Why is Sprint's 4G LTE Signal so bad almost everywhere [in my area]?

[burnout8488]

I haven't seen any decent results from B26 yet, it's the same strength as B25 for the most part.

 

I have not experienced optimized B26 yet either, and I've been up and down the Northeast plenty of times in plenty of cities. Maybe this will be a springtime task up here, I know another member from NC said his area just got optimized down there. 

[BlueAngel]

I have not experienced optimized B26 yet either, and I've been up and down the Northeast plenty of times in plenty of cities. Maybe this will be a springtime task up here, I know another member from NC said his area just got optimized down there.

Here's hoping it's soon, it would make the experience so much better.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

[centermedic]

In my experience samsung devices hold on to a LTE signal better than HTC. I don't care for the Samsung as I have been loyal to HTC for years. Touch Pro, TP2, HTC EVO (wimax), EVO 3D, Evo LTE, M7, M8 and of course will be getting the M9. I have friends that use Samsung and I have used Samsung phones temporally usually your signal strength is a few points higher and they won't roll to 3G as much as the HTC's. Even an old Galaxy S3 would get 2-3 "bars" where my M8 would get one on my home tower. This is my personal experience but it's been that way for as long as I can remember even on the old wimax devices. Back in the day the sanyo phones with retractable antenna were king for reception. 

Holding on to the LTE signal for to long may actually give you worse performance.

[mnjeepmale]

Towers in Minneapolis that have B26 do have better signals from what I have seen. 

[JossMan]

Towers in Minneapolis that have B26 do have better signals from what I have seen. 

Band 26 (800MHz) post-optimization will trump Band 25 (1900MHz).  

[mittenmitten]

why exactly would they put up equipment and not optimize it then and there? does it really take that long to 'optimize'?

[jroepcke51]

why exactly would they put up equipment and not optimize it then and there? does it really take that long to 'optimize'?

Different groups of workers. I found that band 25 was optimized within weeks but band 26 that started popping up in January still is not optimized

[Mr.Nuke]

why exactly would they put up equipment and not optimize it then and there? does it really take that long to 'optimize'?

Because a tower climber isn't an RF engineer.

[caspar347]

Yep. B25 "initial optimization" is essentially a flip of a switch that whoever signs off on the installation can do in a few minutes. B26 optimization requires hours if not days per individual tower of testing settings.

[JossMan]

A friend of mine who works for Ericsson (Sprint's network maintenance) told me that LTE 800 can't be optimized until enough sites that neighbor each other are put into operation, almost every site needs to have 800 except two or three within a larger cluster. When they do optimize a cluster they will leave one on the edge of a cluster non-optimized as a "buffer" to the other sites that are still awaiting optimization to avoid interference.  

 

On another note I aggravate him once a week to get the last three sites in my town put into LTE operation. Good news is that he is suppose to call me before it happens so I can watch a site get integrated with LTE.

[JJ100488]

If you're receiving -80dbm on EVDO and -110 on LTE then other you're not connected to the site you think you are, or downtillt hasn't been adjusted at the site.

 

In my experience, per signal check, the LTE (B25) signal is always 25-30dbm weaker than EVDO. I find that unless your EVDO signal is -75 or better you are at risk of dropping LTE. For example, if the evdo signal is -80dbm, the LTE signal will be -105 to -110 and will sometimes drop out completely. And I know for sure it is coming from the same tower. Places where I have almost full bars of 3G can have only 1 bar LTE. I don't know why it is so weak but I hope it improves.. Maybe something is wrong with my phone. No B26 here either so it is almost impossible to get LTE inside buildings at all.

[WiWavelength]

In my experience, per signal check, the LTE (B25) signal is always 25-30dbm weaker than EVDO. I find that unless your EVDO signal is -75 or better you are at risk of dropping LTE. For example, if the evdo signal is -80dbm, the LTE signal will be -105 to -110...

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-308-rssi-vs-rsrp-a-brief-lte-signal-strength-primer/

 

AJ

[JJ100488]

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-308-rssi-vs-rsrp-a-brief-lte-signal-strength-primer/

 

AJ

 

Right, I know the RSRP is a different value that is always lower. But in terms of comparing 3g and LTE coming from the same site, my point was that on B25, the signal starts to become unusable past -105 (my experience). Since -105 LTE (b25) seems to correlate with -75 to -80 on evdo (1900mhz) from the same tower, this leads to large areas with poor or no LTE even when 3G is very strong. Basically any area where I was used to -80 to -100 evdo (perfectly useable) has marginal or nonexistant LTE coming from the same tower. This creates a lot of gaps in the LTE coverage that will hopefully be resolved by B26.

 

We do have B41 here, which oddly enough seems provide more/better coverage than B25. B41 seems to hold on to much lower RSRP values (down to -120 or -125), which actually seems to provide a better experience than the B25 at -110dbm.

 

Again this is just my experience. 

[WiWavelength]

Right, I know the RSRP is a different value that is always lower. But in terms of comparing 3g and LTE coming from the same site, my point was that on B25, the signal starts to become unusable past -105 (my experience).

 

If LTE becomes unusable below -105 dBm RSRP, your network or device is malfunctioning.

 

AJ

[chamb]

If LTE becomes unusable below -105 dBm RSRP, your network or device is malfunctioning.

 

AJ

Yes AJ, I can verify what you said by actual usage.   I can work with LTE at a -115 level but the download speed will be significantly slower than with a stronger signal.   As I go below -115, the speed gets even slower and I find that most often, it is the transmit from the phone that can not be received at the cell site.  Between -115 and 120, if the phone can successfully transmit a strong enough signal toward the cell site, you can still receive data from the cell site.

[JJ100488]

If LTE becomes unusable below -105 dBm RSRP, your network or device is malfunctioning.

 

AJ

 

Must be then I guess, although this is my second phone so it must be the towers. B41 chugs along perfectly fine to much lower RSRP, but b25 definitely falls apart for me after 105.

[signalchaser]

Ive had pretty good luck with Sprint in the back of stores with 3g. It gets me enough data to browse the web efficiently and make calls. However since getting my Nexus 5 I have much greater coverage with the band 26 LTE.