
Image courtesy engadget
Updated with a statement from Sprint. I have been impressed with the HTC Hero phone I have been evaluating on the Sprint EVDO Rev. A network, even though I just found out this evaluation phone is not actually on the faster Rev. A network; like other Hero owners are beginning to report, this one is only running EVDO Rev. 0. The Rev. A network is the newest flavor of EVDO on the Sprint and Verizon networks. Rev. 0 is the predecessor to Rev. A and is slower, especially for uploads.
Sprint owners have begun to report that their phones are, in fact, running on the the slower Rev. 0 Sprint network, not the Rev. A as advertised. It is not across the board — many of the owners are reporting their phone is running Rev. A as is should. What has emerged from this confusion is that some of the Hero phones have “with Google” branding on the back, whereas others do not. So far, it appears that no phone lacking the Google branding reports Rev. A support, while those with the branding are hit and miss as to which network is reported.
It’s important to realize that there could be local network issues at play here — EVDO phones automatically drop to Rev. 0 if Rev. A coverage is not there, even if the phone can support Rev. A. Most current EVDO phones can support Rev. A, so I doubt anything sinister is at play. I suspect that early Hero phones have an older firmware version that lacks Rev. A support erroneously, and HTC has updated the firmware to address that. It needs to get the update to everyone if that is the case, as some owners are not getting what they paid for.
I have been pretty happy with the performance of this evaluation Hero, but it would be even better with Rev. A active. This unit shows Rev. 0 like many, and since I have the Pre on the Sprint network I know for a fact I have Rev. A coverage here.
(via engadget)
Sprint has responded to the concerns discussed and has issued the following statement on the Sprint Community Blog:
“We recently discovered that Sprint’s HTC Hero is showing a static message which reads CDMA – EVDO Rev.0 in its status settings whether or not the device is on Rev A speeds. In most cases, the device is performing on Rev A speeds even if the message reads Rev 0. This UI message error is not impacting the performance of the device in any way and will be corrected with the next maintenance release.”
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