T mobile vs Sprint in The Woodlands (Houston, Dallas: 2015, live)

[Relohouston]

Recently relocated to the woodlands. Getting a new phone and my only options are sprint and t mobile. Does anyone have any input on the kind of cell service they get in the woodlands with either of these carriers?

Thanks

[ilikeme]

If you have to choose between the two, T-Mobile. Sprint has horrid speeds and coverage here. T-Mobile is typically fine in the cities and suburbs, but once you get into more rural areas you are more likely drop down to 2G, roaming, or no-service. I personally use At&t just for the coverage as they are the best in the area, Verizon comes in a close second. If it were not for their coverage in the city and rural areas around the state, I would probably be on T-Mobile.

[colcat]

T mobile coverage in The Woodlands is fine. I had no problems with them.

[jasonamd]

Originally Posted by ilikeme

If you have to choose between the two, T-Mobile. Sprint has horrid speeds and coverage here. T-Mobile is typically fine in the cities and suburbs, but once you get into more rural areas you are more likely drop down to 2G, roaming, or no-service. I personally use At&t just for the coverage as they are the best in the area, Verizon comes in a close second. If it were not for their coverage in the city and rural areas around the state, I would probably be on T-Mobile.

Sprint coverage and speeds are much better since they've upgraded their network to LTE and added some new bands in the last couple years. Can't speak specifically for that area since I don't travel there much but I travel to most other areas of Houston for work and since the upgrades I've had no speed issues and have only experienced a few dead spots. It is a huge improvement over what it was 2-3 years ago.

[Mamiamjo]

Originally Posted by jasonamd

Sprint coverage and speeds are much better since they've upgraded their network to LTE and added some new bands in the last couple years. Can't speak specifically for that area since I don't travel there much but I travel to most other areas of Houston for work and since the upgrades I've had no speed issues and have only experienced a few dead spots. It is a huge improvement over what it was 2-3 years ago.

That's funny, because I've had the exact opposite experience with Sprint. I've been with Sprint for over 8 years now, but over the last 2 years the signal coverage and data speeds have gotten much worse. I live and work on the north side, in the 1960 area between Kuykendahl and 290. I never used to have issues with dropped calls, now sometimes I even have trouble with text messages not going through. My signal indicator will say LTE and as soon as I try to make a call it goes to 1x. Same thing with data. Ive run speed tests where the speeds are less than half of what they were two years ago. I'm seriously considering jumping to a different company.

[jasonamd]

Originally Posted by Mamiamjo

My signal indicator will say LTE and as soon as I try to make a call it goes to 1x.

That part is normal with the newer phones. The 1x network is what handles the phone calls. Bother LTE and CDMA can't be active at the same time if you are using a tri-band phone because there is only 1 radio chip so when you make a call the phone falls back to CDMA (1x) from LTE. On the older LTE phones there are 2 radios. One to handle CDMA and 1 to handle LTE and both can be active at the same time.

[Mamiamjo]

Originally Posted by jasonamd

That part is normal with the newer phones. The 1x network is what handles the phone calls. Bother LTE and CDMA can't be active at the same time if you are using a tri-band phone because there is only 1 radio chip so when you make a call the phone falls back to CDMA (1x) from LTE. On the older LTE phones there are 2 radios. One to handle CDMA and 1 to handle LTE and both can be active at the same time.

Thanks for the 1x explanation, but unfortunately I'm still experiencing more dropped calls, text failures and slow data speeds then in the past.

[ilikeme]

Originally Posted by jasonamd

Sprint coverage and speeds are much better since they've upgraded their network to LTE and added some new bands in the last couple years. Can't speak specifically for that area since I don't travel there much but I travel to most other areas of Houston for work and since the upgrades I've had no speed issues and have only experienced a few dead spots. It is a huge improvement over what it was 2-3 years ago.

Not from what I have personally seen and heard within the past year. I have had them in the past two years and have a few friends who still do, and most are planning on switching when their contracts are up. In the few areas where they can get Sprint LTE, its not much faster than their 3G. Their LTE coverage has more coverage holes in it than swiss cheese, and their 1X network is not much better. My At&t phone gets LTE just about everywhere in Houston and even out in most rural areas between here and Dallas and Austin, not just along the main highways either.

[jasonamd]

Originally Posted by ilikeme

Not from what I have personally seen and heard within the past year. I have had them in the past two years and have a few friends who still do, and most are planning on switching when their contracts are up. In the few areas where they can get Sprint LTE, its not much faster than their 3G. Their LTE coverage has more coverage holes in it than swiss cheese, and their 1X network is not much better. My At&t phone gets LTE just about everywhere in Houston and even out in most rural areas between here and Dallas and Austin, not just along the main highways either.

Everyone will have a different experience depending on where they go but I've seen a huge improvement in the network. There are several factors that can still cause issues though. Older LTE phones can only connect to the 1900MHz LTE band...which due to frequency doesn't travel as far as some of the other carriers LTE signals. However their "Spark" upgrade activates bands on the 2.5GHz frequency and 800Mhz frequency. LTE on the 800MHz frequency will have a much further range. However, you need a tri-band phone to take advantage of those additional bands. And LTE speed is affected by distance so if you barely have a LTE signal, speeds are going to be slower. Every tower Sprint has has been or is being upgraded to LTE and as part of this they've upgraded the backhaul at all of their sites too. So their entire network, even in rural areas will be LTE. I used to get about .34Mbps on 3G on a good day and have never seen a speed less than 2Mbps on LTE and usually average around 10Mbps. Highest I've seen is 40.

[ilikeme]

Originally Posted by jasonamd

Everyone will have a different experience depending on where they go but I've seen a huge improvement in the network. There are several factors that can still cause issues though. Older LTE phones can only connect to the 1900MHz LTE band...which due to frequency doesn't travel as far as some of the other carriers LTE signals. However their "Spark" upgrade activates bands on the 2.5GHz frequency and 800Mhz frequency. LTE on the 800MHz frequency will have a much further range. However, you need a tri-band phone to take advantage of those additional bands. And LTE speed is affected by distance so if you barely have a LTE signal, speeds are going to be slower. Every tower Sprint has has been or is being upgraded to LTE and as part of this they've upgraded the backhaul at all of their sites too. So their entire network, even in rural areas will be LTE. I used to get about .34Mbps on 3G on a good day and have never seen a speed less than 2Mbps on LTE and usually average around 10Mbps. Highest I've seen is 40.

Pretty lousy speeds for an LTE network. I have not seen less than 20-25mbps on At&t, T-Mobile or Verizon. I usually average in the 40Mbps range on At&t and have seen it as high as 65Mbps recently. At&t currently uses 700 and 1700 Mhz for their LTE, but is also starting to add LTE to their existing 2G/3G spectrum holdings in the 850 and 1900Mhz bands.

I am well aware of what Sprint Spark is, but the rate they are deploying it is slower than molasses. The other problem is with the frequencies they are using. The higher the frequency, the less distance and building penetration it has. 2.5 Ghz is pretty high, so they will have to add a lot more towers to make that work well, especially indoors. I have not seen or heard about them adding that many addidional tower. They got the 2.5 Ghz spectrum when they took over Clearwire. If they would speed up the process of converting the old Nextel 800 spectrum and use all of the old Nextel towers, that would help them quite a bit, but so far I have not seen any huge improvements.