LineageOS, Current status : 16.0 Test Builds

[Craig 1,435]

28 minutes ago, tdm said:

this is a GSM phone

Just wanna take issue with that.  This phone supports GSM & CDMA.   I'm still hoping to activate 2nd SIM on Sprint MVNO...

Just cuz Verizon hasn't approved Pro¹ (yet?) for use on their CDMA network, doesn't mean the phone doesn't support CDMA.

I do understand that people are using Verizon on stock devices with just LTE (without GSM or CDMA) with a SIM card first activated on another device, but for that workaround to be effective, need voice over lte working. 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Craig

[tdm 2,322]

2 minutes ago, Craig said:

Just wanna take issue with that.  This phone supports GSM & CDMA.   I'm still hoping to activate 2nd SIM on Sprint MVNO...

Just cuz Verizon hasn't approved Pro¹ (yet?) for use on their CDMA network, doesn't mean the phone doesn't support CDMA.

I do understand that people are using Verizon on stock devices with just LTE (without GSM or CDMA) with a SIM card first activated on another device, but for that workaround to be effective, need voice over lte working. 

Sorry, no.  It is not a CDMA device.  GSM and CDMA are fundamentally and technically different protocols.  Just because Verizon (and I assume Sprint) has seen the future and is ditching traditional CDMA for VoLTE and they can support random GSM devices does not magically make them CDMA devices.

 

On the other hand, if you can take your SIM card out of the Pro1 and still make a voice call on Verizon, like you can with any real CDMA device, then I will retract my statement.

 

[Craig 1,435]

12 minutes ago, tdm said:

Sorry, no.  It is not a CDMA device.  GSM and CDMA are fundamentally and technically different protocols.

Have you looked at the specs for this phone?  We have all the CDMA radios and bands.  Verizon not activating us doesn't change the fundamental fact that this phone is indeed a CDMA device, and can operate without LTE or GSM.

From site homepage:

Edited March 17, 2020 by Craig

[tdm 2,322]

4 minutes ago, Craig said:

Have you looked at the specs for this phone?  We have all the CDMA radios and bands.  Verizon not activating us doesn't change the fundamental fact that this phone is indeed a CDMA device, and can operate without LTE or GSM.

From site homepage:

 

That is all data.  And I presume Verizon users can get data.

 

Can you make a CDMA voice call?  Can you show me your CDMA MEID?  Can you operate the device on the network without a SIM card?

 

The answer is no to all three.  Any actual CDMA device would answer yes to all three.

 

[Craig 1,435]

I presume Verizon users can get data.

No, Verizon users cannot get CDMA data, because Verizon won't activate it, but thats nothing to do with the device.  The only way people are using Verizon on Pro¹ now is LTE only after having it activated on another device.  So Verizon doesnt even know the Pro¹ MEID as verizon is tieing cdma service to the meid of the "mule" device.

I assume the answer to all three questions is yes, but if you're right that they didn't include CDMA voice bands, then Fxtec has been lieing to us a very long time, and I find that unlikely.  But now I'm going to look into it further.   Why would they include only cdma data bands but not voice? that makes no sense.

[tdm 2,322]

3 minutes ago, Craig said:

 

 

No, Verizon users cannot get CDMA data, because Verizon won't activate it, but thats nothing to do with the device.  The only way people are using Verizon on Pro¹ now is LTE only after having it activated on another device.  So Verizon doesnt even know the Pro¹ MEID as verizon is tieing cdma service to the meid of the "mule" device.

I assume the answer to all three questions is yes, but if you're right that they didn't include CDMA voice bands, then Fxtec has been lieing to us a very long time, and I find that unlikely.  But now I'm going to look into it further.   Why would they include only cdma data bands but not voice? that makes no sense.

 

I'm not going to say anyone is lying.  Certainly it appears that some CDMA data capabilities exist.  But it is not fundamentally a CDMA device.  I would say that it is a GSM device that is compatible with modern CDMA networks that implement data-only voice services.

 

[Craig 1,435]

Hmmm ok.  Being trying to research this.  Our device reported supports CDMA/EDVO BC0 (850 MHz) and BC1 (1900 MHz).   If I understand correctly, the voice parts of cdmaOne/CDMA2000 are 1xAdvanced and 1xRTT.    I think Pro¹ has this.  It certainly was supposed to.   But since nobody has yet activated it on Sprint or Verizon I guess can't be sure.

IS-95 is 2G cdmaOne.  CDMA2000 split between voice, data/voice and data, and voice is CDMA2000 1xRTT.  Then 3g for voice is CDMA2000 1xRTT Rev E(aka 1x advance). for data its 1xEV-DO Rel 0 for 2.75g then for 3g, its EV-DO Rev. A. 3.5g data was EV-DO Rev. B(peak of 14mbps), but that did not take off. neither did EV-DO Rev. C (CDMA 4g with peak speeds of 280 Mbit/s) nor did 1xEV-DV(same speeds as 1xEV-DO Rev A)

[auvo.salmi 135]

@Craig @Hook or anyone willing to answer:

Going a bit off from the topic, but I just started wondering this Verizon/Sprint business. So why would you like to use it on Pro1? Do you have to do so for some reason? Why is that so important, is it like your favorite operator or is it also the only available one? As in Finland we basically have three big network operators, and all of them work pretty well everywhere around Finland. Of course some blind spots exist, but basically they all have full coverage. People tend to switch between the operators all the time, depending on discount campaigns and such. Also we don't usually have limitations in data plans. I believe this is part of the reason I'm not familiar with technologies like voice over lte, cdma data/voice etc either.

[david 929]

1 minute ago, auvo.salmi said:

@Craig @Hook or anyone willing to answer:

Going a bit off from the topic, but I just started wondering this Verizon/Sprint business. So why would you like to use it on Pro1? Do you have to do so for some reason? Why is that so important, is it like your favorite operator or is it also the only available one? As in Finland we basically have three big network operators, and all of them work pretty well everywhere around Finland. Of course some blind spots exist, but basically they all have full coverage. People tend to switch between the operators all the time, depending on discount campaigns and such. Also we don't usually have limitations in data plans. I believe this is part of the reason I'm not familiar with technologies like voice over lte, cdma data/voice etc either.

It is more fragmented in the USA.  Big cities generally have all the providers, but even there, some may have more frequencies/bandwidth than others.  But once you get outside of cities, there can be vast areas with very poor coverage or even no coverage.

[Polaris 423]

2 hours ago, tdm said:

 

That is all data.  And I presume Verizon users can get data.

 

Can you make a CDMA voice call?  Can you show me your CDMA MEID?  Can you operate the device on the network without a SIM card?

 

The answer is no to all three.  Any actual CDMA device would answer yes to all three.

 

I agree with @Craig on this subject.  I have been told my F(x)tec that it would 100% work on a CDMA network (prior to ordering).  I also agree that the reason it won't make a CDMA call is because Verizon (or Sprint, or whomever) won't allow it to register with their CDMA network.  If one were to change the IMEI to that of an approved device, I would like to believe that F(x)tec is correct and it would register, and work, on Verizon's CDMA network.  It certainly has all the specs to do so.  My Samsung S8+ (also w/the Snapdragon 835 SoC) came as an AT&T carrier locked GSM phone, and didn't list the specs that F(x)tec listed.  However, upon unlocking (and a quick reflashing to add more LTE bands) it functioned flawlessly as a CDMA phone because Verizon allows that model phone (and hence it's IMEI block) to register on their CDMA network.

As for the CDMA MEID, my S8+ doesn't have one either (nor did a work Droid Turbo2 IIRC).  However, 98% of the time the MEID is just the IMEI without the final check digit; thus, when activating the phone Verizon's system just used the IMEI sans the last digit.  In other words, the phone doesn't need to have an MEID field anymore, only an IMEI.

The last one, about operating the device on Verizon's network without a SIM card doesn't apply either.  The reason being that Verizon will no longer register any device on their network that doesn't use a SIM card.  As you stated, they will be dropping CDMA at the beginning of next year (assuming it doesn't get pushed back again) and, a few years ago, they stopped activating phones without a SIM card.  If you already had a phone on their network without a SIM card you could continue to use it, but you couldn't activate a model without one.  Even carrier locked CDMA only phones required/require a SIM card for activation regardless of whether one wants to access their LTE network.  I have first hand experience here because I had my mom on a Droid 3 (a Verizon only device) since it was released back in 2011.  She loved the phone and kept it until she dropped in a lake a couple of years ago.  Being that she is elderly and wasn't interested in changing devices I attempted to activate my older Droid 3 for her.  Verizon simply would not do it no matter what.  Clearly the phone was compatible with their network (it was working earlier in the day, lol), but because of their own policy they wouldn't activate that model because it didn't have a SIM card (and said so).  Instead, I needed to activate a Droid 4 for her because it has a SIM card.  Where she lives, the LTE service is very weak.  A phone will lock onto a LTE site and then miss MMS messages (and not web browse, but she never browses the web so it's irrelevant).  Thus, I changed the network preferences to 'CDMA auto (PRL)' to lock it on their CDMA network and never use their LTE network.  However, again, Verizon's internal policies were such that the phone needed to have a SIM card or they wouldn't activate it on their network.

Likewise, I currently use my D4 as a daily driver and I can yank the SIM card but it will only place emergency/911 calls.  Since the D4 doesn't support VoLTE, clearly it's using their CDMA network for voice calling, but until I put the SIM back I can't place calls.  The D4, like the D3, was a Verizon only phone and this is all to conform with Verizon's own internal policies (as well as a few LTE working group requirements), and has nothing to do with the technology of the phone.

[Polaris 423]

10 hours ago, Craig said:

Hmmm ok.  Being trying to research this.  Our device reported supports CDMA/EDVO BC0 (850 MHz) and BC1 (1900 MHz).   If I understand correctly, the voice parts of cdmaOne/CDMA2000 are 1xAdvanced and 1xRTT.    I think Pro¹ has this.  It certainly was supposed to.   But since nobody has yet activated it on Sprint or Verizon I guess can't be sure.

IS-95 is 2G cdmaOne.  CDMA2000 split between voice, data/voice and data, and voice is CDMA2000 1xRTT.  Then 3g for voice is CDMA2000 1xRTT Rev E(aka 1x advance). for data its 1xEV-DO Rel 0 for 2.75g then for 3g, its EV-DO Rev. A. 3.5g data was EV-DO Rev. B(peak of 14mbps), but that did not take off. neither did EV-DO Rev. C (CDMA 4g with peak speeds of 280 Mbit/s) nor did 1xEV-DV(same speeds as 1xEV-DO Rev A)

Just to add to this, but not sure what you are going after...

The CDMA blocks are assigned, and categorized, in "band classes" as opposed to LTE "bands."  There are only two band classes used in the United States for CDMA, BC0 and BC1.  BC0 is comprised of some the older AMPS/D-AMPS 800 Mhz frequencies (mainly 860-894 Mhz down from the site).  BC1 is comprised of the original 1900 Mhz PCS frequencies (mainly 1930-1990 down from the site).  That is all there is for spread spectrum CDMA Verizon use in the US.

All Verizon's voice calls (and SMS texts) are circuit switched CDMA, similar to the original IS-95.  It's only CDMA data (MMS and internet traffic) that is packet switched EV-DO which accomplished conforming to either 1xRTT or 1xEV-DO bandwidths.  Verizon uses either EV-DO Rev. 0,  EV-DO Rev. A, or  EV-DO Rev. A-eHRPD (my personal favorite as it uses their LTE gateways), with about 90% of their current CDMA sites running on stanard Rev. A.

As for LTE, Verizon uses the following LTE bands: B2 (1900 Mhz), B4/B66  (1700/2100 Mhz) and B13 (700 Mhz).  They have some licenses for B5 (850 Mhz), but as far as I know have never implemented them.  Currently, many of their LTE sites will have at least a cell that supports B13 since it was around at the beginning and many older phones can only access B13.

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by Polaris

[Craig 1,435]

The reason I want to use Tello, a sprint mvno, is they're cheap, and unlimited 2G data.  I already have a freedompop (at&t mvno) sim in one slot, but want more coverage, and willing to pay tello for that, and planned to do so since before I received Pro¹, and was disappointed when it failed Tello IEMI check, but havent tried going to actual Sprint store yet.

Previous to this, I used Motorola Photon Q.  It is CDMA device, with internal SIM for the one Sprint LTE band it supports.  Until last year I had kept them activated with various Sprint MVNOs that kept going out of business.  Ringplus, Tello, Freedompop, and Ting at the very end - they stayed in business but wanted more $ so let the service die.  (Freedompop is still around, but now GSM/LTE only, and owned by Redpocket).

 

Anyway, getting off topic, but this was certainly advertised as CDMA device and seems to have the correct hardware.   Just useless as such unless the provider gives us service.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Craig

[Hook 3,020]

2 hours ago, auvo.salmi said:

@Craig @Hook or anyone willing to answer:

Going a bit off from the topic, but I just started wondering this Verizon/Sprint business. So why would you like to use it on Pro1? Do you have to do so for some reason? Why is that so important, is it like your favorite operator or is it also the only available one? As in Finland we basically have three big network operators, and all of them work pretty well everywhere around Finland. Of course some blind spots exist, but basically they all have full coverage. People tend to switch between the operators all the time, depending on discount campaigns and such. Also we don't usually have limitations in data plans. I believe this is part of the reason I'm not familiar with technologies like voice over lte, cdma data/voice etc either.

You've already received some answers.  For me, it's just a matter of convenience.  Verizon has hands down the best coverage in our area and anywhere I have gone, but I don't travel much.  My wife is on Verizon with her Pixel 2XL and has no intention of changing.  Both of us have Prepay plans, but because the are managed together, we save $10 a month.  It seems silly that I can't use what the phone is equipped for.

On the other hand, I knew this was a possibility.  I knew having the radios was no guarantee, I'm familiar with the Verizon's behavior.  I could go get an AT&T prepay account and that was always plan B as I used to use them.  And I've even thought about just returning the SIM to my Moto G6 and use that as a phone and for the car while using the Pro 1 as a PDA and pocket computer.  However, since Verizon clearly does work with the Mule SIM workaround on stock, I was hoping it would also do so on Lineage.  I'm disappointed, but I'm also not going to give @tdm a hard time because it is not a priority. 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Hook

[Polaris 423]

1 hour ago, auvo.salmi said:

@Craig @Hook or anyone willing to answer:

Going a bit off from the topic, but I just started wondering this Verizon/Sprint business. So why would you like to use it on Pro1? Do you have to do so for some reason? Why is that so important, is it like your favorite operator or is it also the only available one? As in Finland we basically have three big network operators, and all of them work pretty well everywhere around Finland. Of course some blind spots exist, but basically they all have full coverage. People tend to switch between the operators all the time, depending on discount campaigns and such. Also we don't usually have limitations in data plans. I believe this is part of the reason I'm not familiar with technologies like voice over lte, cdma data/voice etc either.

 

1 hour ago, david said:

It is more fragmented in the USA.  Big cities generally have all the providers, but even there, some may have more frequencies/bandwidth than others.  But once you get outside of cities, there can be vast areas with very poor coverage or even no coverage.

 

@david is absolutely correct as it applies to me.  I only have Verizon service at my house.  I'm in the hills and their LTE sites aren't reachable (they are only along the main access road into the hills and not on a mountain top like the CDMA sites).  I have CDMA service for both voice and data.  There aren't any other carriers which work at this location, this is my only option.  I currently use a Droid 4 locked onto Verizon's CDMA system and it works perfectly.  It would be very nice to be able to use the Pro1 in the same manner.

Outside of the hills surrounding the house, Verizon has the best coverage (by far).  Thus, I would like to use the Pro1 on their LTE system when not at the house.  AT&T's LTE system is much weaker and when I combine that with the weak radio in the Pro1, it means almost unusable calls and tons of data retries.  When I move my SIM to my Samsung S8+ it works okay (much better than the Pro1), but still nowhere near as good as Verizon.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Polaris

[silversolver 849]

CDMA is in use outside the US in many places. It would be interesting to know if anyone else has tried the clack with these networks, and what their results were. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CDMA2000_networks#Active_networks

[silversolver 849]

On 3/15/2020 at 10:22 AM, auvo.salmi said:

I also have had this unresponsiveness issue few times now. Usually it happens overnight, when alarm clock starts ringing but the device won't wake up. It doesn't respond to touching or keyboard or power button. Only way to get it working is to reboot by long-pressing power button. I had the issue on stock too and perhaps it was more comon on stock (currently running test9).

Also looks like random reboots are on LOS too. It hasn't happened me on los before today though, but on stock it was much more common. In Random reboots thread there's some speculation of rebooting happening while in weak network, and it seemed to be like that on stock. But today it happened while I was home, where I have full lte coverage on my carrier. Luckily there's that SELinux warning which pops up on reboot, so I recognized it really had rebooted. 

Also keyboard act weirdly sometimes. When typing fast, I get random letter/number combinations occasionally inside words, like if I was going to type the word 'arrive', the output might look like 'ar1fgj' or something like that. I do press wrong buttons occasionally, but I'm sure I don't hit the number keys accidentally. So those weird combinations are spawning randomly from somewhere. It doesn't happen too often though, but is still quite annoying, because it is a joy to type on Pro1 (doing it right now) and it is quite easy to type fast without looking to the keys all the time. But those random letter/number spawns kill the flow of typing every time. Didn't actually happen at all while typing this post, so it is quite rare and hard to reproduce/ find any logic in it.

Yet one more small issue: Looks like battery manager has some bug, because it doesn't recognize the 'last full charge'. Not a big deal though.

Uh-oh, random reboots plus random inputs sounds like a physical defect, such as a bad RAM chip feeding the processor garbage occasionally. How many people have had this issue? For example, I've had a lot of random reboots on my Droid 4 with LOS using zRAM, but never random input or anything that would indicate anything beyond a simple software bug.

It COULD be two unrelated bugs, both of which sound like they would live in the hardware drivers, since stock does it too.

[david 929]

6 minutes ago, silversolver said:

How many people have had this issue? For example, I've had a lot of random reboots on my Droid 4 with LOS using zRAM, but never random input or anything that would indicate anything beyond a simple software bug.

I haven't noticed a single random reboot.  I *might* have had one early on, but my brain could be confusing that happening to me vs reading about it with someone else. :-)

I'm on stock, though, and I also did a factory reset at one point.

I used to have reboots fairly frequently on my Relay 4G phones with Cyanogenmod and whatever apps I was using and constant memory/storage swapping, due to low available RAM.  I have hundreds of apps installed on the Pro1.  Even though I don't use all of them, there are probably quite a few background processes.  It could be some app I don't have installed that is causing it for others though, or something in LOS.

I can force a reboot by running a test in the Speedtest app when on 2.4 GHz wifi on my main wireless access point.  I've already reported that.  But that's a very specific set of conditions, not something random.

[Craig 1,435]

4 hours ago, Polaris said:

There are only two band classes used in the United States for CDMA, BC0 and BC1.  BC0 is comprised of some the older AMPS/D-AMPS 800 Mhz frequencies (mainly 860-894 Mhz down from the site).  BC1 is comprised of the original 1900 Mhz PCS frequencies (mainly 1930-1990 down from the site).  That is all there is for spread spectrum CDMA phone use in the US.

Then why do I also keep reading about BC10 used by Sprint @ 800MHz?  I was thinking I'd learned our phone didn't support that....

[silversolver 849]

2 hours ago, david said:

I haven't noticed a single random reboot.  I *might* have had one early on, but my brain could be confusing that happening to me vs reading about it with someone else. :-)

I'm on stock, though, and I also did a factory reset at one point.

I used to have reboots fairly frequently on my Relay 4G phones with Cyanogenmod and whatever apps I was using and constant memory/storage swapping, due to low available RAM.  I have hundreds of apps installed on the Pro1.  Even though I don't use all of them, there are probably quite a few background processes.  It could be some app I don't have installed that is causing it for others though, or something in LOS.

I can force a reboot by running a test in the Speedtest app when on 2.4 GHz wifi on my main wireless access point.  I've already reported that.  But that's a very specific set of conditions, not something random.

Good work! That would point to a bug in the wifi driver, and i can certainly see where other people with different habits might find it intermittently as well.

[Polaris 423]

3 hours ago, Craig said:

Then why do I also keep reading about BC10 used by Sprint @ 800MHz?  I was thinking I'd learned our phone didn't support that....

That's right, I meant to say for Verizon as they don't have any licenses in BC10.  BC10 was the old Nextel iDEN band and as far as I know only Sprint obtained licenses, and I'm not sure if any of it was put into use for their CDMA system.  If so, then the Pro1 won't work with those CDMA sites (or cells).

Edited March 18, 2020 by Polaris

[VaZso 1,998]

10 hours ago, silversolver said:

Uh-oh, random reboots plus random inputs sounds like a physical defect, such as a bad RAM chip feeding the processor garbage occasionally. How many people have had this issue?

It may also cause "random" reboots but it seems there is a problem somewhere in radio band switching which may cause reboot (there was a thread somewhere here where also another phone was mentioned which used to have the same problem on the same chipset).
So it is not random but caused by certain circumstances.

I had two unexpected reboots so far (since December) and both happened on the same road (motorway), same direction and near the same place where there are a few tunnels the road goes through. So some weaker signals are noticeable there. However, most of the times I traveled there it did not reboot.

If somebody lives in a place where the coverage is similar, then this problem may come up more frequently which may be felt as random reboots.

Edit: This problem exists in stock firmware but as far as I know, LineageOS is also affected as it is in a common part...

Edited March 18, 2020 by VaZso

[silversolver 849]

9 hours ago, Polaris said:

That's right, I meant to say for Verizon as they don't have any licenses in BC10.  BC10 was the old Nextel iDEN band and as far as I know only Sprint obtained licenses, and I'm not sure if any of it was put into use for their CDMA system.  If so, then the Pro1 won't work with those CDMA sites (or cells).

The Nextel iDEN used a custom TDMA system (time division multiple access) and worked well for what it was. However, from Wikipedia, "Sprint Nextel provided iDEN service across the United States until its iDEN network was decommissioned for additional LTE network capacity on 30 June 2013." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEN

I guess all those cool NexTel handsets are museum pieces now.....I had wondered, but not been curious enough to look LOL.

Edited March 18, 2020 by silversolver

[tdm 2,322]

48 minutes ago, silversolver said:

The Nextel iDEN used a custom TDMA system (time division multiple access) and worked well for what it was. However, from Wikipedia, "Sprint Nextel provided iDEN service across the United States until its iDEN network was decommissioned for additional LTE network capacity on 30 June 2013." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEN

I guess all those cool NexTel handsets are museum pieces now.....I had wondered, but not been curious enough to look LOL.

Did Sprint ever use TDMA?  I thought AT&T was the only one that used TDMA (before they moved to GSM)?

 

[silversolver 849]

1 hour ago, tdm said:

Did Sprint ever use TDMA?  I thought AT&T was the only one that used TDMA (before they moved to GSM)?

 

Only by buying Nextel. Pretty sure they went straight from AMPS to CDMA with their home-grown network.

[Polaris 423]

16 hours ago, silversolver said:

The Nextel iDEN used a custom TDMA system (time division multiple access) and worked well for what it was. However, from Wikipedia, "Sprint Nextel provided iDEN service across the United States until its iDEN network was decommissioned for additional LTE network capacity on 30 June 2013." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEN

I guess all those cool NexTel handsets are museum pieces now.....I had wondered, but not been curious enough to look LOL.

I was a Nextel user (as my employer went to it).  It was an awesome service and blew the doors off standard two-way radio communications, but the handsets were large and heavy.  I still have a handful of their devices should you find a use for them, lol.

Also, I believe the wikipedia page is (slightly) incorrect in that the iDEN bandwidth was split up and commissioned for use with both CDMA (3GPP2 C.S0057-E) and LTE, not strictly LTE emissions.

15 hours ago, tdm said:

Did Sprint ever use TDMA?  I thought AT&T was the only one that used TDMA (before they moved to GSM)?

 

13 hours ago, silversolver said:

Only by buying Nextel. Pretty sure they went straight from AMPS to CDMA with their home-grown network.

IIRC, Sprint didn't provide AMPS service.  At least not on the west coast.  I was offered one of their very first "cell phones" (I still have it as well as my Nextel units, lol) in the LA market to become a beta tester, and it was on the original PCS 1900 Mhz service/bands.  It was spread spectrum CDMA and, between the vocoder and the modulation technique it was very difficult to eavesdrop on, unlike TDMA (at the time).  Prior to that, I believe that only Pac-Tel and AT&T were the only AMPS providers in that market.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Polaris