Tomas

I fully agree. Beginning of the year my typical data speeds were in the basement (average maybe 10-20Kbs) and my signal levels were in the minus 110-120 range. Eventually had a ticket created, and apparently there were three actual problems: 1) Tilt (I live on a hill and just driving to the bottom of the driveway the signal would increase 30dB or more), 2) sectionalization (no sites were actually engineered to hit this hill), and 3) overloaded backhaul. Little by little this has been addressed, first with tilt to get the 300 families here on the hill a usable Sprint signal (a 20-30dB increase!), and we could see that happening one site at a time as they got to them. Then there have been some obvious beefing up of backhaul. Overall, speeds here have gone through three stages. Initially 10-20kbs, then a jump to about three times that, and most recently (end of October) another sudden increase of 10-12 times on a steady basis (with peaks on occasion as high as 1.5mbs). This is all Band-aid™ work going on, as NV/4G work is just beginning now in this area. Here's the comparison between between last month and this month from the exact same location and orientation: I saved the 29OCT speed tests because I was apparently lucky enough to see something new switched on. ZAP! And it has stayed like that since.

What is the scale of those readings? dBm? dB above some other reference?

My Motorola XT897 is set to default to EVRC, it has EVRC-B available, but it is disabled. This is the "stock" setting on this device. Sounds pretty good. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

After FINALLY moving from Froyo to Gingerbread on my last international (CDMA/GSM) phone, two months later I'm on a new international device running ICS. That means I pretty much went from Froyo to ICS with only a quick stop at GB. Quite a shock to the system. I've learned to live with most of the changes brought on by ICS, but considering just how battery sucking a badly behaved app can be, I still miss being able to put an app on a list to be KILLED two minutes after the screen goes dark. I thoroughly dislike my phone squawking at me early afternoon, letting me know it's at 10% battery and going into survival mode. I guess I need to look for the "app for that" so I will KNOW that apps I'm not using are dead, dead, dead. >_> Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

There are all sorts of things one can do to increase voice throughput once one views bursts of speech as just so much data instead of holding open a switched channel end-to-end even during silence. As far back as in the 1960s, with tube circuits, Bell Labs came up with TASI (Time Assignment Speech Interpolation) where they were electronically switching analog bursts of speech from one conversation into the silent periods of other conversations. That technique more than tripled the number of conversations that could be carried on a fully loaded transoceanic cable. (Most conversations are one-way-at-a-time, which doubles the capacity if one uses the transmit channel of the listener for another conversation. Add in the pauses in conversations and you nearly double the capacity again. Needs really fast detectors and switching, but even that is vastly simpler once one moves out of analog and into digital.) Our TASI circuits used to fascinate me.

Last time I was in Wichita Falls was more than 15 years before they got their first cellular service... Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

I believe foreign ownership approval is case-by-case. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

If I could get the same deal I have on my old grandfathered SERO plan, maybe. On the other hand, Sprint has been good to me - it would actually take a lot to make me switch... Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

Having eHRPD on or off has made no diff in speed here, as it just changes routing and control. I HAVE seen increases in both signal (tilt adjustments) and speed (improved backhaul) separately, though, over the past months. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

From my Facebook wall in early October: Aroma of Tacoma

Sure makes 'em a lot harder to spot. (I'm still trying to figure out where my "primary" tower is. Very convoluted topography, and nothing anywhere near the addresses they squawk) Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

I have build 378 and MDM2.1.3 (newest available for Mac at Motorola site), and my PQ is already set to turn debug on when connected to Mac via USB. Still reading thread above (a different one from the one I read earlier at XDA dealing with the PQ).

Reading that thread now, keeping in mind that "Photon 4G" (MB855) is not "Photon Q" (XT897)...

PythonFanTN, I've seen several half decent sets of instructions on XDA, including one that appeared to have worked on the PQ, and indeed I did D/L the latest version of QPST to play with. I did get QPST to run on my MacBook, but being it is a Mac, not a "PC" (Windows machine), I've been a bit leery of letting it try anything while connected to my PQ... (And no, I don't dual boot any of my machines - I use "Crossover" as an interface to run Windows programs on the Mac if absolutely necessary, and it doesn't always work perfectly.) Perhaps I should try it on my Motorola XPRT first as loosing it would not be the blow that the PQ would be. It had been a while since I last looked, it wold not surprise me at all that 56009 is up now.

Ahhhhhhh... "The Aroma of Tacoma"...

What I was considering was something in the 56XXX range (56006 is the newest I've actually seen), as I'm currently running 55009 as my "stock" PRL. For the most part I agree with you, as QPST especially appears to be quite powerful (the only way I was even able to peek at it was to fire it up under "Crossover" on my MacBook - and I'm not at all sure I would trust it running that way). DFS I didn't even bother with as is specifically does not include my device under supported devices. I'm generally a cautious player when it comes to poking into things I'm not familiar with - probably because of the "basic training" I got being a Unix SysAd so many years ago. In fact that is likely why I'm unhappy with the fragmentary information out there, often by folks just as perplexed as I. So, until I can feel comfortable digging into my smartphone's brain, I won't be going father than trying to learn. (Oh, yeah, of course I have my MSL. I've had the MSL for all my devices since I was running a Samsung N200 over a decade ago.)

Heck, if even Robert can't do it I might as well give up.

I didn't mention the device I'm on, but it's a Motorola XT897 "Photon Q 4G LTE" which appears to be a real bugger to get into since it's one of their International Business phones. << (It's in my postbit, right there.) I'm still poking about, looking at things people mention, but so far, no joy. Eventually I'll stumble upon something that actually works.

By the thread title you might think I know what I'm talking about. I don't. In fact, that is why I'm posting: I've diligently attempted to figure out what I need, where to get it, and how to do it, but to no avail. Let's start with what I do know: I know what a PRL is, I can examine the usual "translation" of a PRL and understand the differences between different versions. I know most of what a CDMA device uses the PRL for, and have a very good idea even where it is stored on my device. What I don't understand is how, once I make my decision to change to a particular PRL, to slip it into my device in place of the stock PRL. In my searches I see comments by very knowledgeable people that new PRLs are out, and free to be examined. I see recommendations by many different people for many different PRLs - some of which I can understand and agree with, others, well, let's just say I personally believe their logic is flawed... Often accompanying this information is some competent, knowledgeable person saying that they aren't going to bother telling folks how to change a PRL because there are many, many different resources that already do that - and there lies the problem. I've looked at a lot of those tutorials and threads all over the 'web and to my mind the vast majority assume other knowledge with instructions resembling "once one has the barglefranimus program loaded and the proper drivers found and installed one connects the phone and loads the new PRL one has gotten from somewhere onto the device using the bisfergus option of the barglefranimus program and the hifflewompus whoowhoo from HTC" to the uninitiated, or one reads eventual comments in a thread that complain that while the instructions work on all other possible iterations of any Motorola device, the QPRSTVW application can't find my model of phone even if it trips over it. Let's face it, I'm a smartphone end user, not a smartphone hobbyist or some person who has spent years bricking various devices until I know all the ins and outs, all the pitfalls, all the little tricks, and all the hidden caches of files tucked in secret places all over the 'net and in the devices. I also can't afford, on several levels, to get the transition wrong. While "flashing a new PRL" may be obvious to someone with loads of experience in hacking phones, and may work simply and easily with a wide variety of devices, even being able to guess at which of the 37 different methods is correct for my device and what assorted extraneous bits and pieces one might actually need to accomplish this is insanely difficult to the neophyte. (Making it even more difficult are a number of other assumptions often made by the intrepid phone hackers, chief among them that the entire world, without exception, runs some variant of the Windows OS, and is intimately familiar with that OS. I'm sorry, I've only worked with computers since April 1970, mostly with Unix machines and eventually with Unix based OS X machines, but at no time have I used, worked with, or owned a Windows machine.) OK, that's my rant for the day. Some of us are total n00bs to some parts of this while being old hands at others (I was engineering cellular carrier interfaces with the land line carriers' networks as far back as 1984, but that is far removed from fiddling with a smartphone). Being a n00b means that much of what is said between the experienced folks, based as it is on common, shared knowledge, is simply unintelligible.

Yup, that NAI error affects a LOT more than just MMS, and really needs to be verified, then fixed on ALL Photon Qs that have the problem. The error is there, and widespread, but neither Googorola nor Spank want to advertise it. This means that a large number of PQs are NOT working correctly and the hardware is getting blamed for what really is an easily fixed human screw-up.

Perhaps it doesn't in all areas. I did not, of course, do a 100% check of the two PRLs, only those areas where I might most need something better than what I have now when I travel in Montana. For the "Billings, MT" area (in Region 3) 56XXX showed to scan for 3G while the stock 55XXX showed 1X only, and my understanding was that both 55XXX and 56XXX were LTE PRLs. Then again, I could be totally wrong as I do not have a rooted device, and apparently that is needed to move to a non-standard PRL. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

Doesn't the 56XXX series support EvDo roam and LTE? (That's what I thought I saw when I looked at the content of 56006 compared to the content of 55006.) Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

I've cycled through airplane mode (stayed at least a minute) a number of times, even changed cell sites, insists I'm on EvDo. I'm sure it will change again. It just surprised me that it actually flip-flops like that, even at this early stage. Hrmmm... Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

...and then tonight's check shows me back on EVDO after being on eHRPD most of the day. For some reason that makes no sense to my pea brain. Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk

*WOOT!* Thank you, Robert! Sent from Photon Q LTE - Tapatalk