halcyoncmdr

sorry missed that second tab first time looking.  So that will open up the 800 SMR freq once IDEN is shut down and it is turned on for the 1x?

Yes, many areas already have Band Class 10 active if there was enough excess 800MHz spectrum in the area to allow it. Now that iDEN is shut down today we should start seeing a lot more sites go active with 800MHz. Unfortunately my area won't be a full overlay due to the IBEZ. Many towers are being upgraded to BC10 in my area, but not all.

Anyone on the iPhone5 51097 update? Anyone know what the change from 96 is. I'm still on 51096 just wondering what changed before I update

Official change logs are on the second tab of the Google doc.

xxx97 - Updated to add Band Class 10 support nationwide for all planned markets. Roaming changes in eastern Colorado and western Kansas.

Stock rooted S3 has the grey background as well.

I think they said previously they are using MSA's.  Because this is what the competition was doing.

 

Robert

It's a mix. The standard Sprint markets wouldn't get people excited at all (only 99 to announce). However, going down to a city level, that leaves a lot of room for the marketing folks.

Since it is related, I will remind everyone that the latest PRL version released June 4th added nationwide 800 SMR, not just specific areas like with previous updates. This is obviously in anticipation of the iDEN shutdown in a few days so that essentially with a flip of a few switches signal will improve at almost all upgraded sites, and all future sites can have it enabled at acceptance time. If there is a site within range of your phone as it scans for a signal (i.e. when turned on or toggling airplane mode) it will connect to it, regardless of which area of the country you are in.

All current PRLs (xxx97 and xxx15) have 800SMR support built in. The iPhone PRLs are unique in that 1900MHz is prioritized over 800 SMR, and the Note II has SMR missing entirely due to a calling issue. Otherwise, all standard PRLs are nearly identical and have 1900 and 800 frequencies at the same priority level.

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4085-current-sprint-prls/

I want them to bring back the classic Sprint commercials. Bring back the trenchcoat.

So when a new PRL comes out there will be a column added with that date?

Most likely I'll just remove the oldest leaving the current and one version back.

What does the June 4th and April 12th dates mean on the spreadsheet? How do I use the spreadsheet to know what I should be using? I have an iPhone 5 and my PRL is 51097.

The dates represent the date each PRL was released.

Performing a PRL update will automatically send the most current PRL for your phone and account type. On the iPhone you perform updates by dialing ##UPDATE# and hitting the call button.

The info in this thread is exactly that, information.Sprint must pay for all roaming usage so it segregates corporate accounts with better roaming experience in some areas due to roaming agreements with whatever carrier is there. Consumer accounts may be limited to 1x roaming where corporate accounts may have EVDO roaming.

Hmm I have 61010. Not on the list.

61010 | no change | EVDO | Prepaid-No BC10

It's there.

I'm going to be doing a road trip from stlouis to washdc in july, I have an htc one and note2, is there any particular recommended 'best' or custom prl for either/both devices that have working 3g roaming/800smr/lte ?

The latest PRL series xxx15 and xxx97 have nationwide 800smr for all SIDs that will be used.

This is what I've read.  Sprint has claimed NV rollout is already funded and that schedule is dictated by vendors/suppliers and logistics, not funding.  Softbank's extra financial boost is supposedly about Clearwire, more spectrum (600Mhz auction) and economies of scale, not directly the NV rollout.

This is true. NV was entirely financed a while ago. Everything now is caused by the deployment itself, or weather. Bad weather is terrible. Especially when it takes out a new site just accepted. All new equipment, now lost. R.I.P. equipment.

If what you're saying is correct (I can't say that you are because I've never owned an iPhone) I imagine people closing their apps in the app drawer creates a psychological pseudo effect that makes them believe they are saving battery life, in turn making them much happier with their products. 

 

-Luis

THIS is entirely the truth.

I work in retail as a technician. At least 75% of what I hear from customers about their phone "issues" is psychological and usually based on a misconception they got from somewhere or someone else. Task Killers, etc. usually just cause more harm than good now on Android phones as the system is smart enough to handle it in the background. iOS doesn't have the history of ingraining about task killers before it was built-in since previously it wasn't capable at all of multitasking beyond music or a phone call.

 If you NEED that psychological idea of killing an app, you can with the recent apps list on Android, and the App drawer on iOS works the same way. If an app is truly having an issue and it does happen to still be running in memory (i.e. recently used), closing it in the App Drawer or in Recent Apps will force close it, potentially correcting the issue when it starts up again. If it isn't actively running because you haven't used it in a while, it will do nothing really.

Also, quite often games will cause the most issues. Candy Crush is one of the worst I've ever seen at leaving itself running and causing all sort of issues on both Android and iOS devices.

Greenville, SC my Note 2 updated to PRL 2000 the other day and seems fine but its on eHRPD:13 and when i ask it to update PRL it says "there seems to be a problem please contact customer service, or try again later" I have not seen any improvement of signal around where i'm at i usually get 1 to 2 bars and data is very slow, but im hoping thats because of tower upgrades that are happening. But my question is the PRL 2000 normal or just something off the wall random, ive done some reading on it and its interesting.... and a buddies Galaxy S2 is on PRL 31104 but hes on Boost. 

Already getting to use my new post... haha 

Here's a thread with all of the current Sprint PRLs, including the Note II-specific ones.

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4085-current-sprint-prls/

That's been my theory as well as I know several locations near me that would be perfect for CDMA adds that when iDen is brought down there will be no carriers on the site after that and all the other guys in the area already have good coverage in that area.

I believe that about 50% of the purpose of the Nextel shutdown is to save costs. Bad leasing deals mean less profit. It's pretty easy to just end a bad lease when the network is shutdown and lose that coverage since the Sprint CDMA customer side never even knew it was there in all likelihood. Continuing to pay a high lease for coverage that may not be very profitable doesn't make much sense since most of the CDMA customers there won't even notice. There's always the possibility as I said that they could add it again in the future at a lower lease amount, it is after all more likely that an empty tower will have lower costs associated with it since no one is using it and it will just cost the tower company that owns it to maintain it. Some money coming in is better than none.

The other 50% was getting the 800MHz spectrum back for use with 1x and LTE.

I'm not sure you understood my comment.  Poor training as poor material developed by Sprint.  Too many times do we hear you need a PRL update to get the "new towers" in your area.  Yes, the PRL update is necessary for when the customer is roaming.  Besides the 800SMR additions recently, for native service the PRL updates really are not going to make a difference.  These CSR's get all hung up on doing PRL updates when nothing is updated at all for the customer. 

 

I guess I'm just bitter with the CSR's and even network support, I've had a site (legacy still) that has been having data issues on channel 100 EVDO for 8 or 9 months, maybe more, all I get is the run around about testing my phone, updating this, even when I've proven to them it happens in multiple locations near the site with multiple devices.  They can't figure out the fundamentals of generic troubleshooting where you apply process of elimination.  The insist on wanting the devices tested, which I have done by the way.  I talk with them weekly but instead of fixing it the fingers are pointed at other things and they just want to credit my account instead.  I just want it fixed.  And now I have to deal with another site where the network vision upgrade crew mixed up the RRUs two different times in a row, voice and data is messed up bad on this site since the upgrade to NV 3G/4G.  I hear about it daily from my wife since she works in this area and coverage has gotten much worse since legacy was shut off.  I get to go through the process of the blame once again. 

 

It's difficult to get them to really fix anything even when I can point them in the exact direction and do 99% of the field troubleshooting for them.  I'm really fed up with their network support folks and have been looking for other methods to get my list of issues to the correct people at Sprint and/or Ericsson that will actually listen.

I did misunderstand.

That being said, I think a lot of it also has to do with customer perception and the average person's total ignorance with technology.

For example, say your cable box is having an issue and you call Comcast tech support. They go through their first tier stuff about plugging it in, etc. and then they say they're sending a "signal" to your box and you need to turn it off. All they are doing is forcing you to do a power cycle of the box, no signal is sent. Most of the time, a simple power cycle fixes the issue, but if they were to actually tell the customer that, the customer would just say they already did it to try and get past the stuff they believe is not related.

The same thing happens here. It isn't about the PRL update itself so much, it's about the radio reset that comes with it. Working in retail tech, I can tell you the average smartphone customer in this country now knows very little about how any of the technology works. Most still treat their phone like a simple phone that has touch and a good web browser.

Unfortunately to those of us that truly do know what we're talking about, it ends up making it all look pointless and a waste of time. But "tricking" the average customer into doing what we really need done by some other explanation gets things done faster. Multiple that time difference between truly explaining to an already irate customer that all they needed to do was restart their phone (something the average person never does unless it runs out of battery), and just tricking them into doing it, saves millions of dollars each quarter. The CSRs on the phone are rated on a series of metrics, one of them used to be AHT (average handle time), how long they are on the phone with a single customer. With the changes to Customer Service that is no longer true for Sprint's call center vendors, however that's how almost the entire rest of the industry works and thus it's the mentality.It's not about fixing the issue, it's about getting people off the phone. Sprint's Customer Service changes however removed AHT from metrics and instead replaced it with First Call Resolution, did the issue get fixed with the first call. A much more useful metric.

Unfortunately I can tell you the average call call enter worker gets paid near minimum wage, to answer a phone all day long, getting yelled at by customers for issues they have no direct control over. On top of that, usually the call center training is insufficient because the turnover rate in call centers is so high that spending the money on adequate training would be a waste because 50-75% of the workers being trained won't be there in a year. The new network tools available to the reps definitely have the power to get things done, but the average Care rep probably doesn't have adequate training to be able to properly utilize them. Add to all this the possibility of the rep simply being entirely apathetic to the entire situation or their job in general (getting yelled at constantly by faceless entitled-feeling people all day will do that to you) and you end up with poor results.

I don't know exactly how Sprint's vendors operate since I am in retail, but I do have friends that work in call centers for American Express, Comcast and GEICO. All of them have similar stories and experiences. It may also have something to do with the average American believing all call centers are in other countries now and no one they talk to is actually in the U.S.

I'm not defending anything, there is obviously room for improvement. In the real world though, the average person doesn't care how their phone works or how it gets fixed. They just want it to work. If the PRL update does fix it simply because of the radio reset that comes with it and it gets fixed in 2 minutes, the customer will be happier. It works more often than not. I have a sneaking suspicion this is why the ##SCRTN# menu to reset all phone programming and have it reprovision, update PRL and check for firmware updates again no longer requires the phone's MSL. It does often work as a catch-all that fixes a variety of different issues, it's easy to tell someone how to do, and it's relatively easy for a person t o remember for later.

Thanks for doing this as this has been one of the things on my list. The one stop shop for PRL info instead of new threads anytime there is an update. This will be a sticky.

I had a feeling it was something you had planned, but I had access to all of them at once, officially. Much faster than figuring it out on your own with every phone, and much easier than trying to figure out each corporate PRL.

I wouldn't call that interesting, it's more like poor training. I can load a PRL from 6 years ago before EVDO launched and part of the license was sold to AT&T in my area. Text, voice, and data would work fine.

Not poor training. Standard training. The only officially supported configuration for your phone is current official software and current official PRL. If you are not on those, your phone is technically unsupported by Sprint for technical support. Just because you may not like a change in the new version doesn't mean Sprint has to support you.

There have been several updates in the last few years that have changed roaming partners (especially roaming partners that were visible as native coverage) and resulted in customers unable to access any service when their phone locks onto that signal after the roaming agreement expires. An updated PRL would remove that entry or update with a different roaming partner. I've seen this happen at least twice since I started working for Sprint (once in my area).

Some areas that may still work, in some it won't; it depends entirely on what's actually changed over the years in regards to roaming agreements..

After seeing some of the threads here and around the rest of the forum, I took it upon my self to find all of Sprint's current PRLs. I made a separate thread for easy reference in the future.

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4085-current-sprint-prls/

They should use them to broadcast their signal

Most of the iDEN-only towers have bad leasing agreements, or overlapping coverage with CDMA towers. Some towers were determined to be advantageous to upgrade to NV, others weren't. Towers with horrible leasing agreements are being let go entirely. In some cases that leaves the tower owner with absolutely no leased space. An unused tower will bring in no money so they may end up offering Sprint a discount rate later down the line if they can't find another leasee.

It disturbs me how many people refer to the "government" as some third party entity.  We created the government, and we are the government.

 

AJ

And now we've lost control of it and it frightens us.

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

-Thomas Jefferson

After reading some threads here in regards to PRL versions and the differences between each version on different devices, I took the time to find the listing of all current Sprint PRLs.
 
This includes the official changes made with each new PRL revision as well.
 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eNgQKxdPHgua60suUeQ4E7KvtUAFPDVkpqTL2sBorNg/pubhtml
 
While the information this comes from is on an internal Sprint page, the information itself is not proprietary as it can all be obtained through an analysis of the PRLs loaded on every Sprint device in the wild, something members of this community have already been doing.
 
My hope is that by making this information easier to find, it will lead to more discussion and overall a better community.
 

They all changed in Chicago when the 1x and EVDO work was done on a tower. I'm not sure if they are changing in other areas.

 

Sent from my EVO LTE

As we all know... Chicago has been a unique case compared to just about everywhere else in the country. Legacy and Network Vision boundaries have caused all sorts of issues that were unexpected.

Thanks for the response!  I was just under the impression that when a NV 3g tower came on that the backhaul was already in place.

It may be, it may not be (most likely not). Alcatel-Lucent seems to enjoy updating 3G only first then going back through 60-90 days later and getting the LTE hooked up. This may be a planned design due to backhaul delays. They can get all of the equipment installed and if backhaul is available, awesome; if not, they already have a second visit preliminarily scheduled that should be far enough out that backhaul will be in place at that time.

I know a site near my house that has been upgraded and obviously has new backhaul installed (100kbps before, 2.5mbps after upgrade) but 4G LTE is not hooked up yet. Other sites may not have the backhaul available and may just get hooked up to the legacy backhaul if it can be, or left alone with no connections until backhaul is available.

Network Vision is a living breathing thing. We know the end result. However, there are hundreds of things that all need to be in place to complete even a single site. Any one of these things can delay a part or all of a site's upgrades. This is why a specific map of specific tower upgrade plans is not available I don't think even the vendors really know what order everything is going to happen. They're just working on whatever tower they are able to get access to (rooftop access by landlord, etc.), with the equipment needed for the site (I'm near the IBEZ and we have quite a few GMO sites here as well, each have their own unique characteristics), the backhaul in place by the vendor (CenturyLink in my area mostly), and the contractors in place to get the actual work done. Add to that the Arizona heat where I'm at, storms in other areas of the country, etc. and it all can be even further delayed or otherwise slowed compared to the initial plan..

Oh crap! Wonder what that was all about? Too bad i didn't have any LTE to use Hope they stop acting like children and stop messing up the net for no reason..

Initial investigation determined Anonymous was the source of the DDoS attack. They got it under control in just a couple hours, blocked all new inbound requests from external sources, and then had to do damage control after that. Every blade server was restarted in a rolling pattern, and all queues were cleared. This resulting "fix" then caused more data connectivity issues across Sprint's network as the servers were restarted one by one. It was very interesting to "watch" with my unscheduled random email updates throughout the day. The BCM (Business Continuity Management) team only sends updates as major things chance in an incident or if a set schedule has already been communicated in a previous update. Any time the BCM team is involved, I get happy little updates to spice up my day.

DDoS attack against Sprint's DNS vendor. It caused nationwide data outages throughout the day. Also happened to be pretty effective at dropping eHRPD apparently. Oddly, 4G LTE and WiMax were unaffected.

In addition, I had a customer come in with the data issues commenting about how his AT&T iPad was having issues, and a friend of mine with Verizon saying he was roaming for quite a while at home and at work (nowhere near each other), even after device restarts and such.

Today wasn't a good day for phones.