chamb

It is very easy for scammers to send you any caller ID they want. Fraud and dishonesty everywhere. Even if you see Caller ID that looks legit, never assume it is correct.

Question -- How did you prove they were both "Fake". Is there an easy way to spot this?

GREAT contribution to the S4GRU knowledge base. Very good description of what you did and what result you had. Glad to see that this works well. The Sprint network is getting better every day, but there will always be spots that will not be covered, so having this ability and knowing it works well is a big plus. Thanks for your efforts and the posting.

I have two of them (s3) and they are flawless over the last 18 months. I am careful with mine, but my wife can destroy everything and anything. I have seen her drop it several times and I am sure she dropped it many more times that I did not see. So far, they are still perfect. I hesitate to upgrade anything, but I would like to play with LTE on 800. I do have a Samsung Smart TV that is just the opposite and I would NEVER buy another one or recommend anybody go near one. I also have a Samsung DVD player that constantly needs to be re-booted. Yet the Samsung S-3 has been great.

nTelos does sell cellular service in Martinsburg but it is not a Sprint affiliate for that area. Shentel handles the Sprint Service in Martinsburg and nTelos is actually a competitor to Shentel/Sprint in Martinsburg.

You are the perfect person to totally test this out.Then come back here and tell us all how good or bad this works. How is call quality over the Wi-Fi. Can you really dump the Airave? Test it out good and be critical. Is it really an acceptable service that can work for most people?? I personally do not need it but we all want to know how it works.

Yep, that is what it does. Someplace you hit a spot where 1900 dropped and when that happens, you quite often pick up 800. It is supposed to work that way. When you do get on 800, it normally tends to stay there and this is fine. You may or may not drop off of the 800 and go back to 1900. Sprint can probably push you off the 800 anytime they want. If 800 is not swamped with users, you may just stay there for awhile.

Yep, if you are very close to the site and can get up high in front of the antennas. You normally do not get that good of levels if you are very close and somewhat UNDER the antennas. It will be a good level under the antennas, but the signal is not aimed downward to any great degree.

Not sure this list it totally complete or accurate, but it is worth looking at. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Smartphones_using_HD_Voice

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2139660/public-wifi-speeds-to-get-a-boost-from-qualcomms-new-antenna-technology.html On Thursday, Qualcomm announced radios for network equipment that can send three or four data streams as well as chipsets for mobile devices and consumer electronics with up to two streams. The number of streams decides the maximum theoretical speed, and two streams are capable of transmitting more than 600Mbps (bits per second), Qualcomm said. A version of MU-MIMO that can receive one stream is already integrated with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 processor, which powers smartphones including the HTC One M8, Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and the Z2 from Sony. For the feature to work it needs to be activated with a software update, according to Qualcomm. The upcoming Snapdragon 805 processor has the same functionality. More details at the posted link.

It sure would be tricky to get the deal done right. So hard to figure out the total expense and how it should be divided up. Technically, it can be done and somebody is probably going to do it. Going to take a lot of backhaul to every site and is going to require some real bandwidth depending on just what they try to push out to the public. So much money involved and who pays for the construction and who reaps the profit, if any?? Sprint may want to push high speed wireless Internet to the public while Dish might want to push 150 channels of TV to compete with Comcast and Cox. Could be fun for somebody and the whole project could crash too.

Sprint has the NV equipment, the sites, the backhaul established, the knowledge, the staff, technicians, and most of all Mr Mass. I am not sure how you put it all together in a trade or partnership, but it sure could be done. I am not sure is SHOULD be done, but it could be.

I am in the Shentel area with a Galaxy S3. Before the last PRL update, it would stay on 800 voice forever if I somehow got it on 800 voice. The 1900 is very very good here, so it was sometimes hard to get it over on 800. But now, with the latest PRL, I find it is almost impossible to force it onto 800. 1900 has a preference in the PRL. But I have seen some strange things lately. I will be on 1900 almost all the time since it is so good and it is preferred in the PRL. But occasionally I will find that I am idling on 800 for some unknown reason. My 1900 is normally better than -95 depending on where I am in my home, sometimes as good as -85. So it is strange to see the phone idle on 800 voice. It may idle on 800 for a few hours and then for some reason, I will see it back on 1900 voice. I can not explain it. I have about no ability to force it onto 800 with the new PRL, but for some unknown reason, I find the phone on 800 voice at times. I have not noticed a transfer between 800 and 1900 while on a call and I have not had a dropped call for months. I think I like how it seems to be working now. I suspect with my phone hanging on my belt in an outerbox, the level may be dropping below the -95 that I see on signal check while I hold it or have it on my desk.

You are being too kind with the description of a failure. It was a disaster or worse. Sprint is not unique with this outsourcing and its issues. No matter which company does it, it always is a disaster.

And---the big two are killing Sprint with commercials every half hour on the channels I watch. And -- both of the commercials from the other two are excellent. They are killing Sprint for sure. The other two sure know how to market their product and they are just flooding the TV with them. I can see how the average person is going to be swaying into switching to one of the other big boys. It is insane how the big two have it together and have the budget to do what they want. I NEVER see the Sprint name but I sure see the other ones.

From what I know or what I THINK I know about this, I would doubt that Shentel is installing any band 41 at that location. They spent a whole bunch of money last year and need to take a breather for awhile. Plus, you are not in a high usage area where band 41 is really needed yet. Next year, I would expect to see Shentel start installing band 41, but even then, they most likely would start in their bigger cities where the demand is greatest. Maybe I am wrong and you can surprise us all, but that is doubtful.

I never owned one, but I did have one of these in my hands at a manufacturers show in the mid 80's. It was a DynaTAC and looked about like the one shown, but it may not have been the exact model. At the show, it was a very popular item and nobody was allowed to hold it for any length of time. At that time, very few people thought that the concept was ever going to work. I do not think anybody ever dreamed that we all would be carrying a phone with us everywhere we went. Nobody ever dreamed that the price could drop to several hundred a unit and be affordable to everyone. Nobody ever dreamed that we could see 1/4 million cell sites in this country.

It is important that everybody take the time to watch the video on the linked page. We all tend to skip over stuff, but the video had loads of valuable info.

The longer this goes on, the more customers flee from Sprint and go to nTelos or some other carrier. Soon, Sprint will have no customers in the area at all and a very substandard native network or maybe no native network at all. Then nTelos can maybe jack up the roaming rates for Sprint. This is surely one of Sprint's biggest black eyes right now. The longer it goes on, the worse Sprint looks and the more customers they lose. Can we find out if nTelos is installing the 800 band antennas and RRU's at their upgraded sites??? This may tell us something. Are they even installing new antennas at all or just sticking with the old legacy 1900 antennas? Are they placing RRU's on the ground or top mounting them?? We need some good photos of an upgraded nTelos site. Does nTelos seem to have a new CORE switch that will do what Sprint needs??

I would not dispute what you have said but I have no proof it is correct. If nTelos has no rights to actually build a network on Sprint owned Spectrum, then it makes it much easier to just overbuild the area. just overbuild and no longer be dependent on Ntelos at all. Then collect roaming fees when nTelos customers need to roam on the Sprint Network. nTelos does have some of their own spectrum, but I was never sure that is the same spectrum that Sprint Customers access when they pass through the area. I would question if nTelos has enough spectrum of their own to do a buildout big enough to handle everything Sprint requires. They sure would not automatically have access to the old Nextel Spectrum. I have said this before ---SPRINT NEEDS TO FIX THIS ISSUE ---NOW.

You may have had 800 voice recently and just traveled out of your local area where you lost 800 voice. When this happens, you fall back on the 1900 1xrtt. Your phone will stay on the 1xrtt even if you go into the area with 800 voice. You will not transfer back to 800 voice until you get in a situation where you actually need it. When they do the 3G upgrades, the 1900 1xrtt gets a significant boost. This means it it much better than in the past and quite often, you do not need the 800 voice. But the 800 voice is there if you or anybody else really needs it. if you walk into a basement or other "difficult" place, you might see your phone struggle with the 1900 and then you will suddenly connect to the 800 voice. If this happens, you will probably retain this 800 voice connection for awhile but sooner or later, you may go back to 1900 as they try to keep the 800 voice available for those that actually need it.

Can you prove it somehow? We do not like to be guessing on this or anything else. If they are activating LTE on their own channels rather than Sprint channels, then Sprint may not have LTE in that area for a long time.

AND -- This page does not have any mention of SPRINT LTE. The question is ------ Are they building LTE on the Sprint owned 1900 band or are they building LTE on nTELOS owned channels for nTELOS customers only??? Somebody needs to prove this one way or another.

Sprint Marketing sure does need to be fixed and it has needed a fix for years. The latest TV commercials for the other big 2 just leave sprint in the dust. It has been this way for years. The other big 2 players have excellent messages and whoever put the commercials together did a great job. If you look closely at the other commercials, the wording was done very carefully. Omissions & exaggeration are there, but they sure do cause the people to look at what they have to offer. Most people do not see the omissions or exaggerations, so the commercials work.

Doubtful. The dickering on any Sprint/t-Mobile combination has absolutely nothing to do with the nTELOS disaster. The nTELOS situation needs to be fixed long before any Sprint/T-mobile combination is accomplished.