bmoses

it got converted from GMO to full build last week no LTE from it yet though, presumably just waiting for a LTE integration tech to make it this way to turn it on as fiber was run last year sometime.

hello and welcome! Once you are able to donate and get access to the maps you will have a better idea of where the towers are and the status of them which will give you more info to what is going on. but basically what you are seeing is the difference between your S3, a dual radio path device, and your new S5, which is a sing path radio device. what this means is your S3 could be connected to both voice and data at the same time, and your signal bars would have reflected your voice connection. Your S5 on the other hand being a tri-band device can not be connected to both voice and data at the same time. So when you are connected to LTE you are not connected to voice and therefore your signal bars reflect your LTE signal. when you receive a call the network alerts your phone through the LTE connection that you have an incoming call and forces your phone to drop LTE and connect back to the voice network to receive the call. so whats most likely happening in your case is the tower closest to you doesn't have LTE yet, so when you connect to LTE you are connecting to a tower further away which is giving a weaker signal and missing the alerts to incoming voice calls. Once the closer tower gets LTE the issue should go away since you will have a stronger LTE signal and not miss the alerts. your options in the meantime are to either use wifi calling, or change to "CDMA" mode under mobile networks when you are at home, and then back to "CDMA/LTE" when you are out and about. as i said though, once you get access to the maps, specifically the spreadsheet and map we are doing for IA/NE (link in my sig) it will make more sense as you will be able to see where all of the towers are, their status, and using a program like signal check pro in conjunction with our spreadsheets/map, be able to determine which tower your LTE signal is coming from.

thanks all for the replies! while its good to know i'm not the only one having issues with them, it sucks that apparently nothing can be done about it none of the GMOs that were supposed to be GMOs around here have been converted yet. the "surprise" GMOs that got installed that way initially due to other reasons they have started to slowly go back and convert those. the bad thing is all the surprise ones are already in the LTE footprint, so they don't really cause any issues, its the ones outside the footprint where you don't have LTE and need 3G to fallback on and you can't that are killing service around here. Also none of the GMOs are broadcasting LTE, and I know at least 1 of them had fiber run to it over a year ago now, so i'm sure the rest of them have fiber to, they are just waiting until they get converted to turn LTE on for some reason.

Has anyone else with GMO sites in their area found that they have issues connecting to them? Specifically 3G data not connecting? If so have you found that this is something Sprint can correct, like the sites aren't configured correctly or something, or is this just the nature of GMO sites and the way they will be until they get converted to full builds? For example, in my area there are some GMO sites outside of the current LTE footprint. When entering one of these areas my phone has the hardest time connecting to them. voice usually connects fairly quickly but it will sit there anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes or more trying to connect to 3G. usually it gives up and just sticks me on 1xRTT, but sometimes even that doesn't always connect, ie the "3G" icon never shows up and i don't have any data what so ever until it does. and its not just my phone (LG G Flex), it happens on my wife's and my brother's iphone 5's as well. doing airplane mode doesn't really seem to help, it just starts the cycle over of trying to connect to 3G. this is also with good signals, -85dbm or better, that it still does this. so if anyone has had issues like this and has had success getting them fixed please let me know what it took

tested out wifi calling last night while at home. while it did work and i was able to make a couple of calls and send a text it wasn't 100%. when i left to go to a movie all the sudden i got several texts as soon as i disconnected from my wifi. i also wasn't able to send a MMS while wifi calling was on and connected. i was surprised to see that with wifi calling turned on it completely disconnects you from the sprint network. signal check showed no connections to anything except wifi while wifi calling was on.

just *just* got prompted for this update this morning. i haven't tried wifi calling yet as i installed it after i got to work (no wifi here) as to root, it did install fine but did break root again. downloaded the latest ioroot and am back to rooted again

yeah i just started having this happen too, after some googling looks like its pretty widespread. sometimes forcing a refresh of the page will load in high quality images, but every page loads low quality images initially

might want to check the WDM Marriott when you get a chance, 2 other towers that weren't broadcasting B25 that should have been started working today!

yep, basically all of the top phones out right now perform about the same. The Nexus 5 is considered the best for RF performance, but any of them will work, Galaxy S5, LG G2, HTC One M8, Nexus 5, etc. I have the LG G Flex myself and love it, its a fantastic phone.

i know its not the best answer, but assuming the phone you have listed is accurate, that's a huge part of the problem. the EVO LTE was one of the worst phones for 4G LTE ever made, I had that phone so i know just how bad it is. If you had a tri-band phone your experience would be much different. There is an issue with the WDM Marriott not broadcasting B25 (LTE 1900) right now, but it is broadcasting B26 (LTE 800). the WDM water tower is broadcasting both bands, and from what i've seen, if you are having spotty 4G from an EVO LTE, you would have a much better experience with a tri-band phone, it would not only pick up B25 better, but you would get B26 which makes a world of difference.

and thats exactly why you need a tri-band device. All those places where you lose B25 and drop down to 3G because you went down a hill or some trees or buildings got in the way, with a tri-band device you now just seamlessly switch over to B26 and continue on your LTE merry way the only places i run into issues anymore are the handful of towers that are either GMO, B25 isn't broadcasting for some reason, or B26 hasn't been optimized yet, but thats like 2% of the total towers in this area so its very minor.

And rumor has it that B41 will be deployed around here by end of summer Yep the N5 got its spark update finally a couple of weeks ago. I have the G Flex and love it and it's large screen. So I would be biased towards the larger screen of the G2 myself. You can't go wrong either way though!

that right there that i left in your quote, that will make a night and day difference in your experience around here B26 is basically blanketing des moines and it makes a world of difference! I have a work phone on verizon and i compare signals when i'm out and about, i haven't found a spot yet where my sprint signal has been worse than verizon. speedtests are about 50/50 as to who has the faster speed when i run them at the same time, but i rarely see speeds lower than about 3 meg, most of the time its 10+meg as to the marriott, last time i was there B25 still wasn't working, but having a tri-band phone i was getting LTE from that tower ;)

where are our east iowa sponsor peeps at?!?!!?!? we have a lot of 4G towers that are accepted and need confirmation and GCI/PCI data gathered!!!!! especially dubuque and cedar falls/waterloo! use the link in my sig to go to the sponsor thread to see the spreadsheet and maps and post in there if you can help us fill in the holes!!!!!

*crickets* i'm guessing from the lack of posts in here it means that everyone is happy with the service and data speeds are amazing everywhere around des moines now

Thank Jesus i'm in a Samsung market!!!!!! whenever B26 has gone live on a tower around here it is immediately usable and other than not being properly tuned right off the bat, doesn't cause any eCSFB issues. Most of my coworkers are on sprint and have tri-band phones, including some Nexus 5's and they all work the same and connect to all towers/bands that are live.

i am rooted, however reading the guide didn't say anything about requiring root, so i don't think its needed.

in case anyone is interested, i was able to use this method http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2521276 for writing a custom PRL to my phone

Are you talking about the other LTE bands rolling out? If so then yes they will. More likely than not LTE 800, also referred to band 26, is getting installed and activated at the same time as LTE 1900, which is band 25 and the default band all LTE phones support. Then sometime over the next year they will go back and install additional panels that support LTE 2600, band 41.

Assuming when you said you had the HTC one you were meaning the M7 not the M8. The M7 is not tri band which means it can only access LTE on 1900. Not 800 or 2600. Now if you have the M8 then it is tri band and you can connect to all 3 LTE bands.

while this is the case the majority of the time, its not always 100%. Acceptance just means its passed inspection, it doesn't mean an integration crew has been to the site to bring it online yet. For example, we still have about 5 towers around here that have been accepted, some of them for months, that are not broadcasting Band 25 yet.

no, all lines are at a minimum $30.93, then two lines have an additional $20 for unlimited data, and one of those lines has an additional $27 for phone payment on easy pay. I was relaying that info so you knew how the total got up to $343, since $30.93 times 9 is $278.37 i was explaining why it was higher. so to break it down, lines 1-7, which don't have anything extra, pay $30.93/mo, then my 8th line with unlimited data is $47.32/mo and my 9th line with unlimited data, phone payment, and tablet plan is $79.41/mo.

I have 9 lines on my account all on framily. 2 lines have unlimited data, 1 line has a $27/mo phone payment, and i'm paying $5/mo for the 25 meg tablet plan. all of that with taxes and fees is $343 and change. the lines that don't have any extra pay $30.93/mo. here is the breakdown of the taxes and fees Federal-Univ Serv Assess Non-LD $5.76 Iowa State-TRS Charge $0.27 Administrative Charge $23.88 Regulatory Charge $4.80 Total -------------- $34.71 Iowa State-911 Tax $9.00 Iowa State-Sales Tax $9.60 -------------- Total $18.60

this is by no means to imply this is how it will be there, but as an example, we had a GMO in the metro here, get new panels installed on 04/29/2014. Fiber was already at the site, it then got LTE accepted on 05/17/2014, so about two weeks from conversion to LTE. but like Nuke said, there are many factors that could impact this, not only does the site need fiber to get LTE, but the inspection crew to sign off that the tower meets standards, and the integration crew that enables LTE are all separate from the crews actually installing the equipment. So there might not be either of those other 2 crews in the area to do their part even if the site does have fiber and the equipment is all installed. don't get me wrong, its definitely exciting that GMO conversions are happening, just don't get your hopes up that LTE will be "soon"

were they working on the top rack there? the top rack is sprint's and does have the NV panels installed. They are the big ones in the middle with the 2 RRUs mounted behind the panel.