iansltx

That's gotta be a typo. The A71 5G lists B24 support rather than B25...24 is L band, which I've seen used by precisely no one in the US. It's also marked as an LTE band for native service rather than roaming, alongside 26 and 41. $10 says that's a typo for B25.

Works fine for me and I have the update that rolled out within the last 48 hours.

Confirmed that VoLTE works perfectly on the S20, whether provisioned for Sprint-only (Ting) or T-Mobile/Sprint (Sprint postpaid), running on Sprint's core network. Two S20s on VoLTE will use what Samsung's dailer calls HD+ calling, though it may take a second or two to bump up to the highest-bandwidth codec after the call starts from what I can tell. Just read up on this a bit and I guess HD+ runs at up to 48 KHz, which tracks with that I was hearing...I've experienced HD voice on older devices over the CDMA network and this seemed a good bit clearer. Call stability is superior to Duo, I'm sure due to network traffic prioritization (and, in the case I'm testing with, the call never actually leaving Sprint's network, vs. having to bounce out to Google).

I spent Friday evening through Sunday morning in an area with 20 MHz of T-Mobile spectrum deployed: 10x10 of B71, 10x10 of B2. Confirmed when driving back from there (Brackettville) that T-Mobile puts Sprint's network ahead of B71 priority-wise. Also confirmed that AT&T is running MFBI on their sites (PCS -> B25, CLR -> B26) to facilitate Sprint roaming; on US 90 west of Uvalde both T-Mobile and Sprint were nonexistent for maybe ten miles. In Uvalde, T-Mobile B2 was weak and overloaded, while Sprint had B41 there. For those wondering what this has to do with NR, the tower east of Brackettville has it, so maybe ten minutes outside Brackettville I was sitting on B2 + n71. At that point, I was seeing 15 MHz of n71 + 10 MHz of B71. I got a number of decent speedtests along that route, in contrast to basically everything east of NW San Antonio on 410, where n71 is overloaded and even throwing 20 MHz of B66, among other things, at customers still isn't enough to keep the network fast. But in those same areas B41 was solid, with the usual 70-100 Mbps speeds, so all TMo needs to do is throw n41 on those same sites and they'll be set. While coming back this morning I got my best upload speed test ever on mobile:https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/6228326864. I want to say this was on 10 MHz of n71, plus 20 MHz of B66 and maybe some B2 in there. This was on 410 just west of where it intersects with I-10 north of town. Yes, I double-checked to make sure I hadn't found an n41 tower, but if I had download speeds would've been higher anyway. I may post more updaets later. Chewed up plenty of data running speedtests while riding shotgun. It's great seeing how an unloaded network performs, even on relatively narrow channels...which is something I can't really experience here in town.

Apparently it'll be the successor to the S10 Lite. So something that slots in between the A71 and the S20. https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s20-fan-edition-launch-1132248/ From other articles I've seen, it'll have 5G in the US, and my guess is that T-Mobile will pick it up. If it's the same size/smaller than the A71, should fill a hole in the lineup nicely. That said, not in a hurry to see it, as having that in the lineup might make it easier to justify the S20 costing more than the $750 I just paid for one 😛

The S20 I ordered is now running on Ting/Sprint. VoLTE was off by default but worked perfectly, including HD calling, when turned on. That phone shows the LTE+ icon when on B41, where mine shows the thinner-lettered generic LTE icon in the same situation. T-Mobile roaming doesn't appear to exist...forcing T-Mo bands grants no service. For where she uses her phone, this won't be an issue, but it'll be interesting to see how long it takes before MVNOs get T-Mobile roaming. FWIW the SIM I got from Ting was a Boost/Virgin branded model. I wonder (but doubt) if Ting/Sprint customers will technically belong to Sprint as of 7/1.

Party's over for loaned spectrum in Austin. NR is down to 10x10 and LTE is down to 5x5 in band 71.

I have family in Fredericksburg and Kerrville. T-Mobile having anything beyond 2G is a relatively recent occurrence, and they skipped directly from 2G to LTE on PCS when heading out to Fredericksburg. Sprint was actually the first provider with both EvDO (definitely by early 2007) and LTE (late 2012 I think?) in Fredericksburg, and they've had B41 on their central tower there for awhile. Sprint has had coverage along 290 between Austin and Fredericksburg, and even west of there, for quite awhile, and as I recall B26 has made that coverage more continuous vs. dropping to EvDO/1x. I noticed my phone roaming on T-Mobile at the beginning of May while at the top of Enchanted Rock, so obviously stuff's improving, but TMo service was *rough* the last time I tried it closer to town. Wouldn't be surprised if Sprint and TMo used the same core towers in that area. But Sprint definitely got there first...at least for anything more than GSM.

Samsung logo on power-off. Phone model info, then Samsung logo along for boot. My guess is that both animations are now identical to the unlocked version, and I'll be able to confirm this on Thursday.

T-Mobile network performance on their standard preferred bands seems to be getting worse here, despite not losing any 600 spectrum yet. Sprint is holding up nicely, so I have my phone set to only connect to 25/26/41 for the time being. B71 seems to be a bit better if I lock onto it. I'll be heading down 35 on Friday, through San Antonio, and out west of there for a few days. Where I'll be is in a fringe area for NR by the looks of it, though it has strong Sprint coverage. It'll be my first real test of a mostly-unloaded NR network once I get past San Antonio, so it'll be interesting to see if service is good enough to not lock onto Sprint for most of the trip.

Got a software update this morning. Sprint boot/power-off logo is gone. Security patch level is now June. Not noticing any other differences yet.

FYI, Microsoft's store has the S20 for $750 right now, and the S20+ for $900. I just picked up an S20 for my mom (she'll be keeping her unlimited talk + text + 20GB of data plan on Ting) now that I've confirmed that the S20 is a solid phone/worth the price. I figure the phone won't get much cheaper for awhile, and this should last her for a good three years In other news, at least in my area T-Mobile refuses to carrier-aggregate B71 with...well...anything. Now, this may be because they have two 10x10 carriers in B66 and two in PCS here, but it looks like they'll aggregate 2+4/66+12, despite 12 being a mere 5x5 channel (B71 is 15x15 right now). Maybe they're keeping B71 free for indoor coverage or something.

Yeah, no need to deal with small cells if you can avoid it. Without 2.5, it's tougher because the spectrum you've got is finite, particularly when 600/700/800 have to be run in "provide as much coverage as you can" mode. With 2.5, you can just throw spectrum at the problem...and propagation on 2.5 isn't bad at all, to the point that throwing it toward the top of a larger macro tower actually makes sense. Whereas you'd never do that with mmWave. I'm biased here because most of the places I go are dense enough for 2.5, depending on how high up you put the radios, but not dense enough to make sense for small cells, but there are plenty of places like that. Meanwhile, when you *do* get into urban cores, you can throw LAA and a denser 2.5 network at the problem, and statistically enough people will have mmWave-capable phones (in a few years) to meaningfully offload from the macro network. So things work out nicely.

So, the Galaxy A71 5G will be available this Friday, running $600 at full price, or significantly less via lease or promos. Still not *cheap*, but well down-market of the OP8/S20, so the "please switch to 5G" subsidy can be less while getting more people on the network. The A51 5G will also be out this summer, and that'll sell at a discount vs. the A71. I'm betting we see the A51 crack $500, as the non-3G version is under $300. Both the A51 and the A71 support n41, so that band won't be the province of flagships for long at all.

Dial *#0011# and see what that info says. You may not have actually had 5G, as the indicator will show up when the anchor band is available. If you went into the car wash, you probably dropped from B2/66 (which can serve as an anchor band) to B12 (which can't). Now, if you're pulling 413/51 on "band 2", that sounds like n41 with band 2 as the anchor.

Oh, it's definitely a huge fine to pay. The intention is getting a 4th mobile carrier out of this, and I'd personally rather it be dish if they get their darned network deployed. They actually have plenty of spectrum of their own, and have it spec'd for largely unpaired use on the AWS side, so with NR-SA they could have some pretty phenomenal speeds. If they ever. Freaking. Deploy. Their. Network.

Hot take for y'all: if DIsh doesn't come to an agreement to buy Boost, they should be forced to lease their spectrum to whoever does, indefinitely. Because we all know that, given the option, Dish will sit on their spectrum and do precisely nothing useful with it for years. Right up until they're forced to loan it to someone who actually has a network.

As long as T-Mobile pulls stuff over to NR I'm fine with Sprint losing B41 and even B25 (the G block isn't going anywhere) in favor of T-Mobile NR. That's why I bought a 5G phone. I doubt there'll be an extended period where they take spectrum from one (other than the 5G shutdown) to push to the other.

Basically identical width to my PH-1, so I don't mind

Yeah, at my place B41 beats T-Mobile speed-wise, and forcing my phone to B26 allows it to maintain signal better ~3/4 mi west of here. It's not that B66/B2 are *bad* per se, but they aren't anything to write home about here. What's funny is, as the top-tier Sprint customers get new phones, or get the SOC enabled, Sprint's network will just get faster, so until we get n41 there'll be more and more incentive to stay on legacy Sprint LTE.

...which would be B26. Just like "reconfiguring B4 to include extended frequencies" resulted in B66. FWIW the slice of B26 Sprint uses for LTE is right next to the bottom of B5, with a center frequency of 821.3 MHz on the uplink. That leaves 200 KHz between the top of the "advertised" 5 MHz LTE band (actually a bit more than that because as I recall a 5 MHz LTE carrier has 500 KHz of guard band built in) and where CLR starts. Then the 1xA carrier Sprint's using runs below that, rounding out their use of the 7x7 of SMR they have. Catch here is, you'd have to reband the entirety of CLR + SMR to get what amounts to 5 MHz of extra spectrum over what's available in CLR + SMR right now...and that would have to happen across everyone in the band. 'cuz right now you have 10x10 + 10x10 + 5x5...potentially even better spectrum usage for folks who are shimming a 1x channel or some GSM in there (Verizon or rural carriers). You're not just dealing with all three major carriers. At which point you only benefit spectrum-wise if you drop from three carriers to two in the band...and you can get to two carriers in the band with one of them having 15x15 without rebanding. Hard sell when the two carriers you'd see in that band already have B12 and B13 networks. I'd much rather see Dish hold onto that spectrum, shunt all LTE users to B12, and replace the B26 carrier with 5x5 NR. T-Mobile can rent the remaining 2 MHz back from Dish for 1xA until they shut down CDMA entirely, allowing T-Mo to drop PCS CDMA (RIP) more quickly. Phones have had SMR CDMA for 8+ years at this point so switching PCS CDMA off shouldn't be a big deal at all. T-Mobile can use the existing ex-Sprint equipment to run the network on the cell sites they're keeping since you don't need nearly the density for 1x on SMR that you need for anything at PCS or higher. Yes, this assumes Dish will actually launch a network. Holding out hope that that does indeed happen.

By the time you get your S20, it'll probably be preloaded with the update that defaults you to T-Mobile bands. Interestingly enough, the IP network part of the connection is still Sprint...but you get VoLTE across the board. With that said, you can install Samsung Band Selection and pick which combination of bands (LTE and NR, though n71 will only work if you also have B2/66 enabled as well, and n41 for the most part doesn't exist) you'll let your phone on. T-Mobile band priority still applies to whatever you let through, so if you accept B2/4/66 you'll get those (probably even 12/71) but if you lock your phone down to Sprint bands that's what you'll get. As an example, I've tended to select B41-only on my S20 if I'm in an area I know to have solid B41 (AKA where I live and nearby). That gets me significantly higher speeds than the default, which tends to sit on B66+n71. I got one roaming warning from this but latency and speeds are as if I was on the native network. Then if I head out I'll either turn everything on or select 25/26/41 as the radio in this phone is strong enough to sustain a Zoom video call where previously (Essential Phone) the only thing reliable was 1x. The system isn't perfect, and sometime the phone will fail to lock on a signal at all after enough band selection changes, but a reboot fixes that. I have the band selection app as one of my quick apps on the screen edge app selector, so swapping things around takes maybe 15 seconds and a few taps.

I figure it's time to pull some discussions out of the megathread and report by region, and starting at a state/region level seems like a reasonable way to do that. I'll start. In north-central Austin, n71 is available, with B66 as the anchor. 15 MHz of n71 + 10 MHz of B66. I saw 50/20 on it last night, but generally speeds seem to be a good bit slower. Guessing the n71 site covers more ground than it should, and T-Mobile won't fix that because doing so could reduce coverage, and they'll be bringing n41 online soon enough, which will take a ton of load off since Sprint's B41 coverage is pretty solid at this point. Speaking of B41, for downloads locking my phone to B41 is definitely the best option, though latency is maybe 15ms higher than B66. They're definitely using DSS on band 71 too; just got a bandwidth reading of 15 MHz from *#0011# in LTE-only mode. I need to do some more testing, but seems like B66 can be faster without n71 than with it. EDIT: See the reply re: n71 + b71 both being at 15 MHz. Wow.

Been playing with my GS20 since I got it seven or so hours ago. The May security update also made n71 visible in the band selection app (was only n41 before), so I was able to get n71+L66 running, with 15 MHz for the former and 10 MHz for the latter. B41 LTE is still (significantly) faster on downloads though so I'll probably force that unless I'm sending a big file or something. Highly entertaining that somehow T-Mobile can do "roaming" VoLTE on Sprint bands and Sprint never got around to doing that natively. But I may be biased due to having a phone they didn't support for VoLTE for some reason.

The OP8 got an update recently allowing n2/n66, so betting we see DSS sooner rather than later. So B12 and PCS-G will be the two blocks that'll be LTE-only.