pyroscott

That NV Schedule Map of Puerto Rico is not correct

How so?

I live in North Seattle and bought the EVO 4G LTE day one. Every day since, my data stream is only 50-200 bits per second. ALWAYS. Data is 100% unusable.I called in to Sprint today to cancel one of my other lines (phone was stolen) and when speaking to the Cancellation Specialist I brought up this issue and he told me his records indicate Seattle towers have been in repair for two months with new ones to go live in August and would have LTE. All should be resolved then.Of course, this directly conflicts with what you have posted. I don't even care if LTE doesn't go live for a year, I just want working 3G now. We had zero issues with the original EVO 4G for the two years previously.What do you think, Robert? Any validity to his statements? I feel like my only recourse is to eat two huge cancellation fees on our two EVO 4G LTEs and go to Verizon.

Network Vision and the "tower repair" the CSR told you about are two totally different projects. This site does not contain any information on what we dubbed "band aid" fixes. That information can be found at https://network.sprint.com/

Alright, it's my turn to kick this dead horse. Sometimes people get mad about something (e.g. speed tests or LTE coverage). Instead of cooling down and writing something asking if there is a known solution or if it is experienced by others, some people choose to write a 3 paragraph rant that is nothing more than extension of their anger. This may make the poster feel a little better, but it is not constructive at all. I’ll use work as an example. I assigned several tasks to my team, and then I got out of their way and just provided help when they needed it. I was busy with other things and didn't check their work as they went along. I trusted them that it would be done properly. On Monday, when it came time to turn in the finished product, there were tasks going back several weeks that were not completed to standard and some tasks that I specifically assigned were not touched. I was furious, but I didn't call them in and yell at them, I wrote everything down and fixed the work myself. Then, after the situation was done, and I had calmed down, I went back to my list, talked it over with several peers, and came up with a constructive way of being critical, while remaining calm. Instead of ranting at them, I turned it into a learning experience.

Now, when I talked to my peers, would it have done any good to go off and rant? It might have made me feel better, but I would be wasting the time of my peers and they would be less likely to offer help in the future.

The internet is a faceless world and really removes a lot of the boundaries that we respect in regular life. I can't go up to some customer at the car dealer and start chewing them up and down, ranting because I bought a car from that brand name and I don't get the gas mileage that was promised, and they told me I would get this great satellite radio and it was garbage, etc. If I did that, I could get punched in the face, or told to @#$^ off. Maybe they would listen, but that would have to be a patient person. It also doesn’t work here. As Robert said, we are not an extension of Sprint’s customer service, we are not affiliated with Sprint and we don’t appreciate reading rants all day.

It would make it a lot easier if Sprint would pay the web hosting fees and all the other fees associated with this website. Maybe pay Robert for the time he pours into putting out the info he gathers.

I will say this once, this site is not propaganda! Calling this site “Sprint Propaganda” or calling me a “corporate shill” is not going to fly. I have never been paid a cent from Sprint and 100% of my work here on this site is voluntary. In fact, I have contributed money to this site, despite having full access through my status as a staff member.

I am surprised pyroscott hasnt commented yet like "OMG FINALLY!!!!"

I think I've been shaking all day... LOL If only I could speed up time.

VGA1000!

That could work. I guess an OG Epic and a Photon are all I really need for the comparison test. Any more devices than that would just be too many devices.Robert

You could have members mail you their old phones... I have a Epic with a broken screen that I can send you for the comparison. You can still read the screen, it's just cracked.

Wow, great review. I was not aware of the difficulties that these makers have with these modems. I would think that a simple color change to white would help some of the overheating issues when it is in direct sunlight.

Good to hear that they have made some progress making these better, but I hope they figure out how to make models that will be more rugged/reliable soon.

But can't you understand Robert why I am frustrated with Sprint? Imagine buying a new 4G phone with Sprint (new customer with OG EVO) and being told 4G WiMAX will be releasing in my area "soon". Then it releases but misses my area and is very spotty in general. Then after I called and complained many times they would always say they are expanding WiMAX but that it would take time to do it. Flash forward two years later and nothing! I still can't get 4G even if I stand outside on the highest building in my neighborhood. I've used 4G a total of three times in two years! Then comes 4G LTE and Sprint says again coming soon. Well, I'm really the only idiot because I believed them again as everyone was telling me they really are trying to get their act together and I fell for it. What is that old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". Man a truer word could not be said in a jest.

Hmm, I seem to remember being told that since my city was a "pre-wimax" Clearwire market, it would be a quick conversion and we would have 4G. We never got 4G, not even 1 tower. That was Clearwire and not Sprint. I don't blame Sprint for WiMax, it could have been great for them, and great for Clearwire, if it would have worked. Clearwire overestimated the amount of retail income they would have coming in. In my opinion, they took the ratio of customers/population in the areas that they currently offered service and transferred that to the major markets that they were expanding. The problem was that they needed time to convert customers from other carriers, they didn't get the influx of new retail $$$ and they fell on their face. They didn't have the capitol to expand to new areas or enrich coverage in the areas they currently offered service. Because Sprint's name was on the devices offering 4G service from Clearwire, they took the pounding. Then, the traffic on their 3G infastructure was never releived by Clearwire's WiMax, resulting in overuse of that network and it couldn't handle it.

Shouldn't you be more concerned with the Zombie epidemic that is going on in Miami than your data coverage?

B-B-But Sprint execs said it wasn't until 2013...

Does Google Maps require a 4/3G or LTE to run on either the GSI or HTC? If I am out of Sprint range will Maps work?

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking. However, on a Sprint device you will need to have a 3G, 4G, LTE or WiFi connection to run Google Maps. You can also sort of use it with a 1x connection, but results vary wildly. Especially with Google Maps Navigation.In the case of you losing signal because you travel out of coverage, newer version of Google Maps may still work if your device cached the maps in advance it would need when going into a no coverage area and you do not change your route.I recently had a three hour trip here in New Mexico where I used Google Maps Navigation and drove in and out of coverage. At one point I was out of coverage for over an hour and still was able to use Navigation. Since the device already plotted my whole route in advance, it knew which maps to get for me in advance. So when I traveled out of coverage, it kept getting info from the GPS radio and updating my course on the maps it downloaded. However, if I deviated my route any, it would not have the maps on the new route in the non coverage area. Worked pretty good.I hope this answers your question.Robert

There are apps like navigon, and maverick that use a predownloaded map file for what state you are traveling to. I posted a blurb about copilot here http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/271-copilot-app-gives-free-offline-maps-for-navigating-off-the-beaten-path/page__hl__navigation__fromsearch__1 which uses maps predownloaded to the phone.

Where is the outrage that came to the surface when the possibility arose that HTC and Sprint might not continue the EVO name?AJ

The difference is that "epic" is usually reserved for usage by high school age kids...

any evidence showing that this device will also have an embedded lte sim like the evo lte and viper do?

This picture would certainly make it look like the SIM is embedded. Not sure if this is an authentic pic of a production device though.

http://an.droid-life...e-wait-opinion/

as opposed to the GSM and Verizon versions

Be careful with the Nexus antenna. Research reviews-plenty of complaints.My son is on VZW, and got a Nexus. Download speeds were terrible on my home WiFi (8 mbps). He swapped out for a Maxx, and it was night and day (25 mbps). I'm assuming that translates to 3G/4G out in the real world.

He probably had a defective device, or inconsistant testing locations. My GNex is faster on Wi-Fi than my wife's RAZR MAXX. Most if not all of the complaints about weak antenna's are coming straight from the difference between the signal that Gingerbread reports and ICS reports. GB reports the 1x signal when you are connected to LTE, where ICS reports the LTE signal.

Sprint's Minnesota market, for instance, has 4 of Verizon's "Markets" in it.

Duluth, Minn.

Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.

The Rochester Area, Minn.

St. Cloud, Minn.

While some of Verizon's markets cover several cities, they don't cover large geographical areas as Sprint's do. Minneapolis/St. Paul covers a huge metro area also, but St. Cloud doesn't cover much territory.

And if microsoft has ever proved anything to us, they will poor billions into something just to make it sell..... i.e. xbox

Very true, they have the money to wait it out and let the market come to them.

The LS-696 was approved in January a week after the Viper and it is 3G only. Sprint will continue to launch 3G only phones. I wouldn't expect ALL phones to be 4G LTE for another year or 2 at least. Some people DON'T want 4G phones with the battery drain.

Another free on contract windows phone... They must be really trying to capture the first smartphone sales for people who want something cheap. Maybe Sprint just wants another windows phone to fail so they can stop offering them to customers.

pyroscott, it was in the news I read a few places that most At&t stores have at least one employee that have them, the one I went to had at least 2 (I only talked to two employees there), one black and one cyan. They were employee phones. I recommend you check one out at least, but I suggest calling first, there is no guarantee the employee with the Lumia 900 is working when you go in to visit. The two employees that had it didn't seem that excited about it, which could be a problem at launch, they thought it was nice, but neither had really used it much even though they had had it a few days already.

I'll have to check it out. Not interested in going with the Lumia 900, especially on AT&Ts network, but it is almost like a beta test for what could easily be the best WP to date, releasing later this year.

I went to an At&t store to check out the Lumia 900.

That is awesome that you already were able to check it out. It's not set to hit shelves for another week. Was it an employee phone? Or training phone?

The problem, from my perspective as a smart phone consumer, is that anyone buying a phone and apps for Windows Phone has to be at least slightly concerned that this will be just the latest Kin or Zune fiasco - a product that is expensively rolled out, underperforms in the marketplace, and then is shelved in favor of the Next, Non-Backward-Compatible Big Idea from Redmond.

That is definately a concern, but I think as long as Windows Phone sells and gains market share, they will stick with it. They are talking about integration with Windows 8, I don't think they would be bringing it in to their main OS if it wasn't sticking around.

I will agree that a physical keyboard is something that I still want, and the fact that the new 'high end' android devices seem to be missing it frustrates me.

I think we will be seeing at least a couple slider phones coming out in the next year. I would sure think there would be an Android and possibly a Windows Phone slider.

I used to be like you in that I loved the physical keyboard on the smartphone because to me it was easier to type text messages, websites or anything that requires word entry but the more I used the onscreen keyboard, the more I got used to it and probably would not get a physical keyboard anymore.

Eric, I was able to convert the wife over also. I never had a slider phone, so I didn't understand the hype, it just seemed like one more thing to break on the phone. The wife was upset that there were no slider phones available but upgraded to the E4GT and once she fell in love with swype, she forgot all about the physical keyboard and extra thickness of the slider.

And tonight's announcement is: Sheyenne, North Dakota... April fools

Excellent insight Jeff. A lot depends on the deal Sprint signs with the partner carriers. I believe you're right that the deals will probably have Sprint's customers seeing native coverage in the "roaming" areas, but Sprint will not sell service in those areas.

Look at the LG Viper-- they made one model with a PCS (BC 25) LTE antenna for Sprint and a duplicate model with a different antenna but all other components the same for Metro PCS.

Also the LG Lucid on Verizon (it has several other variances, but is very similar)

I agree that the phone manufacturers will do whatever is needed to make the most money, BUT you have to figure there was some heavy lobbying to get those regulations pushed though.

Agreed, band class 13/14 (Upper 700 MHz) and band class 12/17 (Lower 700 MHz) will remain separate because of the duplex inversion.The perfectly solvable problem is VZW and/or AT&T throwing around their anti competitive clout to get OEMs to build devices that are band class 17 (instead of the original, inclusive band class 12), band class 2 (instead of the superset band class 25), or band class 5 (instead of the superset band class 26).Those are little more than predatory, exclusionary practices designed to squeeze out the competitive carriers by making it more difficult for them to procure compatible devices and nary impossible for subs to churn and take their VZW or AT&T devices to other carriers.AJ

Naturally, they don't want to let their product do the talking, they have to use every possible way to make it impossible for their competitors to do business.

Nice writeup Jeff. I consider myself a very loyal customer, but loyalty goes both ways. I still shop at a small hardware store vs. the big retailers because the small hardware store returns my loyalty. I am still loyal to Sprint, I was with them for 10+ years, but the loyalty has to go both ways. The network in my area was broken, data was crawling. I was met with two choices, downgrade to a (gasp) dumb phone until network vision came through or go to a carrier who had reinvested in their network and could offer me smartphone functionality. It killed me to leave Sprint, but I was addicted to my smartphone. Now it is up to Verizon to win over my loyalty or I will most likely go back to sprint for another 10+ years when my contract is up. (Verizon is currently doing an absolutely horrible job of inspiring any loyalty in me)

I can only thank them for kicking the other OEM's and Google into high gear really.

It definitely will light a fire under their...

More important to me than knowing what LTE bands may or may not be supported (at least for the next 2-3 years) is will this iPhone support CDMA in ESMR-- it is a PHONE after all, and if you want to call people, this would be beneficial for Sprint. Unfortunately, there has been no indication that Apple is interested in supporting an unusual band (ESMR), even for CDMA use (which is approved).

That would be a huge bummer if they didn't support CDMA in ESMR. That is going to be one of the largest benefits of network vision.

According to this sketch, they're trying to support LTE bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 13, & 17 with a single phone. Slight problem: band class 2 is PCS blocks A-F only; band class 25 is needed to support the G block. Also, band class 5 is Cellular 850-- it does not include ESMR 800. Band class 4 is AWS. I think 8 is European 900 Cellular and 1 is MSS. LTE band 13 is Verizon and 17 is AT&T (but not the regionals that use BC 12).

Hopefully this is just a preliminary Sketch and they add band class 25 at a minimum. ESMR would also be great to see.