Disable EVDO or Prioritize LTE

[tracklife]

I'm in Houston where NV and Spark deployments are well underway.  I'd say things have overall improved drastically in Houston, but I'm still displeased with the performance of the network.

 

I bought the S4 L720T so I've been able to take advantage of bands 26 and 41 in some areas.  Band 41 is awesome:  45/15Mbps+ pretty consistently, and band 26 actually tends to outperform band 25.  I see about 18/7 on band 26 and about 8/3 on band 25 on average.  I assume that's because everyone has a band 25 -capable phone on Sprint these days, i.e. - band 25 is becoming saturated. 

 

All this is fine and well, but my issue is how and why (in a market so far along in NV/Spark) I'm constantly still being booted down to 3G.  Further, the wait time to get back on LTE seems to take forever, especially when I'm in the middle of something important and I'm dropped to 3G without (as it seems) any rhyme or reason.  The only fix seems to be the whole Airplane Mode switch, but that's just not an acceptable solution.

 

I would honestly rather have no connectivity for a few seconds than fall back to 3G and have to do the silly Airplane Mode switch when I'm inside a building or traveling throughout the city.  I've been patient sometimes, just to see how long it would take to go from 3G back to LTE.  After 10-or-so minutes of sitting on 3G, I just end up flipping the Airplane Mode switch and (strangely) I'm back on LTE with a decent signal.  Doesn't make sense...

 

There's a tower less than 500 yards from my house.  At home, often I get bumped from 26 (strong signal, fast speeds) to 25 (weak signal, slower speeds) and then sometimes to the dreaded 3G (strong signal, slow speeds, high latency).  I can't seem to figure out why.  I should be able to jump in my car and consistently tell Google, "navigate to XYZ" and not have to wait 30 seconds for the 3G network to handle it (or do an Airplane Mode switch and redo my command), especially with a tower so close to my house!

 

Is there a way to de-prioritize or disable EVDO while maintaining phone service capabilities?

 

I've played around with the Data Programming menu (##3282#) and can't seem to find anything that does that.  Setting the NextLTEScan Timer to 1 minute hasn't done anything in terms of at least improving the time I can automatically get back onto LTE when I've been pushed down to 3G.  I've also set it to LTE Only mode, but of course, I can't make phone calls, unless I use VoIP, but then lose 911 capability, so that's not an option.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

 

[dedub]

I wish there was a solution.

 

But I don't think there is.

 

Ideally the network itself would have better control over which tower and band you are connected to, but in my experience they either have yet to enable that functionality, or yet to optimize it so that it works as would be expected.

[S4GRU]

I'm in Houston where NV and Spark deployments are well underway.  I'd say things have overall improved drastically in Houston, but I'm still displeased with the performance of the network...

 

It will improve as Band 26 gets optimized.  Whenever you start to get a weak LTE signal, the network tries to find you somewhere to hand off to.  If it can't, you get sent back to 3G.  Band 26 downtilit needs to be adjusted, and the neighboring Cell ID's need to be better configured.  

 

Soon your device will be able to see LTE just about everywhere in the Houston area, and this will no longer be a problem.  But this optimization will likely take a few months.  So every little pocket will improve one by one as they track down the issues and work them out.

 

Robert

[mrknowitall526]

If NV is so prevalent there and so far along, shouldn't 3G be "good enough" for things like navigation, anyway?

[tracklife]

Yes, it works fine for general nav, but in my specific example, where I just want to use Google Now and then hit the road, it's highly frustrating waiting 30 seconds, and/or often having to redo the Google Now command a few times. I want the phone/features to work as they're supposed to. This example works perfectly when on LTE but very underwhelmingly on 3G. Casual Internet usage can drag on frustratingly as well in 3G. If I was in the middle of Nowhere, TX, no big deal; I just don't feel the frequency I've been pushed to 3G is acceptable in Houston. I'm on 3G and I can cycle the Airplane Mode, and what do you know?... There IS LTE available right here! Here too... Here too... Etc.

[S4GRU]

If NV is so prevalent there and so far along, shouldn't 3G be "good enough" for things like navigation, anyway?

I think the pausing when connecting to 3G and the difficulty in reobtaining LTE is the issue. If the transition to 3G was seamless or near seamless, and the reacquiring of LTE was as quick as it could be, I think the frustration would be much lower.

 

Yes, it works fine for general nav, but in my specific example, where I just want to use Google Now and then hit the road, it's highly frustrating waiting 30 seconds, and/or often having to redo the Google Now command a few times. I want the phone/features to work as they're supposed to. This example works perfectly when on LTE but very underwhelmingly on 3G. Casual Internet usage can drag on frustratingly as well in 3G. If I was in the middle of Nowhere, TX, no big deal; I just don't feel the frequency I've been pushed to 3G is acceptable in Houston. I'm on 3G and I can cycle the Airplane Mode, and what do you know?... There IS LTE available right here! Here too... Here too... Etc.

Now I remember something I should have said earlier...if you are actively streaming 3G data, it will not bump you back up into LTE when you come into range. It needs a sizable pause of inactivity to move you back to LTE.

 

This is also true of Verizon when on 3G and AT&T/Tmo on WCDMA. Devices don't want to hand up when you come back into LTE range when you are actively using data or in a continual data stream. You may be experiencing something much more than this, but I thought I should still at least mention this.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro