greenbastard

So anyone who chooses sprint as their carrier because of its value should not be with Sprint?

It is awesome, yet sad, that we can use third party apps to enable simultaneous talk and MMS, even if it is just via wifi. Just a heads up though. My Nexus 5x was acting up with Textra. If an image or gif had to be resized, Textra would get stuck trying to send it and MMS wouldn't work until the hiccup corrected itself. It's the only reason why I left textra and started using Google Messenger. Now that Google Keyboard has native support for GIFs and Android 7.0 allows quick reply, I don't miss Textra.

And you offer no proof of sprint losing money through legacy plans either.

Data is the same. I don't see what the freakout is about. Any rational person would have looked at the range of the values first. If anything, the T-Mobile chart gives you a better idea of the actual values since it's scaled better. Using increments of 4 (blue/white chart) is a bit of a stretch considering the maximum value seems to be ~21 Mbps for download. Settle down. This is unnecessary outrage.

Same values. What's the difference?

Stupid decision. Sprint is probably the least friendly BYOD carrier, so taking away purchasing options is not in their best interest. I'm taking my 5 lines elsewhere. Sprint is no longer worth the value IMO. Subsidies were the only thing making Sprint viable, even with slow speeds. I'm going to call to see if I can buy out my contract and unlock all of my phones for domestic use before leaving.

They have the least amount of subscribers out of the Big 4. I'm assuming it is the latter.

It used to work well on Galaxy S5. Never tried it on my Nexus because Google Messenger has become so much smoother and Textra has a glitch on MMS where the phone gets stuck trying to resize images/videos.

Depends on the phone and Texting app. Textra allows you to route MMS over wifi instead of mobile data on most phones, but you lose RCS. Google Messenger app doesn't allow MMS over Wifi (or at least there's no option).

I wonder if Sprint also turned on LTE roaming for other unlocked phones (Moto G4, Moto X, Nexus 6/5x/6P)? Not adding LTE roaming support for devices that have the ability to do so would be a very "Sprint" thing to do at this point. But then again, Sprint does seem to neglect support for BYOD devices more so than their competitors. Everytime I call Sprint to switch between my Nexus and iPhone, I am always told the Nexus isn't supported and that I am eligible for an upgrade (drives me insane!). It usually takes a supervisor to get the device activated again. Why can't they just allow a simple SIM swap??? It's possible with the new SIM kits. This added later of having to call and deal with customer service is a waste of my time and their money. (Before I am bombarded with "you should do it online" comments, I can't. Everytime I try to activate a phone I automatically get a page telling me to start a chat. It won't even let me attempt to choose from old phones or enter an MEID. Sprint's customer service has really gone to shit and their website only got cosmetic upgrades, not functionality upgrades)

That Memphis 700a block was only a lease and it fell through at the end. Cellular South still owns it.

They can, but they aren't doing that. The G block is currently being used with portions of the C block to make 10x10 carriers. I'd imagine that their goal is to eventually deploy 20x20 carriers (with G block) once they decide to turn off CDMA. It will prevent MFBI B2 in most spectrum constrained markets (<40 MHz).

Your plan has a huge hole in that VoLTE is nowhere near ready for Sprint OR most foreign carriers. Forget VoLTE! LTE itself is still a new concept for most of the world. Some of Sprint's current roaming partners don't even have LTE deployed yet. I just cannot see Sprint turning on VoLTE only to see their bread and butter (reliability) go down the drain, especially if their partners can't even take advantage of it to begin with. As far as "Band 2", it's not as simple as you think. In the markets where Sprint successfully pairs up its spectrum (C block+G block pairing is still ongoing), the G block will be used to make wider LTE carriers. That would kill any chance of B2 MFBI in most markets. CA is a nice feature to have in markets they won't be able to swap spectrum, but swapping spectrum will always be first priority. Whenever VoLTE arrives to most of the world (I guarantee it won't be anytime soon), Sprint will be able to do MFBI for Band 2, but it won't be on a national scale (which is what matters during roaming negotiations). Sprint just doesn't have the assets to offer true reciprocal roaming agreements today or in the near future. This may be the best Sprint will be able to do when it comes to international roaming.

You also have to consider that Sprint won't be touching VoLTE anytime soon as much as we want them to. It would be nice if they turned it on and allowed beta testing to a few users. It's a shame that I can talk and browse the web when I roam internationally but can't when I use Sprint's native network.

That would be true for the North American iPhone 6/6s. Unfortunately, not everybody uses an iPhone and Android is currently the most popular OS in the world. This would hinder any foreign carrier from offering a uniform roaming package if only a handful of phones had roaming in the US. Also, the new iPhone isn't as universal as it's predecessor. Only the Sprint/Verizon iPhone 7 variant offer CDMA. Everyone else is getting a non-CDMA variant that isn't able to access voice services on Sprint. Sprint could run Band 2, but it's not available in most markets yet and it's not their ultimate plan. Sprint is trying very hard to pair their PCS spectrum with their G block in order to make 10x10+ blocks. It's not their intention to leave islands of spectrum away from their nationwide G block. And once Sprint pairs their spectrum, Band 2 MFBI becomes impossible. Band 2 would only realistically work in very few markets, and that by itself is not enough to make true reciprocal roaming agreements.

You'd figure LTE roaming would be cheaper to begin with. LTE is more efficient than HSPA or WCDMA. But then again, it all comes back to reciprocal data usage. Most international providers don't use CDMA (thus foreign subscribers can't access Sprint's voice and 3G data). Sprint also has some very unique LTE bands not seen in many places. This leads to many foreign carriers not having the necessary hardware to roam on Sprint.

Was it a courtesy swap or was it via assurion? If it was through Assurion, you probably could have gotten away with getting a phone that meets your needs.

I ran into odd network names myself on my Nexus. iPhones on US At&t SIM cards were correctly showing the "At&t MX" name on LTE and 3G. Unfortunately my Nexus on Sprint was still displaying the old legacy names of the companies At&t bought out. Iusacell GSM & 4G, Nextel, and 334-05 (PLMN for Iusacell's prepaid Unefon brand) where all being shown instead of At&t MX when searching for networks. As for Movistar, my Nexus displayed the name correctly, but my iPhone showed the PLMN number (334-03) instead of the actual network name. Very odd all around.

This is just entirely false.

There are some, but they are a very small minority.

Really? The settings for RCS disappeared when I was roaming on Movistar Mexico on my Nexus. I guess it automatically turned off for me. I did find it odd that I was able to roam on Telcel for a brief period of time. Movistar was the only network I could register on when I searched for networks manually. And then out of the blue, Telcel popped up. After 10 minutes, I was back on Movistar and I could no longer register on Telcel. Data didn't work, but SMS worked fine while on Telcel. Didn't attempt to place a call so I don't know if voice worked. I know Sprint set up a comfy roaming agreement with Telefonica (knocking countless Latin American/European birds with one stone), but would it kill them to at least enable LTE roaming? I am paying for roaming overages, so why not make it work? Everyone else does offer LTE roaming. My At&t account roamed on At&t MX LTE and T-Mobile worked on Telcel LTE.

Maybe I missed it, but when did Sprint set the inauguration as the deadline for enabling 3CA on their network and phones? I thought they announced 3CA was going to be enabled early 2017 and not necessarily the inauguration.

Try again. Tell them the airave isn't reaching your entire house.

Sprint offer customers a free Dual band Asus router. It is a free 1 year "lease" and after the year it's yours to keep. The router works extremely well IMO. Try calling Sprint up. https://www.sprint.com/landings/airave/?ECID=vanity:inhomecoverage

Nice to see them expanding the network south of downtown. Sprint has very poor network density in South San Antonio. Towers offer adequate outdoor coverage for the most part, but because of how spread out their towers are they are often overloaded and LTE is a hit or miss indoors. Palo Alto College and TAMU-SA are very poor Sprint areas. They should consider deploying small cells at those colleges.