Some Sprint customers who own smartphones in the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S10 series are facing major cellular reception problems. There has been some progress in solving the woes of S10 owners, but for those with plagued S8 devices, the investigation is just beginning.
The problems with the Galaxy S10 devices may not necessarily be rooted with Sprint: S10+ users on ATT and T-Mobile have been dealing with bad cell reception as well. However, Sprint has since stated that it has received complaints from S10e, S10, and S10+ owners — some of them have been relegated to using roaming networks while others have, at times, been at a total loss of data and/or voice services.
The potential good news here is that the carrier released a software update (version ASC8) on March 27 that, it says, should fix these issues for most users who have had to deal with “intermittent” data or voice service loss. If users have the update installed, but are not able to troubleshoot their way back to full cellular reception, the devices are considered to have “permanent” service loss and will need to be exchanged — some customers have complained about the arduous process.
Meanwhile, a number of Galaxy S8 and S8+ users have had problems accessing Sprint LTE after installing the Android Pie upgrade, software version DSC1. The company said on Tuesday that it has stopped rolling the OTA out and is working with Samsung to investigate the problem. The carrier cannot guarantee when it will be able to push out a patch.
S8 users who would like LTE reception back will have to contact Samsung or visit a Sprint store to replace their device. Sprint may charge a replacement fee if the device is out of warranty and the customer has not bought Sprint Complete protection. That means many of these customers may have to settle for 3G and Wi-Fi for an indefinite period.
We requested comment from Sprint yesterday and have yet to hear back.
- Thanks:
- Phil