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Network Vision/LTE - Western & Central Pennsylvania Markets (Lancaster, Scranton, Erie, State College, Williamsport)


jeremyandrew

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Here is speedtest Creek Hill Road and Geist Road Leola PA.

 

Here is 800 LTE by the Rt. 30 outlets.

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Akron/ Brownstown, PA also getting 1900 LTE and some 800 too.

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Absolutely amazing speeds there. 40MBS down. Wow! Make me want to check that spot out next time I get down that way.

 

What is the general location in case I get down that way?

If you know where the bestbuy, costco, and lowe's on heampsted road is, that's exactly where I'm at, but you can pull B41 the whole way up the road, but there's about 3 towers in that general area, one on a water tower right off old philly pike, one near the HACC campus and I'm really believing the other is right outside the bestbuy on the interstate. But I generally get -88 to -109 on B41 and inside the entire store I'm always on B41, never drops a connection. Now granted the nexus 6 (motorola) has the best radios in a phone I've ever!, but even dealing with customers with sprint, every single person had strong LTE signals in the store. I just have yet to grab a phone and test to see if CA is active in this area, might have to try next time I'm diagnosing someone's s6. Working for samsung has it's perks sometimes :tu:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm in Central PA territory this week just a bit north of Stroudsburg, PA. I'm mainly line of site (with a couple trees in between) to a tower that has B25 and B26 active. I've had very good speed from it the past few days (about 20mbps down average). It switches band based on signal strength. As soon as my signal gets weak on B25, it switches to B26. Glad to see the network is working well in this area. 

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Well I can report CA isn't in this area yet :cry:  messed around with someone's s6 when I was updating it and I got the same speeds I was getting with my nexus 6...but there's still always hope and on a side note, the shentel market speeds are really low...I mean lower then they were prior to b26, so now I really do see the difference in the corporate market, especially since we have b41 out here

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Well I can report CA isn't in this area yet :cry:  messed around with someone's s6 when I was updating it and I got the same speeds I was getting with my nexus 6...but there's still always hope and on a side note, the shentel market speeds are really low...I mean lower then they were prior to b26, so now I really do see the difference in the corporate market, especially since we have b41 out here

 

Just a note for future reference...CA speeds sometimes do not reflect on Speedtest app servers.  You are better off using Sensorly's speed test app when trying to discover CA performance.

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Just a note for future reference...CA speeds sometimes do not reflect on Speedtest app servers. You are better off using Sensorly's speed test app when trying to discover CA performance.

DSL Reports has a nice new HTML5 based speed test you could check out, too.
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Just a note for future reference...CA speeds sometimes do not reflect on Speedtest app servers.  You are better off using Sensorly's speed test app when trying to discover CA performance.

didn't know this....hmmm, well looks like I'll be doing some trials at work

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Well I can report CA isn't in this area yet :cry: messed around with someone's s6 when I was updating it and I got the same speeds I was getting with my nexus 6...but there's still always hope and on a side note, the shentel market speeds are really low...I mean lower then they were prior to b26, so now I really do see the difference in the corporate market, especially since we have b41 out here

Got this near the PA Turnpike Denver exit in the Fivepointville area. Downloads starts to fly on speeds like that.post-54939-143905475683_thumb.png

 

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Just a note for future reference...CA speeds sometimes do not reflect on Speedtest app servers.  You are better off using Sensorly's speed test app when trying to discover CA performance.

I'm still getting the upper 20s to 30s at work, and this admin was actually wrong, I got consistently lower speeds with sensorly due to random server picks that where so far away it would make any carrier look bad, so I'm sticking to speed test and picking servers that make sense, not some server in canada.....but I'm really happy to see the speeds staying high, just hoping what happened in shentel land doesn't happen here

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I'm still getting the upper 20s to 30s at work, and this admin was actually wrong, I got consistently lower speeds with sensorly due to random server picks that where so far away it would make any carrier look bad, so I'm sticking to speed test and picking servers that make sense, not some server in canada.....but I'm really happy to see the speeds staying high, just hoping what happened in shentel land doesn't happen here

I wasn't WRONG. I said that speedtest SOMETIMES does not reflect aggregated speeds. Sensorly is not a good speed tester, but in an instance where speedtest is not actually giving you a CA speed, Sensorly will. That was my point.

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I wasn't WRONG. I said that speedtest SOMETIMES does not reflect aggregated speeds. Sensorly is not a good speed tester, but in an instance where speedtest is not actually giving you a CA speed, Sensorly will. That was my point.

I understood that, that's what I was saying was wrong and explained why right after saying it..... Edited by S4GRU
No need for sniping at others on the forums
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Folks, I can appreciate running a few speed tests because 2x CA is a novelty right now.  But do not be running numerous speed tests in attempt to get those super cool, bragging rights speed test results.  That is just e-penis wanking, wasting available data capacity.  And any speed test result proves nothing.  If you want to know for certain that 2x CA is active, access the engineering screen.  That is the definitive proof.

 

AJ

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What Robert was saying is that Speedtest sometimes may or may not take carrier aggregation into account when doing the testing whereas Sensorly does but have crappy testing servers. So in essence you're both basically i agreement. It's just the finer details that's to be hammered out. 

 

So basically speedtest may or may not reflect CA testing, Sensorly usually does but it has a high chance crappy testing servers and can have pings / speeds all over the place. 

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wow!! no need for sniping at others??? but an admin can do that to me with no repercussions???

I think you misunderstood what the "admin's" point was.

 

Theyre have been reports of some users seeing proper CA speeds using sensorly, where as Speed test.net have not reflected that.

 

In no part of his comment did he advocate to replace OOkla with sensorly, in fact we are all aware of the limited servers on sensorly app leading to less than stellar results.

 

But this just proves there is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

Edited by lilotimz
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Sorry guys, the speed tests I posted were at two different spots. I just never saw 30's before even with AT&T around here.

One unique thing is usually after running the first test, the next test speed is cut in half. So a 32mbs down speed will show half at 16mbs down on the second run. Definitely, not tempting to keep running them as the speed decreases.

 

I do keep a toolbox of cell phone measurement tools on my phone, which include:

Signal Check Pro

Rootmetrics Coverage Map

LTE Discovery

Net Monitor

Sensorly

Open Signal

...etc...

 

I hope that my posts help Sprint realize two things:

-They have a loyal user base of tech geeks.

-We care enough about the network to go out and check it out ourselves and give feedback as needed.

 

And with a bow to Sensorly, I will give it priority as my coverage tool of choice.

 

"If everybody would get off the freeway there wouldn't be so much traffic when I am driving"

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

A couple more questions:

1. I read about 1900 mhz spacing.

It seems like 1900 mhz would require more towers than 800mhz or 700mhz or 600mhz spacing. Why then are the 1900mhz spread so thinly?

2. Due to the help on this forum I am starting to see a lot of empty skeleton Nextel Antenna Arrays. I know these are not optimally placed and may overlap with Sprint a bit, but there would be a lot of potential gaps filled by using these with directional antennas or something like that. Why doesn't Sprint just mount Panels on these?

3. This is a bit short-sighted but 800mhz LTE and Voice would be be a great forerunner to Spark in these parts. Just wishing for stronger signal. Maybe 800mhz 1900mhz 2.5ghz will take care of it all in one bang.

4. Signal Check Pro is giving me crazy readings like 800mhz 1xrtt from Lime St., Lancaster City over 16 miles away....is Signal Check Pro always accurate?0d856798be85d8b87990118140f76cde.jpg

 

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Yes, exactly.Money for towers, money for backhaul, etc....

 

Really, Sprint does have a lot of towers around and sufficient coverage for my needs. My coordinates just happened to fall right in the middle of 4 towers in our area and I walternatively getting 1xrtt, LTE and 3G sometimes with no connectivity.

 

I reported it with the Sprint App and the service immediately seemed to improve. Was that a placebo effect or what?

 

And we save a bit a bit of money over the big two carriers till they get everything in place.

 

Another two questions....

-There are some extremely skinny Antennas on some towers...I thought one was a gutted Nextel Tower until I saw what I am guessing to be a 4" x 48" panel on the extreme edge of the Antenna Array.

-Does co-locating a tower require zoning approval since Carriers already occupy the structure? How about the Micro-sites Sprint is planning to install?

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Great speeds there in Lancaster City and glad to see CA as well. Just some of that speed goodness to creep up north.

I will test next time I get through there. I got 16mbs down near Hershey Harrisburg and picked up 800mhz in Bainbridge in sight of TMI. I think Harrisburg must be Shentel land as well. Even saw a very nice corny Shentel billboard saying "Sprint- the Power of our Towers". I do admire their efforts to market the network to consumers.

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