[Samsung Epic 4G Touch] lilotimz:
Wow lots of BS being said here.

First off. To those leaving for ATT, Tmobile, Vz, whatever, ill be blunt and direct to the point. GTFO if you have nothing good to say.

1st. Tmobiles HSPA is technically "3.5g" as HSPA can give LTE a run for its money if you got the spectrum and the backhaul to run it. Many of the Tmobile towers have fiber backhaul already in place or having fiber ran up to it and is one of the reason they've been able to enjoy relatively high speeds even compared to LTE. Especially HSPA42+.

2nd. Sprints NV upgrades are FAST.

They're slated to be COMPLETELY DONE IN ABOUT 2 YEARS.

That is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 towers. Deployment is rapid and ongoing. Wherever you have 3g connections, expect it to be moderately better (5-10dBM) as the new RRUs are much more efficient than the old legacy panels. Verizon began in 2009/2010 and barely have half their 3g footprint covered in LTE AND THE SPEEDS ARE FALLING because of the massive increase of LTE phones over the last year. Furthermore, they utilize blanket coverage due to LTE on the sub ghz band unlike Sprints initial deployment on EVERY TOWER. In a 4 mile radius, one verizon tower can cover everyone in it and everyone uses that tower. For Sprint, in a 4 mile radius you can have 3 or 4 towers which means the load is spread out between 4 different towers instead of 1. This insures that sprints speeds will be consistently faster than that of VZ or ATT as less individuals are connected to each tower because there are more towers available which is a side effect of the 1900mhz bands high frequency.

3rd. Sprint has a $20 billion dollar investment from Softbank. They just gobbled up a huge chunk of spectrum from USCC for $500 million USD and paid of $2 billion in debt early. Sprint is in a very good position to uproot the duopolies. Furthermore, only dumb individuals who look for immediate gratification and gains with no long term vision looks at quarter to quarter results. What matters most is that a company is successful in the long term. Damned to the quarterly results if you can make more money in the years ahead due to the suffering of today.

4th. LTE is VERY SIGNAL DEPENDENT. The closer you are to a tower, the faster it is. The farther you are away from it, the slower it is. Initial deployment will have a wide range of speeds because people may be at the edge of that specific tower and hence have slower LTE speeds. What people don't realize is that each market that is "launched" or "have lte upgrades happening" is only at around the 20-30% tower completion mark. The only place with that is moving along very rapidly is Puerto Rico which has around 60% of towers complete.As not all towers are completed, you tend to roam at the edges of LTE signals and thus have slower speeds.

In conclusion. If you don't know a single thing about Sprints NV deployment and think "omg they screwed up wimax they will never change blah blah blah blah" then you are sorely uninformed and should shut up instead of making yourself look like a fool.

Note: Sprints entire deployment strategy has been shaken up thanks to Softbanks billions of dollars investments. Many locales have already started early while many others are pushed up earlier in their time frame. Expect initial NV deployments within the next month with towers actively being worked on at the end of december and early january. Numerous markets should have work beginning from jan-march. The entire network and more [some nextel towers being converted] will be upgraded.

Note 2: Sprints initial deployment is 5x5 LTE on the 1900mhz band.This configuration is capable of theoretical max of around 30mbps iirec. Sprint NV 2.0 is deployment of LTE on the 800mhz band using a 5x5 configuration as well. Only 80% of towers will be upgraded due to overlapping coverage in urban areas (see example of VZ blanket coverage above) or it's just in a rural area hat is quite flat and does not need it or some other reason. Then there is the strategic placement of Clearwires ultrahaxwtfxors 2.5ghz brs spectrum for high loads. This 20+20 configuration can have a theoretical max of something like 100mbps and is originally due to be deployed in high demand areas such as major metropolitan areas (NYC / SF/ LA/ cities like that) where theres are huge amounts of people utilizing the towers.

These 3 different options are killer. LTE 800mhz for coverage and penetration deep into structures. LTE 1900mhz for indivduals above ground or at home just milling about. LTE 2.5ghz for high demand areas with lots of people like center of cities or huge public events etc.

These three combos are a killer and is what scares ATT and VZ.