ALERT Vitelity vMobile BYOD and Sprint Borked at the Moment!

[magnus_stout]

Heads up, fellas!

Be VERY careful of Vitality's vMobile new BYOD program! I recently opened a support ticket for vMobile on a Sprint iPhone 6 that--despite having a good ESN--will not register. This is not Vitality's problem per se. Read on....

As you may know, the major wireless carriers have agreed to start unlocking cell phones (http://www.zdnet.com/article/fcc-and-carriers-agree-to-make-it-easier-to-unlock-phones/). That includes Sprint (who was the worst offender for vendor "lock-in" of phones). So, it should be easier to use your phone on your carrier of choice. That's the GOOD.

The BAD? Sprint seems to have completely botched its database for unlocking and registering phones (https://ting.com/blog/changes-to-the-byod-program-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/). They are banning the vast majority of used phones due to an "error" in their system which says that the previous owner still owed Sprint money. This is causing major pains with Sprint's MVNO partners (Vitality, Ting, Boost Mobile, FreedomPop, Virgin Mobile, etc...). The result is that you should stay away from doing the BYOD on Vitality until Sprint gets its house in order (who knows how long that will take...).

If you must use Vitality's vMobile, then I would only recommend that you purchase a preconfigured vMobile phone from them. And, if your phone currently works (my Vitality S4 still works), do not change phones! Otherwise, Sprint will probably reject your phone. You can read the horror stories on the Sprint community forums right now (https://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/186025).

 

[Jake]

So the iPhone 6 is used?

Kind of off topic but how has your vMobile experience been in general? I've sat on the sidelines and read what others have said about vMobile so I'm hesitant to jump in but would love too.

 

[magnus_stout]

Yes, used but with a good ESN. It looks like Sprint is desperate right now and so is banning their "flagship" phones (latest Android and iPhones) in order to push users onto post-paid plans. The information I've gathered seems to point to Sprint banning such flagship phones for 2 years after being first sold. Sprint has done everything they can do make it difficult to use the newest handsets on their network as a prepaid user.

As to vMobile.... I have mixed results. The cellular portion seems to work well for me (this, of course, depends upon your local Sprint coverage). The LTE data speeds are OK (decent but less than Verizon or Tmobile in my area). The wifi calling is a let down. Yes, it's "free," but the problem is packet loss: if you walk and talk or get near certain obstructions (ex: Refrigerator) your voice gets choppy to those hearing you. And, this is not a specific wifi access point problem (I have a commercial-grade Ruckus AP). It's part unavoidable (due to the nature of wifi), but also due to the way vMobile has hacked the Cyanogenmod android firmware (vMobile is a "black box" implementation). And, that brings me to my biggest gripe: the firmware!

If I had a nickel for everytime my phone bugged out on me.... Well, I could retire a very rich man! Whoever at Vitality is doing the vMobile firmware quality check is *not* doing their job! For example, the Samsung S4 which came loaded *from Vitality* in July of 2014 had a really fun bug where after I picked up a call on LTE the screen went black.... permanently. You could talk and you could hear the other side... but you could not see anything. You could power it off, but the screen would not come back... until a hard reset. LOL, yeah really. So, that fun bug caused me to visit the Cyanogen forums where it was, of course, listed as a bug and was fixed within the next two weeks. So, in desperation, I loaded a version of Cyanogenmod on my phone to get that functionality back (it did, however, ruin my wifi handoff to cellular voice, and it made it difficult to consistently receive calls). And, that brings me to another gripe: the vMobile software.

There cannot be any person at Vitality actively developing the Android vMobile software. The software for my S4 was last updated..... on September 2014. That's unacceptable. Cyanogenmod for the S4 is pretty beta-ish quality to begin with... so it is REALLY important to keep updating your phone (once a month, at least). There are just too many little bugs (death by a thousand paper cuts). I asked, repeatedly, for updates; their reply, "none at this time." Which leads me to believe that Vitality is simply contracting the modification of Cyanogenmod out to some software developers. It looks like they are moving to update once or twice a year (again, that is unacceptable for a newish Android phone).

That's why, in short, I was so desperate for my iPhone. I want a phone that does not consistently have software bugs. I am more than willing to give up Wifi calling (you can use a SIP app anyway) to get a more stable platform and one with better battery life (my S4 gets mediocre battery life, with aggressive tweaking). And, given that Vitality had basically given up on supporting the S4, I was better in the arms of Apple than a black-boxed, buggy fork of Cyanogemod.

Phew!

/Rant off

 

[Jay Deal]

What a bummer to hear all this. I was so stoked to get out the old Startac and use it as an extension on a PBX. Guess that's never happening now

 

[magnus_stout]

Yeah, you should look at the Sprint "Devices" forum to read about all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth this is causing. I still LOVE the vMobile idea... Just bummed that Sprint is such a terrible carrier to partner with right now.

The other thing... for the life of me I cannot understand why Vitality is not really pushing vMobile like they should. This is a game-changing technology, yet they treat it as a hobby. They should increase the price, add dedicated support staff, fix bugs, and really start pushing this to small businesses. Because I'm an early adopter, I'm a glutton for punishment (finding all of these bugs...). But, the average Joe and Jane cannot deal with the brokenness of this system. It is just too complicated and finicky for the average person to use reliably.

They should take a page from Ting's book (the pre-paid carrier): move to a GSM carrier so that all your eggs are not in one basket!

 

[Jake]

Very interesting....thanks you for your reply. I'm also excited for the technology but it looks like Vitelity just isn't caring so much about it or it is a bigger project then they can handle internally.

So the BYOD is basically moving your cell phone to Vitelity as the provider (with Sprint as the backbone)? However, you lose the integrated wifi-to-cell handoff?

 

[magnus_stout]

BYOD = "Bring Your Own Device"

BYOD is supposed to be easier with the new phone unlocking rules. But, Sprint has so completely borked the registration process that I would not hold your breath that things will be fixed soon. And, given that Vitality can barely get out one firmware update a year or so with vMobile, I simply can't imagine they have the people to fix the phone registration issue with Sprint (other MVNOs are saying they have to do it manually, which is apparently a labor intensive process).

So, with your own device, you will lose the WiFi call functionality (which, as I stated earlier, is not really that big of a deal).

 

[compuguy1088]

Yes, used but with a good ESN. It looks like Sprint is desperate right now and so is banning their "flagship" phones (latest Android and iPhones) in order to push users onto post-paid plans. The information I've gathered seems to point to Sprint banning such flagship phones for 2 years after being first sold. Sprint has done everything they can do make it difficult to use the newest handsets on their network as a prepaid user.

As to vMobile.... I have mixed results. The cellular portion seems to work well for me (this, of course, depends upon your local Sprint coverage). The LTE data speeds are OK (decent but less than Verizon or Tmobile in my area). The wifi calling is a let down. Yes, it's "free," but the problem is packet loss: if you walk and talk or get near certain obstructions (ex: Refrigerator) your voice gets choppy to those hearing you. And, this is not a specific wifi access point problem (I have a commercial-grade Ruckus AP). It's part unavoidable (due to the nature of wifi), but also due to the way vMobile has hacked the Cyanogenmod android firmware (vMobile is a "black box" implementation). And, that brings me to my biggest gripe: the firmware!

If I had a nickel for everytime my phone bugged out on me.... Well, I could retire a very rich man! Whoever at Vitality is doing the vMobile firmware quality check is *not* doing their job! For example, the Samsung S4 which came loaded *from Vitality* in July of 2014 had a really fun bug where after I picked up a call on LTE the screen went black.... permanently. You could talk and you could hear the other side... but you could not see anything. You could power it off, but the screen would not come back... until a hard reset. LOL, yeah really. So, that fun bug caused me to visit the Cyanogen forums where it was, of course, listed as a bug and was fixed within the next two weeks. So, in desperation, I loaded a version of Cyanogenmod on my phone to get that functionality back (it did, however, ruin my wifi handoff to cellular voice, and it made it difficult to consistently receive calls). And, that brings me to another gripe: the vMobile software.

There cannot be any person at Vitality actively developing the Android vMobile software. The software for my S4 was last updated..... on September 2014. That's unacceptable. Cyanogenmod for the S4 is pretty beta-ish quality to begin with... so it is REALLY important to keep updating your phone (once a month, at least). There are just too many little bugs (death by a thousand paper cuts). I asked, repeatedly, for updates; their reply, "none at this time." Which leads me to believe that Vitality is simply contracting the modification of Cyanogenmod out to some software developers. It looks like they are moving to update once or twice a year (again, that is unacceptable for a newish Android phone).

That's why, in short, I was so desperate for my iPhone. I want a phone that does not consistently have software bugs. I am more than willing to give up Wifi calling (you can use a SIP app anyway) to get a more stable platform and one with better battery life (my S4 gets mediocre battery life, with aggressive tweaking). And, given that Vitality had basically given up on supporting the S4, I was better in the arms of Apple than a black-boxed, buggy fork of Cyanogemod.

Phew!

/Rant off

I believe that is what they are *intending* but what has been stated is that phones that are purchased from mnvo's like boost or virgin mobile cannot be activated on another mnvo without being on their respective prepaid carrier for a year. The rest, I have no clue about their motives....

BYOD = "Bring Your Own Device"

BYOD is supposed to be easier with the new phone unlocking rules. But, Sprint has so completely borked the registration process that I would not hold your breath that things will be fixed soon. And, given that Vitality can barely get out one firmware update a year or so with vMobile, I simply can't imagine they have the people to fix the phone registration issue with Sprint (other MVNOs are saying they have to do it manually, which is apparently a labor intensive process).


So, with your own device, you will lose the WiFi call functionality (which, as I stated earlier, is not really that big of a deal).

For now, mnvo's like ting can only manually provison certain phones (certain iphones, and the nexus 5 and 6). Its a mess....