halcyoncmdr

I thought they combined the older CDMA 1X/EV legacy phones and Aircards finally?

They may have, I'll take a look and see what I can find next time I'm at work. I'm pretty sure I saw a file somewhere that actually spelled out exactly what types of devices used each PRL.

This is not happening! .-. It's like the time when I usually get the best speeds, I always have full bars but my speeds are malfunctioning or something.ImageUploadedByTapatalk1370596168.586425.jpg

I didn't work today, but I know on Wednesday there were 5 tickets open for Tucson proper (read: nothing outside of Tucson/immediate county, Oro Valley, Marana, and outlying areas are under different network ticket dropdowns I didn't look at) about tower issues. Some were Network Vision upgrade notifications, some were entire site outages, one was a data block issue if I remember correctly.

I have really lost track since they have like 3 or 4 flavors of each device type. It's like 6 or 7 types... Maybe more.

 

Sent from my little Note2

I believe there are 6 or so different PRL "types" currently used, keeping corporate-specific PRLs out of the listing.

Each should have the same naming convention xxx97 etc.

3G only

3G/4G WiMax

3G/4G LTE

iPhone 4 (has its own due to differences in PRL design requirements, used to be the same as standard files but changed due to optimization)

Aircards

GSM World capable devices for flavoring as well

I may be wrong on some of these, not at work currently to look at the PRL listing. Can't access S4GRU from behind the firewall... ironically it was blocked in the "sports" category. Can access ESPN and NBA though, yay licensing.

If it's made by ZTE, is it really Sprint's own phone? Just sounds like the ZTE branding is removed. Does Sprint think the ZTE brand is not a good seller? If so, they're probably right. Specs sound just ehhh, and it's only dual core. Flagship? That's so 2012.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

All Sprint-branded devices are Chinese made (ZTE, Huawei, etc.). Average Americans don't really trust the Chinese, so no Chinese phone advertising.

P.S. It's made by ZTE.

Haha thanks ya'll, will do if im allowed ill put up all the info i can, itll ve exciting knowing what's happening as it's happening! I start june 1st so we shall see! Ill definetly shard the love

Retail peons are told nothing of value.

Before CDMA 800 

(this is taken 1' behind my glass double-door, one of the only places in the house that gets signal)

 

This is across the street next to my neighbors mailbox. Cellsite is about 3/4 of a mile from my home, albeit my neighborhood is filled with 40 + year old trees and old brick homes.

[/uR

 

The bedroom that gets signal connects to 1X only, here is a speedtest of that connection.

[url=http://s1321.photobucket.com/user/Will_Burnett/media/Screenshot_2013-06-03-11-38-21_zps9277f2b4.png.html]

I'm sure looking forward to being able to make calls from inside my home, the airave is often left off now.  gps won't lock unless the beacon is outside, I am debating wireless bridging it to the attic. But would just prefer to wait on 800. 

Your place sounds like RF's worst nightmare.

I called the local Corporate Sprint store and that was an adventure in time wasting.  First, the guy told me it takes about an hour to port the number (which I know it takes longer than that).

 

Called a non-Corporate store and the guy was much more knowledgeable.  Said it takes 2-3 days to port (which is more reasonable) but he wasn't sure on 800MHz support.

Number portability is an inexact science unfortunately and relies more on the company it is coming from than the company it is going to. Landline ports regularly take anywhere from 1-10 days. Wireless ports are usually anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 days (those were the fun ones).

As for 800mhz support questions, Sprint's official corporate stance currently is not to talk about the frequencies specific devices support. I'm assuming this is because they are deciding how to advertise this in the future. After all, advertising a domestic quad-band-phone (800/850/1900/2500) means it must be inferior to a sextuple-band phone (800/850/900/1800/1900/2500, incorporating int'l GSM here obviously). hehe

I bet you'd need some sort of drivers and then no idea if the USB port is for a host or device or both.  The manual says it would void the warranty.  I wouldn't mess with it in case it decides to leak the magical smoke that makes electronics run.

Experimentation!

Ah the magical purple smoke. The beauties of being a tech in a corporate location... you make the ticket notes for exchange reason. Warranty doesn't matter for store demo devices, the store will always have a working one on hand. Doesn't matter if hte device is broken fro muse, intentionally by a customer, or stolen, it will be replaced. And that sounds like a DOA device if I ever saw one... hehe

"Multiple batteries and leaving on charger for 2+ hours did not bring device back to life. Exchanging in store with stock on hand." 

It's pretty much the same with any corporate vs franchise style company.

Verizon has this issue as well according to some friends that work in a corporate store for vz.

Any fast food franchise also can choose to not offer some special promotion. In major cities you won't notice this, but get a bit further out and many franchises don't have anything special, just the standard menu despite advertising. That's why the ads state it is at participating locations only.

I wonder if Belkin utilizes the Centercode Connect portals like many other companies do? Adobe, Dell, Cisco, Logitech, Google, etc. It appears it does based on Centercode's client list. hehe

Centercode... http://www.centercode.com/

Centercode's OnlineBeta portal, for all programs not specifically managed by a large corporation...

https://www.onlinebeta.com/login.html

Cisco/Linksys beta portal.. https://beta.linksys.com/

I've done some testing for Cisco, Palm, Logitech, and some other smaller companies through opportunities sent from Centercode directly looking for new testers.

So I'm eligible for upgrade now on two of my four lines...and I'd like suggestions on what I should do....do I trade my SGS3 and get the SGS4, or do I need to wait on something upcoming today may be better than what I can get right now? I hate to go pay the fees and then in two months have a brand new "oooh I want it" coming out.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

This is how it's supposed to work:

You pay X amount extra to buyout the remainder of your contract and become eligible for your upgrade discount immediately. This amount varies according to the type of device you purchased subsidized last, and the amount of time left in your contract. For example, a $200 ETF Sanyo Vero will have a lower Upgrade Now cost than a $350 ETF HTC EVO Design at the same point in the contract. This Upgrade Now program cost will vary between $50 and $275, and is usually available starting 6 months into a contract up until the last month before upgrade eligibility (20 months now).

You are required to utilize Sprint's buyback program to sell your old phone to Sprint, the amount of the buyback is directly credited towards your purchase in store that day. You can add additional buybacks if you want to decrease your out of pocket cost if you want, but they are not required for the Upgrade Now program. If your old phone is lost, you can still take advantage of the program now, but that old phone will be marked Lost/Stolen in the system and will never be eligible to be activated again (so you can't just say you "lost" your phone and then sell it elsewhere for more money than the Buyback program).

This makes you eligible for the advertised discounted pricing on a phone, no additional discounts, just eligible for the advertised price as if you were upgrade eligible already. Any other additional promotions going on you would still qualify for, like additional discounts for adding a home Phone Connect, buying a Tablet as well, etc. they can stack together.

I have issues with Google services on my 50/50 business class cable connection at home sometimes, most often NOT at peak times. It's not Sprint's connection itself probably.

I found this article interesting regarding the Myers-Briggs test-

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/brain-flapping/2013/mar/19/myers-briggs-test-unscientific

Of course it's unscientific, it relies on a person answering truthfully. Not only that, it relies on a person accurately describing themselves (we are human, this is physically impossible to due perfectly).

It can give you a general idea however, that's all it was intended for.

Currently there isn't an official way through the website, you can post in the Community, but that is primarily meant for customers to assist and answer each other's questions (something posted in the Community but no one seems to understand, there are only a handful of Sprint employees in there to moderate).You can call or go into a store to report an issue. The new tool (Network Pinpoint) used for it allows specific marking of locations, addresses, intersections, etc. so the more information you have about the location, the more accurate the info they can use when the Network team gets to looking at it.

I did bring this up as a suggestion a few months ago for consumer transparency and was told that systems were already being implemented to improve feedback like this. Then a few weeks ago the new Network Pinpoint tool was released to get feedback increasingly more up to date. The 12 year old system they used didn't cut it anymore obviously.

Folks, you need to learn that, under the current system, sales and customer service positions are almost entirely entry level suckage jobs.  That has not always been the case, but it certainly is the case now, as "Walmart" consumers have come to expect very low prices and cost cutting capitalists have come to expect egregious profits.  Few in those entry level suckage jobs have the education, training, or wherewithal to share accurate info instead of corporate propaganda or even wishful thinking.

 

If you have a problem with that, then start educating yourself before making decisions and stop supporting the current system that basically serves to prop up asshat capitalists. 

 

AJ

In addition, retail reps are there for sales and are paid commission. You ever wonder why some places are now advertising the fact their salesmen aren't paid on commission? It's because that means they are more likely to truly help you instead of just pushing a sale, or at least that's what many consumers believe, and from my experience seems to be true more often than not.

Officially they are there to help customers with issues as well, but that isn't the main reason they are there. They are there to sell, it's retail. If you aren't buying anything, many will view you as wasting their time, time that could be better used selling something to someone and making them money. Not all reps are like this, many truly will help and give accurate info. However, those aren't the reps you will hear about, and those aren't the ones that will stick in your mind. Only the liars and pushy salesmen will stay in your mind because you didn't like it. Sales quotas have increased almost exponentially in the last several years. I started as a sales rep before switching to the tech side about 3 years ago so I've seen the changes happen over time.

Welcome to corporate retail sales in America. Low training in a technical field because sales employee turnover is extremely high. Mostly high turnover caused by high sales quotas, high training costs, shareholders only caring about raw quarterly profit, and the fact that many consumers view retail employees as vermin beneath them.

This is why I'm looking forward to the SoftBank purchase. The Japanese believe in long term gains over short term profit, essentially the opposite of Wall Street. They would rather invest in a long term outcome with greater profit overall than a short term gain. Wall Street shareholders want the highest profit possible in the shortest time, regardless of the negatives that come with it, they have no empathy, they essentially are psychopaths.

Maybe it's a conspiracy to make sure users use less mobile data across nv sites haha

I can assure you that's not the case and would be stupid on top of it all.

A faster connection means less congestion as the users are getting their information faster. If you do the same thing on 3G and 4G, the 4G will be more efficient, and thus better for not only you but the entire network as a whole.

The issues come in with users wanting to do more since they can do it faster. That then adds to the overall network load. There is no advantage of keeping users on the 3G network however when 4G is available, none at all.

Nv is halfway complete at best.

I wasn't referring to currently, I was referring to NV completion, or almost completion where only a handful of towers remain to be upgraded.

"What .... AT&T has the fastest LTE ?  Screw that, I'm gone!".....  said no one ever. 

 

Sprint is a value carrier.  I don't quite understand how or why anyone would get a pantie bunch about Verizon or ATT being faster.... T-MOBILE is the competition, front and center.  Until they can top Sprint's geographic high speed coverage, sprint will continue to be painted as "the loser with a 3-4mb average" that I'm too cheap to leave.  I've actually lost interest in the speedtest whore-offs.  If it works, i'm happy

That's most customers honestly. If it works for them, they won't think twice about it, unless it's too expensive. The only ones that care about speed tests are e-Peen users, or those who aren't getting good speeds/latency. Both of which will be fixed with Network Vision on Sprint. As NV comes to completion I predict the negative comments about Sprint's network and speeds dying off rapidly.

There will still be the few true issues with tower outages, etc. but the major complaints will be remedied.

So they have absolutely no capability to do per user network monitoring?

Oh believe me, a lot of individual information for each subscriber is monitored and recorded for quality and diagnostic purposes. At least a rough network location (within a few hundred feet, enough for E911 service), The specific Cascade ID and sector you are connected to (cell site), data speeds on that site/sector, capacity on that site/sector, and dropped and blocked calls caused by network, device, and account issues just to name a few. The new Service Trender, Network Pinpoint and Network Event Board tools used by reps have varying amount of access to this information to help them triage and diagnose customer issues.

Carrier IQ gave a lot more detailed information regarding what the handset was doing at the time of a drop/blocked call, a more fine location instead of just a rough area, and things like that. All of this was handled in the background, and sent in automatically as issues arose to help Sprint better manage the network and devices. Carrier IQ helped Sprint decide device roadmaps as well as they could see how people used their device,s the types of apps and sort of thing people used on their devices most often. All real world data, not based on subjective surveys, it was all raw objective information.

The issues people had with Carrier IQ were two-fold:

1. The CIQ app itself allows almost entire control over a device. It can monitor everything happening on it, including keyboard actions, screen taps and swipes, network information, fine GPS location information, etc. Essentially it's the ultimate spyware application because it is in everything on the phone. Now, the US carriers that utilized it, including Sprint only used it for diagnostic and usage information. Specific monitoring of use and such were not utilized because that would be a violation of Sprint's privacy policies, the app could do it, but wasn't. The keyboard input monitoring could have been used temporarily to allow access to hidden menu systems, sort of like the ## and *#*# dialer codes on all Sprint phones but all information fro mthat was not sent, it was only stored locally temporarily.

2. People didn't bother to learn about CIQ and how it was actually being used. They heard what it could do and blew up about it. No matter all of the advantages it gave a carrier to get truly objective information about network and deivce triage/diagnosis and about how their customers really use their devices (rather than subjective survey responses and requests based on a fleeting human desire).

Sucks for us marketing majors 

People dislike marketers, this isn't news. All they do is prey on people emotions and perceptions (it's their job of course). Not as much as lawyers, but that's probably just because of how much lawyers charge.

Man I try to donate but it won't accept my visa debit card >:/ i don't know why I have money in it and everything's fine.. I NEED to donate now!!

That would be an issue with PayPal then. All donations are handled by PayPal, so I would suggest contacting them about why it isn't being accepted (or your bank of course).

Perhaps someone forwarded their calls and put your number in instead of the one they wanted to. Not sure of a way to block that though.

I'm hoping LTE will start working in Kingman soon. It's quite sad that backhaul is taking that long to be deployed there. It's almost disturbing.

To be fair... it is Kingman. :-P

So I was on the phone with Advanced Tech support because of no service all day, the Tech told me that they have a new system to view updates on their site and they are getting real time updates from technicians on open tickets.

Obviously I put that to the test on a site I know is currently being worked on at Ave A and 32nd street. He told me that this site still has an open ticket to finish up LTE upgrades and will be off line until the 20th. His next comment was, LTE for that tower is slated to be turned on, on that date.

 

 

Hhhhmmmmm.!!.!

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

He was using several tools for all that info, not just one...

I can say a new tool just launched company-wide to help with network issues. The old system of reporting network issues was convoluted and bass-ackwards. Unless a very specific series of events happened to trigger automatic alerts, it required customers to call in and complain about issues, going through all of hte troubleshooting steps for the device before a network CTMS ticket would be made. That ticket then had a 72 hour turnaround from the networking team. That team would determine if the issue was network, account, device, etc. and if needed would contact the customer directly for more info. Average turnaround for a true network issue from start-completion was about 15 days. This resulted in approximately a month's worth of customer revenue lost per valid ticket (spread across average number of customers on a site, etc.).

The new system however allows any rep in a call center or retail store to note a location with very little work in comparison. Service Trender allows a rep to see how a specific phone has been working on the network, dropped calls, blocked calls, minutes of use, towers used (including individual sectors), roaming usage, etc. are all tracked for each line of service. Raw data can be viewed and the system uses an algorithm to determine if the issues are likely handset or network-caused. It also allows the reps to view the usage on an interactive map, calculate distances to towers from a location, etc. to help pinpoint an issue. It pulls data from the Network Event Board to show current and recent network tickets and take that into account. A Quality of Service score >95% is considered good (green), 94-90% neutral (yellow), and <90% poor (red). It also can breakdown time of day and when issues seem to occur more often.

Using this information a rep determines if it is likely a network issue, and can now use the new Network Pinpoint tool to enter a specific location (address or cross streets) and mark it as having an issue. Dropped calls, voicemails, delays, test issues, slow speeds, no service, etc. are all available to mark. This information is pulled systematically every 15 minutes and compiled along with current Service Trender information nationwide to determine network issues before they become major outages and is automatically sent to local network teams for dispatch and monitoring. This is in addition to the new Network Vision monitoring and remote system that are being put in place with all of the new equipment nationwide. If an issue is discovered, a network ticket will be made so reps can see that the network teams are already aware of the issue with that tower. No more 3-15+ day turnaround, faster issue resolution, and fewer complaints overall.

Well on both maps, it shows every tower near being upgraded LOL. AND each tower is 4G LOL

To clarify, All maps here are based on leaked or unconfirmed information (depending on the area and map you are looking at. Sprint's internal Network Even Board that the reps look at, only show NV updates that are expected to take extended time. Upgrades that are on track and can be finished entirely within a small period and with minimal interruption of service are not posted in there. In addition, the NEB only shows currently open tickets, and historical tickets closed within the last 14 days.

Also keep in mind just about any corporate company you call, you're not talking to an employee of that company. You're talking to someone that works for a company contracted to operate the call centers for that company. AFNI, Convergys, etc. They're paid close to minimum wage, and deal with people yelling at them all day for nothing they've done. Most have very basic training because turnover in the industry is astronomical (6 months is a long time). Most will just read the script because they don't know what to do otherwise, and if your issue doesn't fit the script, you're screwed. Source: I have many friends that work in call centers for various companies.