M8 and Sprint Airwave

[mfreeland]

I just upgraded to an M8 from an HTC EVO 4G LTE and in the past, have been using an Airwave 2.5 to improve my signal strength at home. It worked well and the EVO would automatically connect. Since getting the M8, it doesn't connect to the Airwave. Doing a little research I found out that the new phone will automatically search and connect to LTE and Spark signals if present at all, and ignore CDMA, which is what the Airwave is. If I switch to CDMA, it connects instantly. On the Evo, I had the setting set to auto or LTE/CDMA and it would connect. On the M8, I would prefer to keep it on auto or LTE/CDMA so that when I leave the house I won't forget to switch it back and have LTE which is getting pretty good in this state (WI). Anyone know of a fix or work around so that it will automatically connect to CDMA Airwave when in LTE/CDMA, with a little LTE signal present?

 

[CountryDevil]

I have an Airave as well. After talking to my buddy that works at the Sprint Corp headquarters he got me some accurate answers to what it going on. There is not a problem with the M8 or the Airave. Thy are both working as designed. The Airave, as you already noted, only supports CDMA. I too had the EVO LTE and noticed exactly what you are experiencing after I got M8. That it was hot or miss when connecting to the Airave on LTE/CDMA. When it did thr signal would drop off completely looking for a signal or would not connect unless I manually set the phone to CDMA only.

What I found out from my friend at Sprint the M8 is using a " signal priority" type of programming and will poll for LTE signals on a regular basis. When this happens it appears to drop any CDMA signal to do the polling. This happens pretty quick when rtherr is NOT an Airave I the mix and connecting to Sprint towers. When the Airave is in he mix it is the same sort of situation where there is no LTE service in certain areas where they have not been upgraded. Signals will drop, calls drop and all sorts of issue where it appears to have bad coverage. However switching to CDMA temporarily resolves the problems.

I'm in the same situation as you. I have to switch to CDMA only at home just so I can connect to the Airave. I had the same problem with my EVO until a software update came out that appreantly helped. Not sure if one of those "phone stability" updates addressed that issue or not, but it did get better. For now, I am having to manually switch.

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