burnout8488

Crossposting from Reddit.... Cliff's notes:

Gf's brother called to exchange his Airave 3 LTE last night and was informed that Sprint discontinued it on March 5th 2018. They are encouraging customers to use Wi-Fi calling instead. 

Is this true? 

EDIT: It's true! No more Airave 3. This leaves a notable gap before VoLTE is enabled, but shouldn't be much of an issue if you have a modern device this Fall. (Wi-Fi calling/VoLTE should eliminate the need for CDMA) 

I think the whole Binghamton market now has 10x10 B25 enabled on full builds. Pulled down a nice 40+Mbps speedtest in Endwell, NY last night on a B25/26 only site. This is new as of the last week or two. 

Once the GMOs are upgraded to full-builds (should be this year if Sprint sticks to their timeline) then we will have B26 on every site. Most of NY is covered in GMO sites along the highways. They did an amazing job converting these all to B25 LTE in the last six months though, it was a very quick transition once they started. We can finally say that most of NYS is LTE now. 

23 hours ago, ingenium said:

When you're on B25 check the engineering screen or field test. You can tell from the earfcn if it's 5x5 or 10x10. The most common 10x10 is 8640 in place of 8665.

Or post the frequency that the magic box is reporting that it's connected to.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

iPhone is stating 8290 for the EARFCN when outdoors on B25, confirmed with another 40+Mbps speedtest. 

27 minutes ago, ingenium said:

And you're in a market that doesn't have 10x10 B25? The MB is not certified for B25 CA, and to my knowledge the modem is incapable of CA on B25.

In my tests in markets with 2 5x5 B25 carriers, there was no speed increase once CA on B25 was enabled.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

I hadn't entertained the idea that they might have flipped on 10x10. That's what it must be, if the MB is picking it up! 

Historically my market has had a ~30Mbps cap on B25, so I'm assuming it used to be 5x5. 

B25 2xCA 10x10 works through my MB now that it's been activated in my market.  Pulling down 45Mbps. 

Owego, NY got B25 2xCA turned on, this happened within the last week it seems. Pulling down 40-45Mbps now! My Magic Box gets me 30-35 indoors as well now at work, where it used to cap out around 20Mbps.

I was told B41 was scheduled within 6mo in January, but this is a nice stopgap solution. :-) 

Edit: Seems like this might be B25 10x10 now, not CA 

1 hour ago, dro1984 said:

Sitting at my kitchen table, using Signal Check Pro, I am on LTE 1900 for Data with my Wifi shut off.    For Voice calls it goes to 1xRTT. 

Have other Sprint users ever been on your MB and had calls work successfully? Can you test with a different handset on your account?

42 minutes ago, dro1984 said:

Sprint updated something with the Magic Box on Wednesday or Thursday (Feb 28th or March 1st)... since then my Galaxy Note 5 will not received incoming calls.   All I get is an eventual voicemail if they leave one.      I didn't know the Magic Box was the problem at first and was very frustrating.   My phone would work everywhere but home (Receiving calls)...  only when home it didn't work.   I went to local Sprint store... called customer service 2 or 3 times.... nothing worked.   Now they escalated to Network team.    Well, I figured it out today... I unplugged my MB, and wonder of wonders, it works!        So I'm about done with MB.    I have to figure out a way to call them and get MB dept and tell them of my issues and how I can send it back.     

The Magic Box only broadcasts LTE. I'm not sure how it could have affected calling on your Note 5. (Note 5 doesn't support LTE Calling Plus, as far as I can tell) Perhaps eCSFB isn't working through the MB to tell your phone to switch to 1x from LTE to receive the call?

It seems like it would be so easy to make coverage amazing down there, too. It's totally flat. Band 26 should go for miles! It's confusing why this market has been neglected when there really aren't that many sites to hit at all.

I was just down in Felton for the weekend. Lots of 3G/1x around here, even close to Route 13.

Sprint is still pretty awful in lower Delaware unfortunately. B26 either doesn't exist, or it doesn't penetrate buildings. LTE, no matter the signal strength, was very very slow. (Even for Facebook and iMessage)

I submitted 2-3 reports in the Sprint Zone app. Happy to be back in my home market again today . Hopefully in late 2018 lower Delaware can finally compete with T-Mobile which has ubiquitous LTE there.

On 2/9/2018 at 11:19 PM, floorguy said:

I have had it on the note 8 for a little over a month.. its pretty good, like the surf and talk when needed..

CON... if you are in a coverage area that "holds" to long.. then its CRAP.  there are some areas here, on main roads/areas, that have ify LTE -105 to -115, and it gets like old time analog...

For sure need overlap towers to make it awesome.. or a way to switch internal easily...

 

It's possible that when VoLTE prioritization goes into effect, what you're seeing will go away. -105 to -115 should be completely usable, especially on a low-bandwidth voice call. It's possible that the sites are overloaded with other traffic and low signal just amplifies the problem.

12 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Yup, nothing up here in Seattle either  

I wish they’d get VoLTE up and running but leave it disabled by default. I could see them doing what Verizon did when they initially rolled VoLTE out: requiring users to enable VoLTE on their account (through the website or something) until they’re confident enough to enable it by default. 

This would ensure that when there's call drops, the user would at least know why. Opt-in would be great, I'd love to start testing it in my market. Every site here is LTE with no drops, I think the experience would be positive. 

1 hour ago, Tengen31 said:

By TMobile to make themselves look good

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Yes, but how was it doctored? What was doctored?

Just now, asomers said:

I've made calls over LTE on my note 8.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

Understood - but I doubt this is the case with the question at hand. Barely any Sprint phones support this and it's currently opt-in for it to work.

28 minutes ago, jamesinclair said:

I still dont quite understand Magic Box.

My dad has an Airave. The 2 I believe. Should I look to switch it out for a magic box?

 

If he has an Airave2, he should call and get it swapped out for an Airave 3 LTE. 

The Airave 3 broadcasts 1x, 3G, and LTE, whereas the Magic Box only broadcasts LTE. Right now, calls don't go over LTE, so a Magic box won't assist with calling.

Airave 3 doesn't do HD voice either. When Voice over LTE is implemented in the future, calls will be HD and go over the LTE that the Airave broadcasts. 

Drove up to Ithaca today and mapped RT96 on Sensorly. Full LTE the whole way!

Sitting in Ithaca commons right now, every business has full LTE indoors. I’m curious if they have a small-cell here - the service is excellent. 

EDIT: Went to a few more buildings, my phone is locked onto an extremely strong Band 25 signal even within brick hallways. I didn't see Band 26 once. Really, really good signal here.

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm doubtful that they'd do "Calling Plus" on the iPhone. I figure Sprint will just jump straight to VoLTE.

Yup. Even if it technically IS Calling Plus on the backend, on the iPhone it will likely just use the same verbiage as it does on other VoLTE iPhones. "Use LTE for Voice & Data"

44 minutes ago, anthony.spina97 said:

On iOS 11.3 beta on iPhone X, still nothing in the Settings app about Calling Plus. Will be interested to see if it appears in later updates.

 

-Anthony

Installing now, I might've waited if I saw this first!  

Hopefully a few more betas and perhaps it will "just work," rather than a setting appearing. 

New Carrier Sprint 31.5.1

I'll be mapping Binghamton to Ithaca, NY next Friday. Fully deployed but not much on Sensorly! 

Felton site is showing B25/B26 LTE live in GLANCE, per a store employee on Reddit. Just hasn't caught up yet on the coverage map. :-)

15 hours ago, Joski1624 said:

I looked up the processor specs, and the modem is capable of 2XCA (actually 2x10 MHz, so it probably wouldn't be much use on B41).  It's about what I would expect for a phone in that price range.  https://www.qualcomm.com/products/MSM8937

 

 

Curious if this device truly does support HPUE, as that Qualcomm page doesn't specify it. But the Orbic tech sheet does. 

Can any signal apps confirm if HPUE is active on an Android device? 

23 hours ago, Grabber5.0 said:

2GB RAM seems like a lower end device
 

The $179 price might be a giveaway, too. 

This phone looks to have some pretty modern specs despite its $179 price. 

http://www.orbic.us/content/documents/orbic_wonder-spec_sheet-100317.pdf

USB-C, VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling, HPUE (!), and B25/B25 B25/B26 carrier aggregation. No mention of B41 CA but I'm assuming it's 2xCA or 3xCA. I'm considering picking one up to use with SignalCheck. Anyone picked one up yet? 

1 hour ago, superbluepsd said:

Update:

After taking the magic box to a B41 macro while using the battery going thru initial setup and then returning home and plugging it in it has completed setup and now is working on B25 albeit but it is working. Gonna leave it plugged in without moving it and hopefully it will learn the network and connect to B41 as my phone does in the same spot.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 

Ha, well, at least you discovered a solution for those that this happens to in the future! Shouldn't have to do it, but it works. :-) 

Planning a trip to Phoenix/Sedona/Grand Canyon later this year. I noticed the Grand Canyon now has Extended LTE roaming on Sprint. Who is the provider there?