troyd96

That's funny because I found LIH modem to be flaky cutting my 3g speeds horribly, but flashing LIG modem on the LIH build is solid. Fastest 3g speeds I have ever seen and I keep LTE more often than on any other modem from LI3 and older or the new leaked LIF or LIH modems. So the LIH build with LIG modem is rock solid with me. Been running it since it came out with no issues whatsoever. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

I am running LIG build with LIH firmware/modem, waiting on the guy to drop the LIH ROM. Right now he has only posted just the firmware for that build, and so I went ahead and and flashed it. On LIF I had some SOD and issues, but LIG hasn't given me that so far. Awesome leak, and all of the firmware leaks so far (LIF, LIG, LIH) have increased my 3g speeds and I got a 38 Mbps speed test on LTE, the fastest ever for me. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

I have checked and checked here and there is a gap in coverage, but it is down in a low part of the interstate which is why it probably doesn't get good LTE coverage in that one spot. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Well all I know is that Sensorly had nothing down I-85 and southern arc of I-285, I run it one day to and from work and the map is updated with LTE on it now. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

That is me who mapped that stuff up I-85 and around I-285 toward Dekalb County. I am not sure it is blank right there. Give me a few more days of driving to work and we will know for sure. The problem I am running into on my S3 is that I stream Pandora and SiriusXM on my phone going to work. What happens is that if it sees a 4g signal before I start streaming it will keep it, but once a 3g signal happens on my phone while streaming, it very rarely switches back to 4g on its own while I am streaming. I tend to have to toggle mobile data off and on. If I am not streaming or doing anything with the data it switches back and forth more regularly. Maybe this new OTA for the S3 will fix some of this switching back and forth stuff. Funny, my grandparents live right off Old Bill Cook Rd by that fire station and tower. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Yeah, I don't go out of the country enough to care about the SIM card. I have an old Touch Pro 2 I can bring with me if I need to. So far every LTE phone released by Sprint has had non-removable SIM's. The Photon Q being the newest one with a non-removable one. Supposedly it has something to do with LTE which is why it isn't removable, but I think that is just a bunch of spin so people won't be mad at them. There is almost no LTE in other countries, so there is no point for that SIM to be in there in other countries. This is purely a money move for Sprint. What ticks me off is that I think it was a little disingenuous of Samsung to release the Galaxy S3 with a dual-core processor in it spouting LTE issues, and then essentially 3-4 months later release the Note 2 with a quad-core processor in it. I would have held off on my upgrade had I known that was in the works. Now I am faced with a choice of selling my S3 for hopefully $350-400 and paying another $200-300 out of pocket for an off-contract Note 2, or just keep my S3 for another 1 1/2 years until I can upgrade.

The problem is that most likely the SIM card will not be removable meaning you will be forced to deal with Sprint's outrageous international rates abroad. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Have fun and win, but just remember when GT comes up there to play NC State you won't be having as much fun! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

I'm not sure I take that site as a very good source. There is no article anywhere that says that the US version will have to go dual-core due to LTE issues. Actually the specs say the international version will have LTE on-board. So that should make it compatible with the U.S. carriers. I am approaching it like this right now, if the Note 2 comes to Sprint and it has a quad-core processor then I am likely to sell my GS3 on craigslist or ebay and hopefully recoup enough of my money to pay nothing or minimum out-of-pocket for an off-contract Note 2. If it comes out so late that the GS3 isn't worth as much then I may have to wait till the Note 3 comes out in a couple of years. Spec page that shows full speces including support for LTE: http://androidspin.com/2012/08/29/samsung-galaxy-note-2-gets-official-full-press-release-specs-and-images/

Had a lot of hand off issues with data on the way to work this morning and I was alternating between roaming 4g and 3g all day at work. Something must be going on. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Well that explains that, I but based on speed tests and looking at my bars alone, and it surely did seem that before this update it was definitely showing bars for LTE. I base that on when it switches from 4G to 3g also. As soon as it switched to 3g the bars would go back up before this release now they just stay steady for the most part. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

No I used a app called "Quick Shortcut Maker" that is like anycut but has a better interface with more information on each activity in my opinion. I made a shortcut for IOTHiddenMenu. On that app there are several IOTHiddenMenu's. The one I chose to make a shortcut for was this one: com.android.hiddenmenu/com.android.hiddenmenu.IOTHiddenMenu. That shortcut gives you this menu (which is some of the dialcodes on the device without actually having to dial them): I then chose "LTE Mode Menu" and it gives me the 2nd picture menu show. The only button of use most likely on there to try to force LTE mode is the "LTE Service Forced" button, but tapping it does nothing. The other buttons do change settings but it wouldn't be helpful to us except for a quick changing to different modes. I know I can have that, but in my logical thought process being that I got the same speeds before in the same exact location with supposedly less of a signal, Sprint has obviously tinkered with how the phone reads signal strengths. It is possible the previous version was wrong and this fixes it. Who knows which one was actually more accurate LG2 or LG8. In the absolute test though of speed in the same location I get the same speed as when it told me I had less signal. I know which tower I get 4G from at my office and it is the same one I get full bars and 28Mbps down when eating lunch right beside it. So I know that in this particular case if I get full download speed right beside the same tower I get a lower signal on in my office it logically probably isn't the issue you talk about. I am just trying to figure out what exactly did they "fix" in the update. Did they just spoof the phone to fix the thresholds, or did they really fix something. If they spoofed something then in reality we will probably have more problems down the road with more and more complaints of getting good signal strength but horrible speeds because the phone is not accurately giving the user the signal strength.

Before I was showing -90 to -98 or so in my office. After update it stayed around -75 to -81 but the speed tests for LTE gave me the same 3-5 Mbps down that it did when the signal showed -90 to -98 before I updated to LG8. So what I am saying is that there is no way the signal levels I am showing now on LG8 are the actual LTE signal levels. The update either made them wrong, or the signal level in the settings>>About Device>>Status is reading the Voice CDMA signal levels now instead of the LTE levels like i thought it was doing previous to the update.

I remember seeing anywhere from -90 to -98 or so when getting LTE in my office before, and my signal bars while connected to LTE would be 1-2 bars at most. As soon as it switched over to 3G the bars went back to full bars of course because my building has an internal Sprint Tower in it to get 3G coverage in the building. I am having less problems with the 3G overriding the LTE signal in here though. Now of course if I leave my office and go more toward the interior of the building the internal 3G signal overrides it but this is most likely because the 4G signal isn't penetrating the building enough. It would be nice to see if they turn on anymore LTE towers close if it can overpower our internal 3G tower in the future. Edit: Oh yeah just a follow up on those LTE apps we talked about a few weeks ago. I played around with all of them they do nothing to help us. There is also a hidden menu that is just for LTE also, but clicking on any of the buttons does nothing that I can see. Maybe this update fixed most of our woes.

I installed the stock update instead of the one I posted. That link is in the S3 Android Development forum also. Since I am stock but rooted, I can flash it via CWM recovery then immediately flash the TeamEpic "Root from Recovery" zip file before rebooting and I retain root. If you have uninstalled or freeze apps in Titanium Backup then it might not work because it does check to make sure you are stock before installing. I will again caveat that this is for the Galaxy S3 only, do not flash anything to other LTE phones till you get a specific update for your type of phone. As for signal coverage. I now retain 4G in my office more than I have ever before. I used to have to have the phone pretty close to the window of my office but now I get it just having the phone laying on my desk. It says I have full bars but I am not sure the phone is actually reading the bars from the LTE connection or from my Voice connection. The reason I say that is when running speed tests I get the same speeds as I did before in my office. So it seems as if the update did something to the signal bars that might make it more inaccurate on what you are really getting signal strength wise. For instance the device info area tells me I am getting -75 to -81 signal level with 4G, but if I was getting that I would be pulling 20-25 Mbps down and I am only pulling 4-5 Mbps. So I am guessing that the signal levels in device info is from the CDMA signal for voice. Overall I think it was good update, I am just not sure we can accurately look at our bars or signal levels on our phone anymore and correlate that to LTE signal.

To take the OTA, yes you do have to be stock with stock recovery. You can be rooted but you will lose root after flashing the OTA. The better way to do this is to wait for the developers to upload a update.zip file that you can flash via custom recovery like CWM that will keep your root, or that you can easily just flash the root back right after you flash the update.zip file. This guy right here on xda-developers is in the process of uploading the entire update that can be flashed via CWM. It isn't done yet though. If you are stock rooted, you want to get the odexed version not the deodexed version. http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1743923 As for what the update contains, no one has posted whether it is good or bad yet. There are so few cities with LTE it might be a while before we know how good the new modem/baseband firmware is or if it makes it worse like LG2 did for some. I am planning to flash that guy's update as soon as it is uploaded and I will test. I can always revert the baseband/modem to another version as there is a post on xda-developers with all the flashes for those too (LEN, LF9, and LG2), but keeps the other updates and reverts just the baseband/modem.

I know I am not flashing any update till i know exactly what it does... That is why I am also still on LF9 instead of LG2.

http://support.sprint.com/support/article/Find_and_update_the_software_version_on_your_Samsung_Galaxy_S_III_smartphone/case-fk158645-20120629-165043?&INTNAV=SU:DP:HDIA In that link it says that it has "Optimized LTE system selection" among other things. Hopefully it won't have anything negative in it like the last one that killed universal search or degraded 3G/WiFi connections... Hopefully this might be our fix on LTE 4G/3G overriding issues.

Well I was flashing a few things today through CWM recovery. I am stock but rooted with CWM recovery instead of stock recovery. I think I might have flashed something that was meant to give me beats audio on the S3 that should have worked but instead I couldn't boot up at all past the "Samsung" screen. So since I always backup through recovery before I flash anything, I just restored, but that is when the issues started happening. So I flashed the LG2 and LF9 baseband/modem back and forth a couple of times trying to see if that fixed it, which it did not, and I updated my profile/prl a few times, and suddenly when I was about to give up and flash the stock ROM image on the phone again a PRL update fixed it, and I am getting everything looking right again. I don't know what the heck happened though.

Now I am having issues. I usually get 4-5 bars LTE in my house from what I believe is Tower: AT03XC365 at 33.46 and -84.69. I know that Robert's NV completed map doesn't show that one as completed but I am 99.9% sure that is where I am getting the LTE signal because no completed one on his map is within 5 miles of my house. The fact that I would get full bars LTE outside my house also makes me conclude along with NetMonitor's readings... Now I can't get LTE to connect unless I toggle LTE only in the ##DATA## menu. When I do that, it shows me at almost no bars LTE also, but pulling a speed test I get still get good download speed like I did before when it showed me 4-5 bars. I am getting like 14-17 down and 3-6 up. So did something funky start happening with my modem? It seems to me that the bars on the phone aren't showing correctly anymore if I am still get that kind of speed on what supposedly is a 0-1 bar LTE signal.

Proxcee that really sounds like your phone being the being the problem, although you may never know because sprint won't give a straight answer of where coverage should currently really be available. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

I fear that also. I was hoping LTE would pentrate building well but so far it has not. It's fine through houses, and but stone buildings are bad. Luckily my office is on the top floor of a building and has a window and I can pick it up well there. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

I started a post on xda-developers about our issue linking to Robert's article on the connection/threshold issue. A developer on there pointed me to two apps in the system/app folder: com.test.LTEfunctionality com.test.LTETestModeSetting In order to actually get to what activities they use you have to install a 3rd party launcher like Launcher Pro then hold down on the home screen: shortcut>>activites>> scroll and find the two apps and put a short cut on your home screen for each activity listed under each app. I played around with the apps a little, but I am afraid of really borking up my phone, so anyone that has an S3 that is more knowledgeable in this stuff want to give it a try please tell us if anything is useful in getting the thresholds turned down. I will list the activities you can do which each app: com.test.LTEfunctionality 1)LTE Functionality test 2)LTE Test 3)DATA REC SEND com.test.LTETestModeSetting 1)LTE Test Mode 2)Test Mode Setting Hope this helps.

saucratiz, Unfortunately the S3 and GNex don't have this setting to change.

I also have been monitoring my signal levels when on LTE. Netmonitor shows that usually 4G drops out around -90 to -95 instead of near -120 like it should be. Then the stronger 3G kicks in. I know that on other older phones you could go in the ##data## menu and adjust thresholds manually. Does anyone know where in that hidden menu (or possibly another hidden menu) that setting might be?