CriticalityEvent

Uh, that is not your finger.

 

AJ

"...turn the treble all the way down and put the bass all the way up..."

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

I was looking at Sprint coverage maps today and noticed if I select this phone it says I will have no service near Mark twain lake Missouri(a us cellular area) but if I switch to m7 it says I will have roaming service. Anyone know why the difference? Otherwise love the phone. The one I currently have will be exchanged as soon as my best buy has another grey in stock because of very poor Wi-Fi(20db+ less) than the demo unit. But other than that great phone lol

 

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

I'm not sure if anyone here would recommend a service that you would only be roaming on... You wouldn't get any kind of appreciable speeds without Wi-Fi around and Sprint would drop you if you keep exceeding the roaming limit (200MB/month, I think).

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

This came about from someone’s post over on XDA and my response to it (link) in which I promised to check its accuracy with the gurus here. Basically, the poster interpreted the lack of SVDO/SVLTE on the Sprint HTC One M8 as an “oversight,” and I respectfully disagreed, but it raised a few questions that I haven’t been able to answer.

1.) Will Sprint be transmitting LTE on more bands nationwide than the other carriers?
2.) If the answer to question 1 is “yes,” then does tri-band LTE come at the cost of SVLTE because Sprint tri-band phones will be switching between bands more frequently so the network can distribute the load?

Here’s my rationale:

1.) Knowing that NV rollout is nationwide, and knowing that the end-goal is to have 2600 and 1900 MHz on all towers as well as 800 MHz LTE on 80% of the towers, it’s safe to say that Sprint will have tri-band LTE across the country.  From what I understand, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon might only have 1 or 2 bands per market (maybe more in certain places for AT&T/T-Mobile):
 

AT&T: 700/AWS/1900/2300 MHz
Sprint: 800/1900/2500 (2600) MHz
Verizon: 700/AWS MHz
TMUS: 700/AWS/1900 MHz

Sources:
List of LTE networks - Wikipedia
AT&T Mobility - Wikipedia
Sprint - Wikipedia
Verizon - Wikipedia
T-Mobile USA - Wikipedia
 
2.) Since the other carriers have fewer bands in a given region, the phones will be switching between them less, leaving extra room (for lack of a better word) for SVLTE on certain devices.  Since we’re talking about the HTC One M8, let’s use it as an example.  Here are the frequencies for each of the carrier-specific models:
 

AT&T: 700/850/AWS/1800/1900/2600 MHz
Sprint: FDD 800/1900 MHz , TDD 2600 MHz
Verizon: 700/AWS/1800/2600 MHz
TMUS: 700/AWS MHz

Source: M8 spec page

AJ referenced this issue with the radio paths which may be related to this (not for the M8, but possibly still applicable):
 

Now, one reason for that could be largely, even exclusively Sprint specific because Sprint is running CDMA2000 and LTE in the same PCS 1900 MHz band.  Off the top of my head, I can think of no other operator in the world running CDMA2000 and LTE in the same frequency band.  So, for SVLTE devices, that presents a filter challenge.  Both of the two separate radio paths are transmitting/receiving at similar PCS frequencies, and they are only centimeters, even millimeters apart inside the handset.  Keeping CDMA1X 1900 from interfering with LTE 1900 and vice versa becomes a challenge or a shortcoming of SVLTE devices.

…which prompted the following question in that same thread which remains unanswered:
 

But if thats the case in a triband phone wouldn't it be easier to handle than on a single band hone since during a call say 1900, just have the phone use LTE band 41 or fallback to 800Mhtz for LTE to preserve SVLTE (while not causing 1900 issues)?

Something worth noting is that this phone sends photos (MMS) at full size. The photos I send are usually over 1MB.

That is AWESOME. Just to confirm, is that with the stock messaging app?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

No this are scan priorities. Network has full command of what band you connect to and which one is best suited for you.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

Got it, thanks for the clarification! I was actually thinking that this made more sense since the network knows how to shift the load between bands.

My hope was that we could force a switch in case the phone wasn't smart enough to know when to drop to 800MHz if we were deep in a building, for example.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

The network decides what lte band you stay on. Sprint is never ever going to let anyone select cap on any band.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

But it seems that people with the LG G2 and Nexus 5 can change the band priority and "force" one band over the others.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Does the debug or data menu allow you to switch LTE band priorities and have the LTE timeout period to edit?

I'm curious as well. This will likely be my first tri-band device and I would love that kind of granular control over its connectivity. Is it something easily selectable from the engineering screen, or do you have to edit the priorities in the PRL like you do on the G2 (from what I understand)?

Hopefully, I'll have one in a couple weeks when I'm satisfied that there are no build quality issues. I'm right by a cluster of 800MHz LTE towers by Chicago so I can't wait to try those out!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Saw this on Gizmodo, but here's the link they cited with more information:

http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/#cellular-network

I want to show this to people who wish for the ability to see radio wavelengths and ask them, "are you sure?" They'd probably be blinded at ground level.

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2

Once my One arrived last week, I purchased the Incipio DualPro Shine from a local AT&T store as a stopgap until I could get a case that didn’t cost nearly $40 to turn my gorgeous One into a chintzy-looking tank (yay 14-day return policies).

http://www.incipio.c...shine-case.html

In the week that I’ve had my One, I noticed pretty mediocre performance in terms of maintaining an LTE signal, even when compared to my EVO LTE. Just sitting at my desk, my One would occasionally drop to 3G whereas my EVO would maintain a solid connection in the same location. Given that the consensus around here and XDA is that the One seems to perform significantly better than the EVO in that regard, it got me thinking that it might be the case.

I had some time at work yesterday, so I tried ditching the case. With the case on, my RSRP values were hovering around -115 dBm. With the case off, the values rose to around -107 dBm. I used stationary objects on my desk as reference points to ensure that I put the phone in the exact same spot and let the phone sit for about a minute both with and without the case several times. Each time, the result was the same. The values fluctuated during active data sessions, but they were hard to quantify, so let’s just say that they briefly went up. In fringe areas (friend’s house), I was able to maintain an LTE connection without the case, but completely lost it with the case on (glad I had their Wi-Fi password).

The DualPro is a two-part case; there is a rubber “caddy” that the phone is placed inside of and the outer plastic portion in which the phone/caddy combination is nested. I did not notice much, if any, drop in the RSRP values with just the caddy. What I did see, however, was the -8 dBm drop in signal when I rested the phone directly inside the plastic, sans caddy.

Since I’ve used plastic cases with similar thicknesses without issues, does anyone think that it could be the metalized painting? I know case manufacturers design these mainly with impact absorption in mind and don’t have access to RF testing labs, but wouldn’t they know to stay away from certain materials? I guess “DualPro” has a better ring than the Incipio Faraday.

##DEBUG# works on the Sprint HTC One.

 

Edit - Nevermind I seen your reply about the screenshots.

Oh, I totally forgot to mention that my post was more to just confirm/reinforce what was said a couple days ago in this (your) post:

I got Dana Wollman from Engadget (review: http://www.engadget....-sprint-review/) to confirm the Sprint HTC One does have the engineering screens.

 

 

Edit- I do hope they had a final build unit and all retail units will still have the engineering screens.

Sorry, I posted hastily.

Someone over on XDA was given a One ahead of the launch and was nice enough to start a thread asking people if they had any questions:

http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=2228412

I went ahead and posted this:

Can you try the following dialer codes to see if they work?

 

##DEBUG# (##33284#)

##DATA# (##3282#)

*#*#INFO#*#* (*#*#4636#*#*)

 

If DEBUG works, can you see if there is an “LTE Engineering” menu to view the RSRP/RSRQ values? These values are also in the “Phone information” menu if the INFO code works.

 

If the INFO code does not work, would you mind downloading the following app?

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ngelow.network

 

Basically, it’s a shortcut to the “Phone information” menu that you would find through INFO, but if they killed the dialer code, this might be the only way to access it (assuming the menu itself is still there).

 

I’m sorry, I know this is kind of a lot, but a lot of people are going to be eager to find out if they can use this phone for field testing to see if it’s a better RF performer than the EVO LTE. Thanks in advance!

To which he responded:

Yes i will attach a screenshot they all worked.

See his post for screenshots:

http://forum.xda-dev...77&postcount=21

Unfortunately, he is not in an area where Sprint has rolled out LTE yet, so we can’t really compare anything at this time.

Technology wise it will be great, but coverage is urban only. You get out of a population area and you are on 2G Edge, good luck downloading apps, streaming music, browsing the web on that dinosaur...

Agreed. Sorry, I was still editing my post when you added that.

http://gizmodo.com/5...-everybodys-ass

 

A lot of people wrote T-Mobile off when its big merger with AT&T fell through last year. The pink carrier had no iPhone, no 4G. But with today's announcement of the company's official LTE rollout, it may have just put itself in a position to offer something no one else can.

 

For the past few years T-Mobile has been focusing its efforts on its HSPA+ network, which has data speeds up to 42Mbps. Now, that isn't as high as LTE's theoretical maximum, but in practice we've found that HSPA+ speeds are almost as fast as LTE speed. When testing the Nexus 4 on T-Mo, for instance, we got download speeds of 16Mbps and 2Mbps uploads. Not bad at all.

 

Why does that matter? Because T-Mobile's isn't replacing its lightning quick HSPA+ network with LTE. It's just building it out in addition. That's going to make a huge difference.

 

Say you're on Verizon, enjoying your wicked fast 4G data thanks to its girthful LTE network. Hit a low or no-coverage spot, though, and you get bounced over to its 3G network. That is a major dropoff in speed—typically going from 20Mbps to 1 or 2Mbps. Suddenly, it'll be hard to stream music, and web browsing will crawl by comparison. Even AT&T's HSPA network (HSPA 21Mbps) is only about half the speed of T-Mobile's (HSPA 42Mbps). In other words, T-Mobile's backup is fast enough that you probably won't even notice that you're on the backup, which is pretty awesome. (For a look at how LTE works, check this out.) T-Mobile will offer guaranteed uninterrupted zip, something no other carrier can.

 

We're not there yet, though, unfortunately; T-Mobile's LTE won't be live in until the end of March, it will take the company until the end of the year to cover 100 million people. Your LTE choice is also limited; the only LTE device T-Mobile currently has is the Galaxy Note II, which will have LTE enabled through an OTA update coming this week. Hope is coming, though; theBlackBerry Z10 will launch with LTE, and we expect that the Galaxy S IV and the HTC One will as well.

 

T-Mobile still has a lot to prove but if it can successfully deliver everything it's promising, it will be offering something the other networks can't. Whether that's enough enough to make you switch, of course, is another question entirely.

 

Thoughts? From what I've read on this forum, people seem to think that T-Mobile's network is the only one of the four major carriers that will really rival Sprint's post-NV network in terms of technology.

However, I have some issues with this article; what it seems to be focusing on is maximum throughput as a standard by which to judge all other carriers. From my point of view, T-Mobile seems to be more metro-focused. Most of my friends who have it live in a major city and get usable signal in many more places than I do when I’m with them. On the other side of the coin, when they’re in a more suburban/rural area, they drop down to EDGE while I might still have LTE.

I guess I would like to see some hard evidence that T-Mobile’s HSPA+ “fallback” will be used as frequently as Sprint’s EV-DO network when the LTE signal starts getting weak. As far as I understand, T-Mobile will only be rolling out LTE on the 1700/2100MHz band, which would be comparable to Sprint’s 1900MHz band. However, once Sprint rolls out LTE on 800MHz, even if it will not be on every tower, would that be comparable to T-Mobile’s HSPA+ in terms of coverage?

http://www.engadget....pring-cleaning/

Last spring, Page and Co. retired iGoogle, Google Mini and other services as part of a 'spring cleaning' initiative to help it better focus its efforts, and another clean-up round has just begun. This time around, Google Reader and seven other services are getting the axe, bringing the firm's total of features closed since 2011 to 70. Mountain View says it's sunsetting the feed reader because it has "declined," and that turning it off will allow it to pour its energy into fewer products. Reader will keep the lights on until July 1st, and diehard users will be able to keep their data and subscriptions by using the outfit's Takeout tool.

Other products being put out to pasture include the company's Building Maker, Cloud Connect, Apps Script's GUI builder and five UiApp widgets, Search API for shopping and the CalDAV API (for developers who aren't whitelisted, that is). The internet giant also announced -- and confirmed our fears -- that it'll no longer sell or provide updates for Snapseed Desktop for Mac and Windows. Blackberry's Google Voice app is being shelved as well, but the company suggests its HTML 5 experience is a nice alternative. By the sounds of it, CEO Larry Page is still making good on his promise to keep Google focused on fewer things. Hit the bordering source links for more details.

D-:

I use this thing to sync saved articles across all of my devices in conjunction with Feedly (which, coincidentally, is trying to prepare for this: http://www.engadget....after-google-r/).

Still, I don't want to be locked to Feedly; I use Flipboard with some regularity which is also based off of my Reader feeds/starred items. While it will likely do nothing, I signed this petition: http://www.change.or...-reader-running

Engadget"s review: http://www.engadget....htc-one-review/

 

Looks like they really liked it.

Feck yeah they did! Though, I'm confused about this part:

Finally, as you've likely already surmised by now, the 2,300mAh battery inside the One isn't removable or even accessible.

What's the difference between "removable" and "accessible"? The way that's phrased, it seems to imply that there's no way of getting to the battery, even with the right tools, which I'm sure can't be right. Even with a molded unibody, there must be some way of non-destructively gaining access to the internals.

My only real gripe about it is the phone:

The only thing that's sorely missing is the ability to touch and hold the on-screen shutter button to lock exposure and focus, even when the One's burst-shooting mode is disabled.

Are you KIDDING me? I know, this might not seem like a huge deal to some, but for a lot of up-close shots, this feature is indispensable. Sometimes the subject that you want to focus on is just too small to allow the phone ANY interpretation on what it thinks you’re tapping on, so it decides to focus on something in the background with astounding consistency (at least in the case of the EVO LTE). For example, I never could have got these shots if it weren’t for the focus-lock on the camera button:

So, is the Z10 the new "Jack of all bands"?

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/30/blackberry-z10-iphone-5-nexus-4-lumia-920/

Wow… poor guy. This is probably made worse for him by the fact that he doesn’t sound particularly technically-inclined, so his ability to try to explain what’s going on to people who are already angry is limited. The fact that they’re mad and so sure that they’ve got hard evidence can really make for a dangerous situation.

What I want to know is whether whatever tracking service these victims are using show how accurate the reported location of their stolen phone is. For example, on Google Maps, if you don’t have your GPS on, it shows your location with an error circle which is based off of the surrounding towers. I can imagine this error circle being completely ignored by some (or even just missing in the tracking software) which leads the victims to go right to the center point. If some amount of error is displayed by the tracking software, then his nearest neighbor must be hundreds of feet away.

I wonder just how well the locations all of these victims’ phones match up. Some apps show your latitude and longitude coordinates to within several decimal places, and even with a small amount of error, two phones right next to each other might not show the exact same numbers. If it is a software glitch on Sprint’s side, I’m wondering if all of these numbers are the same, down to the last digit.

I was about to make a thread similar to this last week, but it was more based around this:

Most people have smartphones, but most of those people don't follow this industry closely. People do talk to their friends, especially when they have complaints about service. And Sprint is just coming out of a long period of time where the network performance was suffering etc.

A friend of mine posted a status update on Facebook asking his friends about whether he should go with the iPhone 5 on Verizon or Sprint. He lives in the north side of Chicago where NV is well underway and even I with my EVO LTE am getting LTE signals in many of the places that I go.

The comment list ran 30-something replies long, mostly filled with “OMG Sprint is still around?!” and “LOL SPRINT HAXORZ”-style responses. I chimed in with two fairly informative posts just to get completely ignored.

With EVDO, it's the latter explanation you cite. All ultra high speed wireless technology (LTE, WiMax and HSPA+) have more fragile air links. Trying to make data faster and faster has disadvantages.

 

As for LTE capacity, it is gonna get used and it is going to fill the one PCS LTE carrier in most areas. Fortunately, Sprint already is planning to start rolling out additional PCS LTE carrier, SMR LTE carriers and TD-LTE carriers to keep LTE capacity up. In fact, Sprint has more options to keep their LTE network more robust than other carriers in America. SoftBank will not allow the Sprint network to managed the way that caused 3G to get overwhelmed.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

EDIT: I completely missed the point you made, sorry!

Are you saying that additional carriers can be used to compensate for signal loss? For example, a single PCS LTE carrier will experience significant throughput loss in a low-reception area, but using a second PCS carrier in that same spot can help mitigate that loss so the throughput stays more consistent?

Original post (if interested):

Oh, I don’t think that I phrased my question well, sorry. I wasn’t curious about the capacity so much as I was curious about the degradation in throughput from signal loss.

Let’s take the YouTube example again and assume that you’re the only person using a nearby tower and you want to stream a standard definition video that required 1.5Mbps of throughput. In a 3G-only EV-DO world, a tower could’ve supported a maximum throughput 2.6Mbps to your device which, for the sake of this example, has a maximum signal strength of -65dBm RSSI. If you have a clear line-of-site to the tower, you have a big surplus of available throughput. Now, you decide to go inside a nearby building and your signal drops to -102dBm, but you still can stream at 1.8Mbps despite a huge drop in signal strength (still a surplus, but not by much).

Now let’s go to some point in the future where everything is running on LTE-A with 100Mbps maximum throughput to your device and you’re streaming an Ultra-HD video on YouTube which requires 58Mbps (same proportion as required throughput to available throughput as the EV-DO example). Outside this building, you have a signal strength of -85dBm RSRP which allows you to pull the full 100Mbps if you wanted. When you walk into the same building, your LTE signal drops to -122dBm.

Given what you had said before regarding the sensitivity of LTE’s throughput based on its signal strength, I feel that the drop in throughput would be much greater than the 30% drop seen in the EV-DO example. If this is the case, then you are no longer able to use the signal for that application. This concerns me because, as conservative as I try to be with my data usage, I might still like to occasionally use an application to its fullest potential. Getting used to the consistency of EV-DO performance given large changes in signal could lull people into a false sense of security with LTE when future applications like these are being considered.

So, to re-phrase my question, are there any network technologies that would see the same marginal drop in throughput despite large changes in signal strength like EV-DO but perform at true 4G speeds?

How is this any different from watching Netflix on his phone while not at home?

 

Hopefully you are not one of those people that believe if we don't use the data as much on our phone then Sprint won't put in a cap.

You seem new here. Read this thread and get back to us:

http://s4gru.com/ind...-for-unlimited/

Just to warn you, it didn't end well for people with your mentality.

If memory serves, EVDO maintains up to 80% of its performance at -100dBm, but it starts to drop significantly between -100dBm and -106dBm. So if the channel is clear without much noise, and there isn't a lot of traffic on the channel, you can maintain about 70% of the performance of an EVDO channel in good conditions at -102dBm.

 

At my office, my EVDO channel is pretty under utilized on my sector. My airlink is probably functioning near the 2.6Mbps maximum speed. So, at my -102dBm connection, I can keep roughly 70% of the performance. So the airlink can support up to 1.8Mbps at my location. My site is connected to T1 backhaul. Which is pretty much limited to 1.4Mbps speeds. So, since the maximum airlink speed at my office location exceeds the speed of the backhaul still, it is the speed of the backhaul that will govern my final throughput download performance, not the quality of my signal.

 

At some point, your signal and quality will degrade to the point where the airlink is capable of less performance than the site backhaul, and then the EVDO signal quality is impacting your performance.

 

Many people assume their signal strength and quality is the issue to their EVDO performance. However, in most cases it is sector airlink saturation, poor quality signal or backhaul causing their EVDO performance. There are a lot of variables at play here. However, in good conditions, EVDO can be usable up to -106dBm.

 

Robert

Are you saying that the performance of the signal drops exponentially with the signal strength, or is the drop fairly linear from, say, -65 to -100dBm with a dramatic change occurring at -100 to -106dBm? Either way, this seems fairly robust when compared to LTE. Even at its worst, LTE appears to perform better than EV-DO, but I feel there’s something to be said about performance as a function of signal strength.

Given what we use LTE for right now, nobody should have a problem using it when it’s at its worst, but what about future applications? For example, even at 70 to 80% of its maximum throughput, EV-DO can still stream a YouTube video, even though this means that you’re quickly approaching the limits of usable signal. What if people start adopting LTE and LTE-A for some purpose that requires it to perform at 80% of its maximum throughput? The use of this application would be limited to areas of high signal strength. Will we see another network technology as “robust” as EV-DO?

 

 

Sprint knows that if they kick all the sero users off, that they'll most likely leave to another lower cost carrier.

 

It is a cliché, but do not let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...

 

AJ

I've had an interesting experience with SERO. My brother was with iPCS and was able to get me on the SERO plan back in 2007. This was great for me as a college student because I could keep on top of my e-mail and manage my schedule from my smartphone while paying a bill that I could afford (given that comparable plans were running at least $90-$120/month back then).

In 2010, I got my first "real" job. The EVO had just come out, and I decided it was with losing SERO over. I was completely prepared to pay the full price for service when I was made aware of the 17% discount Baxter gave their employees. I called to have it applied after a few months of full-price service, but the agent said she would just re-apply my SERO discount because it would be easier.

Earlier this year, I picked up the EVO LTE, again expecting to lose my SERO discount, but it stayed on the plan. Do I enjoy SERO? Absolutely, but even without it, I would totally stay with Sprint like I was prepared to do twice. My only justification for its existence would be for students who could use the phone for legitimate school work, like I did. Back in 2006/7, smartphones were more of a luxury item, so I was a bit lucky. Now, they are becoming a standard. Just like how Microsoft sells software at a discounted price to students, hopefully that will provide enough incentive to ensure their continued customer loyalty when they can afford to pay for it at full price. I know it worked for me...

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

Is that new? And I wonder how many people are going to flash some modem only thing and miss the NVRAM changes as always.

 

Sent from a little old Note 2

For reference, I’m on stock, rooted ICS:

Kernel version: 3.0.8-01680-gb6402b4

Basband version: 1.12.11.0809

PRI Version: 2.45_003

I’ll have to look up what you meant regarding that NVRAM comment; I’m not too familiar with flashing modems.

Haha! Success! Those top two posts are from my screen shots

Well thank you for posting them on XDA and not here, I guess we know who your best friend is… :-P

And that’s why people should always cite their sources!

Did the PRI and or baseband modem change too?

 

Sent from a little old Note 2

http://forum.xda-dev...1&postcount=470

Kernel version: 3.4.10-g014d33e

Basband version: 1.12.11.1119

http://forum.xda-dev...5&postcount=450

PRI Version: 2.87_003

i believe it does mention connection improvements for lte along with wifi.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=35402435&postcount=431

Yeah, it has that "Sprint Connection Optimizer" line in it that people saw in that document "leak" a month or so back and people wondered if that had something to do with an LTE fix.

A red herring.

 

It is obvious that danny1st was not looking at the actual tower site, but was being fooled by the offset coordinates being squawked by the CDMA sector base stations. When the coordinates are offset from the actual antenna site, they might be far way from there. Even miles away in some cases.

 

Yes, there are "stealth" towers disguised as trees, etc. But that was not the case here. This was a case of the user not understanding that the mapped coordinates displayed in the app might not be real.

 

BTW, since you have Sponsor privileges, you might also be interested in this thread: CDMA towers that squawk the wrong coordinates

Oh yeah, I know about that (I’ve posted in there a few times), I had just never heard of panels on “trees.” I did slightly derail the thread with that post, my apologies.