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Hey Pennsylvania, are you ready for some Sprint WiMax 4G?


Interesting choice for their roll-out.

For those not familiar, Lancaster, Reading, Harrisburg and York are in very rural areas. The closest densely populated area near them is Philadelphia. But that may be a good thing. If problems creep in, there are fewer people who will be affected (and less negative press to boot). And it will mean better coverage for other rural areas in the country since they would have worked out the details by the time they get it.

Sounds like Sprint has a plan. And you know: "I love it when a plan comes together." - Hannibal, A-Team

Rural, yes - but the I-83 corridor south of Harrisburg (especially the York area) is full of folks who commute daily to the Baltimore area, which was the first 4G market back in 2008. Now, all they gotta do is continue the 4G rollout in Maryland and you could have contiguous 4G coverage from DC to Harrisburg. I like it.

This part of PA is not "very" rural at all. It's actually very densely poplulated compared to most of the country. The average farm size is like 75 acres and a large mega farm around here is 300acres. I live in Lancaster, PA BTW. I also travel all over the country.

If you've ever traveled around here you'll notice it's hard to figure out when you've traveled from one town to the next, they all run together. As far as rural goes, this would be considered densely populated rural with tons of suburban.

I was hesitant to buy the 4G, but now dang, now i have to get it. :-)

um... I feel bad for you. There isn't much to do in harrisburg except go to hershey.

rural? I wouldn't say rural... More like small town

to me... They pi**ed me off about that because I just moved from there to florida this past january and not near miami or atlanta so I'm stuck with 3g,but still getting the evo.

they probably chose it because shentel paid for it and it's the best data market in shentel. Also they do very well in data there. I remember working in that markett for 5 years and they sold alot of data cards there compared to most other. Especially rural towns because dsl isn't everywhere and neither is cable so that's the perfect market to start. Reading is the store I used to work at and they did as good if not alittle better then some in king of prussia/philly for a while when I was working there for data.

to best explain it... Harrisburg and york are best shentel markets. Millersville/lancaster is a college wannabee town with amish values ( I hated millersville university of PA) so it attracts college kids and lancaster does ok on sales. Reading is very good at sales for data so can understand the reason they got in for there. Hershey and lebanon didn't get added because hershey is primary verizon network and lebanon is t-mobile. Also to consider, it's a connecting point between philly and pittsburg and baltimore

Harrisburg isn't that bad, if only because of the beer: Troegs Brewing makes many of my favorite brews. York is also pretty sweet, so long as you stay out of the "unsavory" areas. I cycle on all the backroads and the railtrail south of York and mtb around Lake Redman and in Codorus (which is more Hanover, which I was hoping would also get 4G :/). All in all, it's a great area.

Oh ok. I was wondering.... but still. Does this mean that the EVO will be $900 at retail? Man, that's a lot. I truly doubt that any phone could be $900 but if any phone could be that high then the EVO would be the one. We'll have the wait and see on May 12th. EVO FTW!!

It's been here in Philly for about 4 months now, fairly solid coverage. I get wonky service in my work, but the only people who get good service with cells in schools are the students anyways. Go figure.

@tallbruva "For those not familiar, Lancaster, Reading, Harrisburg and York are in very rural areas."

Man, those are all big cities. How about some love for Central PA? I swear I won't complain about occasional 4G outages as long as I can fall back to my current 1xRTT coverage. *sigh*

Look at that, I live in Queens, NYC but travel to Reading PA every two weeks to see my son. So I’ll have 4G over there too....Niiiice

@tallbruva "For those not familiar, Lancaster, Reading, Harrisburg and York are in very rural areas." READING Rural YEA right!!!!!!!!!! How can a city that was rated six most dangerous in US per capita be rural???? But i am Happy we are getting it this just makes my purchase of the EVO for a second phone behind my Palm PRE so much Better!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What exactly is the point of putting 4G coverage in amish country before the Lehigh Valley? You would think they would focus on metropolitan areas first rather then random cities.

I live in the Harrisburg area and I was a Sprint customer up until November when I switched to Verizon for the Droid. I would hope their 4G in the Lancaster, Reading, Harrisburg and York area is better than their 3G. The reason I left Sprint was because their 3G data coverage is VERY spotty in Harrisburg area including Lancaster and York. I cannot speak for Reading though. I had a Blackberry Curve 8330 with Sprint and my phone constantly went from 3G to 1X voice coverage while traveling throughout a 4 county region in Harrisburg, Lancaster and York. I can't imagine having a smartphone like my Droid on Sprint's network in this area. It would be impossible to use.

And I must say for Verizon, their 3G data & voice is flawless in the Harrisburg, Lancaster, York region! I haven't dropped a call on Verizons behalf and my 3G speeds are phenomenal on my Droid!

Verizon > Sprint in Harrisburg, Lancaster, York region.

the only reason why your phone did that is because your switching between shentel and sprint. Shentel has an invisable line at myerstown, pa( east of lebanon), elizabeth town(west of lancaster), and the york county line. That was always a problem there and totally understand your frustration. However, if it wasn't because of that inviable line, I'd point that verizon is not better then sprint. They are equal.

lehigh valley? Are you kidding me? All you have going there is I-78, lehigh hospital, and dorney park. Reading and york are large towns, and harrisburg is the capital. Lancaster is a tough one to explain but excited to visit home in july and test out the 4g.

So there must be some cell infrastructure in place to serve places like Ephrata over Allentown. That can be the only answer today. If you look at this population density map, density dictates the services in other areas first. But that clearly did not happen.


The idea is that Sprint/Verizon/etc would want to serve the most people with the least infrastructure. While York/Lancaster, et. al. may have a higher population, what is not in question is the density in these two areas. The poconos and the lehigh valley look to have a higher density than that of the central pa areas...

From a pure economic viewpoint, it's counter-intuitive to NOT serve a dense area with new technology. Wouldn't you?