WiWavelength

You seem to harp on Sprint CS a lot. Here is a revelation: all big four domestic wireless operators have less than stellar CS. It comes with the territory of trying to serve roughly 50-100 million customers. AJ

Ian, you should have read my article. In the Sprint variant, we found no evidence of domestic GSM/W-CDMA support. Those modes are not FCC authorized. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-383-summer-of-69-samsung-and-htc-rock-out-with-their-flagships-for-the-season/ AJ

Rule of thumb: if it is even several days old, we already have a thread about it. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6766-new-lg-tablet-znflk430/ AJ

This is why I do not get you guys beating your heads against the wall by forcing the issue about a niche service or product on the very first couple of days. Give it at least a week. Or do you expect to die in that time? I doubt it -- because I also suspect that many of you are young. On the other hand, once you get past about 35, you understand that gratification next week or even next month is just fine. Life goes on. AJ

No. Compared to DirecTV, Dish is an entirely different animal -- now that Charlie has acquired something on the order of 100 MHz of unused wireless spectrum that is classified for or has been converted to terrestrial mobile use. Add that to Sprint's spectrum holdings, and the FCC would have to look at undue spectrum aggregation. AJ

Fort Wayne. That is not a really big city. We used to have a member from there named Rukin1. He was banned. Do you know him? That would be crazy, lol. AJ

That would be a "strange, erotic journey," Milan and Minsk, aside. AJ

The FCC classifies VoLTE as a voice service. As such, it will not be counted as data usage. VoLTE will be metered or unlimited -- just like all current and previous calling plans. AJ

Airports that charge for Wi-Fi are asshats. So, I am not overly impressed with the Boingo deal. That was my initial reaction when this thread was posted. AJ

Plenty of areas in the Catskills and Taconics or even along the Hudson in downstate New York are not far from large population centers, but they could be considered "rural." AJ

I had not heard before being accused of "Fabian tactics" construed as a "personal attack." But that is a pretty good one -- on both ends. I guess some people do not want to be associated with Fabian Cortez. Now, everyone, back on track. Thanks... AJ

AJ

This needs to be emphasized further. According to the article, if you sign up for Project Fi, Google Voice capability is not just removed from the Nexus 6 -- it is removed entirely from your Google account. You lose Google Voice across all devices. AJ

In celebration, we all should go Tripping... As an aside, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is an all around great album -- for various reasons, on numerous levels. AJ

Phone number and password should be the default credentials, so let it be done. AJ

Bwah! AJ

Soon™ AJ

No band 41 in Lexington? Are you saying that Sprint's LTE deployment there is one and done? AJ

Yes, the 3GPP/3GPP2 (i.e. CDMA2000) variants got the Gobi MDM9635 standalone baseband -- now known as the Snapdragon X7 LTE. I suppose the Samsung S333 baseband also could be included just for LTE, but that seems doubtful. Either way, I think Sprint may have gotten a compromised version, one that was not given as much engineering focus -- because it does not go the full Samsung chipset complement, but still uses a Qualcomm chipset. AJ

Many people forget or do not know that I have a secondary line on T-Mobile. Additionally, I have done a fair amount of T-Mobile focused (unpaid) work -- opposing the merger with AT&T, creating maps, building spreadsheets, etc. Thus, I am not really anti T-Mobile. I am, however, against the childish behavior of the current T-Mobile leadership and its fanboys, astroturfers, and trolls. So, ironically, if anything has caused me to be anti T-Mobile, it is the jagoff T-Mobile supporters. AJ

I would argue with the "still better than what they have now" part. Sometimes, you just have to acknowledge that a roaming partner with a mature network -- especially one based around Cellular 850 MHz -- can provide superior wireless coverage in an area. A native network is not the end all, be all if it provides just a barebones new footprint that colors a map but fails the user test. And the problem for T-Mobile users is that in market roaming in those expanded markets could go away. That is a trend with T-Mobile -- it has no roaming fallback, just emergency service. On the flip side, a lot of fanboys knock Sprint for relying so much on roaming on VZW and USCC. But most of those VZW and USCC networks have the benefit of 25 years of Cellular 850 MHz deployment, likely providing more consistent service than Sprint could on its own with a brand new footprint expansion. AJ

John of Bellevue does not scuba dive. He walks on water. AJ

I do not believe that map. It is wildly optimistic. A project of that size is just not that easy. Otherwise, Sprint or T-Mobile would have done it years ago. No, some factor or another will keep T-Mobile from fully realizing that goal by the end of the year. The costs of adding thousands of new sites could prove too expensive, and funding could be scaled back. Along similar lines, the timeframe required to add that many new sites could prove too short, extending the project by months or years. On the other hand, if T-Mobile actually does cover the map as projected by the end of the year, it will be low density, low quality coverage. Just toss up a site every 25 miles and call it a day. That is what we call a superficial gesture. It technically may fill in the map, but it will not fill in coverage in real world usage. And I do not consider that a goal accomplished. AJ

You are out of order, maximus -- unless you believe the conspiracy theorists that S4GRU is some Sprint funded, money making venture for Robert. Actually, I take that back. Either way, you and your response to my post are out of order. S4GRU is the antithesis of "astroturfing," which is fake, paid, or quid pro quo grassroots support. S4GRU is honest to goodness grassroots support. Members donate just to be here, to keep S4GRU alive. Meanwhile, staffers donate their time or work and do not get paid a dime. Staffers even contribute monetarily to S4GRU. And I, for one, have put in thousands of hours on articles, posts, maps, databases, etc. A lot of that has been for S4GRU, but much of that predates S4GRU -- by almost a decade. Regardless, never have I taken any money or favors from anyone in the wireless industry. I do the work of my own accord and give it away for free. The idea that my work here in regards to Sprint could be compared to "astroturfing" is insulting or flat out stupid. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it... AJ

There are some slight dialect indicators, too, of ethnic Astroturfian. AJ