800 mhz compatibility?

[crxssi]

I am glad I found this thread, because I was wondering the same things. I don't really understand why a modern phone has to be locked at ANY particular frequencies. I was under the assumption that the LTE radios in the Evo LTE are on the CPU chipset, anyway. And in that case, wouldn't it just be firmware programmable? I can't believe Qualcomm would make different chips for every carrier. It just doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps it is just FCC APPROVED for LTE on 1900 Mhz and that is what the firmware allows, FOR NOW, but that could be changed later? So many questions, so few answers.

 

[crzycrkr]

I am glad I found this thread, because I was wondering the same things. I don't really understand why a modern phone has to be locked at ANY particular frequencies. I was under the assumption that the LTE radios in the Evo LTE are on the CPU chipset, anyway. And in that case, wouldn't it just be firmware programmable? I can't believe Qualcomm would make different chips for every carrier. It just doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps it is just FCC APPROVED for LTE on 1900 Mhz and that is what the firmware allows, FOR NOW, but that could be changed later? So many questions, so few answers.

Maybe some research into radio tech is in the cards for all of us. I think it may have something to do with the antennas

 

[crxssi]

I'm just grousing about the fact the even before wimax roll out was halted my city never appeared on any roll out plans. I can almost assure you that the 42nd most populous US city (out of 275 cities in the US with pop.>100,000) will not see 1900 LTE before this phone is EOL. I would love to be wrong.

Join the crowd. I live in a metropolitan area in VA that is ranked 36th in the country (1.7 million people). And we never had Wimax rollout plans for here, either.

But I did hear some pretty good rumors that my area is in the 2nd rollout for LTE, thank God (which might mean COMPLETED in 2012). I am really fed up with Sprint's 3G here. It has gotten to be almost unusably slow over the last few years. I spent most of my time on WiFi, but, as a perfect example, a few days ago I needed to look up something on Wikipedia on 3G. It took almost TWO MINUTES to load the MOBILE version of the page. I performed a speed test afterward and got 38kps down at 18kps up. That is considerably slower than a DIALUP MODEM from 10 years ago.

The person sitting next to me turned on his Android and popped around 700kbps on AT&T 3G.

 

[crxssi]

Maybe some research into radio tech is in the cards for all of us. I think it may have something to do with the antennas

Agreed. But the irony here is that the Evo LTE has a *removable plastic section* on the back. And guess where the antennas are? (Yep, on that back... so they could be swapped out easily)

 

[xusxmarinesx]

I would take 1900 MHz it will have decent building penetration and able to send data faster than the 800mhz but I don't understand why have lte on 2 spectrums and why not make a high end device able to read it but the 3g radio can read both 1900 and 800 mhz

 

[crzycrkr]

Agreed. But the irony here is that the Evo LTE has a *removable plastic section* on the back. And guess where the antennas are? (Yep, on that back... so they could be swapped out easily)

Good point, although I don't think they would handle it like that before hell freezes over.

 

[Beach_Head]

I've asked a similar question in another thread and didn't get anywhere either. Maybe I'll get an answer here...

The chipset that the E4GLTE uses, the MSM8960, supports all existing GSM, WCDMA, CDMA, and LTE frequencies. This is also the same chipset that One X and One XL use.

The anntena has merely been locked down to certain frequencies. So now the question is, would it be possible to remove the lock to allow use for virtually any country? I'd love for it to be a universal phone.

I know that this has been done on a few phones and I wouldn't mind donating some cash to any developer that could get this done...

 

[crzycrkr]

I wonder if the SIM-less design has something to do with it too?

 

[Beach_Head]

Huh?! It's SIM-less? It isn't an LTE phone if it's SIM-less...

Isn't the SIM slot and SD slot located in the upper back?

I wonder if the SIM-less design has something to do with it too?

 

[crzycrkr]

Huh?! It's SIM-less? It isn't an LTE phone if it's SIM-less...

Isn't the SIM slot and SD slot located in the upper back?

Nope, no SIM slot. It's integrated

 

[crxssi]

Nope, no SIM slot. It's integrated

Which of course brings up another question about Sprint's LTE- will it have the ability to support phones that have an ACTUAL [removable] SIM card? Or will all phones have to be made especially for Sprint? (Seems pretty stupid, since all the other carriers will use actual SIM cards on their LTE, even Verizon). So many questions.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all phones worked on all networks? No frequency limitations. No different protocols. No locks. No proprietary designs. OK, I will come back to reality now...

 

[Beach_Head]

Damn!

Nope, no SIM slot. It's integrated

 

[Beach_Head]

It should. There's no way that an LTE phone wouldn't. This is because of the way LTE was based on, which is GSM.

Agreed. But then without any locks, carriers wouldn't be able to gain any subscriber base and would lose money. Carriers are just protecting themselves...

Again, I would like to bring up frequency unlocking. Since HTC doesn't lock their bootloaders, etc. wouldn't it be possible to just flash a radio file that would unlock the rest of the frequencies?

Which of course brings up another question about Sprint's LTE- will it have the ability to support phones that have an ACTUAL [removable] SIM card? Or will all phones have to be made especially for Sprint? (Seems pretty stupid, since all the other carriers will use actual SIM cards on their LTE, even Verizon). So many questions.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all phones worked on all networks? No frequency limitations. No different protocols. No locks. No proprietary designs. OK, I will come back to reality now...

 

[Crispy]

No one knows at this point. We would all love for the phone to be unlockable/programmable to use any frequency, but we don't know if that will ever be possible, and you can be sure Sprint does not want that. All carriers want to sell you more hardware.

There is no guarantee that custom radios would ever be as stable as officially supported ones. It would be much better if the phone came with official support for 800mhz.

 

[Starfleet Captain]

Let me just chime in and say that if it were up to me, a person would be able to purchase any phone they liked, pop in a sim card and use it on whatever network they chose. Carriers would still be able to offer discounted phones for multiple year contracts, but I believe that the consumer should have the freedom to chose whatever device they want for whatever carrier they want. Call me crazy.

 

[Robbzilla]

So since we are only upgradeable every 2 years this phone will be dead on the network in a year

Why would it be dead? Sprint isn't going to remove the 1900 band. Quit with the drama queen theatrics.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mikey47]

Call me crazy.

You're crazy! But, then again, I agree 100%, so I'm crazy too.

 

[xusxmarinesx]

They planned ahead for the evo 3d to run on 800 MHz for cdma they couldn't plan ahead for an lte phone to run on 800 MHz lte

 

[xusxmarinesx]

Why would it be dead? Sprint isn't going to remove the 1900 band. Quit with the drama queen theatrics.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

Drama queen and wanting the phone to work on a network are two different things. Yes it will work on the 1900mhz but when the 1900mhz lte tower isn't in range then I would be able to switch to the longer range 800 MHz lte. More options are better. If you want to read real drama queen theatrics go to the thread where they're all complaining about the back cover of the phone.

 

[gabbott]

Drama queen and wanting the phone to work on a network are two different things. Yes it will work on the 1900mhz but when the 1900mhz lte tower isn't in range then I would be able to switch to the longer range 800 MHz lte. More options are better. If you want to read real drama queen theatrics go to the thread where they're all complaining about the back cover of the phone.

Question is, how soon or far off is 800 MHz LTE implementation if they are doing that. Is this a valid concern if it's a couple years off before they even start. What are the other Sprint LTE phones coming out spec'd for? The GN and the LG?