Network Vision/LTE - LA Metro Market

[metayoshi]

Is there any reason I shouldn't be getting B41 in Santa Monica? I'm just trying out Sprint for the last week and my phone has never connected to B41 here in Santa Monica (it didn't work in Palm Springs either but did a couple of times in LA on the drvie back). Sprint's coverage map says that my home and most surrounding areas should have "Best" Spark recdeption yet even outdoors next to an open field it is only getting B25 with ~1Mbps speeds and ~200ms pings, pretty unnacceptable. Along with learning that Sprint can't even get B26 in all of Socal has made this pretty disaapointing. While I can thankfully get 1x800 (the main reason I retried Sprint was to get better voice receptioin at home) the prevalence of poor 3G and B25 conncetions almost everywhere I've tried in Sprint makes me think I'll go back to T-Mobile.

 

Is there any reason that I shouldn't be experiencing this or is there any hope that it will improve?

First of all, Welcome to S4GRU.

 

As many of the S4GRU Sponsors and Premier Sponsors will attest to, Sprint's coverage maps are very exaggerated and not as accurate as we would like. I don't want to push you to do it right now, but sponsors get a ton of maps that are a lot more accurate since S4GRU himself gets updates from sources inside Sprint, and, in addition, we have many people who love to contribute to the maps.

 

I am an owner of a Nexus 5 on Sprint, and I live in Orange County, but I go to LA a lot since it's my hometown and my parents still live there. In Downtown LA, B41 is pretty much everywhere, though I can't speak for Santa Monica as I don't go there that often. Orange County used to be hit an miss, but it's actually a lot better now than it was 2 years ago.

 

In terms of improvement, I can say that Sprint has improved substantially and is continuing to improve ever since the whole merge between Sprint/Clearwire/Softbank. I live in Tustin and work in Irvine, and about 2 years ago, I was really disappointed with Sprint's performance. I stumbled upon this site, though, and I got a ton more information. I was really considering switching to Verizon back then, but this site changed my mind. Come to the present, B25 covers most places I go with more than good enough speeds, and B41 is starting to appear all over the place. Heck, there are places I feel like B26 would have been the savior frequency due to low density towers and a lot of buildings, but B41 and B25 is actually covering those places very well to my surprise.

 

Is it worth the wait? In my opinion, that depends on each person. To me, it was well worth the wait, as I'm actually performing better than my Verizon friends in a lot of places now, and it was not like I absolutely needed the fastest speeds and usable data connection every single minute of the day back when my data was terrible. Some people, though, do need their data all the time as they rely on it for more than just looking at emails or getting some quick info, so for those people, I can understand why Sprint is not for them.

 

So it's up to you. I waited and it was much better than I expected. The first few months were obviously painful, but I can't say that anymore. I have great Sprint coverage. They will definitely improve, as this site has boatloads of information about future plans about Sprint, and I see a bright future. If you want to stay with Sprint, you definitely can. Just don't expect any overnight changes. If you want to return to T-mobile, go ahead and do that too. This is the information I can give you based on my own experiences, so with that, you can do whatever you want to do.

[bucdenny]

I travel through LA every week. Rarely drop to 3G unless phone in pocket. From Irvine to LAX, I see My phone on B41 near 75% of the time now.

[bigmachine]

Also, for some reason, Clear never built many sites in Santa Monica. A lot of the B41 coverage in L.A. is from Clear site conversions. As the days go by more and more Sprint sites are getting B41 equipment. Some areas of Santa Monica may not have B41 upgrades yet.

[Toffer]

Thanks for all of the replies. Sounds like Sprint just isn't available in Santa Monica yet. Seems surprising to me. Looking at the Sensorly maps it looks like Sprint is still doing poorly all over the Westside (West of 405). Can't believe they've ignored Silicon Beach for this long. Since my main impetus for trying out Sprint again was becasue I learned they have 800 Mhz spectrum and I need some better coverage at my house but have now learned they not only can't implement that here for at least 6 months and they haven't even put B41 in place (despite their maps statign they have "Best" coverage here) I think I will have to stick with T-Mobile for now. Can't believe how deceptive Sprint has been. Puts a really bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I'll try them again in the Fall if they've lit up B26 and B41 as their maps claim but I'm not sure I can trust them. At least they have 1x800 voice which is nice.

 

Thanks so much for all of the input.

[Toffer]

I am guessing by your profile you are trying out Sprint with the Nexus 5.  Some people have issues with B41 using the N5.  The N5 did not work on B41 when initially sold and had to receive and update more than 6 months later to work with B41.  Some people reported issues after the update getting B41.  Others could not stay connected.  Others had no problem.  I'm not sure if this is your issue, but it's what first came to mind.

 

However, B26 will be coming online this year in LA County.  The IBEZ 800 rebanding will be complete some time in 2015.  Sprint has already released crews to start getting sites ready for 800MHz LTE for quick fire up after the FCC allows them to use the spectrum.  We don;t have any specific information about dates in LA, but it should be some time before the end of the year.  I would guess LA will go first.

 

Other than trying another device for B41, you may need to stay with Tmo until B26 becomes prevalent in your area.  About that time Sprint with have 2x or maybe even 3x carrier aggregation on B41 in the LA area.  So it may be a good time then to get a new Sprint device that support B41 CA and make the jump then.

I have a recently clean installed Nexus 5 4.4.4 so I don't think it should have any problems connecting here and I know it was capable of connecting to B41 while driving through LA (via the Signal Check Pro app). I was told that there is a B41 tower at Lincoln and Wilshire though and yesterday just 4 blocks away I could only connect to B25 with ~1Mbps. Strange that it didn't connect there.

[bigmachine]

Can't believe how deceptive Sprint has been. Puts a really bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I'll try them again in the Fall if they've lit up B26 and B41 as their maps claim but I'm not sure I can trust them. At least they have 1x800 voice which is nice.

 

There was a recent map update that apparently improved accuracy in some markets, but for L.A. the update was completely unrealistic.  I don't think this is intentional deception.  It really seems like a mistake.

 

Sprint keeps improving by the day in this market, so it's good that you're keeping an open mind for trying them in the future.

[trojanman05]

It appears B41 (Clearwire) in downtown LA is down. I'm only connecting to B25 or 3G where I would normally be on B41..B25 is excruciatingly slow, pretty much unusable.  With no B26, talk about over capacity with all of us workers here. I was connected to Sprint B41 near Union Station when I was pulling in this morning on the train (as well as throughout the whole ride up from OC), but they have yet to deploy 8T8R in the middle of downtown where all the skyscrapers are. I wonder what's going on with the Clearwire sites.

 

While outside for lunch I was connected to B25 and pulled down .04mbps and upload .01mbps, with a 49 ping. Had a -91dbm. Just now on 3G I pulled down .39mbps, uploaded .54mbps, with a 84 ping and -81dbm. 

 

Anyone else downtown today?

[jasonsteele]

It appears B41 (Clearwire) in downtown LA is down. I'm only connecting to B25 or 3G where I would normally be on B41..B25 is excruciatingly slow, pretty much unusable. With no B26, talk about over capacity with all of us workers here. I was connected to Sprint B41 near Union Station when I was pulling in this morning on the train (as well as throughout the whole ride up from OC), but they have yet to deploy 8T8R in the middle of downtown where all the skyscrapers are. I wonder what's going on with the Clearwire sites.

 

While outside for lunch I was connected to B25 and pulled down .04mbps and upload .01mbps, with a 49 ping. Had a -91dbm. Just now on 3G I pulled down .39mbps, uploaded .54mbps, with a 84 ping and -81dbm.

 

Anyone else downtown today?

Seems to be a widespread issue. I'm in north OC and all Clear towers in my immediate area are down.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

[lilotimz]

File as many support tickets as possible AND get the ticket # or they did not open a ticket.

 

It sounds like the clear network is out.. probably some Ericsson worker ticking the wrong drop down menu item.. 'shrug'

[bigmachine]

Seems to be a widespread issue. I'm in north OC and all Clear towers in my immediate area are down.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

 

Not having any issues in Burbank using Clear B41.  I also just came back from Hollywood with no issues.

 

Hope it clears up soon.

[trojanman05]

Seems to be a widespread issue. I'm in north OC and all Clear towers in my immediate area are down.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

 

Ya, I just checked my SignalCheck logs from this morning and I didn't connect to any Clearwire sites while on the way up to LA, just Sprint B25 and 8T8R B41 (which there are plenty now).

 

File as many support tickets as possible AND get the ticket # or they did not open a ticket.

 

It sounds like the clear network is out.. probably some Ericsson worker ticking the wrong drop down menu item.. 'shrug'

 

Sent a report via the Sprint Zone app...hopefully gets fixed soon.

[jasonsteele]

I've sent a report via Sprint Zone and also called customer service and opened a ticket. He said this one will "go straight to our engineers to make sure we get you back up and running, please disable LTE on your smartphone to ensure CDMA connectivity" (unnecessary due to the circumstances, but whatever). I'll update you guys if I notice anything resolved.

 

 

Sent from my iPad Air using Tapatalk

[mnjeepmale]

I just went through LAX to fly overseas. Was really suprised at the coverage in LAX. A lot of 3G service or sometimes no service. For being one of the largest airports I would think they would have major LTE coverage in the airport. Does anyone know if this is planned to happen?

[metayoshi]

I just went through LAX to fly overseas. Was really suprised at the coverage in LAX. A lot of 3G service or sometimes no service. For being one of the largest airports I would think they would have major LTE coverage in the airport. Does anyone know if this is planned to happen?

I don't remember having that bad of an experience when I flew to Japan last summer. Even according to the maps on this site, the towers around LAX are pretty up to date.

 

With that being said, if you read just a few posts before yours, you can see that LA and some of north Orange County was having a pretty big LTE problem. One person in the OC Market thread reported his home Clearwire tower is back up, so hopefully the issue is fixed.

[mnjeepmale]

I don't recall having LTE inside the airport. Would say 90% of the time it showed 3G. I did get LTE for a sometime when I was on the airport shuttle going from the terminal 1 to the International building. Then back to 3G. I remember sitting in the food court before flying to Australia and it could barely hold onto the 3G connection as the signal was so weak. I had to give up and hop on the WiFi.

[trojanman05]

I don't recall having LTE inside the airport. Would say 90% of the time it showed 3G. I did get LTE for a sometime when I was on the airport shuttle going from the terminal 1 to the International building. Then back to 3G. I remember sitting in the food court before flying to Australia and it could barely hold onto the 3G connection as the signal was so weak. I had to give up and hop on the WiFi.

I was in the international terminal last September and was on LTE to my recollection. It is served by Clearwire B41 sites, and there was a known outage of Clear sites in downtown LA and Orange County, so this may have been the reason why. If those were down, and 8T8R isn't deployed yet, then B25 was likely over capacity. This is exactly what was occurring downtown the past few days, mostly dropping my phone to 3G, which was also over capacity and unstable.

[bucdenny]

I was at LAX from international flight. Mostly 3G. DAS and B26 is needed badly. I was in Bay Area Oakland airport, B41 where it can reach and B26 everywhere.

[trojanman05]

Just confirming Clear B41 is back online in downtown LA 

[flyloc2]

B41 was also down in the South Bay (Torrance) area for the last two days.

[bigmachine]

From the new exhibit "The Art of L.A. Cell Sites".  Featuring Sprint & Clearwire equipment.

 

*Not really an exhibit.  But with filters anything looks like art right?

[shaferz]

Just wanted to add a data point.

 

I am in Van Nuys on Strathern (near the bud plant) and B41 is miserable here compared to other places I have been. I'm connected to a Clear tower tower currently:

 

Ping: 92ms

Download: 3.26Mbps

Upload: 6.18Mbps

 

Is this standard fare for the area? I'm staying at the Hilton in Woodland Hills and am not grabbing B41 there at all. B25 is dismal... Less than .5Mbps download speeds.

 

I guess I've been spoiled with the Chicago speeds - but I really thought the greater Los Angeles area would perform better than this.

[S4GRU]

Just wanted to add a data point.

 

I am in Van Nuys on Strathern (near the bud plant) and B41 is miserable here compared to other places I have been. I'm connected to a Clear tower tower currently:

 

Ping: 92ms

Download: 3.26Mbps

Upload: 6.18Mbps

 

Is this standard fare for the area? I'm staying at the Hilton in Woodland Hills and am not grabbing B41 there at all. B25 is dismal... Less than .5Mbps download speeds.

 

I guess I've been spoiled with the Chicago speeds - but I really thought the greater Los Angeles area would perform better than this.

 

In urban area without B41 or B26, I would expect Sprint B25 LTE to be pretty miserable.  Thankfully the number of places that occurs lessens every month.

[shaferz]

In urban area without B41 or B26, I would expect Sprint B25 LTE to be pretty miserable.  Thankfully the number of places that occurs lessens every month.

 

Just peeked at the Premier Sponsor maps and realized that I may soon find MUCH improved service at the hotel (Hilton in Woodland Hills)

 

Gonna go for a walk tonight and see what I can find.  

[bigmachine]

Gonna go for a walk tonight and see what I can find.

Did you see the site nearby? Almost completely boxed in on the West side.

[WiWavelength]

From the new exhibit "The Art of L.A. Cell Sites".  Featuring Sprint & Clearwire equipment.

 

 

Now showing in the Hesse Gallery at The Robert M. Herron Museum of Modern Cellphones.

 

AJ