I had blogged earlier that I didn't find much value in Sprint's 4G network because it's not that widely deployed and having 4G enabled is a major battery eater in the HTC EVO phone. 99% of the time I have 4G turned off on my phone.
However I have attended the last two Virginia Tech football games and at one of them I wished I had 4G and at the other I got value from it.
First one was a Thursday night game in Blacksburg. I quickly learned that when you are in a stadium with over 60,000 other people, probably 50% of them smart phone users, you may have full 3G signal but it's unusable simply because everyone else is also using it. The network is totally swamped. I had to wait until I got home after the game to upload my pictures, updates, etc to Facebook, ESPN Score center couldn't keep up, etc.
The next game was a Saturday in Chapel Hill. One difference between Chapel Hill and Blacksburg is that Chapel Hill has 4G coverage. Once again in Kenan Stadium I found the 3G network unsuable even though I had full bars. However in Chapel Hill, I turned on 4G and it was like having my own network. Fast, no failures, etc. Now because 4G is such a battery hog I turned it on when I wanted to use it and then back off until the next time I needed it. But I was able to upload pictures and updates, and get score updates on the ESPN app with no delay.
One reason for this is the better bandwidth of 4G but I think the bigger factor is that hardly anyone else has 4G yet, so the network was not loaded to any significant level. We'll see in a few years as more people move to 4G if this remains the case, but for now it's nice.
