Tomas

A possibly interesting viewpoint from Gizmodo.com ...

Hmmm... Why? It works well for me. Has for almost 20 years.

I suspect that many (most?) current high-end Sprint smartphones are fully capable of using both networks, and are only blocked from doing so by firmware/software. If T-Sprint or S-Mobile were to push out updates to all reasonably current devices capable of using both networks during the transition, should they merge, that would be a good first step. My biggest concern, of course, is will I be able to keep my grandfathered Sprint plan... (SERO)

Been running the oficial JB 4.1.2 for a few weeks on my PQ, and the only actual problem I've encountered is in trying to log Bug Reports. It's built in to the Dev Options now, but I sure as heck can't figure out where it hides the files it makes. Other than that, this has been the least problematical major upgrade I've run into.

Was very surprised to run into a tiny isolated bit of 4G yesterday at 6th Ave and Jackson Ave, and for about a half mile east on 6th in Tacoma, WA. I see the find did show up on Sensorly today. Hopefully this means 4G is slowly closing in on my neck of the woods in University Place.

Buzzing around yesterday with Sensorly on, and got 4G for a roughly one mile stretch along I-5 in Tacoma, WA between mile markers 133 and 134. What makes this special to me is it is the very first time my Motorola Asanti has actually connected to a 4G signal: Now I know its 4G actually works.

My wife and I had a different problem: Many of our friends could not understand what we were talking about half the time as I was a telco engineer and she was a telco technician, and we both worked in digital carrier systems. (BTW, her dad and brother were also telco technical types, so her family was steeped in it. Some of the family table talk got pretty exotic.)

The "SOAK Team" gets the release shortly after final build is ready so we can wring it out to make sure there are no hidden problems not caught in "Beta." (And yes, we've had it for about a month - got it before Christmas IIRC...)

I know. I keep watching one particular site (because it's one that serves a lot of my local area) that was originally scheduled to start work in October and to be on-the-air by now, but no one has even knocked the rust off the gate lock yet...

Had several gaps like that here today, and I'm probably 40 miles SSW of you folks...

Tragedy of the Commons...

Wait! Map of all Sprint towers? Really? *off on a search*

No! No! Mine first! I even promise to bring the crews hot coffee and deli sandwiches and soup and snacks if they start now! I will even bake more oatmeal, pecan, cranberry cookies and deliver them still warm from my oven... Gimme a call, guys...

From a long retired Telco digital facilities engineer (the view from the fiber facilities side). "Run fiber to the cell site" is an easy thing to say, but not something that a customer will "have by next Tuesday." There are even times when there is no economic value to spending vast sums of money to bury fiber at $30/foot for ten miles when there is little likelyhood of revenue even approaching outlay anytime in the next 40 years. Urban runs have other problems, expenses and delays, including right-of-ways, permits, seasonal issues, road blockage/construction, etc. Some areas will already have a fiber build close by, but many will not, and with as full as many urban conduit runs are, tearing up blocks or even miles of arterial has to be permitted by so many different offices - each with their own agenda - that the time from request to in-service can sometimes be measured in years. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

My favorite Sprint Corporate local store has a 5 bar signal in the store and a 1 bar parking lot... I suspect a repeater.

Take all the time you need, Robert. I don't expect to hear so much as a *PEEP* out of you until at least next week. Let your minions flog the peasants in your absence, and don't worry. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

While I agree that non-broadcast SSIDs and MAC filtering are all but useless against a concerted attack, they do help keep the more "casual" out of one's hair. Offhand, though, I suspect that the biggest threat to any well protected network is not cracking any codes or passwords, but simply "finding" a "lost" device. I say this because it seems that most folks have a tendency to have their devices remember passwords, access codes, network names, folder and file names, and often that means anyone having physical access to a misplaced or even temporarily out-of-sight portable device has easy access to the network. In fact, the more complex and difficult to remember or type a password/passphrase is, the more likely it is to be stored in a portable device or written down. The "at least eight characters, with at least one lower case, one upper case, one numeric, and one symbol, changed at least every thirty days, not to be re-used for at least a year" demands by IT people almost guarantee written down or stored passwords. ) (Back at Bell Labs some of our systems had those kinds of rules from IT, and for those, if you wanted in, you just wandered around until you saw a note or scribble near a terminal that said something like th!sSucks4 and you knew you could get in.) Aside: Combination door locks, pushbutton or rotary. We had those in the military and at the phone company. If you wanted in and didn't know the code, you took out your penlight and looked within about a three foot radius of the lock for tiny numbers written in pencil on the edge of a doorframe, under a switchbox or any projection or ledge on the building. That was this week's number. As an engineer I often went to sites I'd never been to before and more often than not surprised the folks working there by letting myself in... Thank goodness these days I have nothing really worth worrying about, and my internal passcode making protocol works very well at manufacturing even "required change" passwords/passcodes that make no sense, but that I can reconstruct on demand rather than remembering or reusing. Er, oops. Back on topic, Tom! Personally I don't see that much of a need for an LTE capable Airave so long as the portable devices have WiFi capabilities. Femtocells for PUBLIC use, however, could use LTE capabilities to great advantage.

WPA2 w/AES and a custom SSID is the bare minimum I would set up for someone. I usually also set up MAC filtering, and block broadcasting the SSID, also, and even those three combined are still questionable for HIPAA compliance. The biggest problem is possibly 'sniffing' what's going by...

Time for my Motorola Asanti's wallpaper to change again... Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

I can see this for limiting network use, but not for really limiting battery drain - one of the apps that went somehow nuts two weeks ago and zeroed my battery in not much more than six hour's has only used 300kb in the past month. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

It seems like a stretch until one realizes that Comcast has actually dropped subscribers for having open WiFi nodes... Yes, it is rare, but certainly not unheard of... Most cable companies can be (and are) a genuine PITA... Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

The largest problem I have with sharing my high-speed internet connection with the neighborhood (even with an Airave) is that it is specifically forbidden by the provider of the "last mile" of my internet service. (There could also be liability in some cases for unlawful use of the service...)