iansltx

Ahem...I mentioned the T-Mobile side of Ting in my post. To elucidate, I have a Sprint postpaid SIM and a T-Mobile-powered Ting SIM. The latter shares a billing account with four Sprint-based lines, which are assigned by MEID to other family members (two S IIIs, two Galaxy Victories for those following at home). My primary phone is a Nexus 5, which I can (and have) swap(ped) Sprint and T(ing|-Mobile) SIMs out of on a regular basis. I already know that the Sprint M9 would work with my postpaid Sprint SIM...that's the standard case. The question is what I'd need to do to make it work with a T-Mobile SIM...unless you're buying a data-only plan a T-Mobile SIM will work in any phone that supports its frequency bands and is unlocked. The M9 Sprint Edition satisfies the former requirement...including B12...but probabaly not the latter out of the box?

Thinking of retiring my N5 in favor of the M9, but want to be able to swap out my Ting TMo SIM when using it is a better idea vs. my Sprint account. Any issues y'all foresee with grabbing the Sprint version of the M9 directly from htc.com and then calling Sprint to ask for an unlock? Also, how's radio perf vs. the 5? What about GPS perf? Remember that my market does have some B41 around, as well as tons of B26, so those bands matter to me. Just skimming the last few posts here, do I need to flash the older radio to avoid issues?

Noticed an increase in B41 in my area (NW part of town). Haven't sought it out enough to do some real diagnostics, but I'm guessing that, along the 183 corridor north of me, plus a bit south on 360, there have been three or more new (or converted) B41 sites. I'll get more details at the week goes on.

FWIW B26 works just fine on the Xv2, though that's probably several pages back in this thread. As does B41 (I have the 32GB RW model...red back, black front, red accents for those following along at home). As for HD calling, I could've sworn that HD voice works over 1x when not using WiFi calling (I'm on the everything for-$40+tax plan for the moment), despite running through Bandwidth.com's blocks of numbers. I'll have to try it out again, comparing with my N5. Also, Hangouts' POTS calling could learn a thing or two from Republic's WiFi calling (comparing the Nexus 5 with the Xv2). Though I guess the main difference there is that RW doesn't even try to do VoLTE (or a duct tape and bailing wire equivalent)...it just falls back to 1x when doing voice calls off of WiFi.

So, once we have 20+20 (or 20+20+20) CA, does that give us Super Turbo Spark max on our Samsung Galaxy S6 Epic Super Turbo Spark Touch phone? In truth, I'm bitter about being hundreds of yards out of B41 coverage at my apartment. Though the coworking space I go to has it, I believe (will check within the next 24h if things get a little warmer).

Yes, I'm posting this late, but I was in FL until ~14 hours ago...specifically, an area not in Miami-Dade but close enough that the B26 exclusion zone applies. Let me just say that Sprint downright needs B26...or tighter cell spacing (whoops, can't do that, NIMBY) to get the QoS that they should have in the area. And probably closer cell spacing wouldn't cut it; 20+ Mbps outdoors turns to a shaky signal within condo walls in Fort Pierce, for example. Nothing B26 wouldn't fix up, but quite annoying as of right now.

Jumping in here since I'm in-market... While some areas (very few) still have coverage/throughput issues on any band, and indoors/at the cell edge B41 has issues depending on where you are (I blame not having 8T8R equipment), speeds where I go (NW part of town, downtown, east of 183) are generally solid. I've also seen 60/15 on B41 in a few places, and 30+/8+ downtown on the same, on both my N5 and my Tab 4. Has Sprint upgraded all ex-CLWR sites to B41 LTE? Nope...my apartment gets 8-25 Mbps on B25 and 10-16 Mbps on B26. But I also hit 70/16 on B41 a couple miles away, though that cell mainly covers 360 rather than the shopping centers nearby. Nice thing about B41 is that it can handle plenty of load when set up properly, e.g. at the Dell Diamond Sunday; I was pulling 3-5 Mbps in an over-filled stadium while everyone else's phones were refusing to work (that stadium doesn't have public WiFi).

It'll be interesting to see if the X v2 ends up on any other Sprint MVNOs (Ting et al). Certainly looks more interesting than the N6 to me.

FYI The Aquos has a field test mode that overlays part of the screen when turned on, rather than taking up the whole screen like anyone else's. Kinda slick. ##DEBUG# gets you there. As others have said, the screen is great, and the bezel-less effect is kinda surreal.

Since I've got a business account, I can't do GVI anymore. However I can do forward-on-no-answer to GVoice (which allows me to use GV/Hangouts voicemail...and keeps my phone ringing a little longer), so I'm doing that. End result is that my phone will ring two different ways when someone dials my cell #: once for the normal voice network, once for Hangouts VoIP (at which point my computer rings as well). If my phone is off, the call goes directly to GVoice. Works for me

Are we sure that this is the L710T, rather than just a new box for the phone? Because the Virgin Mobile S III has the Spark branding but is the same old L710, with SVLTE and single-band LTE. Same deal with my S III (now my brother's); Android 4.4 switches the LTE indicator to Spark but you don't magically get B26 and B41 included.

Hopefully part of this change in B41 strategy involves getting existing dual-mode sites online, and 8T8R sites accessible, soon. I've been seeing some B41 around my area, but WiMAX coverage is much broader. Maybe that's because there's a bunch of wireless backhaul that wouldn't support speeds better than what B25+B26 is providing on a tower nearby. But if Sprint upgraded every WiMAX site around here (or added B41 to sites very nearby), they'd have a network that would meet or beat anyone else's around here, even without CA.

Side-loaded the app. Hangouts-to-landline calls on-phone do have a different feel to them vs. cellular...more background noise (probably due to a less choosy codec). But I kind of knew that already, since I use GVoice extensively from my computer. I don't have integration turned on at the moment, since I like both my GVoice and my Sprint numbers, but maybe I'll turn it on and switch to "Sprint mode" in a few days. I did have Lite Mode turned on awhile back but when I switched to the business plan I lost that.

The catch here is that the Sprint iPhone ends up at a handicap vs. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile variants because VZ can do 10+10 FD CA (13+4) pretty easily. And T-Mobile and Verizon have 20x20 in some markets on B4. So the iPhone can use 40MHz of total spectrum running in FD mode, which is where the 150 Mbps number comes from. Now, the 5S could hit 150 Mbps too, but only in markets where 20x20 spectrum is available as I understand it. Oh, and AT&T can do 10x10 B17 + 10x10 PCS or AWS if they can plop down a big enough carrier in mid-band. That said, this only gets higher peak speeds in near-perfect conditions, since we're assuming that VZ and T have unloaded low-band spectrum (they don't), or that VZ or TMUS have 20x20 AWS (sometimes they do) that's also relatively unloaded. So the imbalance of power isn't quite so bad. Now, the upside of things is that Sprint can use B41 on the iPhone 6/+, and though CA on B41 won't exist, they can spread iPhone usage around the band to keep speeds high even though peak speeds will top out at 70/15 or so. And smaller cell sizes do help Sprint's performance under load. So the situation isn't nearly as bad as with the 5S, where you're confining to at most 5x5 of bandwidth at once, and ignoring high-band spectrum. Re: leasing, a cool bonus for Sprint there is that they can retire old iPhones if their being in the field is a real drain on network performance, though the 6 probably won't be. And if they want to re-sell the devices at the end of their lease, we're talking about a phone worth $350 refurbished.

Looks like there's an error in the B26 frequency listing there; B26 should have different freqs than B5. Anyway, the X v2 looks like a really solid device. Will have to see whether Google comes out with another Nexus handset this year. If not, I suppose I'll get the X as long as I can get an unlocked version like I've got with the N5.

Corrections incoming... GFiber isn't available anywhere yet. Grande is limited to 110/11 outside their FTTH area toward the center of town, but $65 gets you a gig if it's available. AT&T is at a full gigabit now where they have GigaPower (a friend lives near 35 and Riverside and his apartment complex has GigaPower). Suddenlink is available in Pflugerville, Georgetown and parts of Leander, and recently their standard tiers went from 15/30/50/107 to 30/50/107/300 from what I understand. Upload speeds are 2/3/5/15 IIRC. Thing is, I think that their 300M is cheaper than TWC's, though that isn't saying much (I pay ~$100 per month including modem rental for 300M). SL could offer 200M to everyone by running 16 channel modems on a 24 channel system...though they'd probably have to settle for 10M up in that case. Gigabit? Probably selective FTTH, at a pretty penny per month ($150+). DOCSIS 3.1 won't be ready soon enough to deliver a gig that way.