koiulpoi

The communication I received on it simply said the contract was expiring, and due to the high cost of these networks, they won't be renewing. ABC, CBS, and NBC are also going away.

SO73.  Now, do you see it?

 

 

AJ

Aha, that's it! Made a couple more test calls; both my device to landlines, and to other Sprint devices. All Sprint Devices were showing either Service Option 73, or EVRC-NW (the LG OG showed EVRC-NW). All calls were on PCS, connected to a 3G NV site, except for the landline (obviously). The calls were somewhat clear, but I would not say surprisingly or spectacularly so. Sprint-to-Sprint sounded better than Sprint-to-Landline. Makes me wonder if there needs to be anything more done on the backend...

 

AJ

 

Err... call me crazy, but I don't see Service Option anywhere in my enginerring screens. That screenshot is about all I get for the 1x protocol, and it's not in 1x RF.

Look on the 1x protocol screen for the service option.

Hm, so, remind me, what should I be looking for again?  Also, doesn't HD Voice require 1X Advanced? What should I look for to see when I'm on 1xA instead of regular 1X?

 

Edit: Here's an engineering screen from a recent call from my Note III:

(866) 556-7310 is Airave Technical support.

Depends, was it on at the time? Was the battery in? If so, it may never come back again... it's not just "drying out"; if any joints or connectors have been corroded away, it may never work again.

Do this do that do more of this do that with a little more this, right.

 

The problem is that Sprint didn't complete the first step and they're already on step four. They should be walking before they go running.

 

The survey is about customer satisfaction, if they aren't happy, they aren't happy.

 

Want customer stories about not being happy, head over to Reddit. Some sound like actual problems, not just uneducated whining.

http://www.reddit.com/r/sprint

Thanks, but I really don't need anyone to point out the "negative" side of the story. There's plenty of other people to do that for you.

 

I have no need to read that forum on Reddit. I'm a retail tech; I deal with them every single day, and solve what I can. I can't solve network issues, but I can educate people about Sprint's network modernization and 4G rollouts (most info coming from here), and bring them excitement about what's to come, and what we're already involved in. Because, dammit, it's exciting! And like I said, problems are being solved and things are getting better every day. This score will be higher in a year. In six months. In three months. Tomorrow.

 

If you even care about consumer reports, that is.

I think I remember someone saying that they noticed that Sprint was compressing HTTP traffic, and downsampling images to save on bandwidth.

 

If that's true, well, it may very well be what you're running in to. Naturally, anything encrypted (aka HTTPS) won't run in to this.

Feed it to the ghost of Randall Stephenson. He keeps threatening to consume the wireless industry, so we throw old antennas and radios down for him to feed on to keep him quiet.

Not having a consumer reports subscription, I finally found an article that listed the actual scores: 

 

Overall:

Verizon : 71

Tmo: 65

ATT: 64

Sprint: 59

What the what? I'd hardly call that "dead" last, by any measure. Finish up NV and get 800 rolled out everywhere and begin Spark, and Sprint will easy overtake ATT and TMUS. I'd also want to know what the error spread is on the results; if it's ±5%, Sprint could actually be #2...

Have we seen any recent internal documents confirming the Tri-band S4 (non-mini) besides the FCC OET filing?

I may possibly have witnessed a mention of a "Galaxy S4 Refresh" in a new devices list somewhere recently. Not sure, could have been a hallucination.

 

------------

 

Whomever the first person is to mod the Spark logo to this will have my eternal gratitude and respect.

 

It's kinda odd that we get articles like this, and yet... For example, in West Michigan (in full swing of NV, just did some massive 3G cluster upgrades), especially the last 3 months, the calls to Care for non-device issues have steadily dropped each month.

You may need a better ad blocker if you're getting that banner.

No, I don't. I run Adblock+ in Chrome, and have a mass adblock hosts file on my system. That wasn't blocking it. Which means, a limit close to 100% of people who visit sprint.com will see this. Stop being disingenuous.

 

And without that there's no indication on the phones page that it's already included in the price unless you scroll all the way down to the bottom and read the one tiny line of text.  I'm not saying it's not what 95% of businesses would do, I'm just saying it's their fault when people come in expecting that pricing.  Not everyone reads the fine print, and even if you don't, a lot of people instinctively close pop-ups without reading them.

It's also the first part of the rotating "infobox" on the homescreen. And it's also there when you try and check out.

 

Yes, it would be better if they showed upgrade pricing separate. I agree with that. However, that wasn't your original argument. You said it's intentionally misleading. I'm saying they provided the information in a fashion that is accessible to the customer. Not everything in life can be "bright colors hold your hand" easy.

 

I understand it's frustrating dealing with those customers, but we both know there would be fewer of them coming into the store if they listed the upgrade price, put a more obvious indicator right under each price that it's including a special discount, or if they simply put a price range that covered both groups of customers.

This honestly reminds me of when people talk about activation fees. "I was never told about activation fees!" - when, in fact, they were told (often multiple times), it was printed (twice) on the contract they signed, and it's posted on documentation in the store. If you do not listen and pay attention, the only one you can blame is the man in the mirror. If you don't know how the pricing works, you assume and then you get angry. And then you think Sprint has a massive conspiracy to throw "hidden charges" at you and "mislead customers" and other such rot.

 

Do your due diligence, ask questions, and read things involved with the hard-earned money you'll be paying.

You have to admit automatically deducting $100 from the price for anyone viewing the webpage is misleading.  I'm totally fine with giant banners all around saying "ADDITIONAL $100 OFF FOR NEW CUSTOMERS!"  As it is, you go to the phones page and they display a price that ONLY new customers can get with NO indication that that is the case.  You have to click through to the device details to see that you're actually paying $100 more.  People planning on buying in store aren't likely to get that far.  And with ad-blocking, you don't ever get a pop-up indicating the limitations of the pricing, either.  Blame whoever designed the webpage for those angry customers.  They intentionally mislead. 

You claim malice for what can adequately be explained by incompetence. I disagree.

 

---

 

Anyways, I logged out of my Sprint account, and went to the homepage, then Shop->Phones, and I got this:

 

 

 

Seems pretty clear to me. It puts it right there, in black and white. Save $100 by bringing your number, with a new line of service.

 

And yes, I have a pretty extreme adblocker running. Everyone else should be getting this, too. If you're not, it might be time to upgrade past IE 6

 

If you're logged in to your Sprint account, you get upgrade pricing applicable to you, because it's your account. So no, it does not get shown to "everyone". 

 

If you don't know the difference between upgrade and new line pricing, it's best to read the fine print - or even better, ask someone, like the OP did. Getting angry at it solves absolutely nothing, and makes you appear insufferable and entitled to not only the store employees, but to other customers around you. It's a bad time all around.

At the moment, Sprint.com is running a $100-off-a-smartphone deal. You have to sign a 2-year contract, you need to start up a new account, and you need to port your number in from another carrier.

 

We've had... issues... with people coming in to stores, not realizing that the online prices are for new port-ins only (despite the GIANT POPUP AND BANNER EXPLAINING IT as well as ALL THE FINE PRINT EVERYWHERE), and then getting rather angry at us that we can't honor it.

 

The idea is to entice customers from other carriers. After all, wireless service in the USA is reaching a saturation point; your new adds have to be either from add-on devices like tablets and mobile broadband, or stolen from other carriers.

Sarcasm was definitely in my last post

So I noticed. I do this thing where I take sarcasm literally for great comedic effect. It works when the audience catches what is happening

According to the Sprint rep, Spark is going to be everywhere soon and fix all the slow LTE speeds

I dunno, "soon" is a pretty relative thing. It will be nearly immediate, compared to the time that humanity has been alive.

Have you confirmed that, after doing this, the device is actually able to connect to Band 26 or Band 41? I'd like engineering screen screenshots, if possible.

Well, considering both Sprint and VZW are selling the iPhone 4S (a 3G-only device), and will be through at least 2014 or 2015... that means those customers won't even be upgrade eligible until 2016 or 2017 - and many people who go with the "free" device like this will hold on to it as long as they can. Support for the iPhone 4S could need to continue for at least 3-5 years, perhaps longer. And that's just an example of one device.

 

Unless the carriers are shoving people off and/or providing early upgrades/subsidies, I don't see an early shutdown of 3G from anyone.

 

Now, that doesn't mean they can't slim down their 1X/EV-DO carriers to make room for more LTE carriers, but I imagine it will keep on trucking for a while.

 

I honestly don't see what all the fuss about VoLTE is for, anyways, besides trying to get us completely off "circuit switched" tech.

Since you are a Premier sponsor -- and we greatly appreciate your support -- I often forget that you have been with us for just a few months.  So, you may not have seen my admonishments about bothering frontline Sprint employees with Network Vision questions or issues.  That does nothing.  I was of your mindset over 10 years ago, but I quickly deduced that the frontline employees do not have the knowledge and power I thought they did.  And this is one of the primary reasons that a site like S4GRU exists.

And, I'm glad that it does. I'll say, with ease, that over 90% of my wireless knowledge came from this site. I am one of those "front-line" employees, and without this site, I'd be just as bad (or worse) than many others. I definitely wouldn't know what "spark" meant, or why we should care.

 

So, once again, S4GRU, thanks for existing! 

 

Edit: While I am now on the Note 3, I had previously had issues here in West Michigan at "yellow" and "green" sites on my G2.

Oh, another thing about the Nexus 7 2013, it's apparently a TANK. I keep dropping mine (because I've been using it as a large phone and keeping it in my pants pockets and silly things like that), and it's got nothing more than a scratch on the screen. I'm afraid that I'm eventually going to destroy the digitizer, but eh.

Another vote for the Nexus 7 2013. I own one, and it's amazing, especially for the price. One of the best Android devices I've ever used. Smooth, fast, awesome screen...

Wasn't the titanium an iDEN-only device?

No, Google Voice does do some VoIP stuff. You can set up GrooveIP, or answer calls via GMail. With gvoice call forwarding or integration, all voice calls go through them at some point.

 

That being said, I've personally found my voice calls sound better using GrooveIP for VoIP calling.