For Sprint customers in Los Angeles, there's good news. Sprint in working on totally revamping all of its towers, sharing resources and deploying LTE as fast as they can.
Today, Sprint was not ready to make any announcements but they did let us try out a Samsung Galaxy Note II at Hollywood and Highland. We achieved speeds using the OpenSignal app as fast a 13Mbps down and 5.5Mbps uploading.
Los Angeles Sprint subscribers use 25% more data on average than the rest of the country. The terrain of Southern California also makes deployment more difficult. The same mountains that hold in the smog, also stop cell signals. The sprawling freeways require miles and miles of coverage.
As we discovered in our earlier LTE tests, time of day and network resources can affect data speeds. We tested the Sprint data network between one and two o'clock in the afternoon. Inside scores were lower. If you want the best speeds you are better off by a window.
Sprint Backhaul Overhaul
We also learned that major corridors are supplied first and then far-reaching areas are turned on.
Sprint has to be sure to get the permits at the various municipalities around the area.
Sprint spent over $153 on the overhaul in 2012 improving both 3G and 4G coverage. Last year, the average 3G data usage for Sprint customers increased by 14%. When the entire backhaul is overhauled 3G data customers will also see improvements in speed. Voices will sound cleaner with better coverage. Overall, the overhaul will mean a more reliable network.
The new towers will have the capability to switch traffic to different bands when needed for even better coverage. Besides that HD Voice
WiMAX will continue through 2015.
RootMetrics and OpenSignal averages for Sprint differ slightly. Sprint's LTE average download speeds according to Open Signal 7.7 Mbps while Root Metrics showed 10.3 Mbps nationally. Sprint advertises speeds of 6-8 Mbps.
We discovered, last year from our readers that there was quite a bit of Los Angeles LTE coverage including:
Here are the most reported areas in alphabetical order:
- Atwater Village.
- Alhambra.
- Arleta.
- Burbank - downtown near Olive Ave.
- Culver City
- Downtown L.A.
- East L.A. by 60 Freeway and Atlantic
- Gardena.
- Glendale - parts on and off.
- Korea Town.
- Hollywood and Highland.
- I-5 North.
- La Brea and Santa Monica Blvd.
- La Canada Flintridge.
- L.A./Larchmont Area around 3rd Street.
- Leimert Park.
- Lincoln Heights.
- Los Feliz.
- Marina Del Rey.
- North Hollywood (some parts).
- Norwalk.
- Pacoima.
- Pasadena (central) along Arroyo Pkwy.
- Studio City by Universal Studios & Forest Lawn.
- Santa Clarita.
- Silver Lake.
- Some parts of Van Nuys.
- Tarzana.
- Universal City (near Forest Lawn).
- Venice.
- West L.A.
- Westwood near UCLA.
- Whittier.
- Woodland Hills.
- Wilshire Center.
Overall AT&T and Verizon speeds can be faster depending on where you located and network conditions.