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Sprint Vogue PRL Question
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My wife and I live out in the rural country but we have had a pair of old Sanyo MM-8300 phones for ever and they do nothing except make calls. We have them set to "roaming mode only" because we are out of the Sprint network at our home. But to the credit of these old phones, they get better phone reception than any CDMA or GSM phone on the market old or new (I have tested plenty of phones with alltel, sprint, verizon, and at&t). Anyway, the PRL (preferred roaming list) is periodically updated by Sprint. We've been told that the PRL tells the phone which cell towers to use (according to agreements with other carriers, traffic on the tower, and other conditions).
Well, we just recently bought two new phones, Sprint Vogues for 19.95 each (yes older than the some of the newer stuff out there, but the price was hard to say no to). However, when I am sitting in my basement office, the new HTC Vogues get 0 to 1 bars in signal strength, while the Sanyos boast 4 to 5 bars almost always. Using the *2 feature, i noticed the provider service that the Sanyos are locking onto is the US Cellular tower about 3 miles south of me (the PRL in the Sanyos has not been updated for about 2 years). The new Vogues (and other newer phones I have tried in my home) are locking onto an Alltel tower about 8 miles northwest of me.
My question is this: Is there any way for me to customize my own PRL for the Vogues so that I can get them to pick up on the closer US Cellular tower? I tried the possibility of taking the Vogue to a Sprint store and having them back date the PRL to the oldest one they had on file but that did not help so I had them put a later one back into the phone.
Thanks for any help anyone can offer to point me in the right direction.
Update: I was about ready to take the phone back, but I received some expert help from the folks over at PPCHaven.com and loaded the same PRL that I had on my Sanyo phone into the Vogue phone and Wow! Now the Vogue is getting 3-4 bars consistently and sometimes 5 bars in the basement of my rural home. Didn't know this was possible, but I am one happy Vogue owner.
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
You should try to do the little hack to get on verizon towers without being classified as roaming. Check it out, if its sprint then you will see once you try it.
wildcard said:
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
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Click to collapse
Different radios might work. For the last 4 years I've been an AT&T customer. I understand that CDMA apparently isn't as good at signal building penetration compared to GSM, so that might be a limitation.
However, both Verizon and Sprint utilize CDMA, so I find it odd that someone with Verizon could have a better signal than Sprint, since I'm also told that (assuming your phone has the "roaming towers" option or whatever it's called enabled, and it is by default, at least on my phone) they use the same towers, so why on earth would there be a disparity?
I'm guessing it's the EVO, or something to do with its casing, because some places I get excellent reception indoors, and others, like Sam's Club, is a complete dead zone except for the front third of the store closest to the exit.
That being said, my wifi reception (or at least indicator) totally blows. I hope a firmware update address that and the 30 fps cap, as well as reception (if it's the phone).
Try the *techknowfile's* - Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage!
It worked for me. From having no bars went to full at home because of Sprint coverage. And the EVO does not have the option of roaming, just the automatic roaming and never worked for me.
About Verizon and Sprint they are both CDMA but they have their own towers. Is not the phone. And at Walmart almost every phone loose signal. I have friends w all carriers and they all get poor signal.
gatorran said:
Try the *techknowfile's* - Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage!
It worked for me. From having no bars went to full at home because of Sprint coverage.
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can you please explain what exactly you did? I'm having similar no signal problem and my MotoQ worked perfectly fine.
kvictar said:
can you please explain what exactly you did? I'm having similar no signal problem and my MotoQ worked perfectly fine.
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Click to collapse
Obtain your MSL (aka Master Subsidy Lock / Password. SIX DIGIT NUMBER)
Dial ##775#, a password prompt should appear. Enter your MSL into this box->hit OK->tap on the "Update PRL" button. Make sure "All Folders" and "Type: prl files" are selected. You should see the downloaded PRL (00001.prl) on the list; Select the PRL->Press Menu->Commit.
Search the forum for Hack the HTC EVO - 3G w/o Sprint EVDO coverage! under "EVO 4G Android Development"
the tutorial is on the first post by Techknowfile.
try a different radio, or maybe its just the area u are in? on ATT, my friend has an iphone, and i had the fuze, and he always got signals where i didnt, so it could be the phone...
You can't go by bars on CDMA... You can have ZERO bars and still be able to make crystal clear calls and send and receive data on CDMA whereas on GSM you hit 3 bars and your calls start cutting out.
Anyway, I've noticed that the EVO is really crappy with data speeds - but voice quality it is bar none the highest quality cell phone I have ever used.
Well, if the Evo simply has poor reception the Verizon hack shouldn't make a difference.
I like you have poor service in my home, always have. I got an Airave to solve that problem, it works well so long as I also am connected to Wifi otherwise it tends to hop between 1 bar of 3G and full bars of 1xRTT.
I tried the Verizon PRL hack. The signal was a little stronger, inline with what my roommates on Verizon got, but it wouldn't connect to the Airave at all. Did seem to have a hard time maintaining a 3G connection. I wasn't losing the signal, it just seemed to drop the data connection, but I still had a voice connection. Because of that and the airave issue I switched back.
The funny thing is, the EVO has better signal reception than my TP2... it just has crappy data speeds.
really? i get amazing data speeds on 3g, also i found out today that wifi speeds and signals are being fixed via software update from HTC, just got an e-mail from there. something like 700 down and 700 or so up.
eck0728 said:
really? i get amazing data speeds on 3g, also i found out today that wifi speeds and signals are being fixed via software update from HTC, just got an e-mail from there. something like 700 down and 700 or so up.
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This is what I get on speed.
wildcard said:
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it helps, everybody in NYC knows that Verizon is the best in signal. You can get signal with them where ATT and Sprint can't. ATT has the worst signal in the city of the 3 of them. So it might be the carrier. I don't know if this is true somewhere else.
gatorran said:
This is what I get on speed.
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Absolutely horrible. I don't know how you live with that
Albaholic said:
Absolutely horrible. I don't know how you live with that
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It's Horrible!!!! hehe I've been having nightmares because of that. It was really slow on the sprint network, and the airave was getting my phone crazy changing between connections.
wildcard said:
I switched over from Verizon and I have had my EVO since the 4th of June. I like the phone, however I get very poor reception. At my house inside, I get 1 bar, sometimes it will be no bars or 2 bars. I used to get excellent reception in my house with Verizon (usually full bars). My wife is on T-Mobile and even she gets 3-4 bars (out of 5 bars) and never has dropped calls. I always get dropped calls.
I used to be able to ride in the elevator in my office and talk on the phone. Quality would drop and i would lose bars (down to 1 or 2) but I would almost never actually drop a call (this is on Verizon). Today, in two elevator rides on the phone, they both dropped.
Now my question is.... is this Sprint or is it the phone?
If it's the phone are there certain ROMs I should try that improve the reception?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a simular issue, so I called sprint today and the tech found that the tower nearest me (about 1 mile away) was "out" so that was my problem so he generated a ticket to fix the tower. The funny thing is that he indicated that in general thier system can not tell them when a tower is out, customers generally call and indicate a service issue then they can remotely check the towers in question for issues . Man that is not the best way to check towers . Oh well the tower I need should be fixed in about 24 hours based on the tech I talked to.......he also said good thing I called Man they have a nutty system
Verizon's method of checking towers isn't much better if all they have is one guy walking around asking "can you hear me now?"
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Sent via this here phone thingy on the interweb.
i've found it to be the opposite in my city. verizon is terrible and sprint is awesome. maybe in your area, sprint just isn't as good as verizon? don't think it's the evo.
This is easy to check.
Go to a different area and see if the signal gets better.
My own evo is better than my old TP2, much better reception (I don't roam at work, on the basement floor, whereas TP2 used to constantly) and 2-2.2 down / 0.6 up Mbps.
acrh2 said:
This is easy to check.
Go to a different area and see if the signal gets better.
My own evo is better than my old TP2, much better reception (I don't roam at work, on the basement floor, whereas TP2 used to constantly) and 2-2.2 down / 0.6 up Mbps.
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Click to collapse
I just switched from a TP2 to the Evo and I found things to be quite the opposite. Constantly 1 - 2 bars less of service with the evo dropping to 'no service' where the TP2 at least had 1 or 2 bars. After many years with HTC products, Fuze, Tilt2 on ATT and the TP2 and EVO with Sprint I have found that its really hit or miss with their products. Some phones of even the same make and model are just better then others. The first Fuze I got had horrible horrible service. Went to the ATT store and they agreed, warranty replacement phone worked beautiful. Now with that said the EVO does seem to have consistently faster data speeds then the TP2 did. Between 600 - 900 with the TP2 and up wards of 1480 on a test I did yesterday with the evo. Still no where near the 2000 - 2500 the ATT network provided but they ticked me off with their two week tower outage in this area... what good is speed if the phone doesn't work?
Currently getting a strong 4G signal on the upper east side of Manhattan, zip code 10029, averaging about 3.3 MB down, 1.2 MB up.
I'm new here, just got my Evo a couple weeks back (chose it over upgrading from my iPhone 3G to the iPhone 4, no regrets). I figured it might be helpful to those of us in NY to post locations where you're getting 4G signal in NY, since I know it's spotty at the moment. I've heard people getting signal in Brooklyn & some parts of the Bronx, but I'm just confirming that I'm getting it where I am now.
EDIT: Sorry guys, I see now there is a similar thread to this already up, can't figure out how to delete this thread.
4G in hunts point area of the bronx.
i agree, i had an iphone 3g, have the same services and save about $50 per month on my bill by switching to sprint, i dont regret it either. I get full 4g in hunts point now where i work, also in uptown manhattan by george washington bridge area and the west side of bronx. Only thing i didnt like was the fact i could use voice and data at the same time on at&t, but noton sprints 3g, and its a must for me. but i guess thats not a problem anymore with 4G!, overall better call quality, im still waiting to drop a call which i havent, it was a shame, i use to know all the spots on the f.d.r. drive and the i-87 where my calls would drop! The phone is tremendous, i am impressed. still havent installed one update yet to the evo, and battery life, i am surprised by what i am reading at times, on 3g with gps turned off and wifi off, i get about 6 hrs with usage. the iphone would be dead in 2 to three hours. as with any high powered phone, you need a charger everywhere you frequent, car, office, home, i also bought 2 batteries with a charger from ebay for $15!!, i was skeptical of this cheap crap, but dammit, i must say they work perfect too, so far its lasting as much as the oem and the charger shuts off auto as well. im good, looks like i will be here for awhile.
I am desperately in need for some help with my phone.
The issue i have been having is bad cell reception. I used to have reception nearly everywhere and now, not so much. I know there is a problem because i used to have no bars to maybe max of 2 bars in church. And yes its not much, but at least it was something. A few months ago, idk what happened, but i noticed that i had no bars at all. And then a few other places where i go on regular basis started to show no signal at all.
My phone was rooted for a long time prior to that and i cant think of anything that i could have done to create this problem. So since i noticed it, i have tried numerous things to fix it. I have done full reset of my phone, i did activation reset. Tried different roms, updated URL, profile a few times. Nothing helped. Then i have decided to take it back to Sprint store thinking maybe they can help, but i would have to return it back to stock rom, so i did that, still didn't work. Same crappy cell reception, even tmobile on SGS4 works better side by side.
I even tried fully updating my phone since its what sprint representative will do anyways in their attempt to fix the problem and still no effect.
I am going to take this phone to sprint store in a few days, but i was really hoping someone here could help me out.
Its probably sprint "upgrading" the towers in your area. Especially since you said it began a few months back. Trust me it sucks for a few months but it will get better. You have to ride it out. And T-Mobile runs on a different network GSM so its not a good comparison.
What you could do and get another sprint phone and go to the same places and compare signal strength.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
I don't think so. My dad has lg optimus g from sprint and when icompare them side but side like right now he has 5 to full 6 bars while i got zero.
The downs can't be that big even though he has different phone.
I too have the same problem. My daughter has a S3 with full bars and 4G. I have no bars and 3G. What gives.
So after waiting in the sprint store for two hours the tech guy told me that he does not have equipment to check if its my phone's fault, but when he looked up data usage of my phone at some specific towers near by, he did see that my phone had more drops then the marketed value. Which means that my phone has a on average worse cell reception then it should. But then again, he can not confirm it for sure because they dont have the appropriate equipment. Which is retarded, i went to a corporate store.
The best option he could do is replace the phone for 75$ (since i dont have sprint warranty). So now i am thinking about calling samsung to see if they will replace it fr free. The only downside of that is that i wont have a phone for a week or even more.
So I checked the PRL file on my daughters phone and installed in the same PRL file on my phone. No changes. I grabbed my son's S4 and he too has a crappy signal level. It must be the hardware.
:crying:
Yea this sucks. My friend has S3 t-mobile (i believe), and in his basement he gets 3 bars 4G while i got no service.
Just got my N4 last night, I have been driving the same commute for years now and i know every deadspot along the way.
Last night on my way home I was streaming the Anthonycumia show audio feed via Chrome, and I was holding 3-4 bars of LTE
when I got zero service historically. Unreal! not 1 time did the stream cut out when I was constantly having issues with all my older devices,
Droid x
Galaxy nexus,
Note 3
LG G2
Those older devices would all drop signal to 0 up in the sticks, where the Note 4 holds 2-4 bars consistently.
In the house, I would get 1 (2 if lucky) bars of 3g and could barely every hold a phone conversation.
Now, again 2-3 bars LTE and I can even use download booster.
Impressed to say the least. Anyone else noticing amazing signal?
Samsung finally has a great radio!
I'm with you, signal has been great.
I concur...i work in a lot of dead spot areas where the rich live and since they dont need cell coverage because of wifi they dont allow towers around. Note 3 was dead inside the house im working...now its mostly on 4g most of the time except for a few random outages...big improvement overall, at least if i walk out i get excellent coverage now
Sent from my SM-N910V using XDA Free mobile app
you guys are lucky...
The cell coverage at my house has always been atrocious, but I'm actually consistently getting a decent signal at my house with the Note 4. I'm really happy about it.
mlee0921 said:
you guys are lucky...
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verizon just sucks in general, but there's hope. call and complain about your awful speeds numerous times.
my speeds, when LTE first came out, were like 10-15mbps. then as more people got phones, especially the dumbass iphone, the speeds were horrendous and for 2.5 years, i would get 0.5mbps. yeah, not even 1mbps. 3g was faster.
so once a week, i called to complain to verizon over and over, and basically every time had them put in a service ticket because their tower was obviously unable to handle the amount of phones around here.
months later, all of a sudden my speeds jump...and now i'm getting a constant 25-30mbps every day in the same exact area.
honestly, i'd say complain and have atech goto the tower itself.
jayochs said:
verizon just sucks in general, but there's hope. call and complain about your awful speeds numerous times.
my speeds, when LTE first came out, were like 10-15mbps. then as more people got phones, especially the dumbass iphone, the speeds were horrendous and for 2.5 years, i would get 0.5mbps. yeah, not even 1mbps. 3g was faster.
so once a week, i called to complain to verizon over and over, and basically every time had them put in a service ticket because their tower was obviously unable to handle the amount of phones around here.
months later, all of a sudden my speeds jump...and now i'm getting a constant 25-30mbps every day in the same exact area.
honestly, i'd say complain and have atech goto the tower itself.
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Not to say your complains didn't work, but what probably happened was that they installed and enabled AWS (XLTE in marketing speak) in your area. Something that Verizon was going to do anyways.
oilfighter said:
Not to say your complains didn't work, but what probably happened was that they installed and enabled AWS (XLTE in marketing speak) in your area. Something that Verizon was going to do anyways.
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they claimed there's no XLTE over here. the only place in NJ that has it right now is atlantic city, and that's over an hour south of me.
i honestly think the tower was overloaded and maybe they worked on it. i'm in an area that was hit hard by Sandy 2 years ago, and since then, the LTE has sucked. apparently a lot of VZW fiber lines in the area were damaged bad during the storm, which is why we had little to no data service during the storm down here.
the voice quality during calls, sounds crystal clear. much nicer than the note 2!
I agree totally. Reception on this phone is unmatched by any Verizon phone ive had to date and ive had plenty. Its so good im hoping root comes in a hurry so i can freeze the update packages in titanium backup so the phone will not take an update and ruin the experience like KitKrap done to the note 3.
concur...at my desk right now, on my N3, I would barely get a signal. had to set my phone on the very edge of the desk near the window.
with this beautiful beast, I'm getting 4 of 5 bars.
I wasn't very hopeful after reading comments here but the signal strength for data has been WWWWAAAAYYYY better than my old GS3. I'd drop in and out going in and out of buildings and I go into a lot of concrete construction buildings and skyscrapers for work and usually I'd kick back to 3G. So far it hasn't dropped back and is chuggin' along.
Im coming from Motorolas and they have excellent signal strength. I dont see a difference in signal so it is a great improvement from the previous samsung phones ive had (S3 and Note3).
Both my wifes Note 4 and mine have had calls dropped and signal issues in our house. We just switched to Verizon for the first time. We came from US cellular and Straight talk and never had a single reception issue at our house. We live just north of Milwaukee in a town of 30k people. We called Verizon to complain and they started a ticket to have it checked out. The technician emailed me back a few days later and said everything is fine at the tower and in our area. He said there are several factors that can contribute to poor reception like building material of the house, tree/leaves foliage especially in summer months (ah its November and every leaf is on the ground now) and other RF in the area. Again, I never had a dropped call with any of my phones with US cellular in the 8 years I was with them. Needless to say, we were about to cancel our service with them and they offered to give us a free signal booster for our house. Hopefully this will fix our problems at our house, from what I have read, those signal boosters make a world of difference.
Whats weird is the signal strength is usually about -103dbm which is about the same when I checked with some of my old US cellular phones in our house. Because its happening with both my note 4 and my wifes, I don't think its the phone.
Sounds like the note 4 has good radio in it so hopefully my house is just in the cellular Bermuda triangle for Verizon and the booster will solve our issues at home.
This phone really impress me too with its signal power even in low signal areas it has really good signal.
Have to agree. I work at 2 locations and at the second spot there is horrible reception with my old Note 3 and iPhone 6 (when I had it). But when I came in with my Note 4 I was pleasantly surprised to see that my 4G icon was on with data. And my battery life is better because it's not working overtime for a signal.
No complaints here
Sent from my SM-N910V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
my iPhone 5s (expectedly) got terrible signal at my school, so did my DROID Razr M. Now i'm rocking 2 bars of 4g. No complaints here.
Same here!
Noticed it while driving to work. My hour commute was hell with my note 2 if I didnt have music pre-downloaded to my phone. When I streamed music, I'd lose signal half of the trip (which is normal for any phone before the N4).
Last couple days I've noticed that I can stream music with little to no pause for streaming.
I live in bumfk... phone has a good radio regardless