Owners of the HTC EVO 4G LTE or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus can now enjoy 4G LTE speeds in Kansas City – this makes sense, since this is where Sprint’s headquarters are located. Might as well let the head honchos be some of the first to get some LTE action.
Previously, even though LTE was deployed in the area, Sprint was blocking handsets from connecting to the LTE network. There are several speculations as to why: some say that additional network testing was needed, while others blamed a little-known bug in the EVO 4G LTE’s radio. Most likely, it’s a combination of both, as the latest OTA update for the EVO included a new radio that very well might fix whatever LTE bug was present in the previous version.
If you’re in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio, Sprint has already announced that LTE will go live on July 15. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if you get it a bit early, as well.
If you’re in Kansas City or the surrounding area, be sure to let us know if LTE is live for you. Heck, you can even give us some speed test results, if you want.
[S4GRU]
What I really want to know from people in these markets that get turned on is what it does to your battery life.
I’ve been pretty pleased with the battery life so far but I can’t feel truly comfortable with having a fixed battery till I know what LTE will do to it.
Yeah, that’s what I want to know too… I hope it doesn’t impact the battery life like the 4G on the OG EVO did. I’ve heard it’s not supposed to have that big of an impact, but I guess I’ll see for myself on or around 7/15 (ATL).
I’m in the Kc area not far from headquarters and I have had 4g off and on for the past 2 weeks. It is incredibly fast (4500-5500kbps download) and my battery hasn’t been any worse that I have noticed.
Great, thanks for the information Patrick!
This speed is not what I was expecting. With my Evo 3D 4G Wimax “Hack” in ATL i get 3-8mbps down…..tethered. This Gives me more reason to wait
As a Matter of Fact….Take that EVO LTE speed
http://via.me/-3168vxk
Thank you guys for the update. I am in the KC area and just noticed my 4G was live..
Jonathan – can you post back later after you’ve played around with the LTE and let us know how the LTE impacted your battery life and what speeds you were getting?
Yeah I can definitely do that. I will be doing some tests once I leave work and will definitely post the results..
Thanks. I look forward to seeing your results. I’m also curious how the 4G reception is in buildings. I wonder if it’s more consistent than 3G? I work in a large building that’s surrounded by two other large buildings. You can imagine what that does to my 3G signal.
I’ve got a Galaxy Nexus and I changed the Network Mode to LTE + CDMA yesterday. I’ve been getting 4G connection on and off. The phone mostly stays on 3G. I also tried with an LG Viper 4G and got the same results. Not sure if Sprint is doing that intentionally to test or if both the phones have some problem with them. Both phones are brand new.
I’m in Houston, with my EVO LTE and the 4g appears to be alive and kickin! Im in my office building and am getting a a strong signal with speed that rivals my wifi at home.
I switched my signal option to LTE+CDMA once I read this artical and I was getting an intermittent 4g signal around noon and since about 2pm, the 4g signal has been running smoothly.
It’s up and running in Dallas.
What speeds are people getting on LTE??
Live in Independence, I got LTE long enough to see it switch from 3g to LTE on the notification bar up top. I was in power and light area. Kinda sucked. I imagine you have to be in the Sprint center or out by their HQ to get anything good.
I was at my son’s swim champs in Mission Hills, Kansas (in kansas city) and i noticed sprint sponsored the champs, so me being curious i turned on my 4g on my evo..and man was it fast! I was so impressed!
I’m about 20 minutes south of KC and about the same away from Sprint City. I’ve had my 4g on all day and it is spotty to say the least and comes on about every hour … Works for about 30 seconds then goes off. Not even on long enough to do a speed test. Hopefully fully working by the 15th.
I got 25.76 mb download here in Dallas.
San Antonio up and running but spotty. When it is on damn it is FAST.
Hopefully Puerto Rico isn’t too far behind, time to dive back into S4GRU and see if there’s any news on deployment down here. Last I heard they were saying August/Sept.
Ok so my 4G hasnt stayed on long enough for me to do any test or to give a real opinion on how the speeds really are… I miss my old 4G network with my Evo 3D
It’s up in Atlanta as well..
LTE was up for a few minutes for me in ATLANTA, too bad it didn’t stick…
Tweet and Photo!
https://twitter.com/DancinDirk/status/224318783261638658
How do I turn my HTC LTE 4G on?
Ive selected it in the Settings>Network>CDMA/LTE and through the programming menu choosing LTE Only.
Is there something else I need to turn on? I drove around all wknd throughout KC to hit it and never once did I hit a 4G signal.
Ditto…I’ve never seen my LTE come on. I drive all over KC and the phone seems to always be in 3G. And yes, I verified I was in CDMA/LTE mode.
LTE in KC is spotty at best. My ASSUMPTION is the network isn’t completely rolled out yet en mass. HOWEVER, when I was able to connect, it is very fast. Over off of 75th and I – 35 the service was full bars 4G. In Grandview, it’s there but spotty and in Belton it’s full bars.
While at church off of 55th and 71 Hwy it’s spotty as well.