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Network Vision/LTE - East Kentucky Market (Lexington)


lil_jimmy_norton

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I just went through ky, Tennessee, and Georgia on my way through to Tampa, i had 1 drop from 4g to 3g, i had no issues at all through the I75 corridor. Just saying.

That is why I said I75 from TN to London.  Three towers there still aren't complete, so you drop down to 3G for a bit. 

Get into East KY and it is game over. :-(

 

But yeah, I go up and down I75 from KY to FL all the time.  Good freeway to be on. 

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  • 2 years later...

While I fully understand the lack of 4G in the extremely rural portion of the state east of I75, I do not understand why those 4 or 5 towers in southern Kentucky still are not complete (along 75).  I guess the most likely answer is backhaul but that argument is becoming increasingly difficult to swallow as it has been half a DECADE since NV first began (June of 2012).  

 

Does anyone know anything further about those 3G only towers still incomplete north of the TN/KY border to just south of Corbin and then from Livingston to Berea?

 

Edit:  Not to beat a dead horse, but at this point, I'm straight up kicking it:  Those mini macros need to fully blanket Lexington with 2xCA band 41.  There are too many people (over half a million in the Lexington MSA) in a key education, job and health care center with out of date (thought admittedly still quite usable) speeds.  

 

At this point, the wait is more than stale. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm making a trip to southeast KY next month. What's the chances of any native Sprint coverage in Hazard county?

You mean Hazard the city? There is no Hazard County.  You will be serviced by Appalachian Wireless LTE as if you were on the Sprint network.  It will show up as an Extended partner.  So long as you have a phone that supports Band 12 (700MHz).

 

Once you enter their territory reboot the phone.  I always do entering roaming areas.  If you are coming in off I75 going down Hal Rodges Parkway towards Hazard, you'll lose Sprint, jump on Verizon for ~5 miles and a few miles outside Manchester hit Appalachian Wireless LTE. 

 

Now if you don't have a B12 phone, you are going to have a bad time.  For some reason Appalachian Wireless 3G isn't seen as extended, so you will be fully roaming, capped at ~150Kbps and use your roaming bucket up in no time.

 

Your LTE coverage will be the same as if you were on VZW.  VZW uses Appalachian Wireless to provide their LTE coverage.

 

I was in Manchester, KY a couple weekends ago and used up ~8GB of data while there. It was great :D

Edited by red_dog007
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You mean Hazard the city? There is no Hazard County. You will be serviced by Appalachian Wireless LTE as if you were on the Sprint network. It will show up as an Extended partner. So long as you have a phone that supports Band 12 (700MHz).

 

Once you enter their territory reboot the phone. I always do entering roaming areas. If you are coming in off I75 going down Hal Rodges Parkway towards Hazard, you'll lose Sprint, jump on Verizon for ~5 miles and a few miles outside Manchester hit Appalachian Wireless LTE.

 

Now if you don't have a B12 phone, you are going to have a bad time. For some reason Appalachian Wireless 3G isn't seen as extended, so you will be fully roaming, capped at ~150Kbps and use your roaming bucket up in no time.

 

Your LTE coverage will be the same as if you were on VZW. VZW uses Appalachian Wireless to provide their LTE coverage.

 

I was in Manchester, KY a couple weekends ago and used up ~8GB of data while there. It was great :D

That's not been my experience with roaming on Appalachian Wireless. Lte always takes away from my roaming bucket, but the coverage is always good when I roam on them.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

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That's not been my experience with roaming on Appalachian Wireless. Lte always takes away from my roaming bucket, but the coverage is always good when I roam on them.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

That sucks.  I did go two, three weeks ago now, right after the coverage map went "official",  You should not be using your roaming bucket on them.  Especially now that the LTE is listed as Extended.  I'd call Sprint and find out what is up. 

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That's not been my experience with roaming on Appalachian Wireless. Lte always takes away from my roaming bucket, but the coverage is always good when I roam on them.

 

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Appalachian Wireless roaming was previously not Extended (pseudo-native) although it is now. If it is still counting against your roaming bucket then something is wrong...

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  • 1 month later...

Appalachian Wireless roaming was previously not Extended (pseudo-native) although it is now. If it is still counting against your roaming bucket then something is wrong...

 

Sprint can't give me a straight answer on this one.  Tech support tells me that service on Appalachian Wireless is not extended but roaming and will count against the roaming limit.  Sprint stores and the coverage map says it is Extended and will count as on network usage.  The reality is LTE seems to work great and counts as on-network, but 3G hits the roaming limit. I can't get tech support to escalate this. As an added twist, occasionally my phone says Sprint LTE and has blazing fast speeds.  Speedtest in Paintsville (which is normally 3g only) when phone is displaying Sprint LTE vs Extended LTE is blazing.  I've gotten 60Mbps download speeds.

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 Speedtest in Paintsville (which is normally 3g only) when phone is displaying Sprint LTE vs Extended LTE is blazing.  I've gotten 60Mbps download speeds.

 

Could be B41 hotspots deployed in similar fashion to old Clearwire protection sites, but this time operated by a partner carrier. I ran into this in western Kansas, a B41 site operated by NexTech Wireless. 

 

Never mind.. that is Sprint coverage!

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There is a Sprint native site in Paintsville.  It just recently upgraded to LTE.  3G and LTE from this site will be counted as native.  However, the area is completely surrounded by Appalachian Wireless coverage that should count as pseudo-native on 3G and LTE.  Good luck with Sprint getting that posted correctly.  Let us know how it goes.

 

Robert

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There is a Sprint native site in Paintsville.  It just recently upgraded to LTE.  3G and LTE from this site will be counted as native.  However, the area is completely surrounded by Appalachian Wireless coverage that should count as pseudo-native on 3G and LTE.  Good luck with Sprint getting that posted correctly.  Let us know how it goes.

 

Robert

 

That's weird... I guess I've noticed that before just didn't really think about it. Odd to have just a couple of sites in the middle of such a large roaming area.

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There is a Sprint native site in Paintsville. It just recently upgraded to LTE. 3G and LTE from this site will be counted as native. However, the area is completely surrounded by Appalachian Wireless coverage that should count as pseudo-native on 3G and LTE. Good luck with Sprint getting that posted correctly. Let us know how it goes.

 

Robert

Thank You! Sprint support had mentioned a 3G antenna replacement but was careful to say it was not an LTE upgrade. They said that was 6 months away. I guess the support techs are the last to know? How long will this be tested until it goes completely live?

Now if I can only get the extended 3G when on Appalachian to not count asroaming I'll be set...

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Could be B41 hotspots deployed in similar fashion to old Clearwire protection sites, but this time operated by a partner carrier. I ran into this in western Kansas, a B41 site operated by NexTech Wireless.

 

Never mind.. that is Sprint coverage!

Thanks! Nice to know I'm not going crazy. All tech support would say when I told them my phone was saying Sprint LTE was that I had to be mistaken!

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That's weird... I guess I've noticed that before just didn't really think about it. Odd to have just a couple of sites in the middle of such a large roaming area.

3 native Sprint radios along US 23 in far Eastern KY. I would love to hear the story behind this. Part of an old planned expansion that was not completed maybe?

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Sprint can't give me a straight answer on this one. Tech support tells me that service on Appalachian Wireless is not extended but roaming and will count against the roaming limit. Sprint stores and the coverage map says it is Extended and will count as on network usage. The reality is LTE seems to work great and counts as on-network, but 3G hits the roaming limit. I can't get tech support to escalate this. As an added twist, occasionally my phone says Sprint LTE and has blazing fast speeds. Speedtest in Paintsville (which is normally 3g only) when phone is displaying Sprint LTE vs Extended LTE is blazing. I've gotten 60Mbps download speeds.

If I were you, would shoot Günther an email. Every time I have done so, I’ve gotten results fast. If you’re interested in his contact information, send me a PM.

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  • 2 months later...

No longer have Extended LTE with Appalachian Wireless on my lines. Anyone heard anything? Sprint tier 2 support (tier 3 doesn't know what Extended LTE is :wacko:) says everything should be working fine. All my phones will do is try to connect with AT&T bands 4/5 now.  No band 12 connections on either android or iPhone. 

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47 minutes ago, fizzicsguy said:

No longer have Extended LTE with Appalachian Wireless on my lines. Anyone heard anything? Sprint tier 2 support (tier 3 doesn't know what Extended LTE is :wacko:) says everything should be working fine. All my phones will do is try to connect with AT&T bands 4/5 now.  No band 12 connections on either android or iPhone. 

Could be an outage or something—I haven’t heard anything. Let us know if it comes back. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/2/2017 at 12:11 PM, fizzicsguy said:

No longer have Extended LTE with Appalachian Wireless on my lines.

I was told today by an OKC support team member that my first ticket on this was rejected. They could not tell me the reason the first ticket was rejected. They opened another ticket.  I was told that it would probably be rejected too and that there was nothing else they could do.  My lines are all ok and not flagged for anything. I never used excessive data etc., etc. They can't see any reason why I am not connecting as Extended LTE via Appalachian Wireless Band 12. They offered me $20 off my bill.   I have native service while at work (and kids while at school) but not having service while at home or while traveling in the local area is a complete deal breaker. Anyone experienced anything similar to this? 

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On 11/10/2017 at 12:46 PM, fizzicsguy said:

I was told today by an OKC support team member that my first ticket on this was rejected. They could not tell me the reason the first ticket was rejected. They opened another ticket.  I was told that it would probably be rejected too and that there was nothing else they could do.  My lines are all ok and not flagged for anything. I never used excessive data etc., etc. They can't see any reason why I am not connecting as Extended LTE via Appalachian Wireless Band 12. They offered me $20 off my bill.   I have native service while at work (and kids while at school) but not having service while at home or while traveling in the local area is a complete deal breaker. Anyone experienced anything similar to this? 

Got a call back on the new open ticket this morning.

Sprint Support: "I see here that the problem is,  (pause) you do not have Extended LTE data because a tower is down in the area. The engineers are working on it and things should be back up within a week."

Me: "So one tower is not working?"

Sprint Support: : "Yes, one tower in the extended LTE area."

Me: "And that will cause me to not have service anywhere in the extended service area, no matter if i travel to an area serviced by another tower."

Sprint Support: "Yes, that is correct."

What??

App. Wireless uses a fiber ring to provide backhaul to all of their towers, and none in my area are down. 

This was Oklahoma City.

Going to take a breather, wait a week and try again.

~sigh~

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On 11/13/2017 at 2:45 PM, fizzicsguy said:

 

Going to take a breather, wait a week and try again.

Friday morning I called support again.  After a 15 minute call, the final resolution was "you do not have Extended LTE because you have exceeded your 100mb roaming limit."  I knew this was the wrong answer, so i decided to make a nuisance of myself.

I continued to call customer support over the next half of the day whenever I had the chance. I was always presented with either the "exceeded roaming limit" answer or I was told "there was a tower down" and that I should call back in about a week. I was always polite and patient, and I feel I educated several reps as to what Extended LTE is because most seemed to have no idea. I must have called a dozen times.

Then Friday afternoon I received a call from someone at the OKC support center, asking what the problem was. They called me!  Now this was different i thought to myself.   I explained that none of my lines were no longer connecting to Extended LTE, specifically B12 via Appalachian wireless on any of their towers (this was what I had been telling support reps all day).

She said "That's strange. Let me send this upstairs, and I will call you back when I find something out."

Upstairs?  They have an upstairs!? This was great!

Within 2 hours all of my lines had Extended LTE again. Problem solved. However I have no idea what the problem was. 

Moral of the story: If you do not get resolution on a support issue, call support repeatedly until someone that doesn't have to follow a script notices you?

 

 

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  • 4 years later...

Recently took a trip down to the Red River Gorge area. They converted the one Sprint site along the way on Bert T Combs Pkwy (enb 117578), but n41/b41 wasn't on the tower. They also upgraded one of the native tmo towers there to 2,12,66,71 (enb 35565) and I could easily get 300mbps on it. Coverage was just as spotty as when I went last year, but I had an AT&T redpocket Sim card which had service almost everywhere I went in that area. Here is a AT&T/T-Mo setup near Nada, KY (enb 39878):20220329_135346.thumb.jpg.60c430ebb2a6324948d755a80bfe0d5c.jpg20220329_135511.thumb.jpg.5afe4ecfac283a2075e3fb6741844ae5.jpg

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  • 11 months later...
On 4/22/2022 at 10:11 AM, cooltech6597 said:

Recently took a trip down to the Red River Gorge area. They converted the one Sprint site along the way on Bert T Combs Pkwy (enb 117578), but n41/b41 wasn't on the tower. They also upgraded one of the native tmo towers there to 2,12,66,71 (enb 35565) and I could easily get 300mbps on it. Coverage was just as spotty as when I went last year, but I had an AT&T redpocket Sim card which had service almost everywhere I went in that area. Here is a AT&T/T-Mo setup near Nada, KY (enb 39878):20220329_135346.thumb.jpg.60c430ebb2a6324948d755a80bfe0d5c.jpg20220329_135511.thumb.jpg.5afe4ecfac283a2075e3fb6741844ae5.jpg

Took another trip to this area, and the Sprint conversion got an n41 upgrade, and so did a bunch of other sites in this area (but not the site I sent pictures of :( ). N25 is live in the area at n25 20mhz, and I did pick it up on the top of a mountain from a distant site (pictures below)

 

Screenshot_20230330_112106_CellMapper.jp lol cellmapper is showing ATT b2 sa but its really Tmo

Screenshot_20230330_112101_Speedtest.jpg 

Screenshot_20230330_112029_Service_mode_ 

20230330_113331.jpg some nice scenery

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13 minutes ago, cooltech6597 said:

Took another trip to this area, and the Sprint conversion got an n41 upgrade, and so did a bunch of other sites in this area (but not the site I sent pictures of :( ). N25 is live in the area at n25 20mhz, and I did pick it up on the top of a mountain from a distant site (pictures below)

 

Screenshot_20230330_112106_CellMapper.jp lol cellmapper is showing ATT b2 sa but its really Tmo

Screenshot_20230330_112101_Speedtest.jpg 

Screenshot_20230330_112029_Service_mode_ 

20230330_113331.jpg some nice scenery

Never get tired of The Gorge

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