burnout8488

4 minutes ago, lilotimz said:

Oh that's the gen 2. It just has a different wifi chipset. Not gen3.

 

Actual gen3 name will have gen3 in it.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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:

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.

34 minutes ago, mnjeepmale said:

The latest update to my Note 8 has this feature. I have it turned on.
How does this work? Like today I was on a phone call and tried accessing my email but wouldn't work. Said something like no data connection.
In the Calling Plus setting I also see WiFi calling and LTE calling(beta). Do those need to be enabled as well?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

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?

Update came out 15.15.10.141. New layout and icons and who knows what else.

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?)

6 minutes ago, lilotimz said:

They're not going to announce any dates for anything. They've got burnt far too many times since 2011.

 

Ie. We already know and have found new LTE only expansion areas with no previous sprint coverage but it's not publicized anywhere.

 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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)

On 11/15/2017 at 8:43 PM, mikejeep said:

Is the macro site 1x800? This happens with my Airave 3. I force it to 3G mode, then go in a corner of my basement where the 800 macro site completely loses signal.. once that happens, it will flip to the Airave and won't let go until you go out of range. It's disappointing. The old Airave had a 1x800 beacon that prevented this issue.

-Mike

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? 

15 hours ago, RAvirani said:

SMS goes over LTE on iPhones. Go to Settings > General > About and tap the Carrier field until you see IMS Status. When on LTE, it should say SMS. 

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! 

1 hour ago, greenbastard said:

Doesn't SMS still go through 1x on iPhones? Sending an SMS on an iPhone 7 take 3-4 seconds longer than it does on Androids that send SMS thru LTE. iPhones also take longer to receive as well.

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.

On 10/28/2017 at 7:00 PM, bucdenny said:

Sprint HD voice supported on Verizon model iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus? I am calling my brother on Sprint which has Verizon model, noticed no HD voice on my unlocked S8+.

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. 

1 hour ago, RAvirani said:

Hmm mine doesn’t seem to want to prompt me to update…

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

New carrier update with iOS 11.1. 

It updates to Sprint 30.0, and when you check, it will prompt you to update again taking it to Sprint 30.1.

And no, Calling Plus/VoLTE did not get added after the carrier update.  

I counted ~8 3G only sites left in DE on the map. Soooooo close! In real life, there might be less as of this writing. 

Still waiting on that Felton site to get LTE, figures the only one I really need down there is one of the last.  Looks like DE got a big update in the last coverage map though. Filling in very nicely. 

8 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Extended LTE on the coverage map is considered native and you won't be penalized for using data in those areas. If you use a ton and attractive their attention, something could happen. If you are on AT&T roaming, that is capped at 100MB.

 

Sent from my LG G6

 

 

 

Right, and on the device itself (for 99% of users) there’s no way to know since both types of roaming will say Extended LTE, correct? 

4 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

Should just be whatever your plan is while on Sprint native Network.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

That might be risky, isn't there still Extended LTE non-native roaming as well? The user would have to be 100% sure they are in the correct part of the coverage map that is treated as native roaming before doing this. I think...?

Sprint has seriously gotten to work in the last few months eliminating the rest of the 3G-only sites. It should have happened years ago, but we're finally there.