swintec

But with cable, we're always subjected to advertisements and also have to pay TOP dollar??!?

 

Talk about no innovation. This is what happens when you have an archaic business model and have ZERO competition (to speak of) in each market.

What ads are you referring to?  if you mean on tv stations, the cable companies dont air the ads.  The network does....this is outside of the cable companies control so I dont think that is a valid arument to hold against the cable company itself.

What sort of innovation are you looking for?  What can a *cable company* do to innovate with their cable plant?  I cant speak about Comcast but TW has rolled out quite a few features for me over the past few years.

- Video OnDemand

- Start over a show that has already started (no DVR box needed)

- Look Back which allows me to start a show that aired within the last couple of days (again, no dvr)

The last two features i mentioned actually get neutered by the channels / content providers and some dont want their content being accessed that way so with that said, the channels seem to be the ones that dont want to innovate.

- TW TV App where I can watch most of my channel line up (and access OnDemand) on my phone, computer and even on my Roku box.  With the Roku I dont need to rent a cable box for less used TVs.

- Interactive voting for stuff with the buttons on my remote

- TW has also rolled its own cable box guide software

- DOCSIS 3 technology for channel bonding and faster speeds

- i called for an outage report two weeks ago and TW knew about it and also told me what time it would be restored by all without having to talk to a human......they were correct within 2 minutes.

I am sure there is more I cant think of right now but it proves my point that is plenty of innovation at least from TWs side and I think Comcast has some of those features now to.

What sort of things do you think independent cable tv companies could do to "innovate" that hasnt been done yet?

Win win for us no state Tax people

They still get their money other ways.  NH has no state income tax or sales tax but they have an incredibly high property tax and other taxes for businesses.  I just go there to buy big ticket items tax free.

I didnt confuse it i went to the town council and asked straight up when i moved there...there is a request to allow cox in but that has fallen on deaf ears at the town council even with petitions 

But did you request and read the actual cable franchise?  Does it say exclusive agreement or is this simply coming down to town council members taking kick backs and such to vote no?  Does Cox have incentive to grease the town council wheels?  Also, are you saying there is a request to have Cox overbuild or completely take over as sole cable company?

just so everyone knows ESPN cost to insight was 57 dollars per subscriber i don't know what it costs time warner or comcast but it wouldn't be hard to guess that its close to the same if not more as the number i have is from 4 years ago 

$57 per month? year?  there is no way it costs $57 per month per sub.  it is more along the lines of $5 or so.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/27/226499294/the-most-and-least-expensive-cable-channels-in-1-graph

most town councils are pretty dumb they get locked into an exclusive contract with company A for a few pieces of silver they think they got a great deal...

Dont confuse other cable companies not coming into an area to overbuild with your town or city somehow having an exclusive agreement not allowing it.

Other cable companies dont simply because it makes no sense to do it.

You do realize if you had the coin YOU could put up your own cable company right?

Time Warner puts all of their franchise agreements with towns and cities online at least for my division.  Im not sure what it will show for others who try to access it: http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/about-us/legal/regulatory-notices/programming-legal-notices/franchise-agreements.html

For other cable companies simply go to your town office.

I chose franchise agreements from two of maines largest cities.  One of which goes back to 1985.  Both state within the first page that they are non-exclusive agreements.

I've read stories about TWC suing competitors out of cities because the local government granted them monopoly power over all wired internet access in the city.

Suing them doesnt mean they cant still come in.  TW or any other provider doing that is simply stall tactics to run up bills for the other side to the point where it isnt worth it to over build the area.  In a perfect world, without the lawsuits and stall tactics where a company could lay their lines and offer service it still does not make sense.  To difficult to gauge how many customers will even sign up plus the provider already there will slash prices considerably to keep customers from switching.  This is why there are very few overbuilt areas across the country.

No one really signs exclusive franchise agreements anymore partly because they dont have to.  The current providers put up enough red tape and pay off the towns and cities enough so they believe they dont have to.

Yeah, its funny that no actual competition will be lost because of the cable co's no-compete system.

There is no no-compete clause.

Any cable company can come in and over build in your neighborhood if they want..it would be stupid of them to do it but they can.

.15 messed with my band priorities and made band 26 priority 0, band 41 priority 1 and bank 25 priority 3...what happened to two!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2514095

 

.15 is a pre-release baseband I think

how come no one uses the .13 or .12 versions then?  .15 turned out better?

.15 is what I am on, and I sometimes am getting LTE at my house, where on .17/.23 I couldn't get it, or if I did it was unusable. I also find it works pretty well with 1x/evdo

hhhmm dont think i have seen the .15 version.  I thought .17 and .23 were the only ones.  can you point me in the direction of this version?

Unfortunately, customer care is closed and I can't activate until tomorrow morning. 

Just connect to the Sprint World services chat and they can help you.

be careful with American Express. A lot of the time, there very hard on merchants. Whether or not the merchant was at fault, and insurance claim will likely result in the entire charge amount being reversed on to the company that initially sold the computer. if that's best buy, then whatever. If some little independent shop for this stupid enough to sell asus, it really is unforrtunate to have that happen to them. I would rather have the situation go through Asus warranty.

this program isnt handled by AmEx themselves it is through a third party company.  an insurance company of sorts.

The blue map is Nextel Direct Connect.

Oh cool thanks.

The question still remains then why they included Verizon roaming in the finished piece and didnt in the first.  No way to easily tell the gains in coverage pre- and post-NV, at least from that presentation.  The thread goes to show that all carriers use funny maps to get their points across.

The yellow map looks to be their coverage with VZ roaming included.

The first green map looks like pre-NV coverage and the one underneath it (blue) looks like it could be the NV completed coverage with 800 turned on doesnt it? At least i dont think that is voice / data broken out separately.

I dont understand why they would show native coverage in the first two examples with no roaming included but then include it in the finished product.

sprint native coverage will not look like it does on the yellow map....not for a long time anyways....

What is that yellow map based on?  Are they incorporating roaming into the mix for that map?  There are states that have no native sprint service or very little sprint service and now they are yellow or mostly yellow in that map.  That would go beyond just the normal upgrades and would require significant build out or is that a part of NV I am nto familiar with?

Just go to a local shop and get a repair estimate / quote drawn up and provide it to AmEx.  I do not believe they are going to hassle you to much over it and if the estimate starts to get close to the cost of the laptop they will simply credit you.

Los Angeles launched almost a year ago and Orange County last October, and their coverage is not shown on the map above.

 

Robert

I almost missed the 3 spots of west coast coverage it shows until I zoomed in.  Isnt the small blip around the LA / Orange County area?  Is the part just north of it SF?  i assume both reflect an early portion of deployment.

Here's what Verizon shows for coverage in their newest commercial for those who haven't seen the January version:

 

 

It pretty clearly shows Sprint in last place for total footprint, which I do not believe to be the case.

The sprint map they used looks like it was sourced before sprint updated the map for the most recent cities they launched the week before last.  According to Sprints official map "Coverage updated on: 1/21/14"  All i remember is parts of NH were launched in this most recent round and the map you posted above do not reflect it yet but sprints does as of the 21st.

Is there any way to get Sprints official coverage map to show just the LTE similar to above, at a country wide view?

In those comparison commercials they use each carriers coverage maps as of whatever date they put in the fine print.  I think that is how they get away with it.  They retrieve the OFFICIALLY released and available coverage map from each carrier on Jan. 15th for example and then slap on the screen, coverage claims based on data as of Jan 15th.

We know Sprints actual coverage is ahead of what they publish on the coverage maps until an area is officially launched but what is the solution?  Only use sensorly data for one carrier and not the other three?  Use a combination of sensorly and carrier maps for all 4?

Remember, there is a very huge push here for sensorly mapping of sprints network as it comes online.  Probably more than any other carrier. If I didnt have Sprint i would have no interest in mapping to sensorly.

Another issue I never thought of, I brought up coverage of Sprint network with another user in a forum and he mapped a lot of Southern California on sensorly.  Unfortunately, his phone had issues and continued to say he had LTE when there was no connection at all.  Sensorly accepted this for some reason and mapped it and now there is no way to remove or edit it.

I think the only ideal solution is for sprint to update their coverage maps in a more real time manner.  If LTE is accepted and usable (on a tower or a cluster) maybe reflect this on the official coverage maps and nto wait some number of months before they do.

Anyone still noticing it can take 20 to 30 seconds for an outgoing call to go through?

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Only when connected to LTE, at least for me.  It is almost like the phone / network is having issues swapping over to 1x or 1x800 from LTE to place the call.

Which radio update are you referring to?  Btw the Nexus line will not have a specific Sprint Spark update that will only go out to Sprint customers.  The Spark update will be sent to all Nexus 5 users on AT&T and Tmobile as well.  Its not going to be phrased as Spark update but rather the changelog will read something about enabling B26 and B41 or just enabling other LTE bands. 

Sorry..i believe there is only one actual radio update.  Some noticed reception not as good for LTE once the update came out compared to what the Nexus 5 originally shipped with.  If I set the N5 in my bathroom window it will pick up LTE although weak, but it gives decent speeds and such.  if I apply the radio update from last month I can not get LTE with the phone sitting in the same place.  There was quite a few comments on the matter in this thread when the update came out.

I guess we will just have to wait and see.

but I am sure most N5 folks are happy currently with the radio so reception is not the issue.  Just throw in multiple bands and N5 users are happy.

 

My guess is that the N5 Spark update will not make the N5 LTE reception worse and if anything it will remain the same way as it is now but just have B26 and B41 enabled.

Many (including me) found the radio update that came out affected LTE performance quite a bit to the point where it didnt pick up LTE like it did with the radio the N5 originally shipped with..so we reverted back to the original.  I guess I am wondering if it needs a radio update or needs an update to "hook" into the radio software if it is going to be done with the assumption that the device is running the updated radio (and whatever bugs it addressed) and not the original.

I guess one guy on XDA did some research on this topic and he found that at least for the LG G2, the Spark update provided new APNs, new radio and an updated APK that allows the phone to use multiple bands for datas. 

 

Here is the link on XDA.  Could be a good explanation.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=49873795&postcount=8

Crap.  Then that means we will probably have to lose the wonderful 1st version of the radio that shipped with the N5 that holds on to LTE so well.

Very good point.. post edited. If you walk into Willie's Wild World of Wireless authorized Sprint retailer, you won't get a SIM by itself.

 

-Mike

Not necessarily.  I got mine from a Sprint authorized seller after the corporate store lied through their teeth to me.  The seller is quite large here in New England though.  iWireless i think its called and I have seen their sprint stores from Maine down to Rhode Island so maybe they are a bit different?

We've come a long way.

You are telling me.  Those produce prices are great.