I never really understood...What Causes Sprint phones to drop calls so much??

I've had Sprint for a while and travel a lot, and in the last 3 years I don't think I've dropped more than 4 calls. - sheureka

 

Same here Sheureka, though i've had dropped calls, it's happen pretty much where there is fringe coverage not only for Sprint, but also for Verizon and T-Mobile and other carriers, it all depends on your location, a carrier that does well in one area can be really bad in another, but i'm sure you already know that........ if only all carriers had the perfect network.

 

I rarely ever have dropped calls with Sprint. That's mostly just an old myth spread around by Verizon users/employees.

 

I drop calls all the time with sprint. It's because they found out I got a job as a verizon agent.

 

As with any carrier it all depends on where you use the phone. If you live in a well built out market (like I do) this is not a problem.

 

Larry=correct.

 

Yes I admit that it seems to be a perception among many people. But I just haven't seen it myself. Everyone that I know who uses Sprint is happy with the service. I think a lot of it is exaggeration. It could also be a lot of bitterness that still exsists towards Sprint from 3 or 4 years back when they REALLY were bad in many markets. I also think the consumer reports study is very flawed and biased. Our local newspaper here in Orange County (The OC Register) just rated Sprint first ahead of all the other carriers in a drive test they conducted.

PS. Matt lives in the Columbus, OH area and has had good results with Sprint.

 

Yeah, I have never dropped a call with Sprint in Columbus that wasn't my fault (I covered up my antenna with my shoulder). Things should even get better...I am moving next month and my new place is at most 1/10th of a mile from a Sprint tower.

 

Good point, I forgot to mention I plastered my phone in antenna boosters, lol.

 

If the network is not properly deployed, it will drop calls regardless of what company it is or what technology it uses. It is no secret that all companies have their weak areas.

 

I spend a good bit of time in the columbus area and find Verizon to be alrgiht, but not excellent there. They are the only ones in Ohio with a good footprint (besides i guess alltel) in the rural areas, but my perception has always been that sprint was fine on 71, 70 etc.. and in columbus.

 

I travel through Columus all of the time and never drop a call...then again I am always on 70 and 71 going to Cleveland. The only thing that irks me is that here in Indiana we don't have day-light savings time...thus going to Chicago (different time zone) and traveling to Ohio (essentially a different time zone beacause of day-light savings) my coverage blanks for about a half mile to a mile on the interstate while traveling into a 'new' time zone. I really don't care if the time stamp on my phone is correct...I just want consistant coverage.

Man...hope that makes sense...I am still sleepy.

 

i actually used to get the same complaint from sprint users here, but now the complaints are ALL from Att users in the area. sprint seems to have gotten better here.

 

Agreed, A friend of mine has Sprint and I have had way more dropped calls with ATT lately. However sometimes when I talk to my Sprint friend there is an echo, not really sure what that is.

 

that echo is your ATT network working for you.

 

You would think but it only happens when I call a sprint phone. Might just be his phone though, I don't have many Sprint friends. Another problem he has, sometimes if you call his phone you will just get a fast busy signal, no ring, no VM. Not sure if these are common problems.

 

For the most part, my reception is pretty good, yet there are some days my phone wont maintain a signal and the call will be dropped. I have noticed that the problem wasnt a major one with the Sanyo 4900. I now use the i500 and there is no guarantee that I can make it to the Walmart DVD section without my calls dropping.

 

I have the same problem. When people call me, especially after 9PM, sometimes people get a fast busy, or no ring at all. I turned off my phone and tried calling several times and 4 out of 10 times I got a fast busy. The other 6 times I got my voicemail. It seems that is some issue with their switch being too busy or something because by turning off my phone I rule out the possibility that is an issue with my phone or with signal reception. I have to complain to Cingular about this.

 

I think that's an issue with the network being overloaded. Sprint became too popular too fast and their network was not built out enough to handle the customers.

This seemed to be the problem in the dallas area for some time. For a while...everyone I knew had sprint(mainly because at the time they were pushing "no contracts" which I love). Then voicestream came out and everyone I knew switched to them. It seemed like they really built their network well in dallas before launching. Everyone I knew loved voicestream..and most still have it today. In fact, if my work wasnt in the boonies, I wouldve gotten service through them...but for now im satisfied with verizon. Now I do think sprint has really gotten their act together over the past couple of years over here...because I have friends that recently switched back and they say its much improved. Im not up to date on their status as far as offering sms text...but that's whats holding lots of people my age back from going to sprint. ppl love to text.

 

I sit here reading this thread and I'm boggled why more people aren't asking why AT&T always drops calls. It seems that I am the ONLY one left in the entire world who doesn't complain about this company. I swear, it must be a phenomenon, a mistake, some weird mishap! I understand that their entire TDMA is degrating and falling apart (and truly I think it is, I think that their sound quality is a rustic piece of junk) but their GSM continues to improve though. At least, I've seen improvement since when I bought my phone.

Anyway, back to the real point of this thread, my relatives own Sprint PCS phones. They say that it works excellent in Florida, so yes I'm kind of under the influence that these biased reports about Sprint PCS are really screwing with people's minds as said before. They're doing anything they can to turn everyone's heads toward Verizon even if it takes lying about other companies. I mean, last year when I read the Consumer Reports for cell phones they were comparing AT&T's Regional Plans (which weren't even existant anymore) to Verizon's America's Choice and they claimed that AT&T was more expensive and didn't give as much coverage area in their plans as Verizon. That's total BS, you just can't do that, it's incorrect. AT&T has national plans you know.

Oh well, I guess that's the way the world works. If biases and lies didn't exist there would be no more politicians left in the world .

 

My brother left Verizon for getting $200+ bill becuase of their billing problems and would not credit him, so he went to Sprint. Now his dropped calls are over 3 a day

I told him if you go with Sprint that will probably happen unless you are in a good market with them. He feals it a good trade off he had to pay 175 to termination plus over 300 in the past two months over his $40 bill. now pays $50 a month with Sprint.

 

I've found out that in my market, the sprint affiliate shares some towers with verizon in some areas (although they do own a few themselves) and that part of the drop call problem i had was spacing designed for 800 not working so well for 1900.


It explains a lot actually.

 

1900 MHZ

 

1900 MHZ = PCS

 

I was with Sprint for about 5 years, and recently (Feb. 2004) left them to go to T-Mobile. For the most part I am happy. However, I am now wondering if I should think about switching to Verizon when my contract is up next spring. One of the issues that I had here in Tucson is that whoever I tried, I had problems with at either my home or work.
Verizon-Works poorly at work, and only in Analog at home
Sprint-Tower on my roof here at home, dropped calls and missed calls at work,
Alltel-Decent at work, only analog at home
T-Mobile-Great at home, decent at work.

If I were to find out that I would be able to move to a location that has good verizon service, I would definitely do it. I think they have a great network in Arizona, just not so good here at my house.

The point of this thread was that I had the same problems with dropped calls that people talk about with sprint. Though, I know that a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was using poor phones (Nokia 6185, Startac, Timeport). But then, i switched to Sanyo phones and still got dropped calls occasionally. In a last ditch effort to stay with sprint, i switched to the Nokia 3185 because I heard it had good RF, but actually had more dropped calls at work than with the Sanyo 8100. The funniest thing that just "sealed the deal" for me was that I was on the phone with CUstomer Care at my work and was just finishing up the call to them about cancelling my account, when the call dropped. You talk about ironic, I don't think you could get more. I tried to call them back and got the "to activate your new SPCS phone" message, so I knew that it had gone through.

 

Does he live in Utah also?