Shentel / Sprint LTE - (was ntelos - West & N&W Virginia)

[bbostwick8]

I'm using Signal Check Pro along with Network Cell Info

I didn’t think they made SCP for iOS


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[WuTang03]

I didn’t think they made SCP for iOS


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I wish they did! [emoji31] iOS doesn’t allow network API, access, right?

[dkyeager]

I wish they did! [emoji31] iOS doesn’t allow network API, access, right?

There was a test version of a similar product for IOS but you had to be jailbroken. Field test mode would give similar info. Sometimes you had to change font for all to display. Somewhat flakey.

 

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[shawneyboy123]

Has anybody noticed a speed increase in the area? LTE in Beckley consistently pulls 30 download when just a few weeks ago it was difficult to break 10.

[bbostwick8]

Has anybody noticed a speed increase in the area? LTE in Beckley consistently pulls 30 download when just a few weeks ago it was difficult to break 10.

Been workin hard! [emoji2]


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[Elijah]

Will be traveling to Petersburg WV from Cumberland MD tomorrow. I will Sensorly/RootMetrics/OpemSignaln in iOS the trip. Should be full of LTE now with USC Roaming.

[WuTang03]

4 hours ago, Elijah said:

Will be traveling to Petersburg WV from Cumberland MD tomorrow. I will Sensorly/RootMetrics/OpemSignaln in iOS the trip. Should be full of LTE now with USC Roaming.

Happy New Year and safe travels! Thanks for mapping!

[bbostwick8]

Look for service coming to Wyoming and McDowell counties by end of the year. [emoji854]


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[dkyeager]

15 hours ago, bbostwick8 said:

Look for service coming to Wyoming and McDowell counties by end of the year.


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I imagine coverage is aimed at the US 52 area.  It would be nice if they also took over Logan county from Sprint.

[bbostwick8]

I imagine coverage is aimed at the US 52 area.  It would be nice if they also took over Logan county from Sprint.

It’s actually going to cover Shentel’s cable markets. Pineville, Oceana, Mullens, Welch, Northfork, Kimball and nearby areas.


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[Galaxyguy]

Warning: Long, but worth the read. 

I just wanted to give a good customer service experience with Shentel. On one sector of the tower closest to my house (Woodstock, VA), B26 had zero data throughput. I am mainly on B41 at my house, but on occasion I would drop to B26. Anything I was doing would get cut off, which was frustrating. Through the Sprint app, I submitted some network data tickets, but nothing ever happened. So after about 6 weeks, I sent a Facebook message to the Shentel FB account one evening before work with details on the problem, including the GCI of the B26 sector and the address of the tower. I work nights, so I didn't wake up until about 2PM the next day and saw I had missed 5 calls from a Shentel Employee. It was the RF Engineering Manager. I called him back and he thanked me for my detailed message and he said when they checked the stats on the tower, they realized they had an issue. They actually shut down that sector on B26 so phones wouldn't connect to the bad band/sector. He told me the RRH went bad and they had already put in an order for a crew to replace it. He all but offered me a job and thanked me for helping them diagnose the issue. He told me I should stop by sometime and talk to him. Long story short, I may go have a chat with him sometime, but I don't know that I would leave what I'm doing now. 

Anyway, fast forward a few days and I got a call from a field RF engineer who told me they had just fixed the issue and did some other tweaks to the tower to make speeds better. He told me he is responsible for the general area around me and told me to save his number and call him directly if I ever notice anything else. 

I also got some info from him about future upgrades for this area. He said they are waiting on Sprint to approve them adding a 20x20 B25 carrier, but that should happen soon. He told me there is already a 15x15 B25 carrier active near me that I'm going to try to see if I can connect to it. That tower also has B41 so it may be a bit of a challenge to get my phone to connect to it. One last thing, they are close to adding a third B41 carrier to have 3xCA in this area. He said that should happen soon too.

A couple days later I noticed that there are now two 10x10 B25 carriers live on my "home tower." There used to only be one 10x10 and one 5x5. I wish I could have asked him about this, but I didn't know at the time I talked to him. I'm guessing this may be the speed tweaks that he mentioned. 

This is all good news for this area and hopefully he and I can keep in touch. I asked if he could give me a tour of a tower one day and he said he would check with his boss to see if he could do it. I hope that I can do that someday. 

[Trip]

That is a fantastic story.  Among the many reasons I love Shentel. 

At some point I'll have to try to make a similar contact.  I want to try to get more information on their deployment down near my parents in the former nTelos region.

- Trip

[WuTang03]

13 hours ago, Galaxyguy said:

Warning: Long, but worth the read. 

I just wanted to give a good customer service experience with Shentel. On one sector of the tower closest to my house (Woodstock, VA), B26 had zero data throughput. I am mainly on B41 at my house, but on occasion I would drop to B26. Anything I was doing would get cut off, which was frustrating. Through the Sprint app, I submitted some network data tickets, but nothing ever happened. So after about 6 weeks, I sent a Facebook message to the Shentel FB account one evening before work with details on the problem, including the GCI of the B26 sector and the address of the tower. I work nights, so I didn't wake up until about 2PM the next day and saw I had missed 5 calls from a Shentel Employee. It was the RF Engineering Manager. I called him back and he thanked me for my detailed message and he said when they checked the stats on the tower, they realized they had an issue. They actually shut down that sector on B26 so phones wouldn't connect to the bad band/sector. He told me the RRH went bad and they had already put in an order for a crew to replace it. He all but offered me a job and thanked me for helping them diagnose the issue. He told me I should stop by sometime and talk to him. Long story short, I may go have a chat with him sometime, but I don't know that I would leave what I'm doing now. 

Anyway, fast forward a few days and I got a call from a field RF engineer who told me they had just fixed the issue and did some other tweaks to the tower to make speeds better. He told me he is responsible for the general area around me and told me to save his number and call him directly if I ever notice anything else. 

I also got some info from him about future upgrades for this area. He said they are waiting on Sprint to approve them adding a 20x20 B25 carrier, but that should happen soon. He told me there is already a 15x15 B25 carrier active near me that I'm going to try to see if I can connect to it. That tower also has B41 so it may be a bit of a challenge to get my phone to connect to it. One last thing, they are close to adding a third B41 carrier to have 3xCA in this area. He said that should happen soon too.

A couple days later I noticed that there are now two 10x10 B25 carriers live on my "home tower." There used to only be one 10x10 and one 5x5. I wish I could have asked him about this, but I didn't know at the time I talked to him. I'm guessing this may be the speed tweaks that he mentioned. 

This is all good news for this area and hopefully he and I can keep in touch. I asked if he could give me a tour of a tower one day and he said he would check with his boss to see if he could do it. I hope that I can do that someday. 

That's amazing! Glad to hear Shentel is so on top of customer communications, and good to hear speed are back up! Now if only we could find out a way for them to manage all of Sprint's deployments...

Any idea where else Sprint can be deploying two 10x10 B25 carriers?

[bbostwick8]

Pretty good!


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[Trip]

Yes yes yes YES YES!!!!

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/02/05/1332737/0/en/Shentel-Announces-Expansion-of-its-Affiliate-Relationship-with-Sprint.html

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/SHEN/5964881640x0x969980/03FEA5BA-6059-4DD6-BBB3-A6C1E6F02561/Wireless_Network_Expansion_01-30-2018.pdf

My year has officially been made.

- Trip

[S4GRU]

1 hour ago, Trip said:

Yes yes yes YES YES!!!!

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/02/05/1332737/0/en/Shentel-Announces-Expansion-of-its-Affiliate-Relationship-with-Sprint.html

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/SHEN/5964881640x0x969980/03FEA5BA-6059-4DD6-BBB3-A6C1E6F02561/Wireless_Network_Expansion_01-30-2018.pdf

My year has officially been made.

- Trip

The Eastern KY/Far Western VA Panhandle don't surprise me.  Natural organic move, taking over a few isolated Sprint sites. However, taking over Sprint corporate markets in Lancaster, PA and the Southern Virginia market we're surprises to me.  Albeit it good surprised. 

Hopefully Shentel will expand service significantly in their new rural Appalachian areas in this agreement.

[chamb]

1 hour ago, Trip said:

Yes yes yes YES YES!!!!

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/02/05/1332737/0/en/Shentel-Announces-Expansion-of-its-Affiliate-Relationship-with-Sprint.html

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/SHEN/5964881640x0x969980/03FEA5BA-6059-4DD6-BBB3-A6C1E6F02561/Wireless_Network_Expansion_01-30-2018.pdf

My year has officially been made.

- Trip

Yes, Yes, Yes.   I live in the Original Shentel area along I-81 in Pennsylvania. I have had GREAT service for years due to Shentel having a network that is extremely good.  When you experience this type of network and had to travel outside the area into a non-Shentel area, it could be quite painful.  Things will be getting better and that is a big plus.

[Trip]

22 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

The Eastern KY/Far Western VA Panhandle don't surprise me.  Natural organic move, taking over a few isolated Sprint sites. However, taking over Sprint corporate markets in Lancaster, PA and the Southern Virginia market we're surprises to me.  Albeit it good surprised. 

Hopefully Shentel will expand service significantly in their new rural Appalachian areas in this agreement.

I was also surprised to see Lancaster and Culpeper included, but the rest seems like a good fit.  Sprint currently has a network in those areas that is either entirely non-existent (see Charlotte, Lunenburg Counties), or is the bare minimum to be able to say there's service in the area. 

Take Farmville as an example; two cell sites to cover Farmville, and neither is particularly well-suited to cover Longwood University, leaving plenty of holes where the students are.  Sprint is the only carrier not on the site near the high school, so while B26 connects outside the Wal-Mart, it's 3G or 1X 800 inside.  The LTE is long gone by the time you get the Hampden-Sydney, too, usually 1X 800 even outdoors.  I will be surprised if Shentel builds fewer than three new sites in Farmville proper; Shentel Cable actually owns one of the towers AT&T is on in Farmville, so I would bet we'll see Shentel cell service appear there sooner rather than later.  The other two being the tower by the high school and the tower overlooking Longwood.  (Hampden-Sydney is not in Farmville, but I expect they'll put one there too.)  I also expect to see them beef up the highways around Farmville, as the network is quite sparse there too.

I cannot wait to see what gets built.  Exciting times await!

- Trip

[Jones]

Yes, Yes, Yes.   I live in the Original Shentel area along I-81 in Pennsylvania. I have had GREAT service for years due to Shentel having a network that is extremely good. 

I agree, live in eastern panhandle of wv now and love shentel's service. My only gripe is that shentel prefers at&t's style where coverage and reliability is near perfect but speeds are low.
When I lived in Pittsburgh I got used to the better speeds.

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[chamb]

12 minutes ago, Trip said:

I was also surprised to see Lancaster and Culpeper included, but the rest seems like a good fit. 

 

Lancaster is improving lately, but it always was a step behind Shentel's service in nearby York. If you traveled around in York but happened to cross into Lancaster,  you often had some issues.  Recently, some improvements did happen in Lancaster, especially band 41.

Shentel has a fiber network in Pennsylvania. Will not be much of an issue to extend it into Lancaster. Shentel understands how to use fiber where appropriate.

[chamb]

18 minutes ago, Jones said:

 

 

I agree, live in eastern panhandle of wv now and love shentel's service. My only gripe is that shentel prefers at&t's style where coverage and reliability is near perfect but speeds are low.
When I lived in Pittsburgh I got used to the better speeds.

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In my area, Shentel added Band 41 to the sites that needed it.  They did not add it to the more rural sites that were fine with band 25 & 26. I would have done the same thing if I was making the decisions.  They do eventually add B-41 or make wider band 25 carriers if a site starts to get too much traffic.  It would have been very expensive and wasteful to have every Shentel site fully equipped from the start.  The bigger towns have B-41 active and the very rural sites do not.   None of us need the extreme high speeds that you see posted sometimes.  

[grapkoski]

I am excited to see them expand. I hope they can convince Sprint corporate to invest more in Western Loudoun County which still has gaping holes from Purceville to the west.

[Elijah]

2 hours ago, Jones said:

 

 

I agree, live in eastern panhandle of wv now and love shentel's service. My only gripe is that shentel prefers at&t's style where coverage and reliability is near perfect but speeds are low.
When I lived in Pittsburgh I got used to the better speeds.

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I'm over in Allegany County in Cumberland. I hope Shentel still shows me how good they can be soon... 

[Galaxyguy]

38 minutes ago, Elijah said:

I'm over in Allegany County in Cumberland. I hope Shentel still shows me how good they can be soon... 

Don't forget to change your market label in your profile. You're in the Shentel market now.  

[bbostwick8]

Watch for job opportunities in these areas in the coming months!


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