Fraydog

 

Your theory regarding the LTE connectivity issues on the EVO LTE may or may not be true however, I would not consider the increased battery capacity, kickstand, SD card slot, and physical camera button that the EVO has over the One X "dumb design decisions" that Sprint "forced" upon HTC.

The SD card should have been in all versions of the One X. The rest, not that much of a change. Sprint also insisted on an embedded SIM. Is that a positive change? You tell me. The battery capacity, again you could argue that should have been in all One X's. The One X+ increased capacity.

I'm just shocked people think the kickstand is that big of a feature.

The problem with Rev. B is that there can't be a lot of devices out there supporting it. The market is, for better or worse, standardizing around LTE.

Mean streets

My theory with the EVO is that Sprint screwed up by forcing changes on the design along with HTC. By putting aluminum on the back, I believe that interfered with the antenna design. That led to reduced connectivity. In contrast, the HTC One X on AT&T has no such issues. I wish that, in the future, Sprint would take on the global versions of devices with CDMA added and not bloat those devices, nor force on manufacturers dumb design decisions. Just because Sprint has the hammer of CDMA they can force on manufacturers, does not mean they should do it. It's hard enough to engineer good RF on a phone, it's better sometimes to let things ride than add complexity on the top. Now that Sprint has financial security through the Softbank deal, I would prefer they not have to bloat devices. Be the anti-bloat and anti-stupid changes American carrier. That would engender more goodwill for Sprint at a time they need it.

The One X and One X+ are almost perfect phones as is. What can Sprint do to improve the design? The honest answer is that they can't.

This launch is a train wreck. David Ruddock of Android Police sums it up with 100% accuracy.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/11/27/no-nexus-4-you-anatomy-of-a-smartphone-launch-disaster/

Launching without an LTE model was a mistake. The other mistakes were worse.

Why exactly was UMB development axed? Was it because they "projected" LTE to be more popular. Wasn't it cancelled along time ago?

Mainly it died on the vine because Verizon chose LTE and Sprint was already committed to WiMax.

Sorry, I don't.

This article might explain things better than I can.

http://m.networkworld.com/news/2012/042612-lte-patent-wars-258713.html#mobify-bookmark

Qualcomm has a nice chunk of the LTE patent pool. It isn't as if they went away empty handed when they shut down UMB development.

http://clearwavebroadband.com/

Here's an example of a AAV project in Southern Illinois, a project that was started two years ago and is nearing completion.

Southern Company marches to the beat of their own drummer. That said, if they want a PTT solution for the future, they can deploy Qchat over LTE.

 

And that would be quite the miscarriage of FCC rules and regulations.

 

AJ

It is the FCC you speak of. Of course Verizon will find a loophole of some sort. As far as New Athens goes, I don't think that's in an area for mandatory buildout. It is in an area where Verizon has LTE though.

AT&T is showing pretty good improvement on their network side. The Root Metrics stats are way better for dropped calls than they were a year ago.

Also, I can't post this on HoFo because Tapatalk is weird right now, but there are LTE RRU's on an AT&T panel near New Athens, IL, a place where AT&T was EDGE five months ago. They're hauling ass with these updates. If you would told me New Athens would be in line for LTE five months ago, I would have told you you're nuts.

I think technology has finally caught up with them and both Sprint and Verizon have accepted that future devices will use SIM cards with no more ESN/ESID lockouts. There's just no hurry to make it happen as it has costs with zero benefit to them.

 

VoLTE will be necessary for Sprint as it allows them to eek a bit more out of their spectrum and the equipment is the global standard (and thus will be cheaper), and it turns out the carriers largely lost the handset control battle thanks to Apple (the reason Android has a standard Google Play store without any carrier approvals required - the carriers were desperate to compete with Apple and so was Google). I wonder if some of the data capping policies are a result of trying to make their money that way instead **.

 

 

** Standard IP network management is more than sufficient to solve the supposed "data hog" problem by fairly slicing up the available bandwidth during peak usage times.

If someone is using 50GB of data a month, then you move their traffic to the bottom of the priority queue... At noon, they get 200Kbps speeds. At 3AM? They get 30Mbps of LTE. The equipment is on and the big three cell providers are all Tier-1 backbones so they don't pay for upstream bandwidth or peering at all... It literally costs them nothing for you to download a terabyte over the cell network, as long as it happens when the network is lightly loaded.

There are a thousand different priority/scheduling/traffic management systems that have been widely deployed for years, none of which require data caps or overage fees. Caps are a pure money play, nothing else. A way to "tax" Google, Netflix, etc.

I wrote a good reply to a Verizon fanboy on HoFo, you can read it here:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1783060-AT-amp-T-future-and-their-network/

RRU's are on cell panels in St. Louis, LTE must be coming.

I know people have said good things about BB10, but by then will it be too late?

Sprint wants us to have the "Sprint ID' on all their phones! hahahaha, awful, really.

Is that even on some of the higher end phones? I didn't see the Sprint ID software on the GS3 or EVO. I don't know if it's on the Optimus G, but I didn't see it on there when I demoed it at the store.

They probably want to see what kind of unlocked GSM only demand they could generate before announcing other variants.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

Considering how the Play Store melted down and shipping times are back, I'm going to guess demand is high.

I don't think Google is going to agree to sell the Nexus 4 on Sprint unless it is a no-compromise device. I bet Google wants no bloat, no carrier branding, and a removable SIM unlike most of the LTE phones on Sprint. People like the Nexus experience. After the whole "Fake Nexus" debacle, I don't think Sprint would want to compromise again. If they compromise, that's not on Sprint at that point, that's on Google.

I for one prefer CDMA having used both better building penetration

 

Sent from my EPIC WHITE SGS2 Rockin CM10 4.1.2 using Tapatalk 2

That and a bunch of other qualities like soft handoff for instance. CDMA just works.

I wish all CDMA providers used SIM's, and for that I think CDMA isn't great for a consumer who changes phones, but you cannot question that it's the best thing going for voice.

The Droid DNA is really solid. The best Droid device that's out yet, IMO. That would be my next but I'm going to be stubborn and wait for my Verizon contract to expire in July 2013.

If I wasn't in an area of Verizon monopoly I'd wait for the EVO 2013 variant which I bet will be a lot like the DNA with a faster SoC on board.

It's not a Samsung product! That alone should make it a win over the GS3.

Many are rightly irked at Apple for its "stick up the ass" attitude about iOS devices. Consumers want choices, but Apple is using anti competitive, overly litigious strategy to try to dominate the industry and limit choices.

 

AJ

As someone who is seriously looking at Android as the next upgrade I make, Samsung is just as foul with FRAND as Apple is with their non-essential patents. When JK Shin says things like "we won't settle with Apple" and "we can shut down the ability of Apple to make the iPhone", that's worse than what Apple's doing in my view. At least Google and HTC have negotiated with Apple and I'd bet Google and Apple settle sooner rather than later. That leaves Samsung and Apple as chief patent trolls. Who's to say Sammy won't also hang that sword over other Android manufacturers, or HTC or Nokia Windows Phones?

The smartest thing would be to settle and cross-license. I'd be remiss to say that Samsung is always smart about how they fight their legal battles.

I don't think Sprint should rule out acquiring some very rural providers in order to expand coverage. It would obviously have to be acquisitions very strategic in nature. I don't think Sprint, even with Softbank in tow, can afford to build out towers merely to try to lock horns with Verizon. As far as AT&T, have you seen how much of their coverage is still EDGE? Lots. Realistically, Verizon has a rural monopoly in this country which might become a rural duopoly if AT&T meets their 2014 deadline for having LTE coverage over their native footprint. I understand the frustration but until you get better regulation of the mobile industry, there's not a whole lot Sprint can do to expand native rural coverage.

An example of where Sprint added coverage would be Union City and Martin in Tennessee. Both were places severely underserved by almost all the major providers. Sprint now has Union City and Martin on the list of 20 cities added to the list of 100 LTE Sprint cities. Sprint can expand service ranges if the opportunity is right.

My impressions:

• LG gets it, finally, with build quality. Let's up Samsung follows suit.
  
• Weight, size, and thickness are about perfect.
  
• That screen is really good. Only screen I've seen that's better is the Droid DNA.
  
• With a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro, it really flies. Adreno 320 is finally a GPU fitting of Snapdragon.
  
• The LG Touchwiz Clone finally doesn't suck. It's not as good as stock Jelly Bean but it is optimized for the device.
  
• I've only played with it in the store but the in-store display is really neat, with a big yellow lighted up table for the display. Really cool touch.
  
• I live five hours from the nearest LTE market, Kansas City. So no dice in testing on 4G LTE.
  
• The embedded SIM may bother me in the case I want to travel internationally, but I can get a Nexus 4 on the Play Store. Still, in theory, I should be able to bolt from Sprint and put it on StraightTalk or T-Mobile.
  

I have a friend in Chicago with an expiring Nexus S who lives on the North Side with an expanding LTE footprint. What LTE device shall I recommend?

If I ever switched to Sprint, and then travelled internationally, I'd buy a Nexus 4 on the Play Store and use that as my roamer.