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LTE Plus / Enhanced LTE (was "Sprint Spark" - Official Name for the Tri-Band Network)


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So let me ask it in a different way. For my situation my house is somewhat in between a triangle of three different towers. The closest is about 4' date='500ft away, the middle is 8,000ft and the furthest is 10,000ft. Is there any good way to determine if I can receive strong enough reception based on these distances? I'm trying to decide if I should switch from AT&T to Sprint. My wife is on Sprint and has not been happy with her service but I think with the improvements things are going to be much better. She still hasn't felt things are any better which is making me nervous so I'm trying to understand if part of the problem is that our house is just too far from nearby towers and short of Sprint building a new tower (not gonna happen), we won't ever really be happy with the performance.

 

Thanks.[/quote']

 

Two things. First, what is your average 1x signal strength? With that information I should be able to tell you whether you will get LTE at your home.

 

Second, personally I don't care whether I have LTE in my home. I care about whether I have LTE in the places I go. What are you going to use LTE for in your home?

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

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4500ft is less than 1 mile, and the other 2 are within 2 miles from your house. You should have excellent coverage. Unless of course your house framing is made of metal. Then that could really cause problems. One question: Can you see the closest tower from your house?

 

No, I live in a fairly wooded area so I certainly can't see anything close to that far. Perhaps if I was standing on my roof...

 

Two things. First, what is your average 1x signal strength? With that information I should be able to tell you whether you will get LTE at your home.

 

Second, personally I don't care whether I have LTE in my home. I care about whether I have LTE in the places I go. What are you going to use LTE for in your home?

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

 

You are correct, LTE in my house won't really matter since we have good internet. I was saying LTE more referring to my home celluar signal. My wife drops calls constantly and it hasn't really gotten any better. How can I check the 1x Signal Strength? Are you just referring to the number of bars? That is typically 1 or 2 bars for her phone. If there is some other way she has an Evo Shift.

 

Thanks.

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You are correct, LTE in my house won't really matter since we have good internet. I was saying LTE more referring to my home celluar signal. My wife drops calls constantly and it hasn't really gotten any better. How can I check the 1x Signal Strength? Are you just referring to the number of bars? That is typically 1 or 2 bars for her phone. If there is some other way she has an Evo Shift.

 

Thanks.

 

I need the 1x signal strength in dBms. Go into your phone dialer, enter ##DEBUG# Then go to 1x Engineering. Then there should be a number in there next to RSSI. Or you can download the CDMA Field Test App. Open it and get the number next to CDMA RSSI.

 

Robert

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I need the 1x signal strength in dBms. Go into your phone dialer, enter ##DEBUG# Then go to 1x Engineering. Then there should be a number in there next to RSSI. Or you can download the CDMA Field Test App. Open it and get the number next to CDMA RSSI.

 

Robert

 

My wife is out for a while but I'll try it later. Is that the code for the Evo Shift? I saw you post that for Galaxy type phones. Are they all the same? Thanks.

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My wife is out for a while but I'll try it later. Is that the code for the Evo Shift? I saw you post that for Galaxy type phones. Are they all the same? Thanks.

 

It's pretty much the same for all phones, except the Galaxy Nexus.

 

Robert

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If those bar on the phone are not data strength, in a way when you are near the tower and its 5 bar, then the LTE should be strong too in a way?

 

That would tend to be true -- but only if your LTE connection is coming from the same tower as your 1x connection. That may or may not be true in any specific case. It is less likely to be true today, when all towers handle 1x but only some handle LTE.

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If those bar on the phone are not data strength, in a way when you are near the tower and its 5 bar, then the LTE should be strong too in a way?

 

No. Not at all. There is a good chance you are not connected to the same tower for 1x and LTE. So, it is not likely for the signal to be the same. Also, even if you are connected to LTE and 1x from the same site, 1x signal goes quite a bit farther from the site than LTE. So the farther from the site, the more the discrepency in signal being indicated. For both of these factors, relying on the signal strength indicator to determine LTE signal strength is always a faulty proposition. Anytime it is correct, it is just a coincidence, in the way that even a broken clock shows the correct time twice per day.

 

Robert

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Thanks Robert. There is no app out there that can read data strength and put it at the top of the task bar?

 

No. I am not aware of anything. The limitation is in the Android API. Unless this changes in Key Lime.

 

Robert

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Does anyone remember how old Verizon phones showed two separate bars for "1X" and "EV"?

 

VZW practically had to have separate signal strength meters for CDMA1X and EV-DO because, in most markets, VZW initially deployed CDMA1X in Cellular 850 MHz and EV-DO in PCS 1900 MHz. Sprint, on the other hand, has always had both CDMA1X and EV-DO in PCS 1900 MHz, so separate meters have not been necessary.

 

AJ

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Thanks Robert. There is no app out there that can read data strength and put it at the top of the task bar?

 

I used to run a ROM that had an option to have the signal in dBm in the task bar in the place of bars.

 

It might have been CM9 or a mod... I can't recall.

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So, stock, your phone does not show LTE strength. What about in CM9/CM10? CM9/CM10 signal bars show data signal. Would your phone then show your LTE signal when you are connected?

 

Sent from my Evo 4G LTE going through AnthraX withdrawal!

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Thanks Robert. There is no app out there that can read data strength and put it at the top of the task bar?

 

No. I am not aware of anything. The limitation is in the Android API. Unless this changes in Key Lime.

 

Robert

 

The difficulty for an app developer is the lack of a standardized API within Android itself for LTE. It is possible to get LTE signal strength by means of trickier calls to workarounds to collect the data in the first place to support different devices. But the workarounds are there. Otherwise, for example, Sensorly could not harvest LTE signal strength data for its purposes of uploading data to the Sensorly site. About the only LTE-related data that is available is the fact that an LTE connection exists, and its signal strength.

 

[EDIT: I may be giving Sensorly too much credit here. I have read elsewhere that maybe the app only logs a Yes/No value for whether an LTE connection (or any other type of connection) exists for a particular timestamp and location. That is, Sensorly ignores signal strength values and plots an arbitrary fuzzy area around these points. So I need further research to be sure of what Sensorly itself really does.]

 

[EDIT: A subsequent release of Sensorly does collect signal strength data.]

 

AFAIK, there is no related detail available for LTE covering other elements such as an identifier for the tower radio and its location, as there is for CDMA and GSM. So it is the logging function (in Netmonitor, CDMA Field Test, etc.) that is crippled for LTE.

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So' date=' stock, your phone does not show LTE strength. What about in CM9/CM10? CM9/CM10 signal bars show data signal. Would your phone then show your LTE signal when you are connected?

 

Sent from my Evo 4G LTE going through AnthraX withdrawal![/quote']

 

That's a good question. Since CM doesn't support dialer codes and you cannot access your Debug Menu/Engineering screens, its going to be very difficult to confirm whether the CM signal strength indicator is valid for LTE. It will likely require a second LTE device for confirmation.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

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I need the 1x signal strength in dBms. Go into your phone dialer, enter ##DEBUG# Then go to 1x Engineering. Then there should be a number in there next to RSSI. Or you can download the CDMA Field Test App. Open it and get the number next to CDMA RSSI.

 

Robert

 

I got into the Engineering Screen and 1x Engineering. I didn't see anything for CDMI RSSI but I did see Rx Power. I'm assuming this is the same. For the few mins I had it open in bounced between -90 and -102 with the normal reading being between -95 and -98.

 

One other thing I saw was the Band # was Sleep Mode. Not sure if that is supposed to say that.

 

Thanks.

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I got into the Engineering Screen and 1x Engineering. I didn't see anything for CDMI RSSI but I did see Rx Power. I'm assuming this is the same. For the few mins I had it open in bounced between -90 and -102 with the normal reading being between -95 and -98.

 

One other thing I saw was the Band # was Sleep Mode. Not sure if that is supposed to say that.

 

Thanks.

 

You will likely be right on the edge of LTE 1900 service. But you will have a better LTE experience on LTE 800 when it gets deployed on your site.

 

You will probably see your LTE service go in and out inside your home, but will probably remain steady outside.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

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That's a good question. Since CM doesn't support dialer codes and you cannot access your Debug Menu/Engineering screens, its going to be very difficult to confirm whether the CM signal strength indicator is valid for LTE. It will likely require a second LTE device for confirmation.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

Don't the apps such as AnyCut and Quick Shortcut Maker work with the custom ROMs? These shortcut apps just bypass the dialer to launch all the same hidden utility apps.

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Don't the apps such as AnyCut and Quick Shortcut Maker work with the custom ROMs? These shortcut apps just bypass the dialer to launch all the same hidden utility apps.

 

It could be. However, the last time I tried back on CM7 and my OG EVO, I couldn't get anything to work.

 

Robert

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I am curious, how does the wimax devices like evo 4g/3d show both wimax and 1x signal in the status bar?

 

It would be up to the ROM developer (the OEM in the case of a stock ROM). On my old Epic 4G, using the stock ROM with Touchwiz interface, the Wimax signal was depicted with a little dynamic 4G icon that had a few concentric "radio-looking" waves emanating outward. Not very precise.

 

Under the hood, the phone had a dedicated Wimax API completely separate from the standard Android telephony API, and the special Wimax API made the signal diagnostics available to app developers. Of course, mostly only Sprint phones had Wimax, so apps would have to be written with that in mind.

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You will likely be right on the edge of LTE 1900 service. But you will have a better LTE experience on LTE 800 when it gets deployed on your site.

 

You will probably see your LTE service go in and out inside your home, but will probably remain steady outside.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

 

Thanks although the thing that does concern me more is the voice call performance. Is there any way through the engineering screen to determine if the tower has the new backhaul turned on?

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