cost efficient, it does take a while to do, because you have to make sure that most of the people in an area about to be refarmed has an LTE smartphone (more specifically a band 2 [1900MHz] smartphone). If they don't and have only a 2G or even 3G phone, then they won't get coverage in their area anymore. 

[GzeroD]

THEN PAY FOR THOSE FUCKING FREQUENCIES IF YOUR BIDS ARE TO LOW RAISE THEM OR STOP ADVERTISING SPEEDS YOU CANT REACH HOW HARD IS IT TO GRASP THAT FUCKING CONCEPT IM OUT FUCKS SAKE IDIOTS

They Cant afford it. how is that hard to understand AT&T  and verizon each have more than 2 or 3 times as much cash on hand to buy spectrum. smaller providers are getting spectrum that the fcc is not letting big players bid on.

Also they advertise a 4g connection the the actual speed of that connection.

[TopWargamer]

THEN PAY FOR THOSE FUCKING FREQUENCIES IF YOUR BIDS ARE TO LOW RAISE THEM OR STOP ADVERTISING SPEEDS YOU CANT REACH HOW HARD IS IT TO GRASP THAT FUCKING CONCEPT IM OUT FUCKS SAKE IDIOTS

Sssshhhhh, there's no need to get your jimmies rustled. 

 

Again, it's not as simple as "pay for their frequencies." They are up for bid. Like, an Ebay style bid. And who always wins in an Ebay bid? The person with the most money. Sprint and T-Mobile just quite frankly don't have the money that AT&T and Verizon has, which is why they get out bid and gain very little spectrum from an auction. 

 

They can't just throw more money at the bids, because they just don't have the money. Sprint is essentially broke because of all the promotions they're doing to gain customers, and not only that, but a lot of people have been leaving Sprint. T-Mobile has a bit more money than Sprint because they're gaining customers like it's going out of style, but they're also spending a lot of money to pull in those customers via promotions and all of the goodies you get with your plan (ex. free music streaming, free data roaming [i don't even want to know how much TMo is paying for that], etc. etc.).

[LukaP]

They Cant afford it. how is that hard to understand AT&T  and verizon each have more than 2 or 3 times as much cash on hand to buy spectrum. smaller providers are getting spectrum that the fcc is not letting big players bid on.

Also they advertise a 4g connection the the actual speed of that connection.

If they cant afford it, then they should not advertise it either. Simple as that.

 

Yes, actual speeds if you use it when you dont use the internet. As soon as you try to use it when you actually want to be on the internet someone else will also want to watch cat gifs, meaning you dont get the advertised speed. (simplified this as much as i could, maybe you will get it now)

[GzeroD]

If they cant afford it, then they should not advertise it either. Simple as that.

 

Yes, actual speeds if you use it when you dont use the internet. As soon as you try to use it when you actually want to be on the internet someone else will also want to watch cat gifs, meaning you dont get the advertised speed. (simplified this as much as i could, maybe you will get it now)

I have sprint. I know exactly how it works. it is fine/great in my area. I understand what your saying I am just saying that it is wrong.

[TopWargamer]

If they cant afford it, then they should not advertise it either. Simple as that.

 

Yes, actual speeds if you use it when you dont use the internet. As soon as you try to use it when you actually want to be on the internet someone else will also want to watch cat gifs, meaning you dont get the advertised speed. (simplified this as much as i could, maybe you will get it now)

Your data speed is based on how far away you are from a tower and how congested that tower is on whatever LTE band you're currently connected to. Sprint is too embarrassed to advertise their connection speeds because they're just, quite frankly, not that good when compared to the competition. Good enough? Sure. T-Mobile loves to do it, because in their LTE markets they have the bandwidth to sustain high speeds. Regular people have run speed tests in New York City, for example, and have been getting 150mbps downlink in certain parts of the city, which T-Mobile did advertise. Heck, even here in Tampa I've gotten my speeds as high as 80 mbps downlink, and that was many months ago. I'm sure it's even faster now, especially with T-Mobile slowly rolling out band 12 (700MHz) LTE.

[Bouzoo]

Can't the FCC give some regulation that would allow the smaller providers to purchase frequencies/spectrums? Or increase the number they won't allow to sell, just to increase the competitiveness. I know, money, but I'm not familiar with the system there so just a thought.

[GzeroD]

Your data speed is based on how far away you are from a tower and how congested that tower is on whatever LTE band you're currently connected to. Sprint is too embarrassed to advertise their connection speeds because they're just, quite frankly, not that good. T-Mobile loves to do it, because in their LTE markets they have the bandwidth to sustain high speeds. Regular have run speed tests in New York City, for example, and have been getting 150mbps downlink, which T-Mobile did advertise. Heck, even here in Tampa I've gotten my speeds as high as 80 mbps downlink, and that was many months ago. I'm sure it's even faster now, especially with T-Mobile slowly rolling out band 12 (700MHz) LTE.

Sprint is not this good. Like on a good day my M8 gets me 60 Mbit on 4g on a bad day only 5-10. I can still stream Youtube or Netflix fine though. thenagain Providence down town is not as bad as new York. But I get similar speeds (to the ones I get in providence) when I am in Boston.

[TopWargamer]

Can't the FCC give some regulation that would allow the smaller providers to purchase frequencies/spectrums? Or increase the number they won't allow to sell, just to increase the competitiveness. I know, money, but I'm not familiar with the system there so just a thought.

They could, but they probably won't. 

 

This is what all the fuss has been about recently with T-Mobile.

[TopWargamer]

Sprint is not this good. Like on a good day my M8 gets me 60 Mbit on 4g on a bad day only 5-10. I can still stream Youtube or Netflix fine though. thenagain Providence down town is not as bad as new York. But I get similar speeds (to the ones I get in providence) when I am in Boston.

See, exactly. Sprint's speeds are good enough for doing what you need to do, but they're nowhere near as fast as TMo, Verizon, and AT&T's networks.

[GzeroD]

They could, but they probably won't. 

 

This is what all the fuss has been about recently with T-Mobile.

-SNIP-

I really really wish the T-mobile/Sprint mergers didn't keep getting crushed.