Official Magic Box discussion thread

[jefbal99]

2 hours ago, sprintveteran said:

I'll share my magic box experience.  First got the magic box last winter for use in the Birmingham area.  It connected to band 25 but provided consistent 20 to 30 mb downloads.  Recently moved to Atlanta suburbs and plugged in the magic box,  and it connected to a weak band 41 signal (-118 db with poor SINR).  Speeds now are terrible,  1 mb to as high as 4 or 5 mb.  Very disappointed.

Sounds like you are connecting to a very over subscribed or under backhauled site

[RedSpark]

Sprint Magic Box - Hospitality Edition

[OhioCalling]

26 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

Sprint Magic Box - Hospitality Edition

I like that look better for businesses. Wish my area had the needed coverage to qualify for one I could use in our coffee shop. These old brick buildings downtown loose signals once you are about 5 feet from the window.

[RedSpark]

47 minutes ago, OhioCalling said:

I like that look better for businesses. Wish my area had the needed coverage to qualify for one I could use in our coffee shop. These old brick buildings downtown loose signals once you are about 5 feet from the window.

I wonder how many of these are getting deployed.

As we know, there were production issues for the Magic Boxes initially: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20170801/carriers/sprint-ceo-ma-magic-box-tag17 (8/1/2017)

Back to that matter of supply, Claure said he expects the first million units to hit the network “in the next few months. I am very unhappy about the lack of ability to ramp up. We’re ecstatic in terms of performance.”

More recently, Marcelo said this: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20180503/carriers/sprint-has-best-quarter-ever-tag17 (5/3/2018)

In the earnings report, Claure highlighted Sprint deployed some 200,000 Magic Box small cell units in 2017.

and

He said Magic Boxes are live on the network in around 200 cities “making this one of the largest small cell deployments in the U.S., and I would plan to deploy more than 1 million Magic Boxes over the next two years.”

 

[burnout8488]

On 7/26/2018 at 6:34 AM, sprintveteran said:

I'll share my magic box experience.  First got the magic box last winter for use in the Birmingham area.  It connected to band 25 but provided consistent 20 to 30 mb downloads.  Recently moved to Atlanta suburbs and plugged in the magic box,  and it connected to a weak band 41 signal (-118 db with poor SINR).  Speeds now are terrible,  1 mb to as high as 4 or 5 mb.  Very disappointed.

The point of the Magic Box isn't to bring 30Mbps into homes (where 99% of people have Wi-Fi anyways), it's to fill the inside of a home or business with full LTE for the ability to message and call once VoLTE hits.

My home gets 1-5Mbps on Magic Box as well, but my basement has full signal and is a completely usable location for anything my iPhone can do. Youtube, Facebook, iMessage...etc.

Phones would drop to 3G or 1x prior to installing the MB.

[RedSpark]

Any news yet on the new GEN 3 Magic Box being released?

I hope Sprint isn’t running into production issues like it had for prior versions of the Magic Box.

Did they prematurely EOL the GEN 2 units?

[Kevster1321]

I tried to get a magic box for the  hundredth time but they said they are out of stock till October

[xdfgf]

Anything special needed to get the hospitality version? Want one to put in our dining room for guests

[RedSpark]

8 hours ago, xdfgf said:

Anything special needed to get the hospitality version? Want one to put in our dining room for guests

You should reach out to Sprint’s Business Sales Team: https://business.sprint.com/contact-us/

They should be able to provide direction on this.

[imex99]

Magic Boxes are down all over the Columbus, OH market, anyone else?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[JonnygATL]

Mine only works during daylight hours (at least with my particular phone in my particular corner of NW Atlanta). It may not seem to make sense but my phone only connects to it from around 7 a.m. til around 7 p. M. Due to my work schedule, I'm often awake until 6 a. M. and sleeping until 2 p. M. So it definitely affects me as my data is useless when I'm at home and unable to connect to the MB . There must be some reason for this. 

[BlueAngel]

I unplugged mine about a month ago, service is a lot better.

[jefbal99]

Hmm, my magic box has stopped working in the last few days, hangs at connecting to network.

Magic box had been fine up until then, going to get in contact with support tomorrow

Anyone else had their MB go funky in the last few days? Seems to coincide with what appears to be changes to ehrpd/LTE hand off changes 

[Terrell352]

4 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

I unplugged mine about a month ago, service is a lot better.

Yeah I unplugged mine too. I dont want to give it back in case I go somewhere that I need it but service is way better at my house without it.

[Paynefanbro]

7 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

I unplugged mine about a month ago, service is a lot better.

 

2 hours ago, Terrell352 said:

Yeah I unplugged mine too. I dont want to give it back in case I go somewhere that I need it but service is way better at my house without it.

I'm in the same boat as both of you. I turned unplugged my Magic Box sometime in late June. Service has improved so much that my Band 25 signal is performing better than the distant Band 41 signal that the Magic Box was picking up. When I moved into this apartment, Band 25 was about 3Mbps and the Magic Box gave me about 12-15Mbps. Now Band 25 is 15-20+ Mbps with higher upload speeds thanks to 64QAM.

[shannonbrian]

It felt like the tech of Magic Box Falling behind . I was getting -111 dbm in my bed room and got About 60 Download 2 carriers Band 41 aggerated.  Then a neighbor got Magic Box went to - 95 dbm then was only get 13 down ön mb. So Glad neighbor moved with mb Box . 

[danlodish345]

8 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

Mine only works during daylight hours (at least with my particular phone in my particular corner of NW Atlanta). It may not seem to make sense but my phone only connects to it from around 7 a.m. til around 7 p. M. Due to my work schedule, I'm often awake until 6 a. M. and sleeping until 2 p. M. So it definitely affects me as my data is useless when I'm at home and unable to connect to the MB . There must be some reason for this. 

It seems like it's being automatically controlled over the air . So I guess you just can't use it all the time . I guess it might prevent Overuse or abuse . 

[dro1984]

I got rid of mine for the same reason... I was able to get a faster signal without it.   It became a nuisance... and it started blocking my incoming calls which Sprint couldn't explain.    Plug it in... everything went to voicemail.   Unplug it and phone would receive call as normal.   I personally think these will eventually bite Sprint in the behind as they get outdated.  Software can only be updated so much before equipment is no longer useful.     I can see the "New T-Mobile" getting rid of this equipment.    

Edited August 29, 2018 by dro1984

[dro1984]

25 minutes ago, danlodish345 said:

It seems like it's being automatically controlled over the air . So I guess you just can't use it all the time . I guess it might prevent Overuse or abuse . 

What kind of abuse are you talking about?!    This is Sprint... The Unlimited Data network....   

[danlodish345]

15 minutes ago, dro1984 said:

What kind of abuse are you talking about?!    This is Sprint... The Unlimited Data network....   

I mean are magic boxes controlled over the air by sprint?

[belusnecropolis]

I harvested any usable parts to me, sent it back. Hope the new one works out better for folks.

[Paynefanbro]

I'm not sending mine back just yet. It works perfectly fine and I'm moving to a new apartment soon so it still might be of use to me. If I find that I don't need it, I'll just set it up in my home in NYC so that my entire house has Band 41 instead of just the front and back. 

[JonnygATL]

Oh wow, so it's not just me. Yeah I have a lot of problems with it and am thinking of unplugging it permanently. They need to figure out why some phones connect to it just fine and others do not (late model band 41 capable) amongst a few other very key issues.

[danlodish345]

1 hour ago, JonnygATL said:

Oh wow, so it's not just me. Yeah I have a lot of problems with it and am thinking of unplugging it permanently. They need to figure out why some phones connect to it just fine and others do not (late model band 41 capable) amongst a few other very key issues.

So do you think T mobile will keep the magic boxes ? 

[JonnygATL]

I wouldn't be privy to that information. I would imagine they would assess that if granted approval. What I'm interested to know is if the issues we've seen are widespread and far reaching, confined to just one or 2 particular MB generations, or if we've just been particularly unlucky.  Those are the kind of metrics one would need before making such a drastic and costly decision.