Samsung Galaxy S4T L720T [Trimode] User Discussion Thread

[SturgeonGeneral]

When i preorded the gs4 i was told by sprint it was triband.  Im pissed about that.  I know its not now but pissses me off when they released it

 

Buyer beware.  The more informed a buyer is, the happier they will be.

That's why I love this site:

 

This is a spec sheet for the tri-band GS4T  SPH-L720T  

 

http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=5202&view=1&c=samsung_sph-l720t_galaxy_s4_td-lte_samsung_altius

 

*T* being the tri-band component of the model number.

 

Scroll down to secondary cellular phone and you'll see:

LTE1900 (B25), LTE800 (B26), TD-LTE2500 (B41)

 

You can also compare to the plain GS4 SPH-L720 to see the differences.

 

PDADB.NET has the specs as reported from the manufacturer as gathered by us tech geeks that monitor these things as opposed to too many SALESPEOPLE that seem to only want a short term commission no matter what and don't plan on having the job by the time you figure out you've been screwed.

[SturgeonGeneral]

Is this zip flashable to a regular device?

 

 

Don't get too antsy to install it.  I've heard more complaints than praise from the plain S4 owners that have it so far.

[SturgeonGeneral]

Anyone else get their rebate declined?

 

https://www.sprintrebates.com/

 

 

Another development.  Without me having had a chance to do anything yet, I get another email today saying my rebate has now been approved.

 

Someone must have realized the mistake.  Good news.

[tampaflusa]

My phone will not automatically switch to LTE when it drops to 3G whatsoever. I have to toggle airplane to get back to 4G. I've waited more than a half hour to see if it would automatically switch once I'm in a LTE area. The BSR timer is at 5 so that's not it. Can it be a eCSFB issue because it seems to happen on a tower where I've had LTE with my EVO LTE but not with the S4T, but I don't know if that would prevent it from connecting to LTE once I'm in a LTE area. Anyone?

[SturgeonGeneral]

My phone will not automatically switch to LTE when it drops to 3G whatsoever. I have to toggle airplane to get back to 4G. I've waited more than a half hour to see if it would automatically switch once I'm in a LTE area. The BSR timer is at 5 so that's not it. Can it be a eCSFB issue because it seems to happen on a tower where I've had LTE with my EVO LTE but not with the S4T, but I don't know if that would prevent it from connecting to LTE once I'm in a LTE area. Anyone?

 

 

eCSFB issues would be a good place to start.  They *definitely* affect the Tri-Band S4.

 

Omaha is in the middle of a flurry of new LTE tower activations so I'll start with what I am seeing.  When a tower here is activated for LTE, there is some sort of eCSFB initialization process that occurs.

 

That process takes anywhere from 6-72 hours.  During that time, if my S4 Galaxy Tri-Band sees one of those towers, it will seem to "crash out" my LTE connection.

 

I use "crash" for lack of a better term because from the user's point of view, it acts like the LTE comms software in the phone stops working and needs to be reset.

 

I have to do one of the resets (namely A. disable / reenable radios via airplane mode or B. a phone reboot or C. a PRL update) in order to get it to search for an LTE connection again.  If it still sees the same tower, it will crash again.

 

Once I leave the coverage area of the initializing tower, the phone reverts to normal and will again pick up the other towers that have completed the initialization process.

 

If you have a tower that failed this process near where you are having the problem, or if there are a lot of towers being set up in the area, you could easily see this problem for weeks until the towers are completely online.

 

There may be a way to overcome this on "LTE only" mode but I haven't had the opportunity (or pressing need) to try it out yet since I just found the LTE only setting last week and have only encountered one new tower in my travels since then and didn't have time to stop and play with it.

 

Having said that, how long has this tower been causing you problems?  The longest time I have seen here is over a long weekend - 72 hours.  I haven't proven it, but I suspect a couple towers around here have also been reset once or twice since their initial setup.

 

I'm not familiar with the EVO LTE.  Is it tri-band?  Does it have some sort of SVLTE where it doesn't rely on the eCSFB system?

 

Hope this helps.

[tampaflusa]

I did more testing and what you said is happening to my Samsung S4T (I had a EVO LTE as my previous phone btw). My phone S4T easily switches to 4G when I leave coverage areas but certain towers seem to stop my phone from scanning LTE connections. I've only identified 3 so far in my metro area. I have to toggle like you said to reconnect to LTE but only when I'm near those towers.

[SturgeonGeneral]

I did more testing and what you said is happening to my Samsung S4T (I had a EVO LTE as my previous phone btw). My phone S4T easily switches to 4G when I leave coverage areas but certain towers seem to stop my phone from scanning LTE connections. I've only identified 3 so far in my metro area. I have to toggle like you said to reconnect to LTE but only when I'm near those towers.

 

 

If it's an initialization problem, it should go away at the affected towers within a few days and it should then act normally around that location.

 

If it doesn't go away within a week, and if your market is officially "launched", then you should be able to start calling and filing help tickets that will cause the local maintainers to come out and see what's going on.

 

Lincoln and Omaha should both launch before May, but until that happens, we're not officially getting a signal and can't do anything productive about problems and outages.

 

I don't know if your market has a similar thread, but this is what our tracking thread looks like:

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4711-nebraska-iowa-market-spreadsheets-and-maps/

[shamrock 505]

Does anyone the status of csfb updates in 18503-Scranton pa-trying to avoid s4T problems-lte coverage isn't full yet-thanks

 

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

 

[mikejeep]

Does anyone the status of csfb updates in 18503-Scranton pa-trying to avoid s4T problems-lte coverage isn't full yet-thanks

 

Please don't post the same message all over the place.. I understand what you're doing, but keep the discussion in one spot. You're asking a network/CSFB/market question, not a device question.

 

-Mike

[SturgeonGeneral]

Does anyone the status of csfb updates in 18503-Scranton pa-trying to avoid s4T problems-lte coverage isn't full yet-thanks

 

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

I think you've overreacted.

 

ecsfb initialization "problems" are tower specific and nothing more than a minor annoyance since they are so easy to overcome with a radio reset I've toy leave the area. 3g still works inside the area of influence.

 

It generally only effects the limited area inside the coverage range of any given tower once, for 6-72 hours at the time the LTE is first activated. Once the tower is up and running after that time frame, that tower's primary coverage area is done with problems unless there is a technical failure later.

 

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

 

 

[shamrock 505]

Thanks-had T-Mobile and didn't have to deal with this nonsense-appreciate the help

 

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

 

[tampaflusa]

Kit Kat pushed to my phone this morning. I guess I'll update, just worried it might be buggy.

[gr8nuguy]

 

I'm not familiar with the EVO LTE.  Is it tri-band?  

its a single band device, one of the first, if not first LTE device for sprint from HTC. Its a big joke it has LTE in its name as its very very very poor at picking up and maintaining lte connections. 

[tampaflusa]

Kit Kat update: so far so good. Still slight lag when scrolling through my apps. Also a slight concern is it holds on to Band 41 much longer now, before it would switch about -110 now it switches about -118 which by that point the data is almost unusable even though band 25 has a strong stable signal in the same area. I'll keep testing but overall it picks up a stronger band 41 which is a good thing unless the signal is weak.

[SturgeonGeneral]

Kit Kat update: so far so good. Still slight lag when scrolling through my apps. Also a slight concern is it holds on to Band 41 much longer now, before it would switch about -110 now it switches about -118 which by that point the data is almost unusable even though band 25 has a strong stable signal in the same area. I'll keep testing but overall it picks up a stronger band 41 which is a good thing unless the signal is weak.

 

I didn't know that.

 

Is signal cutoff really determined in the OS or is that determined in the PRL or elsewhere?

 

Are there hidden settings that can override that sort of thing?

[mikejeep]

Is signal cutoff really determined in the OS or is that determined in the PRL or elsewhere?

 

Are there hidden settings that can override that sort of thing?

It is part of the baseband (radio software). Nothing you can do to change it other than flashing a different baseband version.

 

-Mike

[oriosmit]

Hey guys. New user here. I've tried reading as much as I could on the csfb Network forum along with this user forum. So I apologize for missing info. ..

 

While traveling through the St Paul Minneapolis area along with most of Wisconsin and the rest of Minnesota when I fall off 4g to 3g I either do not have a data connection or it takes an incredibly long time to "connect." I use signal check and can see the phone sending, but not receiving. Signal strength is great on the shown 1x and ehrpd. What's going on here? Is this part of the ecsfb fall back not working?

 

2. According to my battery stats it says my wifi is on all the time. But I have it tuned off. Ignore or issue?

 

Thanks for any help guys!

[tampaflusa]

Hey guys. New user here. I've tried reading as much as I could on the csfb Network forum along with this user forum. So I apologize for missing info. ..While traveling through the St Paul Minneapolis area along with most of Wisconsin and the rest of Minnesota when I fall off 4g to 3g I either do not have a data connection or it takes an incredibly long time to "connect." I use signal check and can see the phone sending, but not receiving. Signal strength is great on the shown 1x and ehrpd. What's going on here? Is this part of the ecsfb fall back not working?2. According to my battery stats it says my wifi is on all the time. But I have it tuned off. Ignore or issue?Thanks for any help guys!

I know that under wifi you have to go to advanced settings and uncheck always always scanning. I had the same issue.

[oriosmit]

I know that under wifi you have to go to advanced settings and uncheck always always scanning. I had the same issue.

 

Sweet. Thanks! You'd think off is off. Oh well.

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

 

 

[SturgeonGeneral]

 

...when I fall off 4g to 3g I either do not have a data connection or it takes an incredibly long time to "connect."

 

I use signal check and can see the phone sending, but not receiving. Signal strength is great on the shown 1x and ehrpd. Is this part of the ecsfb fall back not working?

 

 

As I understand it, once you fall off lte 4g, ecsfb is no longer relevant as you've already "fallen back" onto the same frequencies as voice.

 

ecsfb on some newly activated or reset towers can cause confusion and 'crashes' as discussed above in this thread. The problem, whatever it is, only seems to delay or block returns to lte. 3g didn't seem to be affected.

 

I recall no reports of what you're describing. Drops from lte to 3g always seem to be fast and near transparent.

 

You may be describing a new problem with unknown causes.

 

 

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

 

 

[Deval]

When i preorded the gs4 i was told by sprint it was triband.  Im pissed about that.  I know its not now but pissses me off when they released it

 

When did you preorder it?

 

If this was early 2013, it couldn't have been tri-band, devices didn't exist at the time.

[Marv1]

How come Sprint reps over the phone are saying the single band S4 is Spark compatible? I called Sprint last weekend to renew my discount. I asked about Spark, and the "T" model S4. The rep said my single band is Spark capable. I said no it isn't. I mentioned the tri-band S4, and the rep had no clue what I was talking about.

 

If you go on the Sprint website, there's an S4 on sale for $49.99, and looking at the specs, it shows Spark. Is that the tri-band S4 on sale, or is that the single band S4? I think 1 or 2 members on here, and many on Sprint forums ordered, and was upset the didn't get the tri-band S4. 

[Deval]

How come Sprint reps over the phone are saying the single band S4 is Spark compatible? I called Sprint last weekend to renew my discount. I asked about Spark, and the "T" model S4. The rep said my single band is Spark capable. I said no it isn't. I mentioned the tri-band S4, and the rep had no clue what I was talking about.

 

If you go on the Sprint website, there's an S4 on sale for $49.99, and looking at the specs, it shows Spark. Is that the tri-band S4 on sale, or is that the single band S4? I think 1 or 2 members on here, and many on Sprint forums ordered, and was upset the didn't get the tri-band S4. 

 

That's the tri-band, not the single band.

 

As far as I know, the single-band S4 is no longer available to purchase. 

[Marv1]

That's the tri-band, not the single band.

 

As far as I know, the single-band S4 is no longer available to purchase. 

 

 

Gotcha. I was confused myself. For those of you with the tri-band, who had the single band S4, hows your experience so far? I've read the phone is useless if you're not in a market that has all 3 bands.

[Deval]

Gotcha. I was confused myself. For those of you with the tri-band, who had the single band S4, hows your experience so far? I've read the phone is useless if you're not in a market that has all 3 bands.

 

It's definitely NOT useless. We know the 800mhz and 2.5ghz LTE are coming soon, so if you're buying into a phone for the next two years, it is not useless at all.