Database Develop

WiMax > LTE?

Will most areas with Wimax get LTE? I didn't care too much about this until I read that AT&T Ones get both Wimax and LTE. How exactly does this work? Has it to do with the GSM/CDMA thing?
I was with T-mobile before and you could say I was spoiled by their HSPA speeds. Now its normal for me to get anywhere from 80 to 100 kbps with Sprint. Occasionally I get an LTE signal and speeds upto 1.5 mbps. Would I get faster speeds if I had an older, Wimax phone?
Also, I was told by the Sprint rep that the Nextel towers will be converted to LTE. Is this true?

Where'd you read that att models support wimax?
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It's magic, considering ATT never deployed wimax whatsoever. Sprint is the only major cellular provider who went with Wimax, everyone else went lte or HSPA+
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sauprankul said:
Will most areas with Wimax get LTE? I didn't care too much about this until I read that AT&T Ones get both Wimax and LTE. How exactly does this work? Has it to do with the GSM/CDMA thing?
I was with T-mobile before and you could say I was spoiled by their HSPA speeds. Now its normal for me to get anywhere from 80 to 100 kbps with Sprint. Occasionally I get an LTE signal and speeds upto 1.5 mbps. Would I get faster speeds if I had an older, Wimax phone?
Also, I was told by the Sprint rep that the Nextel towers will be converted to LTE. Is this true?
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All of this is true except AT&T ONE getting WiMax. As was said, AT&T has never had WiMax and the ONE is not capable of it. Whoever told you that is either mistaken or lying.
Depending on where you are WiMax could be more available then LTE as of right now. As they shut down the 800mhz Nextel towers, Sprint will be rolling out LTE 800 on those is the story most have heard.

I'm in Chicago and we have a lot of wimax. But also a lot of lte too. I did get faster speeds on wimax, but I could only get wimax if I were outside. So... I kept it off and only used wimax if I really needed it. It was a major battery hog.
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I had og Evo and Evo 3d which were both wimax phones. The signal was much more consistent than I get on my Evo lte and HTC one. As far as speed, I HAVE spiked to 22mbps once or twice on lte but I have to be right there in that sweet spot which is on the side of a major hwy. I can pull 5-8 mbps on an average lte signal but I am constantly loosing it and switching back to 3g and going back and forth. My wimax signal was a goo 7-8 inside my house. Lte is very inconsistent and my area is suppose to be over 80% complete I think last time I checked.
And like gk said wimax was a battery hog. I could never get half a day if I left my wimax radio on and off the charger. My lte devices last a lot longer. This one I take it off the charger in the morning and still have half battery at night most times
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sauprankul said:
Will most areas with Wimax get LTE? I didn't care too much about this until I read that AT&T Ones get both Wimax and LTE. How exactly does this work? Has it to do with the GSM/CDMA thing?
I was with T-mobile before and you could say I was spoiled by their HSPA speeds. Now its normal for me to get anywhere from 80 to 100 kbps with Sprint. Occasionally I get an LTE signal and speeds upto 1.5 mbps. Would I get faster speeds if I had an older, Wimax phone?
Also, I was told by the Sprint rep that the Nextel towers will be converted to LTE. Is this true?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would be surprised if it were directly true. The Nextel towers were all IDEN-based and are in the process of being torn down. I have no doubt they will be eventually switched to CDMA/3G and then LTE (or maybe built with LTE from the get-go), but probably not until after Sprint rolls out LTE to its existing tower infrastructure.

Not to go off topic too much but when I lived in Columbus Ohio we had pretty good wimax coverage. And in complete honesty the battery hit was hardly any worse than 3g so I would leave wimax on all of the time. I could go a full 12 hour day at work on my 3d with moderate usage and get home with 30 percent left. Similar comparisons in battery life on my 4g, shift, and et4g as well. Apparently its similar to any other signal issue.... But if its a good area wimax doesn't hurt the battery too bad at all really.

I used to get really inconsistent lte a month ago. I'm not sure if they improved the network to correct it or what but when I unlocked the bootloader, I saw a very consistent experience. Not sure if wiping everything did something to correct it, placebo, or new towers were flipped on the same day.
But I only get 2-3 mbps on lte
Wimax I was getting about 8-10
In any case... Sprint is the only major wimax carrier in the USA and att doesn't use it - as mentioned earlier, OP was lied to about this.
Also, I hear the Nextel iden network will be configured to lte on 800 mhz which our phones don't support. None do at this point actually.
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wimax is awful & I live in a "good" wimax area. Besides Sprint quit building on the network once they realized it sucked.

All right thanks for the clarification guys. I was suspicious when I read it (no idea where, some random forums). Since Sprint is letting go of Wimax and replacing their Wimax devices with LTE, would it be safe to assume that places with "Best" Wimax coverage and/or Nextel coverage will get LTE at some point (6 mos-1 year)? It's really sad when it takes 30-45 minutes do download Cut the Rope at the local mall (in silicon Valley).

Sprint lte (any carried for that matter) is very signal dependent. Stronger signal = faster connection. If u connect to lte and its a slow connection, chances are you are connected to a site farther away then u think, or have a site (one that serves your voice coverage) between the lte site and your phone. All sprint sites are being converted to lte. Most Nextel sites are not. During the conversion, sprint is putting up panels has house both voice and lte on 1900mhz, voice on smr800 and lte on 800smr. No 800smr lte devices are out yet, will will be starting this fall. When Nextel is turned off (last day of this month), sprint will start turning on the 800smr on voice and lte but may take some time (especially lte side). 800smr voice is already being broadcasted in parts of the county, such as in Chicago. Most if not all native sprint coverage will have lte by this time next year. For much more info, go to s4gru.com
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I had Wimax on my evo3d as well as for my home internet through clear. Wimax signal is much weaker than LTE it is easily affected by weather and even wind.it has poor building penetration, hence Sprint dumped the Wimax program and began with lte!!!
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Paleryder said:
I had Wimax on my evo3d as well as for my home internet through clear. Wimax signal is much weaker than LTE it is easily affected by weather and even wind.it has poor building penetration, hence Sprint dumped the Wimax program and began with lte!!!
Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 2
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It wasn't so much wimax sucked based on the symptoms you described, it's the frequency Clearwire was using. They used 2500 mhz for wimax and if it were lte on that same band, we'd still have poor building penetration and weak signal.
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jcwxguy said:
No 800smr lte devices are out yet, will will be starting this fall.
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Click to collapse
the htc one should actually be capable of 800smr lte with some changes to the radio config (and possibly radio software too, but i'm pretty sure that won't be necessary)... once 800smr lte is up and running somewhere near where i live i'll be able to test and figure out what exactly needs to be done to make it work.

hotaru2k3 said:
the htc one should actually be capable of 800smr lte with some changes to the radio config (and possibly radio software too, but i'm pretty sure that won't be necessary)... once 800smr lte is up and running somewhere near where i live i'll be able to test and figure out what exactly needs to be done to make it work.
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it is not capable of 800smr lte....its a hardware thing (no 800smr antenna within the phone) with the HTC ONE, check out the FCC docs...
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=1898233 (note page 5, only LTE BAND 25 (g block, 1900 mhz, sprints current lte network)
http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-342-updated-all-for-htc-one-htc-one-for-all/

jcwxguy said:
it is not capable of 800smr....its a hardware thing (no 800smr antenna within the phone) with the HTC ONE, check out the FCC docs...
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=1898233 (note page 5, only LTE BAND 25 (g block, 1900 mhz, sprints current lte network)
http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-342-updated-all-for-htc-one-htc-one-for-all/
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Click to collapse
first link just says "You are not authorized to access this page.", but i have already seen the fcc filings for the sprint htc one.
from the second link:
CDMA1X + EV-DO band classes 0, 1, 10 (i.e. CDMA1X + EV-DO 850/1900/800)
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Antenna 0 max RF ERP/EIRP: 20.10 dBm (CDMA1X/EV-DO 850), 23.80 dBm (CDMA1X/EV-DO 1900), 19.23 dBm (CDMA1X/EV-DO 800), 12.30 dBm (LTE 1900)
Antenna 1 max RF ERP/EIRP: 13.78 dBm (CDMA1X/EV-DO 850), 13.58 dBm (CDMA1X/EV-DO 1900), 14.27 dBm (CDMA1X/EV-DO 800), 23.63 dBm (LTE 1900)
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Click to collapse
cdma band class 10 is 800smr. both antennas work for 800smr. the radio can transmit and receive on 800smr frequencies.
it's very likely that a simple configuration change will enable lte on 800smr. if that turns out to not be the case, it's definitely possible to do it by modifying the baseband software.

I asked Sprint support about a month or 2 ago if the One would be compatible with 800 when they launch it and they said none of the currently released phones are capable and none will be released until Q3 or Q4
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Note that by the time Sprint actually deploys in large-scale any non-1900mhz LTE, you'll be up for a new phone (that is, 2 years). It's going to take a long, long time. They haven't even started yet.

hotaru2k3 said:
first link just says "You are not authorized to access this page.", but i have already seen the fcc filings for the sprint htc one.
from the second link:
cdma band class 10 is 800smr. both antennas work for 800smr. the radio can transmit and receive on 800smr frequencies.
it's very likely that a simple configuration change will enable lte on 800smr. if that turns out to not be the case, it's definitely possible to do it by modifying the baseband software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that radio (antenna) will not work on 800smr LTE. Voice 800smr yes, lte, no
The Sprint version of the HTC One is limited to band 25 LTE 1900. It does not support either of Sprint's upcoming LTE bands -- band 26 LTE 800 and band 41 TD-LTE 2600.
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---------- Post added at 12:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:03 PM ----------
Vincent Law said:
Note that by the time Sprint actually deploys in large-scale any non-1900mhz LTE, you'll be up for a new phone (that is, 2 years). It's going to take a long, long time. They haven't even started yet.
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Click to collapse
Sprint has started an 800smr LTE fit in Montana.
---------- Post added at 12:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 PM ----------
gk1984 said:
I asked Sprint support about a month or 2 ago if the One would be compatible with 800 when they launch it and they said none of the currently released phones are capable and none will be released until Q3 or Q4
Sent from my HTCONE
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This is correct :good:
***THIS IS LIKE THE OLD "WILL MY WIMAX DEVICE WORK ON LTE" DEBATE " lol ....we all know how that ended up

[Q] Sony Xperia C6903, LTE on AT&T

I emailed GSM Nation to see when they would received the C6906 because I want to use LTE on AT&T. They sent me a reply saying that many of their customers use AT&T, and have been reporting LTE working.. Are they just blowing smoke up my ass? If not, is there a way to see what bands are active in each cities?

svfusion said:
I emailed GSM Nation to see when they would received the C6906 because I want to use LTE on AT&T. They sent me a reply saying that many of their customers use AT&T, and have been reporting LTE working.. Are they just blowing smoke up my ass? If not, is there a way to see what bands are active in each cities?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'd be cautious about buying the C6903 and using it on AT&T in the U.S. I had the international version of the Z earlier in march C6603 and i never got LTE on that phone, only HSPA+. I used this phone in Minneapolis and never saw LTE. I also did a road trip from Pittsburg to Orlando and never saw LTE on the way anywhere. Also used in Miami without LTE.
I believe its important to have the 700 band if you want to see LTE on the AT&T network on a device.

sunny051488 said:
i'd be cautious about buying the C6903 and using it on AT&T in the U.S. I had the international version of the Z earlier in march C6603 and i never got LTE on that phone, only HSPA+. I used this phone in Minneapolis and never saw LTE. I also did a road trip from Pittsburg to Orlando and never saw LTE on the way anywhere. Also used in Miami without LTE.
I believe its important to have the 700 band if you want to see LTE on the AT&T network on a device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use the 6903 model on AT&T, I'm using the Z1 on it right now. But to get LTE support you are correct, you need the 700Mhz band which is in the 6906 model.

Bleh, I had the same concern and called ATT and asked. The guy told me this.
ATT uses 700-1400mhz spectrum. meaning 700 though, not and. So any device that supports bands "in that range" will work fine. Was he misinformed, or is that right? When is the damn xxx6 model coming out anyway?

I'm using the xperia on ATT right now no LTE but I do get hspa+ which is fine (is a 50mbps connection REALLY needed for a phone?) Anyways there is a chance that LTE may work in the US because ATT is rolling out and already has the 1700mhz band in a bunch of cities: Phoenix, Raleigh, San Juan, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Chicago, Charlotte, Athens, GA and College Station, TX. The Nexus 4 people were reporting that it works but not sure about Z1. I'm not from any of these cities so i can't confirm if its working. Maybe someone can?

n4v1n said:
is a 50mbps connection REALLY needed for a phone?
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When it's been shown to give better battery life thanks to race to idle advantages? Absolutely.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6330/the-iphone-5-review/13
>The non-LTE phones see a sharp drop in battery life. At least at 28nm the slower air interfaces simply have to remain active (and drawing power) for longer, which results in measurably worse battery life.
This doesn't work on slower LTE networks like verizon, but for us on ATT we can get better battery life while enjoying faster speeds. Note that in that graph anandtech measures HSPA+ as "3g", as it is 3g, despite ATT and verizon's marketing. I make this distinction to prevent people from thinking they are testing the older 1.4mbit or whatever network they used to use.
I'm probably going to get the Z1 without LTE functionality in my area anyway, because at the end of the day I'm without a smartphone right now (my HTC one got washed with my clothes and doesn't do much other than vibrate when it's plugged in now) and don't want to wait for Sony to stop being lazy and put out the model with 700mhz LTE.

youwonder said:
Bleh, I had the same concern and called ATT and asked. The guy told me this.
ATT uses 700-1400mhz spectrum. meaning 700 though, not and. So any device that supports bands "in that range" will work fine. Was he misinformed, or is that right? When is the damn xxx6 model coming out anyway?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
youwonder said:
When it's been shown to give better battery life thanks to race to idle advantages? Absolutely.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6330/the-iphone-5-review/13
>The non-LTE phones see a sharp drop in battery life. At least at 28nm the slower air interfaces simply have to remain active (and drawing power) for longer, which results in measurably worse battery life.
This doesn't work on slower LTE networks like verizon, but for us on ATT we can get better battery life while enjoying faster speeds. Note that in that graph anandtech measures HSPA+ as "3g", as it is 3g, despite ATT and verizon's marketing. I make this distinction to prevent people from thinking they are testing the older 1.4mbit or whatever network they used to use.
I'm probably going to get the Z1 without LTE functionality in my area anyway, because at the end of the day I'm without a smartphone right now (my HTC one got washed with my clothes and doesn't do much other than vibrate when it's plugged in now) and don't want to wait for Sony to stop being lazy and put out the model with 700mhz LTE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only reason it improves battery life is because its take you less time to download things which is a given. If you're constantly downloading extremely large files then maybe you need it, but for me not so much.

svfusion said:
I emailed GSM Nation to see when they would received the C6906 because I want to use LTE on AT&T. They sent me a reply saying that many of their customers use AT&T, and have been reporting LTE working.. Are they just blowing smoke up my ass? If not, is there a way to see what bands are active in each cities?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The answer is yes, they are blowing smoke up your ass. In order for a phone to get AT&T LTE, you need Band 17. That is their primary LTE band. They also supplementarily use Band 2, 4, and 5 in select cities where they don't have Band 17. Similar thread in the Z Ultra forums, which have similar models which might clarify this more if you need more details.

n4v1n said:
The only reason it improves battery life is because its take you less time to download things which is a given. If you're constantly downloading extremely large files then maybe you need it, but for me not so much.
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You did not read the source I linked I think. It shows web browsing, not downloading massive files. LTEs speed and therefore race to idle advantage applies to more than just downloading large files, it shows battery savings in normal day to day use, from things that drain quite a bit of battery like browsing to smaller things like syncing gmail accounts.

n4v1n said:
I'm using the xperia on ATT right now no LTE but I do get hspa+ which is fine (is a 50mbps connection REALLY needed for a phone?) Anyways there is a chance that LTE may work in the US because ATT is rolling out and already has the 1700mhz band in a bunch of cities: Phoenix, Raleigh, San Juan, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Chicago, Charlotte, Athens, GA and College Station, TX. The Nexus 4 people were reporting that it works but not sure about Z1. I'm not from any of these cities so i can't confirm if its working. Maybe someone can?
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Click to collapse
uly609 said:
You can use the 6903 model on AT&T, I'm using the Z1 on it right now. But to get LTE support you are correct, you need the 700Mhz band which is in the 6906 model.
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Click to collapse
What speeds are you guys getting on ATT with the C6903? If the C6906 isn't shipping anywhere by midnext week I'm going to order the C6903, I've been android less for 2 weeks now, I'm going crazy. I don't use my phone as a hot spot or for file downloads, so I don't need crazy speeds which I don't even get anyway LTE wise in my area, usually 22mbps max and on average upper teens.

QwaarJet said:
What speeds are you guys getting on ATT with the C6903? If the C6906 isn't shipping anywhere by midnext week I'm going to order the C6903, I've been android less for 2 weeks now, I'm going crazy. I don't use my phone as a hot spot or for file downloads, so I don't need crazy speeds which I don't even get anyway LTE wise in my area, usually 22mbps max and on average upper teens.
Click to expand...
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I'm getting 8.22 Mbps down and 1.13 Mbps up with full bars on AT&T right now. I'll do a few more tests to check for consistency.
EDIT: Just ran another test and I got 9.21 Mbps down and 1.13 Mbps up.

I'm full bars on my Lumia 920 here at work, only getting 5/0.6 on LTE so I guess C6903 would do just fine. I only ever get good LTE speeds at home, but I use my phone on my wifi connection there so it's not very useful. Thanks!

I received my Sony Xperia Z1 from GSM Nation yesterday and can vouch for the fact that the 6903 model will in fact NOT work with AT&T's 4G LTE network. I live in New York City too, if that means anything. I spent the entire afternoon trying to connect to the LTE network. Instead, I was able to connect to the 3G (HSPA+) network and that's it.
I am very unhappy about this and will be returning the phone to GSM Nation immediately. I love LTE speed and did not know that battery life was affected by it too (thanks for that youwonder!) so I'll patiently wait for the 6906 model to be released. Does anyone know when that might happen? I can live with my old Galaxy Note II for now I suppose. Agh!

QwaarJet said:
What speeds are you guys getting on ATT with the C6903? If the C6906 isn't shipping anywhere by midnext week I'm going to order the C6903, I've been android less for 2 weeks now, I'm going crazy. I don't use my phone as a hot spot or for file downloads, so I don't need crazy speeds which I don't even get anyway LTE wise in my area, usually 22mbps max and on average upper teens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually am in an area where I get LTE on AT&T with the 6903 interesting, it does get the normal speeds so highest so far 20 down which is pretty good.

AhsanU said:
I received my Sony Xperia Z1 from GSM Nation yesterday and can vouch for the fact that the 6903 model will in fact NOT work with AT&T's 4G LTE network. I live in New York City too, if that means anything. I spent the entire afternoon trying to connect to the LTE network. Instead, I was able to connect to the 3G (HSPA+) network and that's it.
I am very unhappy about this and will be returning the phone to GSM Nation immediately. I love LTE speed and did not know that battery life was affected by it too (thanks for that youwonder!) so I'll patiently wait for the 6906 model to be released. Does anyone know when that might happen? I can live with my old Galaxy Note II for now I suppose. Agh!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heres the message I got to the query, about at&t lte from GSM Nation, also asked them about 6906. Edited out private stuff.
"at&t's main frequency for LTE is 700 mhz so the 6903 working is really upto where in the US you live and that is unfortunately not information we would have. It is certainly limited markets for 1700's but these are just reports from customers from our followups.
Regardless we do not advertise it as compatible with at&t due to it being limited markets. And would advise that customers purchase it for use with at&t LTE at their own risk. The c6906 model traditionally comes to carriers first so that would be the safest bet at this time if your looking for at&t LTE. It should be available soon in the US."
seems pretty clear cut.

Sony Xperia ZL C6503 also no LTE
Rebsters said:
Heres the message I got to the query, about at&t lte from GSM Nation, also asked them about 6906. Edited out private stuff.
"at&t's main frequency for LTE is 700 mhz so the 6903 working is really upto where in the US you live and that is unfortunately not information we would have. It is certainly limited markets for 1700's but these are just reports from customers from our followups.
Regardless we do not advertise it as compatible with at&t due to it being limited markets. And would advise that customers purchase it for use with at&t LTE at their own risk. The c6906 model traditionally comes to carriers first so that would be the safest bet at this time if your looking for at&t LTE. It should be available soon in the US."
seems pretty clear cut.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PMFJI. I own the C6506 (Sony branded, carrier unlocked) which support a wide range of bands including LTE IV and LTE XVII, both of which are used by AT&T. In addition, I get PCS 1900 which AT&T is rolling out.
I get NO LTE service and I was told this is by design. If you do not own an AT&T branded phone, the network will not permit you on the LTE network. I am provisioned for LTE but I cannot get even 4G.
This was not explained by anyone and it took me a number of support calls and escalations to learn this. I believe the only way to effect change on this rregressive policy is for people to complain. There is no reason to penalize BYOD customers who choose not to own an AT&T branded device.
My device specs for LTE: 4G Network LTE 700 / 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100 - C6506

[Q] Question regarding Spark / Multiple Bands

This could be a simple or complex Question/Answer...
Throwing the LTE bands out on the table for non-Spark devices (such as M7) vs. Spark devices (Such as M8)
M7: 1900mhz
M8: 850/1900/2600 MHz
Now those who had an M7 know the fallbacks with the 1900 spectrum. While driving around depending on your area, or limitations of wall penetration, it's very easy to loose LTE and fall back to 3G. Then it's no fun waiting to get back to LTE when your streaming music or video.
The reason I am posting this question is because I don't want to assume, I'd rather have feedback for someone with an M8. If you're inside a building, or driving, have you noticed an improvement with a spark phone?
For instance, is it possible to be on the 850 spectrum and NOT the 1900? or as soon as it looses the 1900 will it still fall back to 3G? I'll be honest, I love/hate LTE on non-spark phones. Love because its unlimited data, hate because of how easy it is to loose LTE. I've had several non-spark phones and had this issue between all of them, and I also have a Verizon phone which is on LTE over 99% of the time. I live in the Tri State Area in NY.
So the bottom line question... If only one band is available (say the 850 because it should theoretically have better wall penetration), will it use that band? Or.. is Sprint Spark all three bands or bust..back to 3G?

im pretty sure from what ive read that spark uses all bands at the same time, so if you lose one youll still be connected on the others until you lose them all. my area doesnt have 850 yet so i couldnt tell you but i definitely feel the diference between having 2500+1900 and only having 1900... when i have both i get aroung 35Mbps then i lose 2500 indoors and i get 5-8Mbps but my phone never "disconnects" from lte when im testing that
Sent from my SM-T217S using xda app-developers app

bigblueshock said:
This could be a simple or complex Question/Answer...
Throwing the LTE bands out on the table for non-Spark devices (such as M7) vs. Spark devices (Such as M8)
M7: 1900mhz
M8: 850/1900/2600 MHz
Now those who had an M7 know the fallbacks with the 1900 spectrum. While driving around depending on your area, or limitations of wall penetration, it's very easy to loose LTE and fall back to 3G. Then it's no fun waiting to get back to LTE when your streaming music or video.
The reason I am posting this question is because I don't want to assume, I'd rather have feedback for someone with an M8. If you're inside a building, or driving, have you noticed an improvement with a spark phone?
For instance, is it possible to be on the 850 spectrum and NOT the 1900? or as soon as it looses the 1900 will it still fall back to 3G? I'll be honest, I love/hate LTE on non-spark phones. Love because its unlimited data, hate because of how easy it is to loose LTE. I've had several non-spark phones and had this issue between all of them, and I also have a Verizon phone which is on LTE over 99% of the time. I live in the Tri State Area in NY.
So the bottom line question... If only one band is available (say the 850 because it should theoretically have better wall penetration), will it use that band? Or.. is Sprint Spark all three bands or bust..back to 3G?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, if only one band is available, the M8 will only use that band as long as the signal is strong enough to stay on it. Spark enabled phones have the ability to connect to all 3 bands as you have mentioned but can only connect to a single band at any given time as far as I'm aware. Unless it uses some modulation technology. I haven't read much into it, though.
The 2600Mhz band offers the highest theoretical speed out of all of them. Sprint just calls all their Tri-Band phones, Spark enabled for simple identification and as another means of marketing both their network and devices.
I haven't noticed any issues when I'm driving on my normal routes with the M8. Though, with the M7, I would sometimes hit points where it would drop to 3G and Google Music would buffer slightly and resume playing shortly thereafter. I'm not entirely sure its due to the phone, though as it might just be Google Music caching more data or Sprint has worked on the towers recently. I also haven't paid much attention as to which bands, if any, it has been connecting to as I believe this area is still limited to 1900Mhz LTE.

skizzled said:
Yes, if only one band is available, the M8 will only use that band as long as the signal is strong enough to stay on it. Spark enabled phones have the ability to connect to all 3 bands as you have mentioned but can only connect to a single band at any given time as far as I'm aware. Unless it uses some modulation technology. I haven't read much into it, though.
The 2600Mhz band offers the highest theoretical speed out of all of them. Sprint just calls all their Tri-Band phones, Spark enabled for simple identification and as another means of marketing both their network and devices.
I haven't noticed any issues when I'm driving on my normal routes with the M8. Though, with the M7, I would sometimes hit points where it would drop to 3G and Google Music would buffer slightly and resume playing shortly thereafter. I'm not entirely sure its due to the phone, though as it might just be Google Music caching more data or Sprint has worked on the towers recently. I also haven't paid much attention as to which bands, if any, it has been connecting to as I believe this area is still limited to 1900Mhz LTE.
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ahh. I was under the impression sprint was able to bond all 3 channels together to get a lot higher speed. but if it only connects to one at a time, that's a different story

bigblueshock said:
ahh. I was under the impression sprint was able to bond all 3 channels together to get a lot higher speed. but if it only connects to one at a time, that's a different story
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That might very well be the case, I'm not entirely sure how the Tri-Band works on Sprint phones yet but will definitely be looking into it moreso since I have a M8.
Band 41 (2500Mhz) will offer higher theoretical speeds at the expense of less range and wall penetration.
Personally, I'm much more interested in Band 26 (800Mhz) as this will hopefully greatly increase range and improve reception. I've been on Sprint long enough to realize that I mostly use data services which don't require huge amounts of bandwidth and when I really need a fast connection, I have access to Wi-Fi more often than not.

Will the International LTE S2 work on Verizon network?

I noticed on the specifications list that the international LTE version has some of the same LTE bands as the Verizon LTE version. Would the international LTE version of the S2 be at all usable on Verizon's network?

Which variant? I don't remember seeing any international variants with LTE B13 support. In any case, there is no CDMA in the international variants and I strongly doubt you could use them on Verizon.

Is B13 the one Verizon uses in the U.S.? I was just looking at the one on amazon listed as "international LTE". I didn't realize there were multiple versions of that. I also got the impression from reading around here that Verizon's LTE was more or less the same as everyone else's because CDMA just isn't capable of the modern band width requirements. That was a long time ago though and I may have misunderstood.

0reo said:
Is B13 the one Verizon uses in the U.S.? I was just looking at the one on amazon listed as "international LTE". I didn't realize there were multiple versions of that. I also got the impression from reading around here that Verizon's LTE was more or less the same as everyone else's because CDMA just isn't capable of the modern band width requirements. That was a long time ago though and I may have misunderstood.
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Yes, B13 is Verizon's main LTE band in the US.

You say main as if there are others. Does Verizon use other bands too? At all?

In certain areas Verizon also supplements coverage with bands 2 and/or 4. Eventually they are also expected to deploy on band 5.

Thank-you for repeatedly taking the time to answer my questions. I appreciate it.
I live around the Baltimore area so I imagine they might have need to supplement with the additional bands around here. The international Tab S2 being sold on Amazon does support bands 2, 4, and 5. No 13 though. So assuming Verizon has deployed band(s) 2, 4, or 5 in the area the question remains: Would the international Tab S2 receive LTE service? Someone must have tried it by now.
Have any other "international" samsung devices been able to receive Verizon service in the US?

0reo said:
Thank-you for repeatedly taking the time to answer my questions. I appreciate it.
I live around the Baltimore area so I imagine they might have need to supplement with the additional bands around here. The international Tab S2 being sold on Amazon does support bands 2, 4, and 5. No 13 though. So assuming Verizon has deployed band(s) 2, 4, or 5 in the area the question remains: Would the international Tab S2 receive LTE service? Someone must have tried it by now.
Have any other "international" samsung devices been able to receive Verizon service in the US?
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What you are trying to do is just a bad idea unfortunately. Even if you could activate it (which I doubt you could in the first place), the supplemental bands are high frequency bands and you may well run into situations where you won't have any coverage at all because you couldn't pick up band 13 (which is a low frequency band that penetrates into buildings much better than bands 2 or 4).
Why not just buy the Verizon model?

That is very helpful and insightful info. Thank-you.
For my purposes the tablet will be used mostly for entertainment purposes. I have a galaxy S4 (mdk bootloader) phone for serious communication needs. I was just thinking that there may be a performance advantage if I could swap the sim card from my S4 into the tablet and get internet (where available on bands 2, 4, 5) directly from LTE rather then from the wifi hotspot on the S4. I figured it may not work all the time but if it did some of the time it would justify buying the device with capability, all else being equal.
I would absolutely buy the verizon model if it wasn't boot-loader locked. It sounds like noone has been able to hack a ssmsung/verizon device for the last few generations so I'm not holding my breath.
(The info you've been giving will also be handy when it comes time to replace my & wife's S4 phones which will probably be in the next year.)

Oh, ok, I see, your issue is with the bootloader. Yeah, that's a problem.
I am also using an S4 on a CDMA carrier (Sprint). Planning on getting a Nexus 5X soon. It's nice in that unlike Samsung and their plethora of variants of the same device for each country, there is just one Nexus model for all carriers in the US, and it's also unlocked right out of the box.

No more 4G on T-mobile network on unlocked HTC One M7 (originally an AT&T phone)

Living in NYC area. Using an (AT&T) HTC One M7 unlocked on T-Mobile network. After almost 2 years of 4G capability wherever there is generally T-Mobile service capability (i.e. NYC area and some other metro areas, etc.), as of Sun/Mon July 9th/10th, I stopped getting 4G anywhere and everywhere. Since July 9th/10th, I've been in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn and maybe Nassau County. I've also been in the Fort Lee, NJ, Newark, NJ and Jersey Shore (i.e. Bradley Beach, Red Bank, etc.) areas as well as in between those areas as I've driven to all the areas listed above. I will add that call audio quality has been very poor with plenty of dropped calls, also since approximately July 10th.
T-Mobile has given me a back and forth and contradicted itself multiple times, but I gather the gist is that there are network updates that supposedly make this phone not be able to get 4G on T-Mobile anymore, at least for the time being if not forever. Any workarounds possible? For reference, I do not believe that the phone is rooted.

Same phone, similar issues....
I can't say for sure where you are, but for past 3-4 months in the San Antonio area, T-mob has been making a lot of changes to modify their towers to accommodate their new LTE Band 12 (900 MHz?). Unfortunately, our ATT m7s won't pick up this frequency, or the AWS 1700 freq. either. As I understand it, these 2 frequencies will be vital to T-mob's future network expansions.
Back in May, I finally took the plunge, and rooted my m7. Doing so allowed me to install the latest compatible T-mob radio, along with getting my Hotspot out of ATT jail. The AWS 1700 band IS available in our phones, but its deactivated in the ATT version. There was no LTE Band 12 when our phones were made, so that option is out. The One m9 is the first HTC One that is Band 12 capable.
Basically, if you're planning to stay with T-mob, your best option is the m9, or some "lesser" phone (LOL), which supports ALL of T-mob's frequencies.
Sent from my HTC One using XDA Labs