preskitt.man

What Sprint specifically told me is they can't put my phone back to "Sprint LTE". They could make it prioritize CDMA-3G. Not exactly a winner in my book. I don't think think the tech I was talking to was just giving me a story - sounds like the way the system was engineered.

So, several updates: 1) Called Sprint. It looks like the Airave is now a paper weight. Sprint has enabled the Tmobile bands. They are now the primary ones and the old Sprint bands like 41 (Airave) and 25 (macro cell) are secondary. However, fwiw, the Tmobile towers identify to Sprint phone as native Sprint - not as roaming. 2) Outside the home, TMobile signal is decent. Let's me stream music on my morning walks. Inside the house, I'm on WiFi calling. 3) MMS seems like a loser over WiFi or WiFi calling. Tried it with Textra. They haven't supported MMS over WiFi for several Android releases now. Tried it and it doesn't work, nor does Pulse nor Samsung Messages nor Android Messages. Guess RCS would work, but most of my friends are on iPhone. Even my daughter, who has a Note 9, is using Pulse, so RCS is a no-go. 4) Played around a little with Samsung Band Selection app. Interesting app, but not consistent results. 5) Did go to Developer Options (had been previously enabled) and Mobile Data Always Active is turned off.

Well, with regard to the Airave - I have one. Gives out a great 4G signal in the house. Even supports VOLTE now. But since Sprint reset my network services, I don't pick up the Airave, even when I am standing right next to it. As for the MMS issues: Saw this from the Sprint FAQ on WiFi calling: Android phones: SMS (text) is supported in Wi-Fi Calling mode. MMS (pictures and group texts) is supported on select devices in Wi-Fi Calling mode. Depending on the device manufacturer and messaging client, cellular coverage is required for MMS. For example, devices with the Android Messages client requires cellular coverage for MMS. Well, I would think that an S20 would be a selected device. And I am using Pulse for my messaging client - though I did try Android Messages and Samsung Messages with the same results. I'll give Textra a try.

I am amazed to hear that. For many months now I have setup my phone in the house with Airplane Mode turned on then I turn on WiFi. Saves a ton of battery, and cellular in the house sucks, if it's there at all. But until I got the GS20, I never noticed any issues with SMS/MMS. Admittedly, do much more SMS than MMS, but since even text to multiple parties goes as MMS, I'm sure I must have been doing previously on my S8 on Sprint. So, is this unique to Sprint. Will problem go away with Tmobile? Would RCS services solve the issue, or only if the other parties were also RCS?

Have a GS20. Called Sprint yesterday about my issues with MMS messages over WiFi calling - basically it doesn't work if only in WiFi reception area with no cellular. Sprint thought a reprovisioning of Network services would clear up the problem. It didn't clear up problem, but now my phone is only getting TMobile bands. I live far away from Sprint and TMo towers. Sprint did give me a 1-2 bar signal on Band 25. Now TMobile is give me 1-2 bar signal on B12 and B71. But more significantly, It is not picking up the Airave that I have in the house - B41. Not quite the end of the world since I mostly rely on WiFi calling - go back to my origins of my call to Sprint :)) Definitely not getting any 5G signal. Not sure in the overall scheme of things if only getting TMo service instead of Sprint is a good thing or not.

One of your Airave ports is connected. Airave MAC addresses begin 00 ao 0a xx xx xx. There should be two addresses like these grabbing an IP address, typically sequential in nature. One is CDMA and the other is for LTE. Did you register (activate) your device with Sprint. When I first got mine, I just assumed it was registered with Sprint. When I turned it on, CDMA would never go green while LTE would work fine. Wasn't till my 3rd phone call to Sprint that the tech noticed it was not activated on the Sprint network. She activated the device and it worked - all lights went Green. As for VOLTE, not sure exactly when that began, but it was like about a month ago. Got the Airave back close to a year ago. LTE worked fine, but no VOLTE. Kept hearing that Sprint would have to whitelist the device for to work. Periodically, I would check, and about a month ago, VOLTE finally came on.

Miracles will never cease. The December Security Update from Samsung fixes the Location timeout issue for the Galaxy S8 on Sprint. While the description of the fix only mentions security updates and performance enhancement for the camera, the location timeout issue seems fixed. I can now even put my phone in airplane mode, and wifi calling will work. No location timeout. Whoopee!

So, as a final closeout to this topic - I did call Sprint back for one final try on getting CDMA to work. The tech I talked to solved the problem in about 5 minutes. Turns out that Sprint had never activated the device. She proceeded to do so, And within about a 1/2 hour, all the lights were green, and I validated I could make a call off the Airave. One would think that the unit would come pre-activated. One would think that the setup instructions would include calling Sprint to activate the device. One would think that sometime in my previous calls to Sprint, somebody would have noticed that the device was not activated. Amazing!

So, this is interesting. Talked to Sprint tech support today concerning the A4. Long story short, I'm not supposed to have an Airave 4 at this address. Nearest Sprint tower to my home is about 3 miles (why do they think people need an Airave - because they live next door to a tower) and that was out of spec range for an Airave 4. However, they could not not tell me why I am getting a great LTE signal, but I am. And frankly, that is what I really needed and wanted. The main reason I even called about the CDMA was the techie in me was bugged by the flashing red lights. And why does an LTE signal make me happy? Because my Galaxy S8 running Pie will not work properly with WiFi calling unless it can get a location signal from a Sprint tower, and as we just noted, that Sprint tower is 3 miles away and at best gives me 1 bar, and frequently no signal at all. So, with the Airave, I have a nearby "tower" that the phone sees, so the phone is happy and let's me use WiFi calling, which makes me happy. There was no explanation why LTE was working but not CDMA however.

Have reset the device about 4 times - all with the same result - LTE but no CDMA.

Have had an A4 for 10 days now. Basically, LTE is working fine and CDMA is not. C-NET light is always blinking red. I have reset the device several times now - always the same result. Basic setup, is Fiber into my ASUS router > Airave. No ports blocked nor forwarded. As has been pointed out, there are two ethernet addresses occupied by the Airave; one for CDMA and one for LTE. On my system, those two addresses are 192.168.1.136 and 192.168.1.137. The 137 address is pingable, but if ping the 136 address, it times out. Unless this is supposed to be normal behavior (which I doubt), I suspect that 137 is for LTE and 136 for CDMA; and why it is not pinging/working is beyond me.

Good point!

Thanks for the responses. I'll let it go for several days and see what happens. As for the port forwarding, unless you think it would be best without, I will leave it alone as it's already done, and also since I have UPnP turned off on my router, don't know if that would be a factor or not. In the meantime, WiFi calling is working just fine, which is so much better than what things are like with the device turned off. The nearest cell tower is quite some distance to me, and my Galaxy S8 regularly would give me a location timeout, since in somebody's infinite wisdom, the PIE update told the phone to get its location only by pinging the nearest cell tower. So, I was getting frequent "Location unavailable" notifications, which cause WiFI calling not to work. Now the phone pings the A4, so life is good.

So my Airave 4 arrived and I connected it. After hours I am left with this situation 1) The WAN, L-NET, GPS, and LTE lights are solid green 2) The C-NET and CDMA lights cycle between flashing red or just off 3) I have an LTE signal (no VoLTE), and get about 70 Mbs down when near the device 4) My WiFi calling works nicely through out the house as it always sees an LTE tower for GPS location 5) No CDMA signal (see #2 above), but can live with that as WiFI calling now works reliably The curious thing is when I went to do Port Forwarding to open the ports, there are two devices showing up. One with a MAC ID of 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:26 and the other with 00:a0:0a:6f:e4:27. Curiously, my ASUS router identified the 26 devices as XEROX CORPORATION, but didn't do an identification for the 2nd box. Online reference shows they both belong to Airspan. Anyhow, the question is, to which device do I forward the ports 53, 67, 500, and 4500. Right now, I have them all forwarded to the 27 device. I'm wondering if two of the ports are for the CDMA tunnel and two for the LTE tunnel and to split the forwarding up in some manner. On the A3, I only saw one device and forwarded all ports to that device.

Ok - so I called Sprint today. They are going to ship out an Airave 4. Didn't give me any issues or concerns about my location, other than asking me to confirm my physical address. They did ask why I don't use WiFi calling. Told them why and agreed that was a problem. I'll update later as to my experience with the A4.

I mean I lose the call (or the wifi calling service if I'm not on a call) when the phone loses contact with the tower. When the A3 is turned on, wifi calling does not work. The icon for wifi calling shows up but calls do not connect - they immediately disconnect. When I talked to Sprint about wifi calling and location services (without the A3 in the picture), I was told on the one hand they were aware of the problem, but also told on the other hand that the July update (which I got in early August (and the August and September updates subsequent to that) was supposed to fix the problem. It obviously didn't - at least not for me. Sprint then suggested I do a complete reset of settings (not a factory reset). I did that that, but the problem persists. I am going to all Sprint and see if they will upgrade my A3 for A4. I would like to see, if nothing else, if that would allow me use wifi calling. My thought is the phone would see the A4 as a tower, thus satisfying location services. We'll see what Sprint says.

Really? I thought the A4 was basically an upgraded experience to the A3 - a femto cell tower that generates a cell signal with backhaul over the internet, where the MB was basically a signal amplifier - taking an existing tower signal, and regenerating it for local consumption? So, just out of curiosity, if nothing else, were it available, relative to what I'm looking for, would it meet those requirements: Basically VoLTE or at least enhanced voice quality.

Have an Airave 3. Actually gave up on it about a year ago for wifi calling. WiFi calling works fine for my GS8. Worked even better for me when Sprint introduced VoLTE in my area. UNTIL the PIE update. Long story short, GS8 under PIE get it's location from nearest CELL tower. If there is no cell tower (or at least one in range), get "Location unavailable" and no wifi calling. My home is basically on the outer fringes of cell tower reception. Often times 1 bar, but often 0. Had my call disconnects when this happens. Brilliant! Talked to Sprint -they are aware of the issue, but no fix for it. So brought out the A3 again, hooked it (just another device behind the router) and it works fine. Was sort of hoping that maybe VoLTE would work with it - no it doesn't. (And btw, wifi calling doesn't work at all when A3 turned on). So, now I see that the A4 is out. What will the A4 get me that the A3 doesn't. I don't care about the lack on WiFi on the device. And don't really care/need the additional number of concurrent connections. Things that I would like to have: 1) Better voice quality 2) Ability to do voice and data concurrently (VoLTE and/or WiFi calling) The smaller size is not critical to my needs, but nice. I suppose a MB would work for me if it supported VoLTE, but my reading suggests it doesn't, plus, according to Sprint Web Site, MB is not supported where I live.