What You Need to Know About Sprint Pings
Law enforcement has long been able to ping cell phones to obtain specialized location information in exigent situations or with legal demand. The power of the ping has been a tremendous help in finding missing persons, helping in active kidnapping cases, and even finding very dangerous people, not to mention helping in surveillance work. But what is happening when you don’t get consistent Sprint email pings every 15 minutes, or you get pings with no geo-location data?
This can jeopardize your investigation and perhaps even delay your efforts in locating the device in a timely manner. We’re going to dive a little deep into the Sprint pings and review important information that very few may be aware of.
So why is this happening? There could be several reasons for this: The phone was turned off or in airplane mode or the battery was dead; or simply the phone is out of coverage area. A more common reason, albeit probably not very well known, is it could be the phone is using the 4G LTE network. Yes, you read that right – interpreted – Sprint is not providing automated email pings (every 15 minutes) if the target device is “sitting” on the 4G LTE network – what??? How can this be? The short answer is the 4G LTE ping is still available, however not in the automated, every 15-minute, ping emails.
Click on the image to visit Sprint’s coverage map to check your area. You can also check specific devices to see what network they are compatible with.
Before we talk about how to get a device ping which is “sitting” on the 4G LTE network, let’s first go over some information to put things in perspective.
If you were to look at the Sprint coverage map, the majority of the urban areas within the U.S. are well built out now with 4G LTE. Take Orange County (CA) for example. Notice all the YELLOW. This represents Sprint’s 4G LTE coverage area and the RED is non-LTE (3G CDMA/EVDO) coverage. The RED really only appears in the canyons and mountains in more of the rural parts of the OC, otherwise 4G LTE is the predominant network for the region.
To put this in perspective, when looking at some of the most popular smartphones, all iPhones since the iPhone 5 (released in Sept. 2013) have been compatible with Sprints 4G LTE network. On the Android side of the fence, the Samsung Galaxy S5 (released in Apr. 2014) has also been compatible with Sprints 4G LTE network. Both devices mentioned also came standard with radios for the 3G CDMA/EVDO networks.
Now fast-forward several years, and as Sprint continued to build out their LTE network, the compatible devices started primarily communicating on 4G LTE with a fail-over (fallback) to the 3G CDMA/EVDO network in the absence of a 4G LTE signal/frequency. Even today’s low-end smartphones (burners) will have both 3G and 4G capabilities.
Sprint has long been one of the easiest providers to work with when it comes to email pings simply because of their L-Site portal where setting up the ping is streamlined. Sprint’s L-Site is an interactive web tool for law enforcement. If you’re unfamiliar with the L-Site and wish to obtain further information, you can send an email to: L-Site@Sprint.com. However, with no information readily available to inform law enforcement that their email pings do not include 4G LTE, it leaves one to wonder what we are actually missing when chasing phones.
Now for the work-around. If you believe the device is “sitting” on, or is using the 4G LTE network, investigators can call the Sprint Compliance Center at (800) 877-7330 (option 3) and have them ping the device manually. They use a different tool to handle the 4G LTE pings, which is a manual process and it does not interact with the L-Site every 15-minute ping email system, thus the reason you may be getting limited daily pings from a Sprint phone (only getting 3G pings).
So, the question is how does one know if the phone is “sitting” on the 4G LTE or the 3G CDMA/EVDO network?
You don’t really know this answer, but knowing the device make and model could help. For example, if you are pinging a target phone and only get pings with geo-locations on occasion and the device is 3G only, then something else is going on (e.g. turning the phone off or it’s out of the coverage area). If you learn the device is 4G LTE compatible and is in a 4G LTE built-out region, now you can call the compliance center to get the manual 4G LTE pings.
How can one determine if the device is 3G and/or 4G compatible?
Working with the ESN/MEID/IMEI Number:
We first need to know what the device ESN/MEID is. One way to get the ESN/MEID is if you’re going after live pings via a legal demand, be sure to always include a section in your search warrant requesting the, “Make, Model, serial number, IMEI, ESN, MEID, and MAC address associated with the listed target number including any and all equipment or SIM card changes for the life of the account.” That way you can get this information from the compliance center when you provision your live ping.
If you have the CDRs for your target number, you can find the ESN/MEID in the Subscriber Information sheet (.rtf file) under the EQUIPMENT section. Now that I mention it, you should be reviewing the CDRs if you are on a man hunt or working surveillance, to identify pattern of life and possible locations where they lay their head at night. Examining the CDRs will also help to understand what network they are predominantly using during their normal, daily usage activity.
Now that you have the ESN/MEID, how does one identify the make and model of the device? This gets a little confusing, but hopefully will all make sense in the end.
First an ESN (Electronic Serial Number) and MEID (Mobile Equipment Identifier) are essentially the same thing as it relates to Sprint. ESNs were what Sprint called the device serial number 10 years ago and were specific to their 3G CDMA network, however fast-forward to today and Sprint still refers to them as ESNs when in reality the industry has transitioned to MEIDs. You may see them listed both ways in the returns.
Searching the ESN/MEID to get the device make and model first depends on if the number identifier needs to be converted from a decimal to a hexadecimal number. Counting the total number of digits will determine the next step.
For example, if the number is 18 digits, the first step is to convert the ESN from a decimal number to a hex number. If the ESN/MEID is either 14 or 15 digits, skip to the next section.
Working with the 18-Digit Number:
Here is an example Sprint 18-digit ESN/MEID – 089555431301520150
- – Use this site https://www.esnconverter.com for the 18-digit conversion. The site converts the Sprint ESN to a 14-digit Hex ESN/MEID – 35611309173216
In order to search for the device make and model, the ESN/MEID needs to be a 15-digit number. This ESN/MEID is only 14-digits and is missing the last digit. This last digit is known as the check-digit so we need to calculate for the last digit.
Working with the 14-Digit Number:
To get that last digit, we need to run the 14-digit Hex ESN/MEID 35611309173216 in a MEID Calculator. The calculator will convert that for you and provide you the results of the check-digit.
- – Use this site https://www.imei.info/calc to calculate the check-digit of the 14-digit ESN/MEID
- – Copy and paste 35611309173216 into the calculator and it will automatically provide you the check-digit. For this example number the check-digit is 5
- – Check “I’m not a robot” and click CHECK to run the true ESN/MEID
- – You now should get a report of the device make and model and what networks the device supports
Working with the 15-Digit Number:
If you have an ESN/MEID that is already 15 digits, it may already contain the check-digit.
- – Use this site https://www.imei.info/ to run the 15-digit number
- – Check “I’m not a robot” and click CHECK to run the true ESN/MEID
- – You now should get a report of the device make and model and what networks the device supports
If this gets confusing or you need assistance in navigating this process, don’t hesitate to reach out to Hawk Support for assistance. As always, the support staff at Hawk Analytics are always standing at the ready to assist any law enforcement agency with a critical missing person investigation or high-profile violent crime (pro bono). You will never receive a bill for our expertise when we assist with an exigent case.
I’m sure there’s a burning question as you’re reading. What about the T-Mobile – Sprint merger? The companies referred to it as “Day Zero” for the merger, which was August 1, 2020, and at this point people are still not sure how this will affect CDR returns that pre-date August 1st. As for the compliance centers, right now they are operating two different offices. It’s anticipated that at some point they will merge, but right now their first priority is getting Sprint customers switched over to the T-Mobile’s network, so everything will be under the T-Mobile corporate umbrella.
What about the L-Site? As it stands now, our contacts in Sprint tell us there is no decision yet on what will happen with the L-Site. It’s simply too soon in the merger to know what all will change moving forward, so stay tuned and we will surely bring it to you when we hear something. So for now it’s business as usual for the Sprint compliance center.
If you need to reach out to Hawk Support, you can contact us by sending an email to support@hawkanalytics.com or by calling us at (469) 373-HAWK (4295) option 1. If your case is exigent and you need emergency assistance, use option 4. We have subject matter experts on call 24/7/365.
Author: Tom Bruce, Cmdr (ret.) | Director of Technical Operations, Sr. SME
Phone: 469-373-4295, ext. 703 (PDT)
Email: tom@hawkanalytics.com
