halcyoncmdr

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.

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.

Most online games use very little bandwidth honestly. Constant connection of 500kbps is usually all that's needed for smooth gameplay. As has been stated numerous times around here ane elsewhere on the net, latency is what people think of when they think of "feeling" the speed. How long it takes from when you click something until it gets to the server and back to you. This is also "lag" in video games. The raw speed means next to nothing with gaming. Games are highly optimized so that even crap connections won't hinder gameplay very much. Latency however is very important for gaming and the feel of speed.

No, the AN_AAA issue manifests with an inability for ANY mobile data to work. It's visual indicator is a constant switching between o and 3G every 10 or so seconds.

Yuma itself doesn't have a ton of sites. It should be rather quick in comparison to Tucson. I'd say Yuma/Willcox/Bisbee/etc. will be announced before Tucson simply because the towers will be up and running. Why not announce 4-5 new cities with 4G LTE when you can instead of waiting to announce then with Tucson?

Using that same logic then iDEN shouldn't have been an issue. Nextel had the highest ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) of all the carriers in the country, yet they were looking at a merger... And they chose Sprint... Why would that be? Everyone was touting Sprint/Nextel as the greatest merger in wireless history (slight hyperbole but not by much). After the merger was completed however, the truth came to light. Nextel was failing, they were utilizing an outdated technology that only a handful of companies used in the world. This mean economy of scale was not on their side. Since Motorola had created iDEN, they controlled all licensing for the technology, and priced all of their competitors out of the market with that advantage. Only a handful of iDEN devices were ever made by companies other than Motorola, Blackberry and I believe Sanyo had one or two, but I could be wrong on that one. The iDEN network had plenty of cash flowing in from it's operation, and the highest customer satisfaction rating in the country, but the company wasn't doing good. Cash and CSAT are only part of it. My assumption is that despite having the highest ARPU, Nextel also had the highest outlay for network maintenance, partially because the equipment was only made and licensed by and to Motorola, seeing a pattern here?

That was exactly what I was searching Google for. I went searching for like 5 minutes before I gave up.

1900 LTE is going on just about every tower nationwide. 800 CDMA and 800 LTE are a different story. The southern end of Tucson is within that international boundary and may end up without any of the 800mhz enhancements for quite some time unfortunately. I believe the boundary was set at 110km (68 miles) if I remember correctly. and Tucson proper is located about 60 miles from the border. So by my mental acuity... that means downtown and south of it are within that zone. Ah yes... http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-announces-two-spectrum-sharing-agreements-mexico

This is what a lot of people don't seem to get. They just see bigger numbers and think it's better. That doesn't necessarily mean it is more stable, more consistent, etc. It's all about e-peen size when it comes to speed tests. The average user doesn't need much more than 1Mbps on 3G, and 5Mbps on 4G for what they expect as far as speed is concerned. These numbers are probably high even, for most users. Latency is what you actually think of when you think speed. How long it takes to load after you click a link. You can have a 30Mbps connection but a 500ms latency and your connection will feel extremely slow, because it literally is taking half a second before your click even registers anything due to that latency. One of Network Vision's requirements is sub-100ms latency on all upgraded towers. For reference, 100ms is roughly where a person can start to detect the lag, hence why anything less than 100ms is good for gaming for instance, the lower the better. Even with a slower connection, it will feel much faster if the latency is lower.

Clearwire already committed to maintaining the current WiMax network through 2015, that won't change. After that, my guess would be the towers going offline almost immediately, saving overhead costs associated with operating two separate networks. Sprint knows the hassle two separate networks creates (iDEN/CDMA). One of the fundamental advantages Network Vision brings is a single unified network with nearly identical hardware nationwide. Sprint has been hamstrung operating two entirely separate networks including overhead such as power, maintenance, leasing, etc. while getting very little in return from that second network that the first couldn't already provide.

There is a difference in the reception between LTE and CDMA just because of technological differences. Most phones only show "bars" for 1X voice coverage, EVDO and LTE coverage are not shown. From what I remember you're looking at about a 2dBm dofference 1xRTT > EvDO, and 7 dBm from 1xRTT > LTE. The LTE airlink is more fragile than either 1xRTT or EvDO and as such will fail on the fringe of service more quickly. That difference may be enough to have fewer bars, but even bars aren't standardized across all manufacturers, that's why they are a terrible indicator of true coverage quality. They just give a general idea. For instance, a 0-bar voice signal will still have enough reception for a perfect quality voice call until it drops entirely (go CDMA voice quality, GSM is terrible even with higher reception).

I hope so, that's where I'm at. :-P

Biased title is biased. They easily could have used " Sprint cites vendor execution for Network Vision delays" instead of the sensationalist one they did. Pet peeve about "journalistic integrity", something sorely lacking in every "news" site in the US, or that focuses on US news. It may work on the uninformed that watch mainstream media, but I'd like to think the more technically apt among us aren't swayed by sensationalism. That being said, it doesn't surprise me at all that the backhaul vendors are likely the cause for many of the delays. Inclement weather probably wasn't helping either, especially hurricanes and tornadoes.

That's actually a side effect. Network Vision is upgrading all of the infrastructure (including new modular cards at the base station). However, EVDO Rev. A cards are cheap compared to Rev. B. Rev. B is outdated (compared to LTE/LTE-Advanced), unused by just about anyone worldwide, and would be a complete waste of time and money to upgrade everything to. Why upgrade the legacy network to a technology there is absolutely no plan to support and require FURTHER individual requirements by manufacturers for devices. The fragmentation in phone versions from one carrier to another is already bbad enough. Don't add another technology to the mix.

The latest Jelly Bean update pretty much fixes ALL of the issues that Ice Cream Sandwich brought to the GS2. Gingerbread was awesome. ICS was horrible. JB brings it back where it should be. And the fact it's not OTA just means the likelihood of a corrupted flash is nearly non-existent so all the random bullshit issues associated with bad flashes or updated system files won't be distributed as issues with the update itself. Fun fact working as a retail store tech, 80% of issues we see are either user issues, or issues arising from a bad update or application and a hard reset fixes them. Yes, all hardware issues fall within that remaining 20% of devices we see. I work at a top 100 store, so we aren't slow either.

He does some of the best write-ups for Anandtech. However, I've seen him completely miss important information before, and when he talks about Sprint it's obvious he hasn't done any research on the future plans, and acts like any other ignorant customer who complains but doesn't do anything proactive about it (like educating himself despite the knowledge and experience to do so more than adequately). But, maybe that's just me.

Activated our store's demo today. Pretty sweet phone, and very nice to look at. Slick lines and good feel in the hand. The camera is pretty awesome too.

Yeah Clearwire kinda screwed over all of the companies that invested in WiMax. Sprint is just the biggest one that people think about. Time Warner, Comcast, Intel, Bright House and Google all own or previously owned parts of Clearwire, and they all sunk money into the company to deploy the WiMax network.. Sprint just happens to own the majority (50.8%), but does not have voting majority. Sprint can't unilaterally decide the direction of the company regardless of their majority stake.

You keep dropping from 3G (EVDO) to 1xRTT instead. eHRPD is the 3G EVDO software layer that takes your EVDO and transmits it through the 4G core instead to maintain your IP as you switch between the 3G and 4G networks, among other things. This way as you switch between networks, your data session doesn't stop and need to be established again, it will simply continue on at a faster or lower speed depending what network switch you made.

Not sure where you're looking, I can't find any 4G LTE coverage on the official coverage map anywhere along I-10 in AZ. Not to mention no towers have started 4G conversions yet either, so it's sort of impossible. Unless you're talking about the color used for the Interstates happening to be a similar color as the one used for 4G LTE coverage... which is obviously not the case as signal propagation does not work that way and to assume that a signal would be exactly the same width as the interstate the entire length and follow the same exact path... just no.

Still doesn't explain why the FCC docs specifically state this limitation for this model and no other phone that I can find.

I read that as well but I don't understand how that would be possible given that just about every other device shares antenna paths with BT/WiFi, yet they work together just fine. Cases in point, the Galaxy S III or Galaxy Note II.

Probably a roaming agreement expired (possible Strategic Roaming Alliance partner?) and Sprint and the roaming partner couldn't come to another agreement. There are areas of roaming that act as normal coverage due to an agreement. May have been an agreement with a provider that was later swallowed up by the likes of Verizon and the agreement has expired, thus standard roaming now.

Alcatel Lucent seems to do LTE 60-90 days after. Most of the equipment is the same, panels are already up since the same panel is used for both, but 4G RRUs usually have to be installed still and upgraded backhaul as well.

They don't have to, but that's what Alcatel Lucent does. 3G first then 4G later.