halcyoncmdr

Welcome to the club. At least your area is starting the rollout soon. We still have a wait in AZ.

Yes, the phone must be off so it is not checking in with the towers during account rebuild process, your phone checks in with your tower on a slot cycle. So every 2.5 seconds the phone queries the tower as to whether there is a phone call or text message waiting. This is why airplane mode on gives massively better battery life . Most likely the person you were talking to had already gotten everything setup on the network side and just had to make sure the phone was off before submitting the changes. Since the actual programming on the phone itself would not change; your MDN, MSID, NAI, etc. would all be identical, you most likely wouldn't see anything on your phone when the change went through.

I've been around... assisting where I can and when I can. Sometimes being corrected by the wealth of knowledge here... hehe

Service Trender allows the rep/tech to see exactly your specific number on the network. It can show specifically the number of call attempts the network has received from your phone, how many connected fine, how many were blocked (and general errors if they were blocked, including network-specific issues). It also tracks dropped calls that are unexpected on the network. For example, if you are going from native to roaming coverage, it will not count as a dropped calls, because it is entirely expected with hard hand-off between networks like that. It will track a dropped call from a Sprint network hand-off that failed, and can sometimes determine if it was network-caused or not. It also has information directly from our Network Event Board to see specific towers that you have used, and mapping them out to give a visual representation of any drops/blocks/etc. It also shows blocks/drops from the GP (general population) on that same tower, so out of the overall number of calls on that tower, how many it handles that are dropped or blocked. Keep in mind all of this can't necessarily determine a phone vs. network issue, it's just raw data the rep has to interpret and make an educated guess. The only way to know for sure that it isn't the phone is to have the antenna tested, and none of the LTE phones are supported in the retail S&R testing equipment. Note that the internal tools don't show us how "healthy" the network is. I.E. data throughput, overall blocks/drops, network overload, etc. IT just shows us currently opened tickets, and we can see the Service Trender for your phone. If you are in an area where you are dropping a Sprint signal and roaming back and forth Service Trender may show you green across the board because it is expecting you to have issues there given the context of the area.

OKC is likely in reference to OKC Queue Control probably. That is where the network teams that handle all Network CTMS tickets are based. These are the guys who contact you back within 720 hours after filing a network ticket usually. They are the ones capable of fixing the bizarre issues that aren't directly device or account related. Issues that potentially affect entire Markets before a tower is reported down, etc. Bizarre things like when you can't text a specific person but both your phone and theirs work getting messages from everyone else. Those kinds of things. The bizarre or large problems that a regular tech support or store rep doesn't have the tools or training for. They have the most access to the network infrastructure stuff while still being customer-facing in some regards.

Nope, no LTE devices at all. We rely on the info in Service Trender to determine phone and network drops/blocks instead of an actual antenna RF test. That is the only reason I am thinking it is related to the 1900 MHz LTE. It also only is capable of testing 850 cellular and 1900 pcs, not 800 SMR from what I can find here in the US. The actual tester is the NJZ-1800C for those that are curious.

Sprint policy is that the camera shutter sound cannot be turned off for privacy reasons so any subjects of a photograph, willing or unwilling, would know they were being photographed. This policy does not restrict users from installing other applications to add this functionality.

There are other legitimate reasons for rooting/jailbreaking. Enthusiasts who want to get the maximum performance out of hteir devices by over/underclocking the CPU, apps like Titanium Backup for recovery and storage, modifying system files to remove the camera shutter sound, etc. Illegitimate tethering is only one small piece of the pie. Let's not get like Comcast and start blocking/slowing down ALL bittorrent traffic because one use isn't legitimate, or AT&T who just don't care about anything but their bottom line, screw the consumer every time.

No LTE devices are supported by the RF tester in the retail locations. WiMax yes, LTE no. My assumption based on no facts whatsoever is that is because they use the same 1900MHz frequencies.

Ah, I didn't realize the age of the post. My bad.

I haven't had that issue with my GS3. It transitioned just fine to/from 3G/WiFi. I have since turned off the Optimizer since I understand how to manually change my connections and I am aware of what connections I have available at all times. It's meant for the average user primarily who doesn't understand what 90% of their phone can do to begin with.

The first Amendment only applies to the government preventing freedoms. Almost all websites are independently owned and operated and thus are not covered by the First Amendment in any way shape or form. Quoting the Amendment without appropriate context just shows your ignorance to the actual content and purpose of the Constitutional Amendment and why it was added in the first place. I get sick and tired of people quiting the First Amendment without actually understanding it. What has our education system come to? This coming from a 23 year old, non-college graduate, who was educated in the public school system in Arizona, ranked 45th in the Nation when I graduated...

I wouldn't expect Sprint to keep the $35 repair fee for much longer. Parts for the new smartphones are simply becoming too costly to be able to subsidize like this anymore. I see Sprint going back to the way it used to be, or something similar. Different costs depending on the damage. With Screen repairs/replacements going back to the $100-200 range. As it is now, the $35 for any repair or potentially an entire replacement just isn't sustainable. Fun Fact: The monthly TEP cost that many customers pay entirely subsidizes the cost of all service and repair operations that Sprint has. With parts costing more from the OEMs though, I can't see that staying the same, even with the increased cost for TEP on the newer high end phones.

Yes, that specific page is a popup when you click on the limitations link for the Aircards. Outside of a search engine like Google taking you directly to the page from a search, that's the only other way you would get that info. It does not apply to phones. In addition, it is an outdated page back from when there was only the Unlimited/5GB conversion. Before Sprint split the plans up to allow more options. There isn't even a 5GB plan anymore...

I wouldn't put any money on that...

Upgrade Now is still being tested as a pilot program and is only available in retail stores. It is not available to every account, even if the account may meet the requirements for the program it might not be included for varying reasons. This likely is why there is no published official information about it like Sprint's other programs and initiatives.

It seems for some reason the people in the southwest tend to hate seeing towers, but hate not having a signal too. You can't have it both ways. The solution is to have these talking palm trees and saguaros...

It isn't an inherent capability of CDMA necessarily, some phones just happen to be capable because of the radio/antenna setup required on some of the newer LTE phones. It is not an advertised feature of any of Sprint's devices, and is highly dependent on the network in the area. Just because a phone is physically capable, doesn't mean the tower you are connected to is able to support it at the time (think congestion). Because of this, it likely won't ever be an advertised feature of Sprint's CDMA devices. The few times that retail employees have brought it up, we have been told that it is not an advertised feature, but some devices are capable of it in certain circumstances. It should not be used for any sort of sales, just a possible additional upside to some phones, with adequate disclaimer of course. :-P

Sprint has been adjusting the software on the LTE phones to show "bars" as the 1X voice signal strength across the board with all devices (I'm assuming for side by side comparison by the average user). Some of the phones did that previously, some used the 3G CDMA signal instead. None used the "bars" to represent 4G LTE as far as I know.

It essentially takes your 3G EVDO connection and transmits it through the LTE core instead of the normal EVDO core. So you maintain a single IP address across EVDO and LTE. Maintaining your IP address can make a big difference when using apps that rely on single location connections, like a lot of mobile banking apps, if the IP address changes in the middle of your banking session it may kick you off, etc..

OMG I think my brain just melted... :F(x_x)F:

Sprint most definitely has an easy way of figuring out who it is. I have seen Sprint Corporate Security at our store on several occassions for issues. Most of them were just scare tactics honestly to kick people back in line again, but there have been a couple times where terminations just about on the spot. Leaked internal information is taken extremely seriously at Sprint when it is stuff they don't want out there. The fact ISN stayed active for so long means that they didn't really care about most of his stuff, probably because most was already info that was about to be released anyway, it wasn't worth persuing it since any Care rep may have given that info out over the phone anyway on accident since they already read it. Like before Any Mobile, Anytime was announced officially but Care had the info a few days in advance and it leaked out before the announcement through those channels. Something he posted got their attention, and there probably isn't a way to save himself from it now. Everything is monitored, everything is tracked. I have seen it, EVERYTHING. haha

1) The ASL program was already in place previously. Sprint allows many more people with low credit classes service without high deposits up front. The ASL is a stop gap to allow those who otherwise couldn't afford post-paid service, the ability to have Sprint. Even with the ASL in place many were not paying their bills on time or in full. This is why it was implemented most likely. It also explains why if you sign up for autopay the $5 charge is waived. In addition with on time payments over time the ASL will be automatically removed from your account and thus no longer subject to the $5 charge. 2 and 3) are both directly related. I don't have any specific information on why this was implemented, but my assumption is it has to do with something behind the scenes. I highly doubt Sprint did it just to piss people off in exchange for a few more dollars each month. There is some other underlying reason we don't know for why this was put into place, and we likely will never know the real reason. 4) Would you rather have data caps or throttling? Sprint is the last major carrier that can claim to have unlimited data and no worries about throttling your connection to a crawl. Sprint will want to hold onto that as long as possible as a differentiator. 5) This likely is related to the fact that carriers lose money on every device sale at a discount. That money is made back up by your higher monthly cost compared to prepaid carriers. With the cost of new smartphones being so high, discounting those yearly is not sustainable, as evidenced by Sprint removing the program. It was a differentiator that could not be sustained and thus was done away with. Instead Sprint reduces the regular upgrade cycle by 2 months for ALL customers, not just those paying a premium. And who knows, if I were a conspiracy type I'd say it was due to Apple since it happened about the time the iPhone was released. All 3 major carriers with the iPhone have identical upgrade policies and iPhone pricing...

And I have been corrected. Haha. As I said, wasn't completely sure, but that's how I understood it. I understood obviously the capabilities would change over time, just never though phone releases just a month or so apart would be the time frame it would be for Dual-SOC requirements to go away.

SVDO capability is a side effect of other design requirements for the phones. The LG Viper LTE and EVO 4G LTE both require a dual-SOC design to achieve LTE capability and as such have dual antenna. As I understand it, this allows for two separate CDMA signals to be broadcast/received from the device simultaneously, thereby achieving SVDO. It is not an advertised feature and probably never will be on these models. SVDO only works in good coverage areas, and is not guaranteed anywhere, even with theoretically perfect coverage. Voice will always take priority over data when spectrum or signal strength is an issue.