Thomas L.

3 hours ago, though said:

Here are the first 15 initial soft launch markets with more following in the next few weeks. 

1. Atlanta-Athens
2. Chicago
3. Dallas-Ft.Worth
4. Houston
5. Indianapolis
6. Kansas
7. Missouri
8. New York City
9. Oregon-West Washington
10. Philadelphia
11. Pittsburgh
12. San Francisco Bay
13. South Bay
14. Southern Jersey
15. Washington DC

==================================

I assume T-Mobile roaming has been enabled in all of these markets???

That would be my assumption as well, and it is in the LA market, but I was in the South Bay last week and it was not enabled, so I'm not sure what's going on or what the delay is.

My unlocked Essential Phone did a profile/SIM card update when I restarted just now, and I'm not sure if it did before, but it has the toggle for enhanced 4G LTE mode (VoLTE). I'm not in a soft-launch market so I'm unable to confirm whether or not it's enabled. Theoretically the IMS app on the SIM card is the only thing needed if the phone's firmware supports VoLTE. 

It'll support CDMA voice as well! That's a big deal! 

On 9/14/2018 at 6:22 AM, ericdabbs said:

Are they using all 3 LTE bands for VoLTE?  It would be interesting to see B41 VoLTE.

I don't see why not, China Mobile does it, although they have more than a million base stations in China due to the smaller coverage of band 38/41. The main thing is that changes between bands are dynamic and without disruption, so if band 41 gets weak it'll switch seamlessly to band 25 or 26 and back again.

So how do we do the manual opt-in, btw?

On 8/3/2018 at 10:35 PM, iansltx said:

I've had VoLTE on my straight-from-Google OG Pixel, as well as WiFi calling. Carriers can make it work if they feel like doing so.

Fingers crossed that my Essential Phone will get VoLTE support. It doesn't have Calling Plus but it does have WiFi calling, and is relatively aggressive about using WiFi calling to boot.

Austin LTE is at the point where, as long as QoS is involved properly, VoLTE should work well here.

In terms of the Essential Phone (which I bought on Prime Day, pretty great deal), there's no reason that it shouldn't work other than if one needs an upgrade to an ISIM to support VoLTE. Essential Phone supports VoLTE on any carrier that has it enabled following the standard, like T-Mobile. US carriers are unfortunate in the way they've enabled VoLTE (I have no idea what AT&T in particular, as a GSM carrier, restricts what devices can use VoLTE on their network). In the rest of the world phones are designed to work on VoLTE just like they do on HSPA+ and GSM - it doesn't have to be enabled on the user's account, it just works if the phone supports it, a lot like T-Mobile's implementation in the US. 

I would guess that the areas where Sprint will initially enable T-Mobile roaming with coincide with their VoLTE launch areas.

Does this mean that Sprint will be adding band 13 compatibility as a requirement for its equipment in the future? 

I think this also has a lot to do with the fact that Samsung has reported that they're going to try and start a direct leasing plan that is carrier agnostic, a la iPhone. 

This would make me very happy. I would love to see them follow the iPhone trend and include band 1, 3, 6, 20, and 28. Band 39 and 40 would probably be too much to ask. 

It still annoys me immensely that the standard was designed that band supersets aren't automatically able to connect to the band subsets that they are compatible with without MFBI. I understand that if for band 17 to connect to band 12, for instance, MFBI would be required, but the other way around doesn't make since to me. I feel it should have been deisnged so that bands 25, 26, and 41 compatible phones should be able to connect to band 2, 5, and 38 (along with others that are compatible) without MFBI

I believe the first Nexus, the Nexus One had a sd card. 

Correct, at that time it wasn't an optional feature as internal memory hadn't come down to a point where it could theoretically handle everything, and the cloud wasn't really a thing yet.

Man I wish these filings would reveal international LTE band support. 

So it's still the case that MFBI would have to be activated for Sprint to use nTelos LTE? I thought band 25 scanned the G block and then the rest of the PCS band (that makes up band 2) and would connect as long as the device were authorized. 

Band 25 carrier aggregation is not coming anytime soon. Sprint will have to rip out the entire PCS infrastructure (LTE Rel 8/9) and put in LTE Rel 11/12 equipment. 

Is that what T-Mobile and AT&T have done with their LTE networks to enable carrier aggregation? I was hoping all that "everything can be done with software upgrades" of Network Vision would enable easier upgrades for this sort of thing.

If there doing this then I wouldn't be at all surprised if we say more CDMA carriers being refarmed to LTE, with future devices supporting Band 25 carrier aggregation the same way T-Mobile does with band 4 carrier aggregation. 

So why did Sprint delay in this?  Especially Chicago would benefit from this.

I suspect that it has something to do with all the new people that have been brought in recently after Network Vision 1.0 didn't live up to its promises. I expect we'll see a number of shifts in what is done with the network now that fresh blood has been brought in to try and recover from the issues Sprint has encountered with their original plan. 

I find it insane that Sprint doesn't support this already since, unlike the iPhone for example, beginning with the mini 2 and the Air, all US carriers have carried the same iPad variant. It's almost like Sprint doesn't want your business. I don't get it.

CDMA carriers in the US have not come into the world of unlocked phones and inter-compatibility of their own free will. Verizon only started unlocking their phones because they were required to as part of the conditions of their purchase of 700mhz spectrum, and even then they don't ACCEPT non-Verizon phones onto their network, even if they're compatible. Sprint is only going to do it because they got some fresh perspective from an international carrier, AKA SoftBank, and they probably won't allow people ON their network using unlocked devices, for some unknown reason. I guess it's hard to give up control.  

I know that this is currently suspended, but what reason would there be for them not to allow unlocked iPhones from other providers? 

Sorry to post so late here, but what are the little spots of green in the California central valley, what provider would they be from?

I wonder - will this phone version be a world phone/have a sim slot?

As was already mentioned, I have a feeling that this is mostly for Boost and Virgin Mobile customers. S3s still seem to be very popular with that crowd. 

Does anyone know when this model is supposed to start replacing the 1900 only S4? Do we think they're going to announce the change or just start sending them out instead like T-Mobile did with their S3 vs S3 LTE?

Man, Dan Hesse does not look happy in that second picture. You'd also think that as the CEO of a cell phone company that they could rig up a bluetooth headset or something a little less obtrusive than that white earpiece.

I've decided that that white earpiece is some kind of conference world status symbol used specifically to show you have a simultaneous interpreter or something: I see it at the UN, at big conferences... I study translation and interpretation and it's pretty ubiquitous! Soon I hope to find out why!

I am working on the radio performance article of all the top Sprint devices. I am considering a LTE field trip to Texas or Kansas. Also, we have a series of 800MHz articles we have been planning for a long time.Robert

Yeahhhhhhh that's awesome, I'm really looking forward to the radio performance article and the 800MHz articles sound awesome, what exactly will they be about? Congrats on finishing the schedule updates and I hope you enjoyed your vacation! Welcome back!!

Tommy