Day 2 with the EVO

Today was a fun and magical time in what I like to call “triangle land”.

“Triangle Land” are places on the map where a Sprint phone is “roaming” on another CDMA network. The name is derived from the small triangle icon above the single bars.

Yesterday I made a false report. I claimed that I was getting 3G speeds when roaming. That was incorrect. I “assumed” I was getting 3G speeds because the 3G icon was still on the phone. However after extensive testing I have discovered that the icon was wrong. While on a native Sprint tower I was getting 1Mbps+, on a triangle tower I could never get above 100Kbps. This was with full single strength on the roaming tower.

The annoying part about this is that once you enter into triangle land, it’s often hard to exit it. This is just due to the nature of cell towers. Phones like to stay connected to a single tower for as long as possible. So as you move beyond of a Sprint tower’s range, your phone will cut over to a roaming tower when it can no longer maintain signal. As you move back into Sprint range, your phone will behave the same way but in reverse, you will stay connected to the roaming tower long after you have entered back into where you think you should have Sprint coverage.

This would not have been a problem except… no 3G when roaming. Once I hit the triangle tower, my phone stayed locked to it. So I spent a good part of my without 3G coverage even though I knew I was in places where Sprint 3G was yesterday. To fix the problem I put my phone into airplane mode for a minute, then turned back on the cell radio, once it was up, I was back on Sprint 3G.

I can see where this might be an issue down the road.

Video Calling. I MADE A VIDEO CALL!! There is an app called Fring. Way back several years ago on a Nokia 6600 I opened a Fring account to have a multi-network IM client. I used it a few times, then moved on to another software package. Fring however continued to evolve without me. Seeing that I could possibly make video calls I downloaded the Android version on Fring. Sure enough all my Skype buddies came right up, and I started a video call with someone I knew to have a webcam. (Fortunately, it was also someone who is easy on the eyes). After a feew seconds of syntonization, it worked on the first try. How about that, a video call on the HTC Evo.

Now here’s the kicker, when I completed the call, I looked down and noticed that I had forgot to turn on the wifi. I did a two way video call, with the EVO, with Fring, to Skype, OVER 3G (!!), on the first try.

Now, if a third party app can do this, why is Skype not all over this phone? I have used Skype for years for both voice and video communications. There are people I have cultivated close friendships with that I have never seen from from the waist down. Skype has made noise that they will have a mobile video client out by the end of the year. If I were a Skype programer, I would have that out TOMORROW. Because every day without it is money-, mind-, and market- share lost for Skype. The savvily reader will note that Skype calls to other skip users are free, so how is it money lost? Because Skype charges for calls to real phone numbers, and if I could call real numbers, Skype people, and international call all from the same app, I would gladly ditch using my cell phone provider for minutes of communication in favor of Skype over 3g.

The down side of Skype and voice over 3G is the reality of IP traffic. TCP/IP is not designed for low latency sequential traffic (like voice). However with high enough bandwidth, low latency sequential traffic becomes possible. 3G is right on the edge of that threshold.

The MAJOR wow factor today was SIPDriod. Setting aside any issues with the lack of Skype, I did prove today that YES I can use a Sip client with Ring Central to handle voice traffic over 3G. It’s no longer theoretical, I can do it. SIPDriod is using one of my “Digital Lines” from Ring Central, and when you call the TCG 800 number and pick my extension. It does indeed ring my phone via SIPDriod. HELL YES!!!!!!!

As a bonus all my outbound calls are also relayed via SIPDriod, so when I use voice dialing on the phone, it just uses the SIP line. Simple, works, done.

The call quality is marginal. I’ve played with the Codecs to a point where I think I can even get it to work with a slower roaming data connection. I’m looked forward to trying it with 4G when I go to Nashville in the next few days. Also, because of the nature of the software, I can’t use it with my bluetooth headset… yet.

Finally, I knew it would happen at some point, my phone’s battery died today at an inopportune time. I took it off power at 8:00am this morning, but it only lasted until 3. That’s a fully hour less than yesterday. I guess my usage was up.