[opticalc]

I get complaints since moving from my N200 to a 8200 that it always takes much longer for me to answer the PCS phone. I did a test when i was at home by calling the pcs phone from my Bellsouth landline, and sure enough, after I heard it start ringing from the Bellsouth line, it took 8 seconds for it to start ringing on the PCS phone!!

*** over? Is this normal.

[larry]

Yes unfortunately it's a symptom of CDMA technology and the slot cycle thing we have to deal with. This also causes calls going to voicemail without the phone ringing in time.

[Draggar]

When you place a call to any wireless phone, the phone gets routed though the router to the provider's network.

Then, the network has to find your phone, what "area" (a.k.a. market, SID, BID, etc..) you're in, then it needs to fin which tower you're using.

Then, it sends the call to the phone, and when the phone "pings" the network (slot cycle as Larry mentioned) your phone will begin to ring.

[fx72]

Sprint probably upped the slot cycle index time so the standby battery time will longer, since the phone is "sleeping" longer.

[Guy]

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

so gsm phones can ring faster and have superior battery life

[larry]

Originally Posted by Guy

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

so gsm phones can ring faster and have superior battery life

yes, apparently that's true.

[Jmyeosf]

Originally Posted by larry

yes, apparently that's true.

But GSM takes longer to connect.

[Maokh]

Originally Posted by Guy

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

so gsm phones can ring faster and have superior battery life

GSM phones can ring faster because they use a shorter sleep (or slot cycle) time.

In the world of GSM, you have something called Sleep Mode, or more technically, Discontinuous Reception (DRx). The handset can sleep for as little as a couple frames, which is equal to about 1/8th of a second.

DRx2 is 4 checks/sec, and DRx9 is about 1 check a second. Most GSM carriers i know of use DRx2. You cannot really go any further than DRx9, because eventually the phone will lose sync with the GSM framing. It would then have to sync with BCCH everytime it woke up.

CDMA's slot cycles have a very course steps (because its based on 2^n). The most useful slot cycles would be either 2.56s or 5.12 seconds. Others are either too useless or too quick.

IMHO, CDMA slot cycles are poorly designed. A lot can happen between 2.56s and 5.12s. You are given the choice to either double or halve receiver time (which ends up being power consumption), at the expense of doubling or halving the time of being able to receive a call.

If a bit of noise or interference destroys the page for the handset when it finally wakes up after 5.12s, it will sleep another 5.12s before it will even have another chance to pick up it's page. A page could be an incoming call, text message, or even an IP packet via Vision.

I don't really buy the complain that "all GSM handsets have better battery life". Please provide some evidence. I see GSM handsets ranging from 5 days of battery life (a popular motorola handset) to about 14 days of battery life. I see the same range with CDMA phones.

Most talk times are around 200 minutes with both CDMA and GSM.

Here's a random sampling:

GSM
Motorola V300: 6.5 hours talk, 8 days standby
Motorola V66: 3 hours talk, 5 days standby
Nokia 3595: 4.5 hours talk, 13 days standby

CDMA
Sanyo PM-8200: 3.5 talk, 12 days standby (extended batt 5.3 hours talk, 20 days standby)
Samsung A680: 3.2 talk, 9 days standby


???

[tuolumne]

Sometimes mine rings within 2 seconds of placing the call, all the way up to 7 seconds...It varries on occasion...

[Maokh]

That all depends on where you are in the slot cycle.

If the call comes in just before that 5.12 seconds are up, your phone will ring. Likewise, if the slot cycle just started again, it will take up to 5.12 seconds.

If you were 2 seconds away from the slot cycle, missed the page, and had to wait 5.12 seconds to get the page again, it will add up to 7 seconds.

The same applies if you take the bus from point A to point B, and the bus runs every 5.12 minutes. If you just missed the bus, you will wait longer on your journey to point B than if you showed up right when it pulled up to the bus stop.

[opticalc]

Originally Posted by Maokh

That all depends on where you are in the slot cycle.

If the call comes in just before that 5.12 seconds are up, your phone will ring. Likewise, if the slot cycle just started again, it will take up to 5.12 seconds.

If you were 2 seconds away from the slot cycle, missed the page, and had to wait 5.12 seconds to get the page again, it will add up to 7 seconds.

The same applies if you take the bus from point A to point B, and the bus runs every 5.12 minutes. If you just missed the bus, you will wait longer on your journey to point B than if you showed up right when it pulled up to the bus stop.

good analogy with the bus thing. So if I have my MSL code can i manually change the slot cycle timer to 1.28 sec? I realize ill lose battery life but id like to try it.

[larry]

Originally Posted by opticalc

good analogy with the bus thing. So if I have my MSL code can i manually change the slot cycle timer to 1.28 sec? I realize ill lose battery life but id like to try it.

I heard it won't make any difference if you change that setting because the setting at the tower supercedes any changed made to the phone. Maybe someone else can answer this.

[mikewest]

Originally Posted by larry

I heard it won't make any difference if you change that setting because the setting at the tower supercedes any changed made to the phone. Maybe someone else can answer this.

ummmm, i set mine to 1 from 2, then to 3 then back to 2.

slot index cycle is 1-5, if i am not mistaken.

If set to 1 or 3, my phone would give me a message that said "Digital/DATA SV Not Availible" and give the the "uhuhuhuhuhuh" sound.....after returning it back to 2...it went back to normal...It seems as if sprint knows what they are doing, and this is why they have it set to 2....It works nearly flawlessly, with the normal 75% dropped call rate in my apartment....

[opticalc]

Originally Posted by mikewest

ummmm, i set mine to 1 from 2, then to 3 then back to 2.

slot index cycle is 1-5, if i am not mistaken.

If set to 1 or 3, my phone would give me a message that said "Digital/DATA SV Not Availible" and give the the "uhuhuhuhuhuh" sound.....after returning it back to 2...it went back to normal...It seems as if sprint knows what they are doing, and this is why they have it set to 2....It works nearly flawlessly, with the normal 75% dropped call rate in my apartment....

Hey when I tried changing the slot index cycle, mine was originally set to 2 as well. I changed it to 0 and exited out, the phone then rebooted and when it came back up i was able to make calls out. So then when I called the PCS phone from the landline it worked much quicker! I made 3 test calls and they were all right at 2-3 seconds versus the up to 8 seconds I was seeing.

Thanks for the tip!

[ocelectroboi]

Originally Posted by opticalc

Hey when I tried changing the slot index cycle, mine was originally set to 2 as well. I changed it to 0 and exited out, the phone then rebooted and when it came back up i was able to make calls out. So then when I called the PCS phone from the landline it worked much quicker! I made 3 test calls and they were all right at 2-3 seconds versus the up to 8 seconds I was seeing.

Thanks for the tip!

How woould I change this on a VM4500 (after getting my MSL code ofcorse)

This hase been my biggest complaint with sprint because about 75% of my calls go into vm or the callers get an out of service message..seems that my friends family and work have bad timing...