4ringsnbr

Because you'd have to carry its battery in a fanny pack to make it run more than an hour. And since WiMax coverage is just a myth as far as I know, I don't see the point in spending the engineering money & time as well as testing, FCC approvals, etc. Also, the $4.76 / month Sprint pays Clearwire for every WiMax device sold, regardless of coverage or usage of 4G, would mean less money for Sprint.

Band Class 1 is PCS (1900 MHz)... every band class has its own channel numbering scheme. FYI.. For band class 1 (PCS)-- A block starts at 1850 MHz with channel 0... the spacing is 50 kHz per channel and the downlink frequency is 80 MHz higher than the uplink. The first usable CDMA channel is 25, then 50, 75, etc. For band class 10 (ESMR) -- Channel 0 is 806 MHz... every channel is 25 kHz wide and the downlink is 45 MHz higher than the uplink. The first usable channel (to Sprint handsets as FCC approved) is centered at 817.9 MHz, which is 476, then 526, and 576 and 626. 676 would only be usable with allowances made by the area's cellular A side (band class 0) carrier. I would go into band class 0 (cellular), but I've had too much wine-- there are two different channel numbering schemes and CDMA carriers in this band are 1.23 MHz wide rather than 1.25 MHz in all other band classes... you'll only see this band class when roaming on Verizon or Cellular South, so don't worry about it.

I'm glad to know the PRL works properly on phones equipped for Band Class 10-- though the band should be reported as "CDMA Cellular 2nd", but who knows how the firmware for the radio is configured! The PRL scan will ALWAYS prioritize the ESMR 1x carrier over your native PCS 1x carrier, but the EVDO (3G) association will always use your native PCS carriers. Please note that use of this PRL will likely cause increased battery draw since the phone will periodically scan for ESMR 1x carriers as a preferred link even if you have a great signal on your PCS 1x carrier. If you'd like to have any functionality changed, please let me know... I can disable EVDO upon ESMR 1x acquisition if you want that. I made it this way so that you can still use your phone normally and let it scan for ESMR carriers in the background.

I think RootMetrics is right on-- look at all their detailed reports market-by-market... excellent information that seems to agree with everything I've observed and heard from users in those markets. Opensignalmaps.com is another good unbiased user data sourced resource to use for research.

The LG Viper does do SVDO. None of the other handsets do. The Viper will join HTC's Thunderbolt and Rezound as the only SVDO handsets in North America. Implementing SVDO requires 2 CDMA baseband processors. It appears the EVO will rely on the single CDMA baseband built into its S4 SoC processor so no SVDO, but SVLTE should be supported.

ALL revisions of the EVO 4G have the hardware to support Band class 14; however, it appears the phone was only tested in band class 1 (excluding the G block). Therefore, the firmware or software on the phone doesn't recognize BC 14 though the hardware does have that capability. This seems to be the case with MOST handsets. The PRL won't affect your performance UNLESS you can actually use that G block carrier. After that scan, it is a stock Sprint PRL.

I knew this phone would be first when I wrote about it on Sprint Users back in January when it was approved by the FCC.

The easiest way to objectively measure this is to look at how many subs each carrier has per MHz of bandwidth-- if you want to see an "average" or overall efficiency. I've done some math below that may shed light on this. AT&T has an average of 79 MHz serving about 100 M subscribers or 0.79 Hz/sub Verizon has an average of 88 MHz serving about 110 M subscribers or 0.8 Hz/sub Sprint/Nextel (alone) has an average of 53 MHz serving about 55 M subscribers or 1.03 Hz/sub Sprint + Clearwire has an average of 195 MHz serving about 68 M subscribers or 2.87 Hz/sub The source for the licence info is below. Using this average national licensed information and the most recent subscriber figures, it would appear Sprint is more of a spectrum hog than the big two-- this may seem counter-intuitive, but you have to consider the number of subs. I know in my market, Sprint has been sitting on 40 MHz of PCS and 14 MHz of ESMR and they run 2-3 TOTAL CDMA carriers (using about 5-7.5 MHz / 40 MHz PCS band) conversely Verizon runs 9 cellular and 3-4 PCS carriers along with their 10 x10 LTE here, so they use 55 MHz of their 97 MHz here. http://www.google.co...l8zvQgKt8xM051w

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.

That's why my primary N network runs on 5.8 GHz. The 2.4 network I run is a redundant backup (or used by my phone when I'm at home). I'm immune to your magnetrons!!

For Windows Phone fans, a new Sprint Windows Phone is on the way. The LG LS-831 was FCC certified for CDMA/EVDO operation in ESMR 800 / Cellular 850 / PCS 1900 bands. It has WiFi & Bluetooth. It does NOT have LTE or WiMax -- it is 3G only.

In New Mexico, you shouldn't worry either way-- not enough moisture in the atmosphere to matter; however, here in Louisiana... I can't help but think of how poor WiMax would do on this foggy 75° morning here if they actually had WiMax here... Fortunately, the 2500 band will not affect future Sprint plans, so no more worries.

You guys need to remember that GSM is actually a 2G TDMA standard setup before CDMA came on the scene in 1995. CDMA was superior, but was banned in Europe. When the 3GGP community that used GSM needed a 3G standard, GPRS (and subsequently HSPA) was a creation of Qualcomm et.al. based upon W-CDMA technology. ALL 3G standards are CDMA-based now. The only significant difference between GPRS/HSPA's W-CDMA and CDMA/EVDO is carrier size. CDMA & EVDO still use the old 1.25x1.25 MHz (1.23 in Cellular band) carrier size. W-CDMA does 5x5, which is why HSPA does 14.4 mbps. The EVDO/CDMA 1.25 MHz carriers were thought to be sufficient for data since with EVDO Rev. 0 they gave up to 2.4 mbps (now 4.9 mbps with Rev. B per carrier; however if bonded together (ala Rev. MC or Rev. B multicarrier mode), it will give better data performance in the same carrier size than HSPA. GSM would always be a step backwards from CDMA. 3GGP: 1985 GSM (2G) ----> 2000 GPRS (3G) -----> 2003 HSPA (3.5G) -----> 2011 LTE (4G) 3GGP2: 1995: CDMAOne (2G) --> 1999 CDMA2000 1xRTT & EVDO Rev. 0 (3G) ---> 2006 EVDO Rev. B (3.5G) ---> 2011 LTE (4G)

No-- since the mass of water falling in snowfall is far less, the reduction should be far less. I think 1 inch of rainwater is something like a foot of snow or something-- not sure-- I don't live where it ever snows (nor will I ever if I can help it)...

It's not a WiMax thing-- it's a 2.5 GHz thing. When you get above 2 GHz, you get close to a harmonic resonance of the hydrogen bonds in a water molecule-- this is why microwave ovens operate at 2.4 GHz. The dielectric heating effect at this frequency is highly effective on water molecules. The water molecules absorb some of the RF energy and reduce the propagation of the signal.

On CDMA networks frequency reuse is n=1 -- all towers and handsets use the same channels -- the encryption codes are what is unique to each call/handset/tower/sector. That is why it is so much more efficient than GSM with n=4 or n=7 reuse or iDEN with n=7 reuse.

This is because all non-ICS phones report EHRPD signal strength in the about menu, not LTE strength. Your GNex is reporting the actual LTE strength, -115 dBm. The other signal strength observed on the other phones is actually the EHRPD signal. In order to see the LTE strength in non-ICS phones, you have to do a logcat or use a special app. Anandtech writes all about it in their article on the Galaxy Nexus signal issues. The GNex DOES have some signal issues on the CDMA/EVDO/EHRPD side compared to other phones, but it shares these issues with the Droid Charge, which uses the same non-Qualcomm CDMA baseband. I doubt seriously Sprint will tolerate the use of that baseband in their version of the GNex-- their signal strength is too low. See what signal strength your wife's phone reports after its ICS upgrade on Wednesday. It should be very similar to yours.

There is a third option. 6-sector towers (like Verizon uses in a few spots). Basically it is two BSCs on a single tower with one rack skewed 60° from the other. They can be used with CDMA networks and each sector is now a 60° window (6 sectors make the whole circumference of coverage). This gives you double the capacity of that cell. The only trick is to make sure you don't add too much to carrier pollution-- so you keep your downtilt to limit the coverage distance from the tower to reduce the carrier pollution with neighboring cells. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:6_sector_site_in_CDMA.jpg

AT&T and VZW had nothing to do with the band class split-- the FCC decided upon the duplex pairing by recommendations when they went to auction. The regulations are currently the limitation on the hardware. Phone manufacturers are in business to make money-- they want to sell the most devices they can at the most profit, so if they can make a device that'll work with everyone's network and be able to obtain FCC approval, they'll make it as long as it doesn't cost more to produce than they can sell it for. The carriers won't care as long as it supports their network and band class. 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. All OEMs do this-- they make the most interchangeable devices they can that will meet regulatory requirements.

When was band class 26 approved? I only see 1-25 and the TDD classes 33-43 on the official lists... The other question is will the FCC allow a superset of ESMR and cellular since the two bands are governed by different rules (part 90S vs. 22H), which impacts power output limitations that would have to be enforced in some manner.

Did he give up unlimited data with VZW? I'd hate to be you at Christmas!

I have seen reports that the FCC is looking into why phones cannot use LTE BC 12 in lieu of BC 17. Band 12 (regional carriers) is a superset of Band 17 (AT&T). I see no reason why these two band classes have to be separate. I don't see any way they can do anything about BC 13, however. It is backwards (uplink frequencies higher than downlink frequencies) in addition to having a different duplex spacing (-31 instead of +30 MHz).

If you look at the 1x or EVDO engineering debug screens, there should be a neighbor set and candidate set. If I recall, the candidate set is the PN of the other sectors the handset is seeing (with worse Ec/Io than the chosen pilot) and the neighbor set is either the handset's memory of the most recent sectors' PNs or a network-delivered list of neighboring PNs.

Just remember that the size of the antenna, and for EVDO, 1xA, & LTE Rx diversity or MIMO, the spacing between the two receive antennas is proportional to the wavelength of the frequency band. The lower the frequency, the larger the antenna (and space needed). This may be why all 700 LTE phones are huge! A quick approximation of the wavelength is λ = 300 / f, where f = frequency (in MHz) and λ = wavelength in meters. Typically a quarter wave antenna is favored, where the optimal antenna length is 1/4 the wavelength.

Well your phone SHOULD return to 3G after the SMS/MMS message is transmitted or call is ended unless you're roaming or it can't reacquire the EV pilot signal-- say if you've moved to a new sector, your phone has to find a new pilot PN-- this should be routine, but not all phones are created equal-- hence I'm now running a Moto!