Official Airave 4 LTE / Casa Pebble / Airave 3 LTE / S1000 Thread

[SeanK_]

The eero also doesn't like my Airave either. That's why I removed it off the network. 

[jtrotter54]

I'm being told that if I'm not in a Magicbox area (which I'm not), the Airave 4 will not work. The new A4 configuration requires the same setup as the Magicbox. Even though the Airave availability site says it should work, they're telling me it's for prior versions. Frustrating, I'll be returning it, thank you all for your help!

[belusnecropolis]

50 minutes ago, jtrotter54 said:

I'm being told that if I'm not in a Magicbox area (which I'm not), the Airave 4 will not work. The new A4 configuration requires the same setup as the Magicbox. Even though the Airave availability site says it should work, they're telling me it's for prior versions. Frustrating, I'll be returning it, thank you all for your help!

Have you tried a different carrier?

[jtrotter54]

2 hours ago, belusnecropolis said:

Have you tried a different carrier?

might be my only option for house reception, I'll still need some type of gadget though

[red_dog007]

Does Sprint still do free WiFi routers?

[preskitt.man]

Have an Airave 3.  Actually gave up on it about a year ago for wifi calling.  WiFi calling works fine for my GS8. Worked even better for me when Sprint introduced VoLTE in my area. UNTIL the PIE update. Long story short, GS8 under PIE get it's location from nearest CELL tower. If there is no cell tower (or at least one in range), get "Location unavailable" and no wifi calling. My home is basically on the outer fringes of cell tower reception. Often times 1 bar, but often 0. Had my call disconnects when this happens. Brilliant! Talked to Sprint -they are aware of the issue, but no fix for it.

So brought out the A3 again, hooked it (just another device behind the router) and it works fine. Was sort of hoping that maybe VoLTE would work with it - no it doesn't. (And btw, wifi calling doesn't work at all when A3 turned on).

So, now I see that the A4 is out. What will the A4 get me that the A3 doesn't.  I don't care about the lack on WiFi on the device. And don't really care/need the additional number of concurrent connections. Things that I would like to have:
1) Better voice quality
2) Ability to do voice and data concurrently (VoLTE and/or WiFi calling)

The smaller size is not critical to my needs, but nice.

I suppose a MB would work for me if it supported VoLTE, but my reading suggests it doesn't, plus, according to Sprint Web Site, MB is not supported where I live.

[Brad The Beast]

13 minutes ago, preskitt.man said:

I suppose a MB would work for me if it supported VoLTE, but my reading suggests it doesn't, plus, according to Sprint Web Site, MB is not supported where I live.

If the Magic Box isn't available where you live then the Airave 4 isn't either. 

[preskitt.man]

Really? I thought the A4 was basically an upgraded experience to the A3 - a femto cell tower that generates a cell signal with backhaul over the internet, where the MB was basically a signal amplifier - taking an existing tower signal, and regenerating it for local consumption?

So, just out of curiosity, if nothing else, were it available, relative to what I'm looking for, would it meet those requirements: Basically VoLTE or at least enhanced voice quality. 

[Brad The Beast]

9 minutes ago, preskitt.man said:

So, just out of curiosity, if nothing else, were it available, relative to what I'm looking for, would it meet those requirements: Basically VoLTE or at least enhanced voice quality. 

No VoLTE yet. 

[ingenium]

Really? I thought the A4 was basically an upgraded experience to the A3 - a femto cell tower that generates a cell signal with backhaul over the internet, where the MB was basically a signal amplifier - taking an existing tower signal, and regenerating it for local consumption?
So, just out of curiosity, if nothing else, were it available, relative to what I'm looking for, would it meet those requirements: Basically VoLTE or at least enhanced voice quality. 

VoLTE technically works on the MB and Airave 4 if you force the phone to ignore the whitelist (only possible on a rooted Pixel 3 running Pie. Not possible in 10). But they haven't been whitelisted the devices yet. It's hypothesized that there is a whitelist of TACs that have VoLTE. So all Sprint needs to do is push a TAC change to the femtos. From a software perspective, they're ready (other than the relay link on the MB not being prioritized).

VoLTE 100% does not work on an Airave 3, even forced, because the final update for the device broke IMS. The 3 shouldn't be used with any device that uses IMS (ie, any VoLTE device), because it will break SMS as well. This also includes pre SRLTE devices (2016 era and earlier, any device that uses eCSFB).

Your only real solution is to use wifi calling and wait for an update to fix the location issue. Wifi calling is identical quality to VoLTE (they're the same system).

That's weird and unfortunate that Samsung tied it to your location like that, and broke the location. I'm surprised it doesn't just use what cached/most recent location from Google Play Services. In one of your previous messages, you said the call drops when the signal goes to 0. You mean it drops when you're on the macro network on a call, right? Or are you saying that it drops on wifi calling when it loses the tower signal?

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[preskitt.man]

I mean I lose the call (or the wifi calling service if I'm not on a call) when the phone loses contact with the tower.  When the A3 is turned on, wifi calling does not work. The icon for wifi calling shows up but calls do not connect - they immediately disconnect. When I talked to Sprint about wifi calling and location services (without the A3 in the picture), I was told on the one hand they were aware of the problem, but also told on the other hand that the July update (which I got in early August (and the August and September updates subsequent to that) was supposed to fix the problem. It obviously didn't - at least not for me.  Sprint then suggested I do a complete reset of settings (not a factory reset). I did that that, but the problem persists.

I am going to all Sprint and see if they will upgrade my A3 for A4.  I would like to see, if nothing else, if that would allow me use wifi calling. My thought is the phone would see the A4 as a tower, thus satisfying location services. We'll see what Sprint says.

[preskitt.man]

Ok - so I called Sprint today.  They are going to ship out an Airave 4.  Didn't give me any issues or concerns about my location, other than asking me to confirm my physical address.  They did ask why I don't use WiFi calling. Told them why and agreed that was a problem.

I'll update later as to my experience with the A4.

[preskitt.man]

So my Airave 4 arrived and I connected it. After hours I am left with this situation

1) The WAN, L-NET, GPS, and LTE lights are solid green
2) The C-NET and CDMA lights cycle between flashing red or just off
3) I have an LTE signal (no VoLTE), and get about 70 Mbs down when near the device
4) My WiFi calling works nicely through out the house as it always sees an LTE tower for GPS location
5) No CDMA signal (see #2 above), but can live with that as WiFI calling now works reliably

The curious thing is when I went to do Port Forwarding to open the ports, there are two devices showing up. One with a MAC ID of 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:26 and the other with 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:27.  Curiously, my ASUS router identified the 26 devices as XEROX CORPORATION, but didn't do an identification for the 2nd box. Online reference shows they both belong to Airspan.  Anyhow, the question is, to which device do I forward the ports 53, 67, 500, and 4500.  Right now, I have them all forwarded to the 27 device. I'm wondering if two of the ports are for the CDMA tunnel and two for the LTE tunnel and to split the forwarding up in some manner. On the A3, I only saw one device and forwarded all ports to that device.

Edited October 12, 2019 by preskitt.man

[Brad The Beast]

3 hours ago, preskitt.man said:

So my Airave 4 arrived and I connected it. After hours I am left with this situation

1) The WAN, L-NET, GPS, and LTE lights are solid green
2) The C-NET and CDMA lights cycle between flashing red or just off
3) I have an LTE signal (no VoLTE), and get about 70 Mbs down when near the device
4) My WiFi calling works nicely through out the house as it always sees an LTE tower for GPS location
5) No CDMA signal (see #2 above), but can live with that as WiFI calling now works reliably

The curious thing is when I went to do Port Forwarding to open the ports, there are two devices showing up. One with a MAC ID of 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:26 and the other with 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:27.  Curiously, my ASUS router identified the 26 devices as XEROX CORPORATION, but didn't do an identification for the 2nd box. Online reference shows they both belong to Airspan.  Anyhow, the question is, to which device do I forward the ports 53, 67, 500, and 4500.  Right now, I have them all forwarded to the 27 device. I'm wondering if two of the ports are for the CDMA tunnel and two for the LTE tunnel and to split the forwarding up in some manner. On the A3, I only saw one device and forwarded all ports to that device.

As far as I know you don't need to open any ports. 

[lilotimz]

So my Airave 4 arrived and I connected it. After hours I am left with this situation
1) The WAN, L-NET, GPS, and LTE lights are solid green
2) The C-NET and CDMA lights cycle between flashing red or just off
3) I have an LTE signal (no VoLTE), and get about 70 Mbs down when near the device
4) My WiFi calling works nicely through out the house as it always sees an LTE tower for GPS location
5) No CDMA signal (see #2 above), but can live with that as WiFI calling now works reliably
The curious thing is when I went to do Port Forwarding to open the ports, there are two devices showing up. One with a MAC ID of 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:26 and the other with 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:27.  Curiously, my ASUS router identified the 26 devices as XEROX CORPORATION, but didn't do an identification for the 2nd box. Online reference shows they both belong to Airspan.  Anyhow, the question is, to which device do I forward the ports 53, 67, 500, and 4500.  Right now, I have them all forwarded to the 27 device. I'm wondering if two of the ports are for the CDMA tunnel and two for the LTE tunnel and to split the forwarding up in some manner. On the A3, I only saw one device and forwarded all ports to that device.

The CDMA and LTE femto are separate devices in one package hence the two Mac IDs and two IP addresses used by the unit.

No port forwarding is needed as it's plug and play (generally).

For CDMA, make sure the GPS is properly positioned and then leave it be. Sometimes it takes a few days for the unit to stabilize but if it doesn't then send me a PM and I can maybe see if I can poke someone to take a look at why it is not working properly.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[preskitt.man]

Thanks for the responses. I'll let it go for several days and see what happens. As for the port forwarding, unless you think it would be best without, I will leave it alone as it's already done, and also since I have UPnP turned off on my router, don't know if that would be a factor or not. In the meantime, WiFi calling is working just fine, which is so much better than what things are like with the device turned off. The nearest cell tower is quite some distance to me, and my Galaxy S8 regularly would give me a location timeout, since in somebody's infinite wisdom, the PIE update told the phone to get its location only by pinging the nearest cell tower. So, I was getting frequent "Location unavailable" notifications, which cause WiFI calling not to work. Now the phone pings the A4, so life is good.

[Brad The Beast]

3 hours ago, preskitt.man said:

Thanks for the responses. I'll let it go for several days and see what happens. As for the port forwarding, unless you think it would be best without, I will leave it alone as it's already done, and also since I have UPnP turned off on my router, don't know if that would be a factor or not. In the meantime, WiFi calling is working just fine, which is so much better than what things are like with the device turned off. The nearest cell tower is quite some distance to me, and my Galaxy S8 regularly would give me a location timeout, since in somebody's infinite wisdom, the PIE update told the phone to get its location only by pinging the nearest cell tower. So, I was getting frequent "Location unavailable" notifications, which cause WiFI calling not to work. Now the phone pings the A4, so life is good.

It is best without because opening ports unnecessarily is a network security issue. You've essentially opened up your network to hackers. 

[preskitt.man]

27 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

It is best without because opening ports unnecessarily is a network security issue. You've essentially opened up your network to hackers.

Good point!

[M3Driver]

I received an A4 3 days ago and after all 5 leds were green SignalCheck Pro on my unlocked S8 reported that I had an LTE2500 connection to B41 Airave but CDMA was still 1X800 to the nearest cell tower with a RSSI of -96 dBm. 

On the 3rd call to support the tech had me “reset network connections” then ##72786# (reset provisioning parameters). Finally the phone connected to 1xRTT with RSSI -58 dBm. 

I repeated the above steps on my wife’s unlocked S10 with the same results! 

Then we left the house for a dinner and upon return my wife’s S10 reconnected to the Airave but my S8 was back to the 1X800 cell. I’ve tried Airplane mode and restarting but my phone refuses to use the A4 CDMA.

Any ideas? Alan

[though]

57 minutes ago, M3Driver said:

I received an A4 3 days ago and after all 5 leds were green SignalCheck Pro on my unlocked S8 reported that I had an LTE2500 connection to B41 Airave but CDMA was still 1X800 to the nearest cell tower with a RSSI of -96 dBm. 

On the 3rd call to support the tech had me “reset network connections” then ##72786# (reset provisioning parameters). Finally the phone connected to 1xRTT with RSSI -58 dBm. 

I repeated the above steps on my wife’s unlocked S10 with the same results! 

Then we left the house for a dinner and upon return my wife’s S10 reconnected to the Airave but my S8 was back to the 1X800 cell. I’ve tried Airplane mode and restarting but my phone refuses to use the A4 CDMA.

Any ideas? Alan

I've noticed the same behavior with my Pixel 1's and 2's. It will latch on to a weak 1x800 instead of a strong A3 1xRTT.

[mikejeep]

The issue with devices holding onto fringe 1x800 connections instead of the strong 1X connection from the Airave is common and incredibly frustrating. The Airave 2.5 had a 1x800 beacon that your phone would "see" and know to flip to it. There is no comparable feature in the A3 or A4, so until your device scans other 1X bands, it never lets go of the macro 1x800.

 

The solution I have found works best for me is to force 1X to only use Sprint's 1900 MHz PCS network -- although that may not be in everyone's best interest, depending on the coverage in the areas you frequent. There is a shortcut in SCP to change this, go to System Shortcuts > Voice Band Mode and select "PCS". Understand that you will no longer connect to 1x800 and I believe 1X roaming will also be impacted unless the roaming partner uses PCS bands. To change back to factory behavior, simply go to that menu and choose "Automatic".

 

You could also choose PCS each time you get home, and switch back to Automatic once it connects to the A4.

 

-Mike

[M3Driver]

Thanks Mike, changing to PCS switched to the A4 and after reverting  to automatic the A4 connection was retained.

A little cumbersome - thank goodness my wife’s S10 works - can’t see her performing the above every time she returns home LOL.

 

 

[though]

1 hour ago, mikejeep said:

The issue with devices holding onto fringe 1x800 connections instead of the strong 1X connection from the Airave is common and incredibly frustrating. The Airave 2.5 had a 1x800 beacon that your phone would "see" and know to flip to it. There is no comparable feature in the A3 or A4, so until your device scans other 1X bands, it never lets go of the macro 1x800.

 

The solution I have found works best for me is to force 1X to only use Sprint's 1900 MHz PCS network -- although that may not be in everyone's best interest, depending on the coverage in the areas you frequent. There is a shortcut in SCP to change this, go to System Shortcuts > Voice Band Mode and select "PCS". Understand that you will no longer connect to 1x800 and I believe 1X roaming will also be impacted unless the roaming partner uses PCS bands. To change back to factory behavior, simply go to that menu and choose "Automatic".

 

You could also choose PCS each time you get home, and switch back to Automatic once it connects to the A4.

 

-Mike

Phone instantly switched to the A3 1x after doing this. Thanks!

Where is the setting to do this manually on Pixel devices without using SCP out of curiosity??

[mikejeep]

Phone instantly switched to the A3 1x after doing this. Thanks!
Where is the setting to do this manually on Pixel devices without using SCP out of curiosity??

It is a menu option off the Radio Info system screen. The dialer code to bring that up without the app is *#*#4636*#*# -- it's also available as a SCP shortcut as well.

-Mike

[though]

27 minutes ago, mikejeep said:

 

It is a menu option off the Radio Info system screen. The dialer code to bring that up without the app is *#*#4636*#*# -- it's also available as a SCP shortcut as well.

-Mike

 

ah i see it in the 3 dots, upper right. thanks again for pointing it out.