littlejth

My Note 20 Ultra can still be forced to HSPA+ in the MSP market still too. I did read on /r/att that some people around for the 2G shutoff noted that it was gradually shut off over a week or two after the official date so I guess it'll be something to keep an eye out for. Really hope they do it here soon and bring it over to N5 since right now in this market 10x10 B14 in CA is replaced by 5x5 N5. Hoping that comes up to N10x10 for some better performance.

Nice results! I think it more or less says what I think is generally true; when T-Mobile works, particularly in cities and with N41, it REALLY works well. But the indicator on time above 25mbps plus network availability shows they've got a lot of work to do in expanding in more rural areas and that when it doesn't work well, it has its issues for sure.

Has anyone here flashed their unlocked Note 20 Ultra with T-Mobile firmware and successfully gotten eSIM unlocked?

12 hours ago, jakeuten said:

T-Mobile has completely shut down B2 UMTS in the Duluth market but still hasn't widened PCS LTE. It's been over 2 weeks. LTE is currently at the 851 EARFCN, will be 874 once widened which is how the rural sites are. Also I can connect to 8115 EARFCN which is Sprint's A2 block on the 310-260 PLMN. n41 has been deployed at the Miller Hill Mall and the site near UMD which are both at 40 MHz. They roam on Sprint B25 in many spots of town they shouldn't be and won't roam in many spots they should be. Seems like a lot of growing pains.

I can't speak to the B2 issues but unfortunately T-Mobile only has 96MHz of 2500mhz spectrum. I've seen the same thing in Eau Claire where they also only have 96mhz. My guess is they're running 40mhz N41, 20MHz 310-260 B41, and 20MHz 210-120 B41 still. Not sure it's going to get much better than that until Sprint's network is actually shut down sadly, unless T-Mobile changes srategies and starts deploying mmWave at some time in the future for sites like the Miller Hill one? Also, I don't have an X60 modem but I imagine it will be useful to have N41 DL + N71 UL for aggregation in cases like that.

On the latest build, I got an error when uploading web data and sent diagnostics along with this screenshot below:

This was after my phone primarily was forced onto B41 for a short trip through areas both where T-Mobile has B41 towers and there are still some Sprint ones that my phone attempts to connect to but doesn't since they're only broadcasting 310120 and not 312250.

 

EDIT: Can confirm that my second upload later in the day went without a hitch.

 

N41 is basically all over the metro at this point so I'd sincerely hope they are working on it in Duluth. I was last up there for the drive-through Bentleyville and noticed 0 B41/N41 but that was of course about three months ago.

 

 

With the latest OneUI 3.0 beta update today on my Note 20 Ultra, 5G reporting works again!

 

(also I realize now this is the beta topic and I probably should be using the other when the issue isn't related to a beta, but since I already posted here I figured I'd give closure to the issue!)

8 minutes ago, mikejeep said:

A recent Samsung update did break 5G-NR reporting on many of their devices, it's no longer reporting any signal strength (RSRP). I've tried a few workarounds but it's not going to be resolved until Samsung fixes it on their end. Please alert them to the issue through whatever beta feedback channels they offer!

Is there a specific method that needs to have its return fixed so I can be more specific when reporting? Also, might it be possible to still indicate an NR connection without signal strength as a workaround or would that be something that you wouldn't wanna do unless this makes it into the final build? 

 

Thanks for all you do!

I believe this is a known issue to do with Samsung and not SignalCheck, though correct me if I'm wrong; I did lose my NR status completely when updating to the OneUI 3.0 Beta. I do still see the 'CONNECTED' status for 5G State in CellMapper but I'm guessing they broke some of the APIs that let you check more detailed info like signal strength within SignalCheck?

5 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

The twin cities is 15x15 so it's possible they could be using sprints A block to widen to 15x15 in rush City. Duluth itself will be more complicated as the two combined don't have contiguous spectrum,vzw holds the 5x5 D block, so sprints was the 15x15 A block and TMO 15x15 B block in Duluth

 

Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Ah gotcha, thanks! It's the first and only tower I've seen with 15mhz B2 in the area though I haven't been in either of the downtown area since before the pandemic started, I mostly frequent the east metro area from Woodbury through River Falls.

.

 

Just noticed on the way up from the Twin Cities to Duluth that B2 was 15MHz on one of the towers kiiiinda in the middle of nowhere by Rush City MN off I35. TMO didnt have 15 befoee anywhere, right? Wonder if there were so little Sprint customers to justify larger B25 so they refarmed it for B2 like in some cities?

Here's another good source I've seen from the user lart2150 on reddit posted on the T-Mo subreddit: https://coverage.lart2150.com/# They use the T-Mo map and scan it to take all the info you can see in specific spots and show it nationwide. It shows pretty clear holes in the Madison market, it's definitely not great. Meanwhile back up here towards the cities I think it's probably one of their better markets.

Not to take this too far off topic (let me know if this would warrant a new thread!) but has T-Mo made any comment as to what it plans to do with Sprint towers, particularly in areas where coverage is sparse? I traveled on I94/90 between Eau Claire and Madison and coverage is *bad*. It looks like not only are they not able to deploy much B12 since just after Eau Claire is US Cellular territory but they have also not done any B71 upgrades in the area (perhaps there was a straggler TV station that had to move and didn't until later?) so it's all B4/66. I know there are Sprint towers in positions where T-Mo has very low to no native coverage and mostly partner coverage (I'm on an MVNO so I dropped to edge at this point, on the interstate) and it *seems* to make sense they'd keep some, but I guess I don't know if there's a rhyme or reason to it? It might be a bit more clear cut thinking about markets like Nebraska where T-Mo has almost no native coverage as opposed to Sprint but it's hard to say I suppose.

In theory I'd think they'd be able to get that to happen changing the configuration of the antennas already there, yea? I'm not an expert on that kind of stuff but I'd think the fringe coverage could be improved without even having to add new towers.

I can attest to 35 north of the cities being pretty bad. I've used a Nexus 5 and 6 on that trip and both of them jumped between LTE and 3G in between most of the towers. It's really quite unacceptable when we all know that LTE800 is theoretically perfectly capable of traveling the distance required for perfect handoffs. It just doesn't happen that way on Sprint.

LTE 850 appears to be working fine now on the latest build on my Google Pixel.

At first I thought that shouldn't impact anything, it's the same GCI in both screenshots so that rules anything like that out.. but I just got a report from @lilotimz showing a similar icon issue on T-Mobile Band 4. Then I noticed your Verizon GCI ended in 1D, which isn't pre-identified by the app; you're seeing a band indicator from the Android 7 routine. So I think I know where to start looking.. send that report if you have a chance though.

 

-Mike

You know what, something that I bet caused it was that I moved from the latest Android O Preview 3 back to Android 7.1.2. Sorry, totally should have mentioned that. Is the O codepath different?

Hmm.. I just double-checked the code and graphics, and it all seems to be ok. It worked fine on the previous release (4.43)? Send me diagnostics when you see it again if you can. Got me stumped for the moment.

 

-Mike

I'll get a diagnostic but it did work in the last release. The only word thing I could think of is that my work has a repeater which covers B5 since we're in a basement. Does that seem like it would affect anything? I'm in a big city so it's extremely difficult to willingly get B5/B13 besides near the repeater. (I'm pretty sure it was fine before, though.)

In this latest beta update, the icon for Verizon's Band 5 is broken. It just has a regular "LTE" icon now without "B5" on it.

 

EDIT: Actually, reporting on it seems to just be broken. This is with the old build, an old screenshot I had lying around:

 

 

And here is what it currently looks like on the latest beta build:

 

 

Bands 2, 4 and 13 work just fine, however.

Really appreciate the update Mike! It actually makes me sad my current provider is not Sprint anymore as it seems they benefit the most from these changes. Will definitely keep using this on my phone though and may look into tracking more Sprint again since this seems to make it far easier to do so!

I bet it'd be good for coverage and service, very bad for pricing and customer support. Unless a fourth major carrier comes into play again, I feel like overall a merger would be bad for consumers.

I hope they plan to increase towers in Duluth and on 35 between the Twin Cities and Duluth. Lots of 3G on Interstate 35.

You'd think they'd have enough towers and would just need to adjust the antennas, but I'm not sure if that's already been done and they're content with the service on I35 now.

Personally, I'll probably check it out when I'm at the Metallica concert this upcoming August. I'm sure it'll be pretty decent by the time these events start coming up.

I don't know exactly where you're talking about, but I'd tend to agree. The most infuriating seems to be I35 going up to Duluth. Minneapolis and Duluth have great LTE, but on the way there it's just constant switching between 3G and LTE 800. Just so frustrating when in theory they should be able to at least cover the entire freeway.

Sweet! I just went through Nebraska on a road trip and was dragging on 1x roaming. Interested to test it out on the way back!