burnout8488

Yeah, seems like it's at the end of the line for firmware updates as well. I just ordered one of these for my friend last weekend, so they're definitely still offering it, though.

Good point. I wish I could convince my gym to get a Magic Box. 50Mbps outside, 0Mbps inside! Then my Watch would be usable.

If you forget your home wifi network, then throw the phone on airplane mode, does your watch have any indoor LTE reception?

Call 866-556-7310, the overseas call center rarely process these right and your order will probably vaporize. This number is Oklahoma City, just make sure you call during daytime business hours to ensure a US-based agent. They know exactly what to do. (If you get routed to India, call back later. Sometimes when volume is high they reroute overseas)

In Albany right now and B25 does seem healthy in most spots. 20-30Mbps downtown. Populated areas do suffer, though. I also mapped all of I-88 on sensorly, it's nearly 100% LTE now with only a few drops to 3G due to geography/non-optimization. (I'm pretty sure all of the sites have been converted to LTE, though)

With that in mind, how long until our current B25/26 + B41 antennas are obsolete and need replacing again? It seems like the current hardware is very future-proof and can be upgraded via software updates to support many of the emerging technologies that are coming out.

Aarggh, so there's technically four Magic Box SKUs out there??

Me either! It is referred to as the "AU 544" on my account. My second gen is the AU 545. The shipping confirmation says: ASPANMBGN2 AIRSPAN AU544MAGICBX GEN2

I've got a Gen 3 Magic Box being shipped to my house, should be here in a few days. If nobody beats me to it I'll post pics. I was wrong.... see below

LTE calling would need to be enabled.

After a few days and having the Magic Box in multiple locations, I'm cautiously-impressed. At my house with poor signal, it eventually decided to latch on to B25 overnight which did improve speeds in my house, but they weren't much different than if my device was doing a speedtest without the MB. Granted, the MB will make speeds consistent even in my basement or garage, but I'm not getting a *lot* of value out of it. At my girlfriend's house that barely gets any LTE signal, the MB was able to latch onto a -115dBm B41 signal somehow and attain 25Mbps downloads and healthy 2Mbps+ uploads. I was very impressed and will look into replacing their Airave 3 LTE with a Magic Box after I do a little more testing. The ironic part is that she's on the other side of the same site that gives me terrible B41 at my own house, but is on a less-loaded sector. The worst part about the Magic Box is the design of the unit and the software it runs. Using solely a touchscreen, it's not satisfying to use, especially when the touch controls don't work or exhibit their normal 1-2 second lag. Mine froze up multiple times, once requiring hours of downtime just to get the thing to reboot. The internal battery doesn't help here, because it can't be power-cycled without letting the battery die. A hard reset button would improve the MB 100% and make it easier to use when the buggy software decides to quit when moving the device or rebooting it. It works great when it works, but tactile feedback on the buttons would be a game-changer. (And a no-brainer)

Just got my MB hooked up today. My house gets fringe B41, and usable B25/B26 from a site far away. The MB does connect to the B41 signal, however. (-125dBm RSRP) The B41 on this site is so overloaded that the speeds I get on the MB are actually slower than not having it at all. (1Mbps versus 3-4Mbps without the MB) This is pretty much a site issue at this point, right? There's no way to force the MB onto faster B25, is there? Do these auto-update overnight? Mine is still on an older version.

What's the bandwidth of a fiber connection going to a typical site? Or does it completely vary based on location/population? (Are we talking 1Gbps links, 10Gbps, etc?)

In that regard, under-promising and over-delivering has worked well in the last year.

I would like to see a firm announcement that they are at least shooting for a 2018 VoLTE rollout.

I think the CDMA shutoff has been rumored to be 2020+. I know on the iPhone side, devices back to the iPhone 6 support VoLTE. A carrier update should enable this functionality for users of this 2014-released device. I would assume other older Android devices can get VoLTE enabled retroactively as well.

When Sprint finally "turns on" VoLTE, they will not turn off 1x/3G simultaneously. Verizon still hasn't turned their CDMA services off, and they were the first to roll out VoLTE in the US. (Otherwise legacy flip phones and older smartphones would have stopped working) You will have a new device by the time you are required to use VoLTE for calling, trust me. (Years away)

It is. However, their parents' house a quarter mile CLOSER to the macro site has an Airave 3, and calls go over 1x perfectly. I'll go over to his house today and re-check, maybe it needed a SW update. It was only online for 20min when I tested. Both homes have been using the Airave as a Wi-Fi router as well now. At the parents' house, it's needed a reboot when Wi-Fi gets dodgy, but has since been fine. Every device connects at healthy 802.11ac speeds. But, I've heard complaints of them losing signal in the middle of Netflix streams, or trying to watch a video on their iPhones. Hopefully they won't need to buy a separate router - worst case I can just flash their Wi-Fi Connect routers to get rid of the Sprint firmware and run it in tandem with the Airave.

Got the Airave set up - it seems to only broadcast LTE and 3G. Calls will not go over 1x on it, they latch onto the very weak macro network. All lights are green. 3G and LTE work very well. Is this normal?

This is something my iPhone has never shown for some reason, despite messages sending over LTE quickly. I do not get IMS status unless I'm on Wi-Fi calling. In any case, I'm happy to get an Airave 3 in two of my family member's homes. Wi-Fi calling works, but sending iMessages still relies on the weak cellular signal and is extremely slow for them. I'm going to be disabling Wi-Fi calling on their devices. Having MMS, SMS, and iMessage through LTE on the Airave will complete everything and make messaging a non-issue moving forward. (Since MMS doesn't go through Wi-Fi calling at all) Plus, they'll have HD voice working when they're on the macro network again!

Basic SMS text to a single recipient is very quick on my iPhone. I believe it was stated that they use LTE for this a year or two ago. I guess there’s few ways to test this, though. Perhaps someone with an LTE-only S1000 can check? (Assuming there is no native 1x macro signal in their location)

Does MMS (Picture messages) go over LTE on an iPhone? I forgot. SMS does, can't remember if non-iMessage picture messages do though.

HD voice is more of a software thing, it's pushed to the device through carrier updates once your device connects to the network. If the device works on the Sprint network, it'll have HD voice.

I don't know if this was stated a long time ago, but is there a reason Albany isn't getting Band 41? Is there another party interfering with its deployment, like the IBEZ issue with 800Mhz? I never followed Albany enough to search for a reason why this was happening, but a friend moved there recently and is predictably experiencing horrid speeds in populated areas.

I've got an iPhone 7, you? Perhaps this update is model-specific?