Sprint losing a LOT of 3G in the Dakotas

[Scott Weberpal]

It appears that Sprint will be losing a LOT of native and roaming 3G coverage in North and South Dakota soon. I had 3G coverage essentially the entire trip from Bowdle to Aberdeen last May, but it appears that will no longer be the case this year. This thread has great before and after maps:

http://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/56974

North Dakota will be losing over 1/2 the state worth of 3G, and South Dakota will be losing 3G in the eastern half of the state as well as along the I-90 corridor.

 

[Matt Tottle]

They are absolutely right.. That's exactly the footprint of part of the Alltel network that Verizon had to sell to AT&T as a condition of the buyout. Since AT&T has to switch the properties over to GSM, they have no interest in maintaining the CDMA infrastructure.

 

[Jason Foster]

I think this may have been the reason I noticed a big drop in local (s.VA & n.NC) Sprint coverage a few weeks back. Not liking how diminished the coverage was. I had zero connectivity for a good portion of no so rural areas in NC. Hardly ever had full EVDOrevA except interstates. I'm thinking, regardless of true unlimited, might be time to drop after the plains season.

 

[Matt Tottle]

There was no property/spectrum exchange in that area. They (or Verizon) may be having issues, because that was always a pretty solid coverage area, although the rural would be Verizon roaming.. I would give them a call and open a ticket about it.

 

[Gordon Spencer]

Here is the deal . Sprint's roaming agreement with Alltel covered 3g . But Sprint's roaming agreement with Verizon does not cover 3G . Any Sprint data user that has to roam on to Verizon network due to no Sprint network being available , Will only be able to roam at 1xrtt speeds which are roughly 3 times as fast as dialup at best.
Sprint cannot roam on AT&T network where the have taken over for Alltel as the network is being converted to GSM from CDMA . CDMA devices cannot roam onto a GSM network .
Hope that clears things up a bit.

There was no property/spectrum exchange in that area. They (or Verizon) may be having issues, because that was always a pretty solid coverage area, although the rural would be Verizon roaming.. I would give them a call and open a ticket about it.

 

[Matt Tottle]

I know Sprint can't roam on AT&T because of GSM - that's the root cause of the northern plains issue.. But Sprint definitely does roam on Verizon 3G in a lot of (but not all) areas. But even still, 1xRTT will get you roughly 80-130k symmetrical, which is fine for your radar data and stream. What you have to be careful of is that there IS a 300MB hard cap on roaming data. Exceed that two months in a row or 3 times in any 6 month period and they will terminate your contract (per Sprint's agreement with Verizon).

 

[Mark Blue]

Thanks for the heads up on that Scott. I'm bummed to see the roaming agreements Sprint had with Alltel being transferred to AT&T so they can build out their own network (GSM), but hopefully there will still be 1xRTT coverage available when chasing in those areas in the coming years until an alternative plan can be worked out. As long as there is still a signal of some sort in the area I'll be able to manage, but I liked the way it was before - no doubt about it.

 

[Matt Tottle]

According to that map, there aren't that many holes opening up where you wouldn't at least have 1xRTT on roaming. And it's not that Sprint transferred the roaming agreements, its that Verizon was required to sell those Alltel properties to AT&T as a condition of their merger, and now AT&T can do as they please with them.. Since they do not use CDMA, they have no interest whatsoever in maintaining the technology.

That really does take a huge chunk out of their home coverage though. Since the licenses are still good until 2013, I'd hope Sprint tries to come to a colocation agreement with AT&T (or pitches a fit to the FCC) in order to keep the existing infrastructure in operation.

 

[Dan Rupnow]

This certainly stinks, but the biggest thing I am worried about is the 300mb monthly cap on roaming data. Anyone have an estimate as to how many hours of running GRLevel3 would put you over this 300mb limit?

 

[DRMabe]

I think this may have been the reason I noticed a big drop in local (s.VA & n.NC) Sprint coverage a few weeks back. Not liking how diminished the coverage was. I had zero connectivity for a good portion of no so rural areas in NC. Hardly ever had full EVDOrevA except interstates. I'm thinking, regardless of true unlimited, might be time to drop after the plains season.

I live in north central NC and run 3 times a week from here to Roanoke VA. I haven't noticed any changes in my coverage as opposed to a year ago this time. What areas were you talking about having trouble?