Sprint Advanced Support: The Reason You’re Having GTalk Connection Problems With Your EVO 4G? GTalk’s Not Compatible With 4G [Bad Tech Support]
I’ve been testing a Sprint HTC EVO 4G for the last several days. I live in Glastonbury CT where I’ve been happy to observe that Sprint’s 4G data has been turned on and is live for a good part of my town which means I’ve been able to clock pretty amazing 5 to 9 mb download speeds.
One part of the EVO 4G that hasn’t been so amazing is trying to get a connection to GTalk – the instant messaging client that’s fully integrated and is a core part of to the stock Android operating system. GTalk is such an integral part of the Android experience that you’ll be unable to successfully complete a download from the Android Market unless you can establish a GTalk connection. And that’s my problem. I can get a connection on WiFi. I can connect on 3G. When I turn on 4G and attempt a connection I’m met with the error message “Could not connect to server. Will retry shortly”.
Having done a few quick Google searches I’ve seen other users talking about these types of issues. Recently there’s been a flood of questions here, here, here, and here. Most of the users seem to have EVO 4G’s — though there are notes from non-Sprint Android users as well. While I’m not a big user of the GTalk Instant Messaging – I do like to download applications from the Android Market. And due to some technical reason – the Android Market won’t begin a download unless your GTalk can get a clear connection.
I first noticed that there was a problem when one or two of my Android Market downloads became stuck and wouldn’t start to download. Instead they displayed a perpetual “downloading” message that sometimes cleared itself over time – but more often stayed around and signaled a problem with the download process.
With a few quick searches I found that one way to clear this “stuck download” problem was to manually log into GTalk. But what happens if GTalk is stuck itself and won’t login? That’s exactly the issue I’m experiencing on my HTC EVO 4G. The device will connect to GTalk (meaning it will also download properly from the Android Market) so long as I’m on WiFi or 3G. The moment I turn on 4G (which Sprint charges an additional $10/month for) the ability to connect to GTalk and download applications stops.
Tonight I decided to call Sprint technical support. If you haven’t called a support line in a while then you should consider yourself lucky. Pretty much all large call centers are setup with first tier support that makes sure you aren’t overlooking something simple like having the phone turned on. These smartphone diagnostic steps almost always wind up asking you to completely wipe your phone and erase all data to return it to factory defaults. My initial call went exactly as expected and after wiping the phone clean and still experiencing the problem I was passed along to what I was told would be “Advanced Technical Support”.
I suppose when the Advanced Technical Support representative asked me “so, what is GTalk” — I should have been better prepared for how terrible the call was going to be.
This representative may not even have known that the HTC EVO 4G was an Android phone.
After going through a battery of diagnostic tests (none of which worked) he went away to “check with another supervisor” and returned to tell me he’d solved my issue. His solution? He pronounced that GTalk (a core component of all Android phones) was completely incompatible with Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G. And he had originally thought that was the case but wasn’t 100% sure until he checked with another supervisor.
And just in case you’re thinking the advice that Sprint Advanced Support gave was the truth — it’s not. Sprint’s own advertising shows that GTalk is supported on the device (which Sprint charges an EXTRA $10 per month for).
I’m hoping and praying that I get a followup survey from Sprint regarding this support incident. At the end of the call the Advanced Support Representative asked me whether I’d be able to rate him on the survey that Sprint might send. I chucked out loud and said “oh yes I’ll definitely rate you”.
UPDATE 10-25-2010:
I solved the problem for Sprint by canceling the account. In the three or four calls I made to Sprint not one tech had the same answer. Some were just plain wrong (such as this one). For many years I’d defended Sprint customer service as not being as bad as people seemed to think.
I’m rescinding my belief that Sprint customer service is improving. My experience in this case was awful.
“Advanced Support” who didn’t seem to know what Android or Google was at all. Rather than subject myself to more delays attempting to debug this issue I opted to cancel only 7 days into my trial period with Sprint.
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