Dfarley

This is from two years ago,but I posted this in another thread discussing the 800 spectrum: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1032-fcc-approves-lte-deployment-in-800mhz-smr-band/?p=123756 The letters /documents I posted appear to have some tentative agreements drawn up between Canadia and the good 'ol U S of A; maybe somebody else could take a look and shed some light on the issue.

I would also recommend dialing *2 and speaking to a Cust Svc rep to make sure your ICCID is correct as well. Just tell them you want to confirm what ICCID number they have attached to your account. They can do it easily and I think even run some diagnostics from their end to ensure the SIM is active in your handset. In regards to your dropping 3G and roaming, this happens to me quite often in areas where Sprint is actively upgrading towers - in fact the tower by my office has been in and out for two weeks now and my phone has basically been useless, where the tower used to be very acceptable operating on the legacy equipment. This could be the explanation since your phone will work on the EVDO (3G) network without regard to your SIM. It may be a hardware issue, but I've seen some crazy stuff during this Network Vision upgrade process, so stick with it. Become a sponsor here at S4GRU and you'll have access to an embedded Google Map of all the existing Sprint sites (towers) as well as all sites that have been upgraded / accepted to 3G / 4G by Sprint. It could help you understand some of the network issues that you're experiencing (just be careful, once you drink the Kool-aid and become a sponsor, this site will consume you!) There are a number of threads dedicated to Northern WI both on the Sponsor and general public side with many members scouting out towers and upgrades that could help you with your area as well.

I'm not sure, maybe the correct ICCID is already attached to your account. You can always call customer service and have them verify the ICCID that is attached to your line. If it's the correct number perhaps you have a defective SIM which they'll replace for free. I'm no expert, so take my advice for what it's worth, but your "symptoms" sounds very familiar to what I experienced and having Cust Svc update my ICCID resolved my issues. I believe I had to reset network settings as well (that will clear out any wifi passwords you have, but otherwise is fairly harmless).

I would still try it, if I recall the other member that was having this issue had activated their new phone as well. I want to say it was in the Chicago thread for what it's worth - and I believe it fixed his issue. It definitely fixed mine, even though mine was caused by activating an old phone then re-activating my iPhone 5. I logged in today and the "Activate New SIM" option is there: http://i.imgur.com/RbzD1YP.png Log into your account online; from the main screen scroll down to where you see your line / device listed. On the right side there should be a drop down menu under"Manage this device". Use that arrow to drop down to "Activate New Sim" and key in the ICCID that is listed in Settings - General - About - ICCID and then save.

You may also need to verify that the SIM card in your phone is the same card that is attached to your account. I bounced between activating my old 4s and my 5 on my account, and after doing so Sprint kept my 4s SIM ID number on my account. When I got into a LTE area, my 5 kept dumping to 1x (little 'o') which is what the phone does when it recognizes an LTE signal, but if your SIM ID doesn't show as activated the phone then goes back to 3G (or would get hung up on 1x). It took a bunch of calls to customer service to get this figured out, but once they got the proper SIM number attached to my account, ¡viola! LTE without issue! I haven't done this, but other members here have said you can update your SIM ID online by logging into your account, select the Manage this device drop down on your phone, then select Activate new SIM card - key in the SIM number on your account using the SIM that is actually in your phone. You can see your SIM ID number by pulling the SIM out, or just go to settings - general - about - ICCID. Since LTE is rolling out in your area I'd be willing to bet this is what is causing your issue.

No wonder the IBEZ is such a large geographic zone, that could cause some major interference....I wonder if the Canadians have the same restricted zone that we do since 95% if their population lives within the Canadian equivalent of our IBEZ.

Right, I understand (I multi-quoted his post in my response); I wasn't questioning your response, rather I was questioning how we jumped to the assumption that we were assuming the 4S supported 800 while attempting to refocus the attention back to the fact that a standard EVDO PRL has been pushed back out to the 4S. There never was a good explanation why the 4S had a special PRL to begin with, and frankly I never noticed a difference, and the phone seems to be functioning perfectly fine on 60797 so this really isn't a big deal.

I'm not sure how this jumped to the 4S supporting 800 SMR, I don't think frankt3 nor myself was inferring that from the updated PRL, rather just the fact that the 4S is now utilizing a stock EVDO World Capable PRL (noBC10 mind you), rather than the 4S specific PRL.

I performed the ##UPDATE# on my wife's iPhone 4S as soon as I read this thread earlier this morning and it is now running on 60797, perhaps Apple cleared the 4S for use with the standard EVDO noBC10 PRL?

You are not alone in your frustration, and unfortunately as we're experiencing right now it's going to get worse before it gets better. But at the pace we're going now I think we'll have pockets of usable LTE by the end of the year, most definitely by March. The real factor to understand is that Sprint recently acquired Clearwire (the company Sprint partnered with to rollout their 1st gen of 4G - WiMAX) & with that came a huge swath if spectrum in which they are converting to LTE right now. Clearwire was already in the process of converting sites to LTE prior to the acquisition and that should only speed up now. Fortunately the Cleveland market had WiMAX coverage so we could see an almost overnight switch of LTE hit our area. So while we may be waiting for them to upgrade the existing network to LTE, we may very well see a major conversion all at once alongside the slow but steady NV improvements. The only caveat there is that you'll need a tri-band device to pick up that new frequency, which Sprint only has in the form of a mobile hotspot today (but has publicly stated all future smartphones will be tri band). To close my long winded rant, I feel your pain, but there is reason for optimism even though it feels like it's taking forever. But if you decide to switch, I don't think anybody will blame you; you need to do what's best for you.

I never said I wasn't frustrated, I was on a road trip this week and I now have to answer my phone with the message, "when I drop this call, I'll try you back in a few minutes". And that just the phone, data is a different story alltogether. That said, we are a third round NV Market and sites only began getting "accepted" about 60-90 days ago with 17% of our sites with some sort of NV acceptance. I know it seems slow, but we should really start seeing and experiencing the updates on a more regular basis. And in regards to the "daily" vs weekly comment - I did say *almost* daily which is true, but 10 towers per week getting some type of upgrade is roughly what we've experienced so far.

Nothing in the immediate Kent area, but we're now in the middle of the roll out and are seeing upgrades and accepted towers in the Cleveland market almost daily. If you become a sponsor to this site you'll be blown away with the amount of info that's available - I would e a Verizon customer right now if it weren't for this site. Just be careful, if you have any interest in the wireless industry the info here can get addicting.

I didn't mean to imply you would go there, I was more joking around with what I know to be your strong allegiance to the Android platform. I would assume that when one enters a low PCS signal area, -100 for example, that the Android PRL would then scan and find a SMR signal and lock onto it; whereas the iPhone may do the same thing but then continue to try and find a PCS signal even if it is very weak (which is what I've experienced). I don't have prevalent 800 around me now to really test this, but just basing my judgment on what I've read here. Sorry to sidetrack the thread C-bus, just going off on a tangent here.

The only time I've ever picked up SMR on the stock iPhone PRL is when I was on an airplane (and PCS wasn't available), whereas I've seen many times when an Android would lock onto 800 while still within a PCS covered (albeit weak) area...and no Digi, this doesn't need to go down the Apple sucks, Android's awesome path , I'm just saying it's frustrating that the iPhone's PRL puts SMR at such a low priority.

It will look like this: http://i.imgur.com/zEKQaOk.png Just realize that this was taken at 15,000 in the air while flying over Ft. Wayne, IN; Unless you have a jailbroken iPhone and have the knowledge to load an edited PRL, the only time you'll connect to SMR is when there is no PCS available. For the record, I really hope that Sprint pushes out a stock PRL that matches the Android devices (SMR is at same priority level as PCS) because there are MANY areas where PCS is so weak that my phone is basically useless, but SMR would work perfectly fine.

You could try one of the PRLs designed for the Android devices (S3, etc) since they prioritize 800 SMR 1x on the same level as 1900. There is a thread dedicated to all Sprint PRLs that gives the details of each. Otherwise there are some testing PRLs available to Premier sponsors.

Frankly that thought does make me shiver, especially considering that I bought my phone on eBay...but who knows, maybe Josh could become a candidate for the mayoral seat of NYC and those photos could actually enhance the value of the phone!

No, it's clean, he always 'wraps up' with an Otterbox defender case!

Perhaps - however I don't think they are refurbishing phones at the Genius Bar, I think that's done in the 7th sub-basement of some lab in Cupertino...

Sprint is nTelos in West Virginia, and unfortunately Robert does not have any data for nTelos so the best we can do is speculate based upon their public announcements. They have not rolled out LTE yet anywhere, but plan to start in the bear future & from what I understand their agreement with Sprint expires in 2015 so who knows what the future holds. nTelos has not made any public announcement on 800 which as you can imagine would greatly benefit a mountainous area like WV. FWIW, their 3G coverage is fairly solid in both Charleston & Huntington and all major interstates are covered.

It's one if the sites that went live with LTE last week, on the West side of I-71 just North or Rt 303. I saw the crew up there working on it back in April.

So you're telling me there's a chance... If Lloyd Christmas could hold onto optimism, then I think our friends in WNY shouldn't give up all hope. I had all but thrown in the towel for Cleveland to get 800 any time soon, but it happened / is happening. Yes, we have Lake Erie to buffer what is the actual border whereas Buffalo and Detroit have but a mere river, but the Cleveland market is proof that "special dispensation" can occur.

AJ, that statement can't be carte blache, just look at the Cleveland accepted sites. Yes, Cleveland is a Legacy Motorola market so from what I understand Sprint will try to offset the handoff from legacy to NV equipment issues that the Chicago market faced by offloading voice & 1x traffic to 800 MHz, but Cleveland is well within the IBEZ and has been actively deploying SMR, just in a powered down state. Even in this powered down state we have members recording 10-15 dbm increased signal while indoors. Point being, Sprint is able to deploy 800 MHz within the IBEZ, just not without some power restrictions.

I'm just going from the document that I referenced which gives the details of what each PRL allows - key word is "currently". Its only been since April 12th that the Postpaid Sprint customers have been granted access to all markets with BC10, so I would be willing to bet that sometime in the future a PRL would be pushed out allowing pre-paid (Boost & Virgin) customers access as well. In fact, through using one of Digiblur's testing PRLs many users here have discovered areas where Sprint is still testing the 800 SMR band on a 'hidden' SID, which also tells me that there are more markets with BC10 soon to come to postpaid and most likely pre-paid. In regards to nTelos' use of BC10, I don't know what their future plans are and I don't know what the agreement between Sprint and nTelos allows, but they cannot simply 'turn on' that frequency, it would require additional antennae (is that plural for antenna?) capable of that frequency which would require installation of additional hardware. Since they have not shown any urgency adding LTE to date, I don't think you'll see BC10 showing up in their coverage area any time soon. The only option I can think of would be if Sprint decided to convert some of the old Nextel sites that they owned. I'm not sure how much native coverage Nextel had in the area, but I do believe they had some and it could be a possibility for Sprint to convert them sometime in the future, but that could also depend on whatever agreement they have in place with nTelos as well.

That is actually a known bug with iOS 7. Hopefully beta 4 will fix it, but these types of bugs should be expected when running a beta version of the OS.