lordsutch

The Galaxy S4 is running 4.2.2, so it should expose the standard Android Physical Cell ID (0-503) and the global Cell ID (hex) APIs when it is released. Hopefully the S3 and Note 2 will also get upgraded to 4.2.x likewise.

I tried to poke around in the Samsung field test APK and everything I could see that exposed radio information was privileged calls; no non-system app can access them AFAICS. (Frankly this speaks to Samsung having better security than HTC... I can get a lot of info from the HTC API on the EVO 4G LTE that my app probably didn't have permission to access through the Android APIs.)

I thought the whole issue with SLinc is that they want to keep the eSMR for their own PTT.

If they're planning on putting LTE on some of their ESMR, that can't be spectrum they need for their legacy, high-mast iDEN PTT. Ultimately the question is whether they see SLinc as an ongoing, separate business that needs a native broadband network to compete in the 21st century marketplace (which means a build-out of LTE on low-mast sites like a traditional cellular carrier, most likely) or a specialty PTT network they use internally and sell space on for other people that need that capability regionally but are content to leave broadband data at the whim of T-Mobile (which means weak coverage in most of the SLinc footprint outside the 100k+ cities).

If strategy B is the way forward, they can spare some spectrum to sell to Sprint, which Sprint can then use to deploy 1xA + 5x5 LTE like in the rest of the USA. If strategy A is the way forward, they'd better hope that Motorola Solutions wants to build iDEN + 3x3 LTE ESMR + W-CDMA AWS/1900 phones just for them.

I think they are planning only 1x carriers on eSMR, so the same buildout applies as the rest of the country no? 1.25mhz for 1xA? Good for a single 1xA carrier.

Certainly that's the plan as currently stated, and I think in the end they will go with 3x3 LTE in the southeast (my guess is that the UE today can do 3x3 LTE carriers, it's just not been tested for certification because nobody has deployed 3x3 LTE in AWS or 1900 or 700), if only because they can inflate their LTE POPs count by deploying it instead of EVDO.

Then again there's always the possibility of a deal to obtain SouthernLINC's spare ESMR spectrum rather than SouthernLINC deploying LTE itself on it, to allow a full 5x5 carrier.

Upon further dissection of the SouthernLINC press release, it looks like users may able to utilize dual mode iDEN 800 voice/PTT and W-CDMA 2100+1700 data where available even within the SouthernLINC native footprint.

That's great until T-Mobile shifts all of W-CDMA onto PCS to make way for LTE carriers on AWS. Won't happen overnight but there can't be that many AWS-only (or non-1900 at least) handsets left on the T-Mobile network.

As for Sprint, the question is whether they need LTE on ESMR in the southeastern markets. Atlanta is probably the only place in the sharing region that spectrum constraints could be an issue, and outdoors the LTE on 1900 coverage is pretty dense already (even at 50%ish buildout). And, competitively... from Sprint's perspective, do you work with manufacturers trying to make 3x3 FD LTE come to the marketplace, in the process helping SouthernLINC deploy LTE in their spectrum too (nobody is going to commercialize 3x3 handsets for a customer base as small as SouthernLINC's), or do you try to bury, or at least not help, 1.4x1.4 and 3x3 to decrease the value of SouthernLINC's holdings?

If I were Softbank/Sprint I'd almost be tempted to throw up some EVDO carriers on ESMR in the southeast; the phones and chipsets that can take advantage of it are already built, it gets you more data footprint and less roaming on coverage maps than LTE would, and most of the non-overlap between 1900 and ESMR is in fringe areas where EVDO is speed-competitive with LTE.

VoLTE is "better" in the sense that phone calls will be cheaper, because carriers won't need dedicated frequency space for voice traffic on towers, and can use the same technology to handle voice traffic as they can for data traffic, which will probably reduce per-minute pricing even more. The disadvantages relate to signal robustness (LTE's signal characteristics are better tuned for high-density urban areas than CDMA-1X or GSM were) and the general issues associated with a new technology (working out the bugs).

Basically it's the same transition Sprint has gone through from Nextel Direct Connect (basically circuit-switched) to Sprint Direct Connect (QChat is SIP VoIP + quality-of-service + Qualcomm special patented magic to make the shutdown/connect more responsive). Having said that if anything VoLTE is less technically challenging than QChat, since people making phone calls can deal with connect/disconnect latency much better than walkie-talkie services can - people expect a phone call to take 20-30 seconds to be connected, while "walkie talkie" services are supposed to connect in milliseconds and so people start throwing things, complaining to customer service, and canceling their accounts when it takes much longer.

The Goog may have contracted with Motorola for the alleged "Motorola X" pre-merger. Of the high-end Android manufacturers in the US, Motorola is the only one never to build a Nexus phone.

That said Google I/O may be a bit soon for a new Nexus phone to come out. Something like a Nexus 7.7 tablet seems more likely for May.

For the record, the reason why hard speed limits were adopted for highways in the US can mostly be traced back to the 1970s oil crisis. The only state since the NMSL was repealed to adopt a "reasonable and prudent" limit (which was reinstated due to the end of the NMSL) didn't have to go back to a hard limit due to driver behavior, but instead because the state courts ruled that the R&P standard was too arbitrary to enforce, so speeding tickets were impossible to issue.

I also think digiblur reflects some basic human psychology: if you feel like you're paying for X, you either want to use most of it or feel hosed by paying for X when you get 50% of X, but it doesn't work that way for unlimited. For example, I'm annoyed with Sprint that the basic 2-line unlimited plan has 1500 minutes I'll never use 40% of, even though I'd probably end up paying around the same price for 750 minutes.

In any event, I think unlimited is likely to stick around on consumer plans for the foreseeable future. That said a lower-rate, capped plan might be introduced as a "teaser" for competitive purposes and to drive up-sells.

For the EVO, getting the Hex Cell ID requires a call to the "HTC Telephony Manager" service. Here's a rough outline:

private Object mHTCManager;
/* somewhere in onCreate() */
mHTCManager = getSystemService("htctelephony");
/* when you want to get the cell ID */
String cellID = "";
if(mHTCManager != null) {
Method m = null;
try {
 m = mHTCManager.getClass().getMethod("getSectorId", int.class);
 cellID = (String) m.invoke(mHTCManager, new Object[] {Integer.valueOf(1)} );
} catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
 // TODO Auto-generated catch block
 e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
 // TODO Auto-generated catch block
 e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
 // TODO Auto-generated catch block
 e.printStackTrace();
} catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
 // TODO Auto-generated catch block
 e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Unlike CellIdentityLte.getCi(), this will give you a String with the hexadecimal cell ID, not an integer. So you will probably want to do use Integer.valueOf(cellID, 16) to convert to an integer (or convert getCi()'s output to hex using String.format or something) in mixed code.

Full working code in GitHub at https://github.com/lordsutch/Signal-Strength-Detector/blob/master/src/com/lordsutch/android/signaldetector/SignalDetectorService.java

Here's the weird thing. If you look at Sprint's coverage map of the area, they have a tiny little island of coverage at the welcome center at I-10 and MS 607, but it doesn't seem to carry very far (if it's more than a 1 mile radius, I'd be surprised) - compare it to what you get from the towers along I-59, and it's shocking how bad it is. I have no idea why GCW or Sprint would have engineered a tower to spit out such lame coverage. It's not topography; that's a really flat area. Maybe trees don't like cell signals or something. Maybe they half-assed it when rebuilding post-K.

Hopefully when they put NV on that tower you'll see a radical improvement even on 1900. I doubt the 1900 coverage would go all the way into Stennis but it would help (if what I've seen on ESMR is any guide, you probably will be able to pick up 1x on ESMR there, as long as the panel is high enough on the tower to clear all the trees).

In the meantime, as everyone suggests, you'll just have to take it up with Sprint directly, or deal with roaming (as long as you're not going over the thresholds, the only issue is battery life). My guess is if DHS insisted on getting coverage at your worksite for their use, it would happen, given Sprint's government contracts, but that would have to come through official channels and not just a few employees.

Frankly, for Mississippi coverage it's tough to beat C-Spire (ex-Cellular South); they're actually a pretty good carrier.

As far as Sprint building a site at Stennis, as suggested up-thread they haven't really been in a coverage expansion mode. I expect you'll probably see some voice coverage improvements once ESMR starts going live, but a full-blown site for Stennis with 3G and LTE coverage is unlikely unless Sprint contracts with the government to improve the coverage there. And if DHS hasn't had the juice to get Sprint to build a site, nobody does. The one small bit of hope is that Sprint may decide to rebuild some ex-Nextel sites, and you are in a fairly serious coverage hole (more for I-10 than for Stennis per se, though), but that probably won't happen until 2014-15.

Or you could hope for Sprint to buy out C-Spire. At this point, that's probably more likely than a nice shiny Sprint tower to be honest.

I doubt it's just about fees; it's also about technology. After all GM is selling their cars on both sides of the US-Canadian border, and it wouldn't surprise me if CDMA started to go away in rural Canada in the next 3-5 years - none of the big boys up north are marketing CDMA anymore (and only one of the new entrants, on their PCS G block, is CDMA), leaving CDMA essentially for legacy users and US roamers. GM's not going to build two different OnStar systems for Canada and the U.S. if they can help it, since everything else about the cars is basically the same - reprogram the ECM to enable the DRLs and switch the speedometer and odometer to metric, and you have a Canadian-spec car.

Plus with VZW's promises to make CDMA go away in a similar timeframe in the US, the last thing GM wants is to get saddled with more customer complaints about dead OnStar systems (remember, gen 1 OnStar was analog, which died when AMPS did).

You've got to figure this has to do with keeping up with T-Mobile; after all, they're offering 4G with throttling on Monthly4G and their new PAYG plans (can't remember what they're called...). Granted it's HSDPA+, not LTE, but HSDPA+ is a heck of a lot faster than Sprint 3G.

SAYG just seems overpriced to me, but my guess it's offered for people who need full service Sprint but can't qualify credit-wise. Or just want to overpay for PAYG to have a Sprint logo on their phone.

Most speedway's are equipped with temporary towers on the back of tractor trailer rigs during race weekend's. It's any bodies guess if they have upgraded this equipment yet.

True; at least in the case of Atlanta, though, there are permanent LTE sites live in the area (sponsor maps would show the locations, which you could probably also get some sense of using Sensorly, no pun intended).

Having said that Sprint's DAS and COW deployment could use beefing up; woe betide anyone trying to use a Sprint phone for data at or around an SEC football game, for example. Hopefully that's something they can work on after NV is winding down.

But doesn't Sprint actively sell service and have stores in nTelos areas? Every customer of theirs in these areas would be racking up nTelos billables. Additionally, I would think nTelos has to realize the capture rate of Sprint customers joining nTelos would be less than one third. Most of these customers would likely go to someone else. A Sprint customer is guaranteed revenue.

You could buy a Sprint phone at Best Buy or RadioShack in Christiansburg or Roanoke. There were some Sprint dealers around, and there might be a corporate store in Roanoke (from signage it looked like a corporate store, but so do the stores in affiliate markets that are run by the affiliates themselves).

My assumption, the more I think about it, is that the barrier to Airaves in affiliate and wholesale areas is more technical than legal, and probably more on Sprint's side than the affiliate/wholesale side. The Airave probably needs special programming to talk to non-Sprint RF switches and base stations, and I'd guess the cost/benefit for Sprint to do the extra work, and to get the affiliates/wholesalers to allow Sprint equipment to access their hardware, is considered too low, even if they've ever really thought about doing it in the first place.

Sprint probably figures most anyone who needs an Airave in affiliate/wholesale markets can pick up a retail signal booster, and since any RF interference from a consumer booster isn't going to mess up Sprint's network in the area (since there IS no Sprint network in the area), that's fine enough with them.

If they do go with AT&T backhaul, the good news is that you'll probably get U-Verse, or at least a closer DSLAM, along for the ride.

Well, unless she lives nowhere near Charleston (i.e. in that small blue patch in the southwestern corner of the state, or up near Wheeling or Harper's Ferry), she's in the "no Airave for you" zone. Apparently Sprint sent her an Airave by mistake, without realizing it wouldn't work, like happened with jbnello's sister.

From the specs that I have seen, I would say the chances are good that the Sprint variant HTC One will support at least GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and W-CDMA 2100+1900 for international roaming.

Sprint in its press release refers to it as an "international smartphone"; usually they don't do that unless it's GSM/UMTS-capable.

Judging from the coverage map of Charleston, WV, I would assume you are too far from the nearest site for the Airave to work properly.

For my amusement, I typed in an address in downtown Charleston WV (specifically, 501 Virginia Street East, Charleston, WV 25301, which is the location of some Charleston city offices) into the Airave eligibility tool:

http://www.sprint.co...:airavecoverage

It comes back "not eligible." If I had to guess, Charleston is part of the nTelos wholesale market, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts your Airave won't work there because Sprint has subleased its spectrum to nTelos there. I don't think nTelos will lease femtocells to Sprint customers (heck, I doubt they offer them to nTelos customers either).

On the other hand, I typed in the address for the city hall of Fulton, Mississippi (213 W Wiygul St Fulton, MS 38843)... and found something really interesting. The blue areas are where you can get an Airave.

http://coverage.spri...ntery=34.271589

By sheer coincidence (literally it's the first address I tried other than one in Charleston), on the right you can see where the 35km boundary cuts off here. If you play with the scale parameter in the URL you can actually zoom out, and find out exactly who Sprint won't give an Airave - sucks to live in Red Bay, Alabama if you're a Sprint fanboi.

http://coverage.spri...ntery=34.271589

Something for everyone to play with this weekend.

EDIT: Here's your problem... http://coverage.spri...7&mapcentery=38

Just a heads-up; I've worked on a few more updates to the app that don't affect the core functionality, but the changes are enough to mention. Most of the changes are cosmetic; I added a GPS accuracy, speed, and bearing display and a little arrowhead marker in your travel direction on the map. I tried showing the maps at native resolution but the tiles are too tiny on the EVO and Nexus 4 displays to read at a distance, so 1.5x scaling is still used on these devices.

I've also squashed bugs here and there in the logging code. And the base station location menu entry now is grayed-out on non-CDMA phones.

Same link as always: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhd729pckawlndm/HomeActivity.apk

Alas you have to send the phone to HTC to get the rebate.

Related: the FCC is cracking down on amps operating in licensed frequency bands: http://arstechnica.c...ignal-boosters/

Edit: Ars has, uh, somewhat sensationalized the situation (surprise, surprise). Here's what the FCC actually says about consumer boosters: http://wireless.fcc....ters/index.html (there are also pages for industrial/commercial applications). Sprint and the other Big Four carriers have pledged to approve, free of charge, the use of any consumer device that meets the new standards.

Another Edit: Wilson has the product page for this booster online now.

I have intentionally not accepted updates to my Nexus 4 because I knew this was going to happen. I'm keeping my LTE capability until they pry it from my cold dead hands!

I'm holding out too, although I probably will give in at some point unless T-Mobile's LTE deployment gets near me in the not-too-distant future. Certainly I'll be upgrading whenever Key Lime Pie hits, since that's 50% of why I got the Nexus 4 (20% was for new hotness to play with, and 30% was to have a modern GSM smartphone for when I travel to Canada and Europe in the next year or so).

The 800/ESMR and 1900 antennas are both in the same panel housing with NV inside the new, center-mounted panel. Even though there are physically multiple antennas inside (three total, two for 1900 carriers and one for ESMR, is pretty common, but other configurations are possible depending on how many 1900 carriers are in use in the market), it just looks like one. (The old panels, typically mounted on the ends of the rack, are no longer powered and will eventually be removed.) There's no reason why the vendors can't build S-band and 2500/2600 panels into the same housing either.

Having said that Sprint is probably going to tell Dish to go pound sand on any co-hosting agreement after Charlie's throwing a (small) wrench in the Clear merger. The only thing Dish may have going for them at this point is a bunch of empty Nextel racks that tower owners will want tenants for in the next 2-3 years (and Sprint may strategically decide to keep leasing many of them either to expand the native footprint or just to keep them out of Dish's and T-Mobile's hands).

Yes, I'm afraid that some of their sites might need to be braced further to accommodate additional panels.

 

I think that having to accommodate 4 frequencies in the same handset might be more troublesome. I think that Sprint might want to reserve the fourth frequency for rural roaming.

Bear in mind Sprint will be removing the pre-NV panels from most of its towers, so a second panel for NV 2.0 shouldn't be too problematic (and probably can be smaller for 2500/2600-only). And if they were to put S-band on the towers, they could probably use the same panels for both BRS and S-band. RRUs might be a different story though.

I have to say that it looks nice, but I'm not yet sold on "live tiles" interfaces. Plus I'd want to see the LTE performance... there's a reason you make Faraday cages out of metal and not plastic, after all, and the LTE Evo has been rather middling.

And I do think inductive charging with the Qi standard is the wave of the future, even if it's somewhat inefficient. You're looking at several thousand times over the life of the phone that you're connecting or disconnecting the micro-USB cable, and while the design is supposed to stress the cable (not the connector, which was the reason why mini-USB went away) there's still the chance of accidentally busting off the micro-USB receptacle in the phone, or needing a new cable pronto, at jacked up electronics store prices rather than being able to wait a day or two to get one from an online vendor.

Now if I were still limping along on my OG Evo, I'd be there in a heartbeat, but since I don't get my upgrade until January 1 I'm in no hurry.