dalbrich

Spent some time recently in Billings MT. There are spots of Sprint LTE and native 3G. It all depends how close you are to the tower. Feels like a few protection sites but not full-build. i.e. Many places my phone showed Sprint native (LTE and 3G) where I could not place a call, send or receive a text or use data. Roaming data in Billings preferred Nemont, which worked fine. For my travel in and around Billings, I was pleased to see my phone roaming because it meant it was at least working. I am pleased to see the native service and hopeful it will improve over time. -Dan

Yeah, I was visiting family so didn't spend a lot of time looking (left to my own devices I would). What I did do is attempt phone calls to a test number from various parts of town. I usually call the Colorado NIST (check time). Lets me stay connected to an automated system without bugging a human. I also tested in-bound calls (I had two cells with me, one Verizon which worked fine) so I "called myself" repeatedly too. Anyway, failure rate for both inbound and outbound calls was about 90%. Data literally never worked, and SMS failed too. The phone reported 3G (EVDO) "Extended" I got one screenshot of the debug screen to see the SID and that it was PCS. In the old days Qwest operated a sort of OK, not awesome network there but it worked. I want to say it was PCS because in-building coverage wasn't so hot. Signal strengh (apparent) felt like the old Qwest system, but the old Qwest system worked.

Just a quick followup to my Billings visit and terrible Sprint roaming. I was there 5 days. I traveled over town. My experience wasn't limited to any one location. I was actively testing at different spots-- so, no air rave issue (or if so, doesn't account for other locations in town). I'll be curious if Sprke will be able to use his phone at all for any purpose save WiFi. It was really, really bad. I had better experiences back in the analog days roaming, no exaggeration. But let's see what the report is.

yes, very sorry about the typo. It is/was definitely 5320...

Our Sprint phone is my wife's and she's on another trip so I can't easily check the PRL version at the moment. I can say that I ran the ##UPDATE# and got a success message in a strong Sprint native area (Eugene, OR) before we left. I realize the PRL may have several entries by priority-- and I do assume that Verizon is one of them. Verizon being very strong in Montana. Anyway, default behavior was to connect to the busted SID... I have a screenshot of the debug screen if helpful. SID # was definitely 5230-- and no I couldn't find that one either. Someone in Howard Forums indicated it was formerly a Cellular One SID.

Just back from visiting Billings MT for a week. Our Sprint iPhone 6 roamed PCS on SID 5230. Worst cellular service I've ever experienced. Failure to complete or receive calls. Data didn't work at all despite the Sprint Extended 3G display. Outbound calls frequently failed after a short beep sound. Couldn't make SMS or iMessage work. No data of any kind. Weird and bad is what one sees there at the moment. This is a far cry from the days we had the old Qwest sites marked as native and much of Alltel marked as native. Roaming or no for billing sake, the network in Billings is very definitely broken. The only saving grace is we had WiFi much of the time, and enabled WiFi calling or it would of been even more ridiculous than it was. Anyway, sad to see things decline to the current level. -Dan