Develop Bugs

[Q] Another 4G question.

How would I know if I broke my 4G if its not in my area? I took a long road trip last month with 4G turned on and I don't think I ever saw it on. I was on the interstate the areas that should have had it. I'm planning on going to atlanta for thanksgiving and would like to fix it before then as my aunt is an iphone user. I think I can figure out how to fix it but I'd rather make sure its broken first.

Interstate? If you had given us more details on like a state location name, like CA or NV or NY, I can tell you that in 2011, Sprint will have 4g signal towers working in the western states of USA, and the eastern states like NY, Viriginia, and some others in the eastern part of USA have their signal on 4g towers already and have reported good 4g signals with their htc phones.

Acutally, yamaford, buddy...we got a long way to wait for 4g anyhow, look at this sprint coverage map on 3g, then look into the tabs on the right section of the map page, click on 4g connection with sprint devices, and u can see like Topeka has a big area around its capital for 4g service...and some others, but that's all I can think of about 4g atm, it will slowly continue to put up 4g signal towers until and after 2011.
http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp?ECID=vanity:coverage
The people with the 4g services have HTC Evo 4g, so your not gonna break your 4g at all, just make sure u keep it switched on or off to test around new areas. GL

I think my Question was taken the wrong way. I know the areas I drove through have 4G ( I85 Charlotte and Greensboro N.C.) but does it reach the HWY or what. I really don't understand where its transmitted from. same towers as 3G? The reason I ask about breaking it is that I have been a flashoholic from day one. I've had them all. Im on VirusROM now and I did find out that my keys are still there. Haven't checked the M.A.C. address yet.

4G Coverage Towers
Here is a link to check where the 4G towers actually are and what areas they specifically cover. Sprint does not own their own 4G towers. They teamed up with Clearwire to roll 4G out.

4G Development / Roaming...

I live in Augusta, GA which Sprint currently does not have any 4G towers in the
area. The two closest are in Milledgeville, GA (over an hour away) and Atlanta, GA
(over two hours away).
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=696073
*techknowfile's* - Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage!
To my understanding the above mentioned thread forces the Evo to roam onto a
Verizon 3G tower...what i'm wondering is there possibility in development of them
doing this for roaming to a Verizon 4G tower. Is this something that is being pursued?
Highly impossible?
I love my Evo and consider to be a real POWER USER when it comes to all the
features but not having 4G sucks, especially when it's in a town half the size of
mine in the same state.
I've tried searching for threads about this topic and haven't really turned up.

Verizon is using LTE not wimax so no, it is not possible two different technologies.

cruise350 said:
Verizon is using LTE not wimax so no, it is not possible two different technologies.
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So in other words someone would have to make a ROM/kernel that supported LTE
and not WiMax in order for me to do this...i.e. NOT PROBABLE.

Not to sure on this but I think it would be a Hardware difference not just software.

unless another carrier starts using the same type of wimax as sprint (that would not be a good decision) or sprint changes to lte or another technology (pleeeease?) it wont happen. hardware.

why is clear/sprint expanding wimax/4g coverage?

So, recently I saw a post that clear/sprint wimax/4g coverage suddenly appeared in toledo ohio. a couple days later I saw the coverage (although still minimal) had almost doubled. I lived in seattle and now chicago, and not too far from downtown in either place, yet I happened to have an apartment within 4g coverage that was "best outside" meaning that short of setting my phone on a window sill with the window open, I couldn't get a signal. I suppose that's beside the point, but what I'm wondering is... What is sprint thinking? I know sprint owns a significant portion of clear, but do they actually intend to switch to lte eventually? Are they currently deploying their new unified towers and don't mind adding wimax with them? Are they throwing money at clear, who I thought was nearly bankrupt? Can these wimax towers quickly and easily be converted to lte, or have lte added? What does clearwire do besides sell modems and annoy me at the mall? How long does it take and how much money does it cost to put a wimax tower somewhere? Will holes in chicago and seattle ever get patched or is indoor signal lower priority than new markets? Why does there not seem to be any information or leaked roadmap about their plans?
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Well For 1
I would be pissed if they discontinued clear/wimax expansion, it's the reason I bought my evo, with that being said I've seen articles that state they will be working out a way to carry lte and wimax, via tower conversions, which some people say isn't possible, others say anything is possible. There are many opinons, but just like any new technolog, money must be invested, and pushed forward. Plus maybe clear/sprint plan on selling the wimax off at a later date, or subcontracting the towers or something like that. If they fail to continue pushing wimax or fail to develop it then that outcome would be much harsher then pushing a technology that may be adpapted or replaced all together. But to push 4g so hard then discontinue wimax development would be suicidal for both companies

Yeah, I can see how they would need to stick with it now, it just seems to be very secretive. I know you want an upper hand on the competition, but if I were a stockholder id want to know the plan. If sprint wants to go hard with 4g, why not just throw several million at clear, give people some jobs, and put a ton more towers up. I guess I don't understand why, if theyre pushing wimax, they don't have a lot more towers popping up a lot more quickly then they are. Even with a recent appearance of a lot of new markets, you'd think they could tell us the next dozen cities, or light it up more quickly.
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wrb123 said:
Yeah, I can see how they would need to stick with it now, it just seems to be very secretive. I know you want an upper hand on the competition, but if I were a stockholder id want to know the plan. If sprint wants to go hard with 4g, why not just throw several million at clear, give people some jobs, and put a ton more towers up. I guess I don't understand why, if theyre pushing wimax, they don't have a lot more towers popping up a lot more quickly then they are. Even with a recent appearance of a lot of new markets, you'd think they could tell us the next dozen cities, or light it up more quickly.
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My guess is that this is the reason why all plans are getting the extra $10 charge for data. The added income will allow Sprint to throw more money at Clear and get more 4g towers up more quickly. More money means more workers which means more towers more quickly. Plus that'll give more money to the research and development team to get us quicker 4g.
It all makes sense to me. I think stockholders need to decipher current events and figure it out instead of making the company hold their hands through everything.
If they go LTE I'm going back to T-Mobile. I do not want LTE ever.

What's wrong with lte? I know lte in itself isn't dependent upon a certain spectrum, but i also heard sprint could possibly decommission its iden/nextel frequency and use that for something, and if lte and wimax are approximately the same speed, and there is adequate coverage, who cares what technology is behind it? using the lower frequency for lte and phasing out wimax (or having them coexist) would be fine with me if it meant a lower frequency for better indoor reception. I think google and intel should throw some of their extra money at clear... or are they regretting having invested?
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If you haven't read before, ltd gives carriers the ability to control data 100%. If they want they can make you pay to gain access to things like YouTube.
Sent from my evo 4g

Is there a page somewhere that states what areas are on the waitlist for 4g?

Sprint is planning on using new white space to penetrate into buildings. But I'm sure we will see the wimax / lte combo soon. Especially since Verizon wants to stop sprint from roaming on their census towers.
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There is a new technology that condensed 2G, 3G, and LTE into one base station and antenna ......and it's the size of a rubrics cube. Perhaps they would use those to add LTE.
more Info on phonescoop
Sent from my Evo using XDA App

WiMax can be fairly easily switched to LTE, with a "software update and push of a button" from what I've heard. So putting out new WiMax means they're putting out the infrastructure for LTE later.

wrb123 said:
What's wrong with lte? I know lte in itself isn't dependent upon a certain spectrum, but i also heard sprint could possibly decommission its iden/nextel frequency and use that for something, and if lte and wimax are approximately the same speed, and there is adequate coverage, who cares what technology is behind it? using the lower frequency for lte and phasing out wimax (or having them coexist) would be fine with me if it meant a lower frequency for better indoor reception. I think google and intel should throw some of their extra money at clear... or are they regretting having invested?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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Outside of carrier controlled data (one of my greatest fears, as I use my wireless tether rather sporadically and for various reasons) I would have to go with that my Sprint phone doesn't have a LTE chip in it. If sprint switched to LTE exclusively then our Evos would drop back to 3g and we'd still have to pay for 4g. Or, if they switched to LTE/wimax combo, it would give them almost no incentive to upgrade wimax anymore and our speeds would be stuck where they are now.
Also, I've always been a huge fan of company competition. Sprint/Clear vs Verizon/LTE vs Tmobile, ATT/HSPA+ (if it did stay that way) would mean a plethora of options for us, the consumer. This would keep things like data rates low. What would stop all 4 carriers from charging $50 for data if they all ran off the same network?

I'm also curious if they're working at all on expanding coverage in markets that have some here and there but not all over. For instance Austin has it in a lot of the metro area but it is nowhere near as covered in residential areas.

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2011/02/10...s-to-give-up-retail-without-giving-up-retail/
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From what a sprint rep told me was that they plan on having 4g to all their markets sometime early 2011. At first I thought she meant major markets but Ive noticed up here in Indiana even some of the smaller cities like Kokomo etc have weak 4g in some spots.

neopolotin75 said:
up here in Indiana even some of the smaller cities like Kokomo etc have weak 4g in some spots.
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Kokomo, Indiana has 4g? fml

a lot of subscribers would be very upset if they dropped wimax.
the lawsuits would be destructive to sprint.
my bbb complaints would get me free service for life.

tgrgrd00 said:
Kokomo, Indiana has 4g? fml
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Yea believe it or not......you can get a test signal....its not full blown but its there....

I'm in a best indoor/outdoor coverage area near Tampa, FL and can't even get 4G outside in the wide open.
Was quiet the letdown getting my Evo and smashing the 4G button excited that Sprint finally had 4G in my area and getting 'Poor' signal and then disconnecting shortly after.
Verizon shows solid LTE around here, that's next on my list to try. Even if I have to pay out the ass for it.

cutthroatamft said:
There is a new technology that condensed 2G, 3G, and LTE into one base station and antenna ......and it's the size of a rubrics cube. Perhaps they would use those to add LTE.
more Info on phonescoop
Sent from my Evo using XDA App
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i heard about those, and they seem cool, but i only want wimax. i just want to get it where i live (LA county) so i can use it on my evo. i don't care what they do anywhere else. also how much does it cost to upgrade a tower to 4g? if the richer ppl (myself somewhat included) using sprint donate some $$$ can we get 4g faster? then they get more people joining sprint because they got more 4g, and we got some of our $$$ back? i just wanna get 4g out here ASAP. rumors going around that it's coming out here in march, anyone know where i can check? about to call sprint later and ask.

I tried a T-Mobile hspa+ phone inside my apartment where 4g is mysteriously absent (bad frequency and bad building penetration) and on T-Mobile 3g it got 3000kbps+ consistently! really considering going to tmobile before the end of the day and getting a free g2, just paying the sprint etf and selling the evo.
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Sprint, ATT and Verizon

Now that I've had the GN for a couple weeks and am back on Verizon I have some observations about cell coverage. I've had cell phones since 1995 and for most of that time (1995-2008) I was on Verizon. I traveled a good bit so having a carrier with good nation wide coverage was important.
But that was before I had a smart phone and in 2008 I got my first smart phone, the iPhone 3G. Switching to the iPhone meant dropping Verizon and going with ATT -- something I wasn't happy about due to past issues I had with ATT. When I first got the iPhone 3G service was still kind of new and the talk was that you had to turn 3G off to get good battery life out of the iPhone. Within a few months the 3G coverage by ATT was pretty good and I didn't worry about battery life all that much
Move into 2010 and I switched the iPhone for an HTC Evo 4G and, of course, that meant dropping ATT in favor of Sprint. The 4G (WiMax) coverage that Sprint provided was almost nonexistent in Jun 2008 but Sprint was promising a rapid roll out of WiMax so I waited. Turns out that in the 15 months I had the Evo Sprint (Clear) did a sh*ty job of deploying Wimax and as my job puts me on the road 85% of the time I was able to judge there coverage in many parts of the country.
OK, so on 12/23/2011 I picked up the GN and am now on Verizon again. In that time I've been in Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Albany NY and I've had 4G LTE coverage everywhere I've been. SLC got WiMax at the end of Jun 2010 and the WiMax coverage was spotty more than 15 months later. I wasn't able to find a place in the greater SLC are that I couldn't get LTE...
As I said I travel a lot and am at present working at a FAB in Malta NY, about 25 miles north of Albany in a tiny little berg that could pass for Mayberry. My Evo had terrible coverage here with seldom more than a single bar and often times no coverage at all -- you know, the kind of coverage where you step outside to see if that helps. But, in this tiny little berg my GN is getting 5 bars of LTE with over 17Mbps -- consistent. I'm even getting 5 bars inside the FAB.
So, my take on this is that... Sprint has crumby service or no service whereas ATT and Verizon have good coverage. Verizon started rolling out 4G about 6 months after Sprint started rolling out 4G but in less time Verizon has long since passed Sprint by.
Now don't get me wrong, there are thing about the the way Verizon and ATT do business that pisses me off and on paper they cost more but they are light years better than Sprint.
In the time since I've had smart phones I've traveled to: California (all over), Virginia (all over), North Carolina, Texas (Dallas/Richardson mostly), Idaho (Boise), New York (all over), Utah (all over), Nevada, and many other places so I think I can say with some experience that my coverage analysis is based on more than one area. I could never get 4G on my Evo at ANY airport at any time -- I've been able to get LTE at EVERY airport so far!
Brian

I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Sprint or ATT starting to roll out LTE, I guess it's the future standard.
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Sprint WiMax runs at 2.5GHz which is really really crappy spectrum. There's plenty of capacity per MHz but it attenuates really quickly and has terrible in-building penetration. Verizon's 700MHz LTE spectrum attenuates much more slowly and penetrates walls much better. To cover the same area, Sprint has to deploy 3x-5x as many cell sites as Verizon.
aindow said:
I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Sprint or ATT starting to roll out LTE, I guess it's the future standard.
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Sprint has announced it will start rolling out LTE in 2012. AT&T is already rolling out LTE.

ianwood said:
Sprint WiMax runs at 2.5GHz which is really really crappy spectrum. There's plenty of capacity per MHz but it attenuates really quickly and has terrible in-building penetration. Verizon's 700MHz LTE spectrum attenuates much more slowly and penetrates walls much better. To cover the same area, Sprint has to deploy 3x-5x as many cell sites as Verizon.
Sprint has announced it will start rolling out LTE in 2012. AT&T is already rolling out LTE.
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Yep, WiMax drops off more significantly inside due to the spectrum. Where I live in SLC the Sprint tower closest to me is just over a mile away and inside my apartment it's maybe one bar and often no bars of WiMax and even outside it seldom rises above one bar. That WiMax may need 2X or more the towers to provide the same coverage is only half the problem -- the other half is that Sprint seems to have less than half as many towers!
I think ATT will be relatively aggressive in rolling out LTE, but Sprint, well, I wouldn't hold my breath!
Brian

Verizon has done a great job of not only getting LTE in many markets, but also completely saturating that market and surrounding areas. I used to work in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis. WiMax was nonexistent at my work. I didn't even bother connecting to wimax most of the time because it would connect to one tower and drop before it picked up the next tower. With Verizon I have yet to leave 4g until I'm surrounded by corn fields. At my old employer the only one with 4g service was Verizon. We had wifi but only a T1 pipe to share with the entire office. Things got a little slow when everyone is streaming Pandora.
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teamgreen02 said:
Verizon has done a great job of not only getting LTE in many markets, but also completely saturating that market and surrounding areas. I used to work in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis. WiMax was nonexistent at my work. I didn't even bother connecting to wimax most of the time because it would connect to one tower and drop before it picked up the next tower. With Verizon I have yet to leave 4g until I'm surrounded by corn fields. At my old employer the only one with 4g service was Verizon. We had wifi but only a T1 pipe to share with the entire office. Things got a little slow when everyone is streaming Pandora.
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I noticed this as well. When Verizon rolled out LTE in Chicago, they rolled it out as far as my school in Kenosha, Wisconsin which is at least 50 miles away from Chicago. A pleasant surprise.

No doubt Sprint has struggled and will continue to struggle. WiMax was the wrong bet. Sprint has racked up debt, recently cut back unlimited data plans for air cards/hotspots, and will do the same for mobile phones. On top of that, their current broadband network stinks and LTE roll-out will be very slow. I wouldn't sign up with Sprint any time soon.

[Q] Difference between WiMax, 4G, and WiFi on Evo?

Simple question..
I'm a bit confused about WiMax and whether or not it is (strictly) a cellular communications technology embedded in the Evo 4G, such as 3G and 4G Mobile Data Speeds, and how this relates to the Evo's normal wifi connection.
Is there any crossover between WiMax and WiFi?
Or is WiMax simply a mobile data technology not related to the onboard wifi network card?
Thanks

I think the wimax is part of the 4g service...
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WiMax is a type of 4G, with LTE being another type (of 4G)
And yes, neither of those have anything to do with the wifi and there is no crossover involved
Sent from my PG06100

CNexus said:
WiMax is a type of 4G, with LTE being another type (of 4G)
And yes, neither of those have anything to do with the wifi and there is no crossover involved
Sent from my PG06100
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^This. Older Sprint phones like the EVO 4G, EVO 3D and Samsung Galaxy S2 E4GT (among others) use Wimax, which was Sprint's original offering for 4G service. Sprint has since gone to LTE (Long Term Evolution) for their 4G service, although Wimax still works in areas where it's already active. Phones on Sprint utilizing LTE include the EVO 4G LTE and Samsung Galaxy S3. Wifi has nothing to do with either Wimax or LTE, as previously stated. A Wimax-enabled phone cannot utilize LTE, and vice-versa, as they are two completely different 4G standards and operate on different frequencies.
The advice is free....the bandwidth, not so much

It really grinds my gears that there aren't new phones available supporting either Wimax or LTE or Wimax AND LTE. I am stuck in Ohio where the Wimax roll out was thorough, and now there is no info on if/when LTE will come here. Eventually people in ohio will all have upgraded to LTE phones due to attrition and we are paying for data plans that we can't take advantage of. I really want a new phone, maybe the new One that is coming out soon, but the drawback is no 4G in Ohio. Sprint really dropped the ball on this one. I'd take a phone that was a little thicker so they could fit both chipsets in there no questions asked.

thebbbrain said:
It really grinds my gears that there aren't new phones available supporting either Wimax or LTE or Wimax AND LTE. I am stuck in Ohio where the Wimax roll out was thorough, and now there is no info on if/when LTE will come here. Eventually people in ohio will all have upgraded to LTE phones due to attrition and we are paying for data plans that we can't take advantage of. I really want a new phone, maybe the new One that is coming out soon, but the drawback is no 4G in Ohio. Sprint really dropped the ball on this one. I'd take a phone that was a little thicker so they could fit both chipsets in there no questions asked.
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Thats very true. I think it proabably has to do with the extra work of getting the two to play nice while both being available in one phone, and the extra drivers and hardware required to have both
Definitely what you said though, I'd have no problem with a bit thicker phone that features both but since other competitors are moving towards slimmer and sleeker phones, while at the same time having monstrously powerful processors, it probably wouldnt be a smart move on Sprint part

I was trolling the new HTC One forum yesterday, and did notice that the One might be coming with an LTE radio supporting 800mhz and 1900mhz. This is promising as I believe the 800mhz is what sprint rus the Direct Connect system on. That system is avail in my area so maybe they will use it for LTE? #wantLTE
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2158662

thebbbrain said:
I was trolling the new HTC One forum yesterday, and did notice that the One might be coming with an LTE radio supporting 800mhz and 1900mhz. This is promising as I believe the 800mhz is what sprint rus the Direct Connect system on. That system is avail in my area so maybe they will use it for LTE? #wantLTE
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2158662
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I remember hearing or reading something sometime back from sprint that eventually they were going to convert the old Nextel iden network over to 4g lte because of the bandwidth it runs on. I also remember that person telling me that this new lte on this frequency would penatrate 2-3x better meaning better 4g lte signals indoors. It may have been a sprint tech who told me on one of the many phone calls I have made to them over the years.
Sent from my ever-changing OG Evo...

Everything you say is true, just replace the word "bandwidth" with "spectrum". iDen was using lower frequencies which penetrate better. You get slightly lower theoretical max speeds, but the connection is more reliable, and people generally agree that's what's important.
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