gonkwr

What are people's thoughts on ZVG firmware? I am still on ZVE because I didn't want to lose Xposed (yes I know Xposed for Lollipop exists but its still a WIP). Does it have poorer battery life on Lollipop?

Battery for me is the same as Kit Kat. I get 4-6 hrs SOT depending on what I'm doing and where I'm at. Xposed works quite well on Lollipop too. I'm only running G3 Tweaksbox to change the data icon in the status bar and remove the battery icon though. No other modules installed. I much prefer the UI style of LP and wouldn't go back to KK for anything.

 

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what you are seeing seems pretty normal to me..... B26 is overloaded everywhere i go, B25 is hit or miss depending on signal, and of course wherever there is B41 is great. I just hit some towers over lunch and doing speedtests on B25 near the towers was 25+ meg down on every one of them. move away to a worse signal and speeds dropped to 10 meg or less. just the nature of the beast apparently.

I'm not putting up with this beast much longer. My contract is done in November. I'll evaluate it then, but I have little confidence anything will change. Paying nearly $170/month for 2 lines (with device insurance) and not being to reliably use data driven apps is nonsense. I've been with Sprint for 10+ yrs and it's always "soon" when it comes to the network.

 

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I'm still getting junk data speeds all over the metro and I'm starting to wonder if it's my G2. Trying to do anything requiring data is a struggle.

 

This was in the Hyvee Gas parking lot on SE 14th

 

 

This was in the parking lot of Orielly's in Altoona

 

 

This was is the lot of QT at Euclid and 235. B41 and 23mbps down. If only that, or hell even half of that, was available all over DSM I'd be happy.

 

 

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ok, yeah thats not the tower i was thinking you were connecting too. the one you just posted is right next to I-35 by lower beaver. and with a -110 signal and on B26 you aren't going to get great speeds very often. Since B26 travels further and penetrates better most people are on it which makes it overloaded. Plus your signal isn't helping things much. you can blame johnston for being the city of trees tree leaves are killer on signal the tower on the very north end of merle hay past where merle hay and 70th meet (its on the youth homes campus) is the one with B41, thats the one i get great speeds from on B41 and good speeds on the other bands, but again its still signal dependent.

 

i did just do a speed test on B25 from the tower you were connected to in your screenshot on my way to work this morning and pulled 15 meg down, but i had a -90 signal and a ~15 SNR. so the better signal allowed better speeds. thats the not so great thing about LTE and data speeds. There are more things working against it than for it so it makes it harder to get good speeds. you have to be on a band/sector thats not overloaded, have a good signal, and a good signal to noise ration (SNR) to even think about getting a good speedtest.

 

take where i work for example. in the parking lot i can run a speedtest on the tower i connect to here and get around 4 to 5 meg down with a -95 signal and around a 9 SNR. if i drive to the tower and get closer my signal goes up to around -84 and my SNR goes up to 22+ and i can get 25+ meg down.

 

from what i've seen and the testing i've done i get the impression that optimization just needs to get done around here, on both B25 and B26. i think that would help people's speeds a lot. sure there will still be areas and towers that are just plain overloaded, but there are plenty of areas that a tower is covering that isn't overloaded but you get slow speeds simply because of signal.

I'm ridiculously close to that youth homes campus. Way closer than the other tower. I'm at NW 51st and NW Beaver, so I wonder why it's not grabbing that tower.

 

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You are on the north end of merle hay in Johnston? If so that tower is B41 and has been for 8 to 9 months now. I always get 30 to 40 meg down on B41 from it when I drive by on my work commute. Even on the other 2 bands they are usually 10 plus meg. You must have some bad signal blockage or phone issues. Post a screenshot from signal check while at home so I can confirm you are connecting to the tower I think you are

 

Latest speedtest from home

 

 

It doesn't seem to be my phone (G2) either considering it pulled 18mbps speeds in another location. I've never seen anything close to what you say you go on Merle Hay Rd.

 

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These were some of my speedtests on the south side of des Moines a long e 14th st.

 

Of course that was testing 3 New B41 towers that recently came online there are at least 4 other B41 installs known that aren't online yet and several more coming.

Here are mine from the last few days. The really bad ones were in Urbandale and where I live in Johnston, toward the end of Merle Hay Rd.

 

 

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Seems like data all over the metro has been very slow for me over the last couple weeks. Anyone else having this?

 

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Do you guys know if the G2 has all three lte bands unlocked now ?

Yes, all have been unlocked for a while now. The ZVA update brought Spark capability and an ugly spinning icon. ZVC is the newest which is Kit Kat.

 

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It will eventually help when they set up and turn on the other two bands. 1 or THREE. Spark is tri-band.

The low band is supposed to have a little better structure penetration and help with indoor performance.

I said 1 or 2 bands because I know we don't have Spark and didn't know if Sprint was using just 1 band in non Spark markets or 2. So it's 1,3,or none. Tri band is what pulled me to the G2 initially. That and it's a all around monster. Thanks for the info guys.

Can anyone tell me if the Spark update for the G2 is of any benefit to users here in the Des Moines area. It enables bands 26 and 41. I know we are not a Spark city but I don't know if we have a single band or 2. Thanks

they must have done something last night to turn on eCSFB as all the people i know with triband phones get LTE without having to do anything and calls/texts work as expected.

Yeeeeeeessssssssssss! Thank you Sprint!

Something has changed or I am seeing a fluke. I've posted before about having the G2 which we all know is a victim of that fallback issue. I was able to go into the hidden menu and choose lte only mode last night and used it for a while. Since it can't get calls while in that mode, I switched it back. This morning I did the same thing for a bit. However, upon going back to cdma+Lte/evdo auto, I watched it go to 3g then back to lte on its own. It's been hooked up to lte for over an hour now. Calls come and go just fine, then back to lte when the calls end. It shouldn't be doing this yet though right? Still on PCI 240 for lte.

yep that is! thats one we have confirmed which tower its coming from, you can find that info in the spreadsheet in the sponsor thread, link in my sig

 

also eCSFB is not enabled on these towers yet, so since you have a tri-band phone if you want LTE you will have to put your phone in LTE only mode, but while its in that mode you won't get any calls or texts. once the tower is officially accepted they will have eCSFB enabled on it and then you wouldn't have to do anything special anymore to get connected to LTE from it.

Unfortunately the G2 doesn't have an lte only mode. The only options are global and cdma/Lte, so no usable lte for g2 owners until it's all sorted out.

G2 just now got 5.68 down and 3.03 up in Johnston. I live on the just east of Merle Hay and South of Beaver. Not far from the Johnston library and Camp Dodge. Switched the G2 from global to CDMA/Lte then back to global and it hooked up long enough to run Ookla and then it switched back to 3g. Hopefully not being able to hold 4g doesn't stick around a whole lot longer.

Serving cell was 240 if that's even the right info

G2 just now got 5.68 down and 3.03 up in Johnston. I live on the just east of Merle Hay and South of Beaver. Not far from the Johnston library and Camp Dodge. Switched the G2 from global to CDMA/Lte then back to global and it hooked up long enough to run Ookla and then it switched back to 3g. Hopefully not being able to hold 4g doesn't stick around a whole lot longer.

If Samsung continued to follow the old method for deployment, then yes there would have been issues.Thankfully, unbeknownst to us, they switched gears. When new LTE comes online, it will be with the new software and fixes to allow it to work with your device. You should have nothing to worry about!

Excellent to hear since I really don't want to give up this phone. It's fantastic. Again, thanks for the rapid response

First off welcome. I'd wait it out if it were me. You have a top of the line phone that has a temporary issue (and it could be argued it is more of a network issue than the phone issue). Having a tri-band device sets you up well for the future. Sprint knows of the issue and Samsung (the sprint NV contractor in Iowa and Nebraska) is aggressively getting sites NV accepted in clusters to fix it. It is hard to put an actual timeline on this, but we already know the majority of the Central Iowa sites are in progress. East Iowa is by-and-large done. Lincoln Nebraska just had a cluster of sites accepted today, etc. They're working hard on it.

 

The other aspect of this and bmoses may disagree with my interpretation of what we are seeing a bit here , is we have seen the priority shift to getting sites NV 3G accepted. If that holds, there are only a limited number of sites broadcasting LTE in the Des Moines metro and it may stay that way until the market is completely NV 3G accepted.* I know it is frustrating to see your wife's phone connect to LTE and yours not (you could force it to by going to LTE only mode) but unless you live or work near one of the LTE accepted sites you aren't missing a heck of a lot right now.

 

*At that point they'll come back and fire off LTE for the sites that have backhaul shortly thereafter.

I agree with Mr. Nuke.It won't be any longer than 90 days and your G2 will work fine. Samsung is aggressively fixing the network issue that is preventing your phone from connecting to LTE.The entire city of Madison, WI had the issue fixed in the last couple of days. Lincoln, NE started seeing the fixes come online today. It's only a matter of time before the wave hits Des Moines. When it does, I expect any sites that have 4G ready to come online as well.

Thanks for the rapid responses. So if my understanding is correct, once lte is fully fired up there won't be an issue. Is that correct? I was concerned that once lte was fully implemented the issue would remain until Sprint made changes to get it fixed. If that's not the case then I'm just fine. I have no issue waiting for lte until it's full throttle.

Wife works within 2 blocks of the capital. I picked her up from work today and did a litle test. On her S3, lte picked up and stayed connected. Speed test showed 5.85 down. On my new G2,lte would connect, then go back to 3g after 5 seconds or so.

 

Now, my dilemma is do I keep the G2 an hope this all works out sooner rather than later, or do I return it and wait for a while. I only got the G2 now because of the $99 price tag Best Buy. Without that in place I would not have upgraded as there is currently no other device I'm interested in. If I return the G2 and don't get something else, my upgrade is gone.

 

I'm not opposed to waiting it out if it's not going to be a long time before the G2 can use lte. I also don't want to be stuck waiting for 4g again. What would you guys do?