koiulpoi

Is everyone familiar with the children's game of "telephone"?  Whisper a message into the ear of the person next to, continue on down the line, then laugh at the distorted message that comes out of the last person in line.

 

From senior management down to frontline employees, the message goes from "Coming soon" to "By the end of the year" to "In the next three months."

 

AJ

It's worse than you think.

 

I had a few of the following conversations recently:

 

"So, now that Softbank bought us-"

"Who? Oh, right, that Chinese company that was talking about that."

"Japanese, and the buyout is complete..."

 

"So, now that we own Clearwire-"

"WHAT!? Wait, who's Clearwire again?"

 

"A profile update cannot fix coverage issues, and really can't do anything about dropped calls. A PRL is not a list of towers, and it will not 'connect you to the closest tower', your phone does that on its own."

"Yeah, well, that's not what I was told!"

 

"So T-Mobile-"

"Yeah, who cares? They don't even have 4G, it's just fake souped-up 3G"

"Actually, they have 4G LTE now, and their rollout is going rather quickly, and their '3G' was faster than WiMAX in most areas."

"No, that's wrong"

"<_<"

 

"Sprint can't put 4G LTE on the Nextel band. If they could, why didn't Nextel? Low frequency signals are always slower, and Nextel didn't care about data speed."

 

"Network Vision isn't going to start until 4G LTE is complete, then we're getting a whole new network!"

 

"Root my phone so I can get free hotspot and do away with Comcast."

 

Mind you, I'm not calling my coworkers, bosses, and customers incompetent. They're simply products of a system that provides severely inadequate information. 

If the intelligence "bell curve" is a Gaussian function, then the mean and median should be equivalent.

 

 

AJ

'struth, but I do not know enough about the actual distribution of intelligence, as to whether or not it actually does follow a bell curve. I would not be surprised if there were odd "pockets" about one standard deviation out. But, we've traveled quite far offtopic, all for the cause of a joke (the joke being, if you're surprised by that fact, you're probably in the bottom half)...

 

So, anyways, we've determined that the WiMAX 2.5 GHz antennas/panels are being used for the TD-LTE rollout, yes? Does the work require entirely new "cabinets", or is it just RRUs and carrier cards? Or something else entirely? Basically, I'm attempting to ask "how difficult will it be to add TD-LTE to WiMAX sites?"

What "bars"?  SignalCheck Pro provides signal strength figures in dBm units.  No one is disputing the value of that.  But the hoi polloi, who could barely pass high school chemistry, would see those negative sign metrics and emit a collective, "HUH?!"

 

AJ

Now now, AJ, just because upwards of 50% of the human population is of below average intelligence... (or would that be median intelligence? I forget my statistics)

 

Also, you do realize that SignalCheck has an option for "Signal Bars" in its consistent notifications, right?

I will say, getting the general public to understand these sorts of things. Like bkco14 said, most over-the-phone care reps (due to the extremely high turnover rate) and in-store reps have little to no actual knowledge about the rollout, and many are perfectly willing to overpromise and lie to get a sale or keep a customer.

 

That being said, I personally have been having trouble getting the whole Network Vision project in to public-understandable sound bytes. When talking with them, they don't want anything near the incredible wealth of info we see here. They want to know when they're gonna get 4G or "when these 2-ways gonna work better". It's exceedingly difficult to overcome objections to this - when I inform people of the incredible rollout and massive amount of work that's already been done and still to go, many people's first impression is to write it off as yet another lying retail tech. After all, they've been promised "network improvements" for years, and many store employees promised 4G WiMAX in areas it was never even scheduled to hit. So, even as someone who reads this site every day, I find it difficult to convince people. Some are very excited about the rollout themselves, and some feel it's a repeat of the same. And trust me, in a former affiliate market that built out some areas spaced more like 850 than 1900, we definitely could use some improvements...

 

I would also like to say I've learned nearly nothing from Sprint's own internal resources about network technology, the 1900 rollout, 3G Network Vision, the iDEN shutdown, 800 MHz LTE, Clearwire and 2500 MHz LTE, and all the factors and technologies that go in to all of this. Without S4GRU, I'd be at a loss of what to tell people, and probably fall in to the category of "say whatever", as you have to give the customers something, but given nothing, well, there's nothing to give. Even Sprint internal documents often say little more than "Coming Soon!"

 

So, with all that, you have to imagine that what people get from your average sales rep or tech or care rep is going to be misinformation, pessimism, or straight-up lying. When people hear 10 different stories from 8 different people, they get frustrated. I would. 

Only one way to find out, right?

Yes, wait for service to get activated on my MiFi 500. C'mon 3rd party/demo team, hurry up...

I just met a nice crew of Clearwire installers, who had just finished installing new RRUs. Said they came from Michigan, had Pennsylvania plates on their trucks/trailers, and were off to do more upgrades in the St. Louis area after this site.

 

Here's hoping this was new equipment for me to take advantage of, being so close to the tower.

 

(Pics of the new panels here)

Michigan eh? So what you're saying is, somewhere in Grand Rapids, there's a decent chance I could pick up some 2.5 GHz? That's what I'm taking it as.

Did anyone get their statements? A $5 fee if you ever need a second statement mailed to you. However, if you go online to print, that's free. A material change in the agreement?

Sprint's big thing lately has been trying to get people to use self-service options like sprint.com and the Sprint Zone a bit more. Cut down on call volume for simple stuff.

I don't understand why there is as much focus on 2500 by media and even Sprint, 800 not even mentioned.  Its 800Mhz that will turn Sprint around by significantly improving coverage and building penetration.  2500 is good in long term for capacity as needed but its 800 that is very very important in the next year.

I think the real big deal is that 2500 was previously thought to only be on Clearwire sites, and even then, only a "hotspot" rollout here and there. Now, it's going to be on every site AND on a number of small cells. That's huge. 800 MHz will be great, and so will 2500. 

 

2500 is also a differentiator due to the huge amount of spectrum Sprint can throw at it, along with being TDD-LTE. Low frequency is nice and all, but it's not the lowest, and it's not the most, so if you're a reporter, do you really care that (in their eyes) Sprint's low-frequency holdings are "a day late and a dollar short" to the big two?

 

I hear Nokia Siemens Networks has some spare capacity in their TD-LTE division.... *wishes*

What makes Nokia Siemens stand out?

 

Is the official language of S4GRU now Pidgin?

 

 

AJ

No ya git, itz ork.

That makes more sense than "bring TDD to Montana".

That's scary, because that post wasn't supposed to make sense.

Did the earnings call mention anything about expansion? I am still wondering what Masayoshi Son meant about matching Verizon's high speed coverage. 

Obviously, he's talking about beating VZW in the Speed/Area ratio. Just need to be faster in enough places to say "We've got more megabyte/miles than VZW!"

 

 

(I feel like AJ is rubbing off on me)

 

Edit: Wait, it's Megabits/second * 1/miles so it's really Megabits per second-mile. guh.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

 

It's impossible to recapture every iDEN subscriber but it still is cheaper keeping these very loyal (lazy?) customers.  I would suspect that once they've moved to AT&T or Verizon, they'll never move back.

 

Obviously, it's all said and done at this point but any customer who stuck with nextel till the last day will probably stick with whatever carrier they moved to for the foreseeable future, making them very attractive subs.

I somewhat disagree with the loyalty statement. Mostly because these customers were loyal to Nextel, and nothing else. Many, many of them simply didn't want change. So while I agree that they likely won't move again, I'd say it's more from general stubbornness than anything else. Going off of anecdotal experience dealing with Nextel subs. I could give you quite the "stereotype"...

That's just silly.  Sprint minds losing EVERY customer.  Keeping old customers is a lot cheaper than finding new ones.

 

You don't think those low ARPU legacy nextel users became higher ARPU sprint customers?  Sadly, instead of sticking with Sprint, they became higher ARPU AT&T or Verizon customers.

 

It's not like these customers had anywhere cheaper to go - I am surprised you feel that Sprint wouldn't mind losing customers that could be higher ARPU Sprint users.

It's not silly, you're silly! Losses were expected and planned for. The recapture rate was made as high as possible through offers to existing customers and active customer support. I can safely say they don't mind because they knew it was coming, planned for it, expected it, did everything they could to negate it. When they only got a small recapture rate, well, it's not like they wringed their hands over it and cried over lost low-ARPU Nextel subs. They instead focused on growth and moved forward.

 

So yeah. Of course they mind, but they don't really mind. Hesse has said it in the past couple quarters earnings calls. It's just not a huge deal.

Customers with low ARPU that Sprint didn't really mind losing.

I got mine. I'll be activating this puppy as soon as I can... and mostly use it to report on the rollout of 800 MHz and 2500 MHz LTE in West Michigan! We're a WiMAX market, there might be some BC41 floating around, who knows?

What is with you skids lol? Seriously. I'm just posting shit that gets in the news about the sun. never knew That was so bad.

 

 

Well.... I don't know who skids are, but none of this is really news... and this thread is way longer than it should be.

 

Skids? SKIDS?

OI YA GITZ, QUIT MUCKIN' ABOUT. IT'S NOT PROPPA. WE'ZE ON DA SPRINT FORUMZ, SO GET BACK TA TALKIN' BOUT ANNTENA-Y GUBBINS.

I'm not sure there is much Sprint can do right now, I'm sitting at work and cant even look at apps in Google Play because the connection keeps timing out.

So... get back to work

I called to ask about this, of course I had to talk to Telesales, which is still apparently out sourced, and it was hard to understand. But they seemed to say that since I don't have Wimax available at my home, that it doesn't apply to me. But I don't see why that matters- what if I commute to an area with Wimax everyday?

Call back. Option 4, then 5, then 6. That'll get to to "not telesales" hopefully.

 

Basically, if WiMAX ends, and you have a WiMAX device, they'll more than likely give you a new LTE device.

This is actually do to Samsung RIL blobs they are using.  The older RIL blobs are available at xda and fix the issue (from a clean flash).  I just toss them into an CM zip i flash before I flash it.

Link plz. I might try it out later. I will admit, I'm enjoying having engineering screens again.

 

I'm thinking of trying to restore "HiddenMenu.apk" to a CM-based ROM, and then using SignalCheck Pro to launch it, and see if it works. If so, engineering screens on AOSP!

vohspa

Gesundheit.

If you're on a CM ROM with a Samsung device, there's a bug in SID and NID reporting that was introduced with this change: http://review.cyanogenmod.org/#/c/45784/  Yell and scream on that page and it may get fixed.

 

 

How long did it stay like that?  I doubt it had anything to do with the app, I don't mess with the SID/NID/BID, just display the raw values the phone is reporting.  Are you on a CM nightly?  They have been tweaking the code to improve LTE data reporting on HTC devices; I know there was a recent bug where they had messed up the SID/NID/BID.  Perhaps they are working on similar features for other devices (fingers crossed).  If you see it again, check your 1X engineering screen and see what it looks like.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, lordsutch is up at this crazy hour too, and he posted a better answer while I was typing!  Hah..

 

-Mike

If you look at the screenshot, you can see Halo "hiding", so yeah, I was on some sort of CM-based nightly. Yay more broken. I'm already back on rooted stock, there's been too many issues with CM lately. Glad it was just that instead of Sprint going bonkers.

Speaking of that, I've been meaning to upload this for a couple days...

 

 

Any idea what in the world happened there? That SID in the 100k range, and my signal strength jumped up significantly compared to normal conditions in that area, but nothing was usable. I'd wager it was just the AOSP/CM RIL freaking out, but I wonder. I doubt it was a bug in Signalcheck.

I'm sorry. Next time I'll break it down for you, maybe draw some pictures lol

Gosh you guys need to lighten up. I should have added it's being worked on. Sorry. MY PROBLEM

No, you just need to be able to communicate properly.

 

You see, Rukin, in the English language, hell, any language, words have meaning. They are agreed upon social constructs. When you wish to convey an idea, a thought, a concept, you must use these words - and you must use them in a similar pattern to others, if you wish to be understood. Failure to do so will lead to misunderstandings and frustration. You must be impeccable with your word!

 

Which, looking back, if your whole point was "it's being worked on", that's a little silly to have said, isn't it? I said "we might even see some 800 and 2500 there by then" which one should have understood from context that I already know it's being worked on. Knowing this, why would you tell me what I clearly already know? 

 

I mean, let's change the metaphor here, and make a new hypothetical.

Me: We might see this house get completed by next summer.

You: We already have the house.

Me: Sure, we have houses, but not the new house.

You: Nope, we have the new house.

Me: We do? I didn't hear about construction completing...

You: Well, it's not done yet.

Me: What?

You: I should have added it's being worked on.

 

Do you see how this is silly to the point of ridiculous?

It's not launched.... It's being added along with 2500.. lol

 

How does saying it's not launched, NOT make sense? lol

Go back and read the conversation we had again. I'll summarize for you:

 

Me: "we might even see some 800 and 2500 there by then." (implying that neither is launched)

You: "There is already 800 and 2500  :)" (which, yes, there are, in certain markets and certain technologies, but it's far from everywhere)

Me: "Oh, of course! But we don't have 800 LTE anywhere yet (do we?), and 2500 is only in a select few markets." (in other words... we don't have 800 LTE, which I am at this point curious that we might have somewhere)

You: "Yup lte800 along with 2500." (you just said we have LTE on 800 MHz. Which we don't. But you just said we did. Saying something exists is the same thing as saying we have it.)

Me: "Where has LTE 800 been accepted/seen working? I apparently missed this news..." (wondering why I haven't heard about this already, rightly assuming that when you said "we have it" you meant "we have it" and not "we don't have it")

You: "lol It's not launched yet. w0t." (you backpedaling? I guess? You instantly go from "we have it" to "we don't have it" and then wonder why people are confused)

 

Make more sense?

This has been going on for almost a month.I put in a network ticket if anybody wants to guess what is going on. My phone connects but doesn't have service http://db.tt/65iHUZAh

When I see devices stuck in "Entering CDMA State", it's usually something broken with the modem in the device itself. It probably needs a complete reflash, and if that doesn't fix it, possibly a replacement. So, one, do you have any other Sprint devices you can check "side by side" to see if it possibly is just your device not working with BC10? And, either way, is there a nearby Sprint Repair Center you can take it to?

 

Oh, of course! But we don't have 800 LTE anywhere yet (do we?), and 2500 is only in a select few markets.

 

lol It's not launched yet. w0t.

 

...I (almost) literally just said "We don't have it anywhere" and you said "yes we have it" and when I asked you where, you said "we don't have it".