jefbal99

If Magenta is using MW to get quick backhaul in place until Fiber can be run or if they previously ordered fiber and its in process, then they could easily make this type of claim and back it up.

Robert is 100% correct, Sprint needs to go after unique Nextel and Clear sites and upgrade them to full NV.  Sprint also needs to keep pushing SMR for voice, getting it fully deployed.

I am an AT&T and Verizon customer.  All throughout the West, Verizon has far better coverage than AT&T.  I believe Sprint can organically at least come darn close to matching AT&T's coverage for probably just $4-$5 Billion.  Converting all the unique iDEN and WiMax Protection Sites to full NV with CDMA 1900/800 and LTE 1900/800 would be a good start.

 

If Sprint could claim coverage to the extent that AT&T does and get NV2.0 complete, it could compete with the duopoly on that alone.  People stay with the duopoly because of coverage.  Otherwise, all the providers are really just fighting over those price sensitive subs who will jump ship only because of a cost/benefit analysis.

 

I meet lots of Verizon customers who hate their prices.  And they would love unlimited back.  But they will continue to pay for Verizon until Sprint offers a consistently good data experience and a coverage footprint that meets their needs.  Even when visiting their parents on the farm or while camping in the foothills.

 

Robert

 

EDIT:  A quick number crunching and just converting 1,000 unique iDEN and 700 WiMax Protection sites to CDMA/LTE would be approximately $200M.  That's chump change in the grand scheme of Network Vision.  They need to just do that now.  That would start making some headway right away and would resolve most of their G block building requirements.

I think you need to send this to dan@sprint.com plus it would make my service so much better.

I agree, that would be cool! But unfortunately, this falls in the same category as the band/frequency/channel/EARFCN data.. it's not accessible by third-party apps. Android does not have any functions to grab this type of information, and there are security features built into the OS that block any workarounds that might be able to obtain the data directly. It's frustrating, but out of my hands unless something significant changes in a future Android version. Sorry!

 

-Mike

Any possibilities for rooted users with the xposed framework? Could a plug in there provide the needed data?

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

Not to go too far off topic from the current thread, but I am seeking help with dropped calls. 

 

Our situation is dropped calls with what I will blame on the proximity of the towers around us.  We live near 76th and Burlingame between Byron Center and Cutlerville.  We have 2 Galaxy S4's and one iphone 5.  From what I understand the iphone 5 will not run the 800 voice (1X 800) due to being in the wrong band, so it's the worst of our 3 phones for dropping calls.  The S4's, will most times connect to the 1X 800, but then fail back over to the 3 or 4 Air Raves in our subdivision.  We've talked to Sprint Customer Service and Air Rave support, and received credits - $100 over 4 months, and now another 10% off my company discount for the rest of the plan, which ends in June 2015.  Air Rave support has tried white listing our numbers from the various Air Raves to no end.  We are Sprint believers and want to stay on board, but need a remedy for the calls being dropped. I do know that when we can stay locked on one of several towers on 1X 800 for the S4's we are golden, but they keep failing back to the Air Raves randomly, and when calls add up on the AR's, we are hard dropped, sometimes 3 or 4 times in a conversation. 

 

Is there any way that a Spark phone will help? I am thinking it won't matter as the towers are not placed well, and even with 800 Data we will face the same calling problems.  Does anyone know when the wifi calling app will be out for the S4?  I know it has launched on the S4 mini and mega.  Does a custom Rom help with tweaking settings to avoid Air Rave connections?  My phone is rooted, but the other S4 is not.   

 

Please help as we are pretty frustrated with this situation. 

 

As a side note, I had an Air Rave as well, installed for about a month last Sept./Oct. and I was promised it was free. I bought it on Ebay for 40 bucks and had Air Rave Support add it to our account.  The next billing cycle we were charged for adding a line to the plan, and the monthly $5 for the Air Rave on the plan.  I was very upset as I was told one thing and delivered another on the bill, so I had them remove it from the account and had to argue to get a refund, which customer service agreed to in the end. 

Sounds like the might be going backwards on the local AirRaves, you'd need to be blacklisted so your phones won't connected vs. being whitelisted so that they can connect.  There is also the possibility that an AirRave is registered to address A, but operating at Address B and Sprint wouldn't know what AirRave to modify.

Since you are a sponsor, you could go and get one of DigiBlur's custom PRLs in the sponsor forums.  I believe there is one that drops AirRave support and has 800Mhz as a higher priority.  Worst case, he occasionally does custom PRLs for a donation to S4GRU.

Spark device wouldn't help as it would still connect to the AirRave for the voice calls.

There has been no new updates on Wifi Calling since the initial release.  It will probably come with the next software update for your device.

We have not seen/heard credible rumors or seen evidence of a second B25 LTE carrier yet anywhere in the country.  There is nothing about it in the Premier Sponsor section either.  Not yet, anyway.  

 

Robert

The Shentel Q4 call indicated that they had deployed a second B25 carrier on their 12 busiest sites.  No evidence yet, but that is what was stated in the call.  There is a thread around here with the info, prolly in General Topics.

Great video and I too remember Sprint 3G being blazing fast

Still working with TRV on the data issues in Downtown Lansing.  On positive, the site near Grange Rd (96, Eagle/Westphalia exit) went live with LTE over the weekend.  One less drop into 3G for me  Just need some eSMR service from that site now.

Every site should be running on just NV gear by the end of summer. Just probably only a few odd outlier sites with problematic owners remaining. But not necessarily all the deinstalls complete.

 

Deinstalling old equipment is a low priority and doesn't really materially mean much. However, deinstalls seem to be occurring much faster now. They were taking 6-12 months at the beginning of NV.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

I was shocked at how fast 90% of the Pre-NV gear was ripped out of Lansing, once the 3G was integrated.  Only a few oddball sites, like the lugnut, still have legacy antennas.

you can bounce back and forth between prls pretty easy i have found....

 

or rather the one from digi and the stock one....   its REALLY easy actually

Keep the TEST.prl on the root of your internal storage, then use PRL Write and PRL Update to flip flop

I thought that they have reported it on this website from the very first mention of Spark that it was all 3 bands. At least that is what I seem to remember.

 

Jim, Sent from my Photon 4G using Tapatalk 2

I don't get to read every post and PR, but everything I remember from the Spark launch was just B41.

unknown issue? My thought is they just don't want to pay to fix the hardware. The potential cost of a lawsuit it cheaper than actually fixing the problem... that is how decisions are made

Never been anything released from Sprint in a PR or Samsung confirming what the issue actually is.  There is a  lot of speculation, but no defined issue.

We expect the majority of the efforts to roll out 4G LTE on our 800 MHz and 2.5 GHz spectrum bands to be completed by the end of 2015. In October 2013, we announced Sprint SparkSM , which is an enhanced LTE network capability that analyzes our three spectrum bands of LTE and connects a device to the most optimal band available in the area. We expect the deployment period for this technology to correspond with the roll out of 4G LTE on our 800 MHz and 2.5 GHz spectrum bands. 

I this is the first time I've seen in writing that Spark is not just Band 41, but all three LTE bands, 25, 26, and 41.

Hopefully this means that Sprint will be able to shutdown a couple of EVDO carriers in high capacity markets in the traditional PCS bands, making room for a second 5Mhz FDD LTE carrier.

How could a PRL have anything to do with dropped calls especially on a specific phone?

There is some sort of unknown issue with SMR/800Mhz 1X on the Note 2, they created a custom PRL series with no SMR records to "work around" the issue.

Did you flash any additional mods?

Nope, completely wiped my phone, then installed from micro sd

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk

I've noticed I can't add Speed Test and other apps to the multiWindow feature.  Anybody else seeing this?

Hopefully Coz and Digi get to do one more version of the ROM as Note 2 was on Samsung's KitKat list

Note 2 was on Samsung's KitKat list.  Hopefully we'll see one more officail upgrade, maybe a last chance to fix SMR

I remember reading about this a year or two ago and thinking it would be impossible, however, if he's ready to Demo and move on from that, then lets rock.  This could be a massive shift in the wireless world, similar to going from original wireless to AMPS.

Wow, I can't see how this is going to be allowed.  I'm a former Comcast customer and the only reason I used from for high speed internet is there was no comparable service offered.

Thanks for that information Anthony. It's unfortunate that a tech will have to go back out to the site to get 800 LTE up and running. What would be the reason the 800 LTE carrier card would not be installed when CDMA 800 is being turned on? Doesn't it seem that they are making more work than needs to be? I'm sure there are underlying reasons as to why they do what they do. Just wondering. Thanks.

I believe there was a shortage of carrier cards at one point.

Yeah, I feel your pain.  Inside the building at work In downtown Battle Creek, I connect to the only 3G site in the area.  250ish ping and 0.05 down/0.10 up are normal speeds between 8AM and until I get out of work and outside to pick up a LTE signal...

I connect to LTE, but on a couple of serving cells, data is unusable.  I'm hoping that they can figure something out or get the LugNut site lit up.

If you get HD voice, you will definitely know it. Whenever I call my wife, the ability to hear each other, even while I am in the car driving, is amazing. We both have G2s in an Ericsson market. One of the biggest benefits is the ability to hear the other caller through background noise. Whenever I've called people while driving, no one can tell I am in the car.

Calling my dad from my Note 2 to his Nexus 5 is simply amazing on the voice quality.

Did you notice an improvement in ping times?

Serving Cell 110 pings were up from the 30ms-50ms to 118-119ms

I don't have pings times from 453 as I've been shifted back to 110.

The 3G pings ranged from 133ms-308ms.

Edit in: got shifted back to 453 and the pings are around 100ms

Serving Cell 453 is acting nice today, speed tests of 1Mbps+ down and 1-2Mbps up.  Serving Cell 110 is still junk less than 0.20Mbps down and failing speed tests up.

Got a surprising bump on the lugnut on 3G with speed tests averaging 0.70Mbps down and 0.75Mbps up, not sure if they got an extra T1 added in to help the congestion or are starting to hook up some real backhaul for NV.  This test was at 10:20am, so some pretty high usage for downtown.  This site is highly utilized/congested, I've never gotten close to 1.0Mbps here on 3G.