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chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Ned_Perfel posted:

My bill is right about $87 before tax. What's the cheapest way to get it above $90 so I can get in premier gold and get the 12 month upgrades? I already have phone insurance.

As I understand it, insurance, the $10 smartphone fee, etc don't count towards premier gold status (and discounts don't count against you either). Your base plan has to be above the $89.99/mo mark for you to be gold. As an individual this means the $99.99/mo Simply Everything plan or the 900 min/mo Everything Data plan at $89.99.

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chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Shortly after they came out I got one of the original Airave units. I didn't get it through calling retentions or anything (I didn't even think of that being an option), I just went to a Sprint store and bought it/added the service to my line. Is it possible for me to upgrade it to one of the new Airvana devices, and if so what do I need to do?

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Triikan posted:

Just a personal note, I emailed this email around noon today, still waiting on a response. I emailed sprintcares and 20 minutes later I got a response.

Has anybody gotten a response from this e-mail. It appears the source of this blog is some dude named Art.

Looks like "Art" is the same guy that's been restoring upgrades for folks over on SprintUsers (in this thread) for a few months now. I sent him a PM over there on Friday and got a response back today saying my upgrade eligibility has been restored and should be reflected on my account in 24-48 hours. I've been following that thread for a while and from what I can tell his team is doing this in addition to their normal stuff and they've been getting swamped with requests.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

ThermoPhysical posted:

Sprint is giving away 30 Galaxy Nexus phones.

You can enter once a day online until April 5th. If you have a phone with a touchscreen, you can play their Data Storm game at sprint.com/datastorm and get one additional entry for each day OR you can send a postcard via mail once a day for an additional entry.

The contest ends April 5th and they'll do the drawing on April 16th.

I don't know if this means the Galaxy Nexus is coming next month but if not April then maybe May.


Has anyone been able to get the Data Storm game to work? I've got a (rooted, running CM7) Evo 4G and I can get to the little background story before you start the game. But when you get to the point where I assume the game actually starts, my phone just sits there.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
One other thing that points to a possible Galaxy Nexus release around April 15th is that Sprint Datastorm sweepstakes. For shits and grins I took a look at the official rules the other day, which say that the drawing will be held "on or about April 16th, 2012" and the winners will be contacted within 5 days of the drawing. I can't see them telling people they won a device they won't actually be able to get for X number of months.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Lowen SoDium posted:

This is just one benchmark, but to see the whole story, you have to break down the individual parts of the score. It is faster in every category, but it's two largest improvements over the Galaxy Nexus are memory and I/O speeds.

I can't personally say how much of a difference those make on Android performance, but I have always been under the impression that smartphones have been more CPU and GPU limited than by memory throughput.

I think Anandtech's Krait previews (one, two) really tell the story. The SoC that's going in the Evo 4G LTE smokes pretty much everything else out there in CPU benchmarks and can hold it's own against the Tegra 3.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

td4guy posted:

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-targets-2014-use-800-mhz-lte/2012-04-12

This is the first confirmation I've seen that Sprint really intends to deploy LTE on their 800 MHz frequency. 4G indoors, imagine that!

Also a list of the first LTE cities, which I don't recall seeing listed before:

I'm not sure if that list has been posted in the thread before, but that info has been floating around for a while.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Duckman2008 posted:

Last I checked the Evo LTE is either available May 22nd, or that's preorder date. So worst case scenario it launches end of may to June 5th.

The preorder date is 5/7, so I'm assuming that 5/22 you saw is availability date.

Speaking of preorders, can one of you Sprint folks help clarify the exact terms of this Google Wallet promo that's mentioned on the GNex preorder page? I'm having trouble telling if you have to buy the device from Sprint and activate it before 5/22 or if you can buy it anywhere and activate before 5/22 in order to get the credit.

The reason I'm asking is because I signed up for that Phone Freedom $50 gift card promo Best Buy did a few months ago, so I'm planning on buying my new phone there. (Still deciding between the GNex and the Evo LTE, but leaning towards the Nexus.) If I can buy the phone at BB and still get the Google Wallet credit, that means even if I'm lazy and sell my Evo back to Sprint through the buyback program my cost for the Nexus would only be $30 + activation.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Are there supply issues with the Galaxy Nexus or is it just Best Buy? I'm wanting to buy through them because of the Phone Freedom thing ($50 off just for upgrading through them) I signed up for earlier this year plus the $50 off + $50 GC promo they're running if you trade in an OG Evo. Combine that with the $50 Google Wallet credit and I'd basically be getting for just the cost of activation. However, not only do none of the stores in my area have them in stock, the clerks in store can't order me one from the warehouse and they're sold out online.

I'm about at the point where I'm ready to buy it through Sprint and just pay the $199 , but if they're having similar supply issues I figure I might as well wait another week until the trade in promo at BB ends and hope they get more in before then.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Charlie Foxtrot posted:

Is the $50 + $50 Evo trade-in still active? I went in to Best Buy earlier this week and all the materials for that promo were gone. Also, I thought the $50 Google Wallet credit expired on May 22.

According to the mobile buyer's guide thing I grabbed from one of my local stores, the $50 + $50 Evo trade-in is going on through June 2nd. And yeah, looks like the Wallet credit did expire on 5/22.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Duckman2008 posted:

The galaxy 3 in general seems underwhelming, let alone it being Samsung.

Give it a month to confirm how the new Evo is. I love my nexus personally, but would so far recommend the Evo to most people. Its pretty impressive so far.

I've been waffling for so long between the Nexus and the Evo for so long[1] that at this point I think I'm just going to wait until they light up the LTE network here in KC and see how things look then. Especially with the S3 thrown into the mix now. At that point I can see what people are saying about all three devices once they've had them for a while, what the custom ROM scene looks like, etc etc etc and make a decision then. I'm still quite happy with my Evo 4G, so using it for another few months won't be a big deal.


[1]: I'd made up my mind and decided on the Nexus....until my boss picked up an Evo and I got to play around with it for a bit. It's a drat sexy phone, especially the camera. Between that and playing around with a store demo unit I did see some of the signs of the multitasking issue people are complaining about, but I'm not sure if it's something that would actually affect my usage. I know it'd something I'd notice and it'd annoy me, but I don't know if it'd actually cause me any problems.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Giblet posted:

Sprint has had a chunk of low frequency for a long time. It's currently in use by iden (nextel) devices and I believe some new cdma devices. I wouldn't expect to see any lte device on those bands until late next year.

IIRC, the plan with Network Vision is to deploy CDMA voice on iDEN first for improved voice coverage and then later on start running LTE there as well.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

DanAdamKOF posted:

Looks like they flipped the switch early for LTE in Kansas

If anyone tries it I'm curious as to your experiences with it. I'm in Dallas so I'll see it soon enough myself, but I'm an excited and impatient nerd.

My boss has been able to get an LTE connection on one of the towers near his house since he picked up the Evo 4G LTE at launch. IIRC he was averaging ~10-12Mbit down and a couple up, and the peak DL speed he's seen was 25.


Duckman2008 posted:

FYI the nexus is certainly not selling well, so look around and it is probably on sale somewhere. I think the price may drop again soon, although I have to check.

I was actually just checking prices on the GNex/4GLTE/SGS3 this morning and noticed that Best Buy has the GNex for $150 for new/upgrading customers.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

brc64 posted:

I took a peek at the coverage map, and it looks like there's LTE coverage nearby, but not here. It starts south of 14th. That's just cruel!

Now that I know approximately where you live, the stalking can begin soon!

From what I'm seeing for my area, either Network Vision is capable of some serious voodoo magic or the map is depicting what coverage will be like once everything is lit up in a given market. Judging from the planned/completed NV sites maps on S4GRU, roughly a third of the towers in the KC area have been fully converted and are running LTE. But the coverage map shows the entire metro as having 4G LTE coverage. But even if it is just showing what coverage will eventually be like, things are looking good.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
I've got Google Voice w/ Sprint integration (using my Sprint number) set up on my account/phone. I'm getting ready to upgrade to a new phone; is there anything special I need to do to make sure everything gets set up properly on the new device? I just want to make sure I don't end up unable to receive calls/texts because I did something wrong.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Jeratain posted:

Are you sure about this? I was able to migrate from a Palm Pre to an Evo3D without doing anything differently on my Google Voice integration. I never had to disable or reenable anything. It should just work.

To be clear: I'm referring to the official Sprint > Google Voice integration where your primary Sprint number is the same as your Google Voice number (no GV app or number forwarding needed)..

Not sure if it was needed, but it worked fine for me and didn't hurt anything. Disabled integration on my Evo, went to BB to pick up my SGS3, turned integration back on after installing the GVoice app and everything seems fine.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Duckman2008 posted:

It's time for another session of sprint policy change roundup. This one is really simple:

If you have a current discount with Sprint, you will be required to re verify your discount anytime you upgrade after 20 months. If you don't, discount gets removed 30 days after you get an upgrade.

So anyone with an old discount or a not legit discount, Sprint is either screwing you, or you will get good at photo shop. Only two options I can think of.

And yeah, this one will be very stressful for me. Sprint is very obviously trying to weed out people that got not legit discounts back in the day.

This does not affect EPRP or SERO of course, as those are not work discounts.

Out of curiosity, when does this go into effect? I ask because last night I upgraded from my Evo 4G to the SGS3 at BB and was never asked about my CU discount. I'm still a member there so it's no big deal, I'm just wondering if I should expect to have to re-verify at some point or if I snuck in just before the policy started.


ExcessBLarg! posted:

I know that, internally, WiMAX plans are distinct from LTE plans, and whenever someone goes from a WiMAX to LTE device, it's a plan change internally, even if it goes by the same customer-facing name.

I didn't know this before, but I learned about it last night at BB doing my upgrade. I bought it online using the store pickup option and chose to keep my current plan. That caused issues during activation through BB's system, since it needed to change that plan code for the premium data but couldn't since I'd specified I wanted to keep the same plan. Ended up having to call Sprint to get them to override it from their end.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Ender.uNF posted:

Oh I agree and they admitted on an investor call today that they wasted too much energy on WiMax to the detriment of their 3G network.

What follows is just my uneducated guesswork....

Sprint had a looming deadline on all that 2.5Ghz spectrum they bought; build it or lose it.

:words:

I could have sworn I read somewhere that the FCC forcing them to use the 2.5GHz spectrum was in fact one of the big motivators for the WiMAX deployment (along with "first with 4G" bragging rights). But maybe it was just someone else speculating like you are. Anyways, great read as always.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

FISHMANPET posted:

How early can I get an upgrade on my Sprint account? I'm 19 months into my contract, but my Evo 4g is starting to piss me off, and I'm wondering how soon before I can get some new hotness.

IIRC upgrade eligibility kicks in after 22 months. And if you're really desperate for a new phone, I'm pretty sure you can pay a prorated fee to buy out the remainder of the contract and upgrade early.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

The Entire Universe posted:

It'd be drat awesome if this meant Sprint had to for some reason switch from CDMA to GSM, but it will never happen because there's no reason such a merger would carry such a request.

It's infuriating that 5-10 years from now Sprint will still be getting bastard-version phones because of CDMA retention. It's going to be like that iDEN thing all over again where Sprint had to basically decide it was better to go with an ultimatum to the :bahgawd:s than it was to continue to suffer the opportunity costs of not having that spectrum available for NV. I expect the same to be the case eventually for CDMA -> LTE. Years from now there will be people who refuse to upgrade their loving phone because of reasons loving god only knows (at least iDEN had PTT) and it will be that segment of the userbase who will be directly at fault for being stuck with the bumblefuck edition Nexus devices that don't actually get updates from Google, and have to watch the other carriers waltz around with those beautiful Lumia phones (gently caress you they're gorgeous) while a few thousand idiot customers refuse to take a free upgrade because their jitterbug or whatever is familiar.

I don't think Sprint's going to be the only one dealing with this. I read an article on GigaOM the other day saying that Verizon plans to keep it's 2G/3G CDMA network running at least until 2021 for enterprise and M2M customers, and right now that's not even a firm cutoff date. They're saying it's a "guideline" so those customers will have almost a decade to make plans to transition to the newer networks, and if they're still demand for CDMA at that point they'll keep the network running past that date.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Glad to see that Sprint HQ is staying in Overland Park. It's been a great boost to the KC economy and having them leave would kinda suck.

gninjagnome posted:

So, my wife was thinking of upgrading her phone. Is it a better idea to wait for what shakes out of the deal, or just go ahead and get a phone now? I'm just worried about signing a new 2 year contract, although I imagine it will be a couple years before any real practical effect from the merger really hits.

Well, like Vykk.Drago noted, it'll be the middle of next year before the deal closes and New Sprint becomes official. I'd imagine the first year or so after that will probably be dealing with the reorganization/structural issues rather than any drastic changes, although I'm sure New Sprint will be able start spending the $8B that will be hitting their balance sheets sooner than that. At that point you'd be ~18 months into a new contract and worst case could either pay a prorated ETF and bail or just tough it out for a few months if things start going south. I'm not an analyst or anything, so I could be wrong on the timetable, but it seems like any kind of business merger always takes a year or two before any tangible changes can be seen.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
FYI: If you're running CM10, I'd suggest checking out today's (10/25) nightly, especially if you're in one of the first round NV/LTE markets. Looking at the changelogs I noticed this in the list of patches that were committed.

quote:

The old Sprint CDMA MMS apn uses the same MCC/MNC pair (310120) and apn
type ("default") as Sprint's LTE/eHRPD service. Thus, Sprint LTE devices
attempt to connect to LTE/eHRPD services using the old CDMA MMS apn first,
which usually fails, and thus delays service establishment.

However, occasionally service "successfully" connects with the CDMA MMS
apn, for unknown reasons, at which point that apn is set as the preferred
apn for LTE connections. Thus, any subsequent LTE/eHRPD connection attempt
fails due to use of the wrong apn.

By removing the old CDMA MMS apn, LTE/eHRPD connections will use the
appropriate apns. Furthermore
com.android.mms.transaction.TransactionSettings::TransactionSettings does
not query the bearer field when looking for valid MMS apns, so the
LTE/eHRPD will continue to work on non-LTE Sprint devices.

I can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but sometime around the M2 release I started having all kinds of issues getting/keeping a data connection. As an example, for lunch I usually go grab a sandwich and then come back and sit in my car listening to the radio while I eat. There's been a few days since I started having this issue where even toggling mobile data/airplane mode or rebooting multiple times over the span of a half hour I still couldn't get a data connection. If I was lucky I might have a tiny sliver of 3G, just enough to be frustrating. After flashing today's nightly, in the same spot I get full bars of LTE and mobile data connects instantly.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Duckman2008 posted:

Feel free to call retentions and complain, they may give you a credit for the time without a phone. No guarantees, the policy does not give a promised turn around time unfortunately.

Would this also be an option for time without service due to a tower outage? One of my friends has had little to no coverage in his apartment for the past month. I forget where he got this info from, but apparently it's because there was a fire in the building that hosts the nearest tower to his apartment complex. Apparently Sprint's been having issues getting access to the building to do whatever repairs need to be done due to local govt bureaucracy. He asked me if there was a way he could get a credit, but it didn't occur to me to try retentions; I just told him to call the regular customer care # and see what happened.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Ender.uNF posted:

Summary: if you have Sprint, get an LTE device as soon as they start putting up towers in your area. When on LTE, you'll feel like Sprint has a functioning network again (because it does!)

Yeah, now that there's decent LTE coverage here in KC, being a Sprint customer is a lot less painful. I think they've also started flipping the switch on the new 1X/3G equipment at towers that had previously been turned on for LTE. Voice/3G coverage seems to be much better in some areas than it used to be.

chizad fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Dec 19, 2012

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Vykk.Draygo posted:

How much do you have to donate to be able to see useful information? I saw that you have to donate $100 to get the most information but surely nobody here donated that much to find out about tower rollouts.

Unless things have changed since I donated last year, the minimum amount ($5, I think) should be enough to see the # of upgraded towers stuff and the basic maps that show tower locations and upgrade status and such. I ended up not renewing mine, because the NV/LTE rollout here in KC is at a point where I have decent coverage at most of the places I frequent, so I haven't needed to follow the progress as closely.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
Back to the 4G/WiMAX/LTE chat for a second......this is why LTE and the Network Vision rollout are so awesome. I'm sitting in my apartment right now connected to an LTE tower with 1 bar of coverage, and according to the speedtest app I'm averaging 74ms pings, 3.9Mbit down and 312Kbit up. (I haven't done any tests recently, but for comparison the last time I ran speedtest when I had full LTE coverage I could consistently hit 20+Mbit down and 10+Mbit up.)

Granted, it's also 2AM, so I probably have the tower pretty much to myself, but still. Before the towers around me were upgraded, even voice coverage in my apartment was spotty sometimes, and data was pretty much nonexistant. If I even had 3G, it was too slow to actually be usable, and half the time I was stuck on 1xRTT.

chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

e.pilot posted:

Sometimes these areas will be right next to each other.

fake e: I can get LTE on the road at my work, but as soon as I pull in to the parking lot I get unusable 3G.

Yeah, that's largely the case here in Kansas City. I work a few miles away from the Sprint campus and get okay coverage there. But there's some places within the same proximity to the campus where data is basically non-existent, to the point where basic things like google searches time out. If I can pick up an LTE signal it's usually okay, but every once in a while even that is dog slow; 3G is still a crapshoot.

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chizad
Jul 9, 2001

'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
I've gotten a few emails (and snail mail, including an Xmas card) from the (office of) Sprint's CEO in the past two weeks. What's funny is I switched to T-Mobile two weeks ago, but everything from Sprint still refers to me as an existing customer. I get that all their databases haven't been updated yet and some of these mailing lists were probably put together weeks ago, but the timing amuses me.

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