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

[zodiac12345]

 

As for North Eastern PA in GMO territory, Sensorly has mapped out LTE on the I-84 corridor for Sprint LTE. The two circles are where Sprint has towers. The red circle, while appears to have LTE live, does NOT have LTE. I attempted to force my phone to LTE near the red circle, and nothing. The yellow circle I cannot confirm. I have visited both towers in previous years. 

 

Could this be Sprint testing GMO LTE? This appears very similar to the North Dakota situation where Robert drove up and found nothing. Or do we assume the two instances are a result of spoofing or Sensorly errors?

 

Edit: Just noticed the image is overall blurry. The bottom says "February 2016", and it is "Sprint 4G". The exact location is at the interection of Route 739 and Interstate 84. South of here is a full NV iDen conversion, with Band 25/26 live. However, this iDen conversion is too far to reach this area. 

Edited March 14, 2016 by zodiac12345

[chamb]

I know band 25 is PCS A-G only. However, when I walk by the tower there are two different sets of antennas per sector. Two are smaller and beige in color. The other two are bright white, are larger, and appear newer. The bright white ones look very similar to the antennas in this thread (specifically the one with the yellow arrow pointing to it that says NETWORK VISION). I had some hope for a possible full NV conversion. I'll take a picture of the sector and post it tomorrow. I probably didn't compare them as closely as I should have. 

Take some photos of the ground mounted RRU's too. If you have a good camera, zoom in on the bottoms of the antennas so we can see the connectors. I would suspect that any new install today would have more that just the one PCS G Carrier.     You could find a Band 26 carrier too, but not close to the cell site.  As the Band 25 carrier dies as you get away from the site, you might see a band 26 carrier.

[chamb]

 

As for North Eastern PA in GMO territory, Sensorly has mapped out LTE on the I-84 corridor for Sprint LTE. The two circles are where Sprint has towers. The red circle, while appears to have LTE live, does NOT have LTE. I attempted to force my phone to LTE near the red circle, and nothing. The yellow circle I cannot confirm. I have visited both towers in previous years. 

 

Could this be Sprint testing GMO LTE? This appears very similar to the North Dakota situation where Robert drove up and found nothing. Or do we assume the two instances are a result of spoofing or Sensorly errors?

 

Edit: Just noticed the image is overall blurry. The bottom says "February 2016", and it is "Sprint 4G". The exact location is at the interection of Route 739 and Interstate 84. South of here is a full NV iDen conversion, with Band 25/26 live. However, this iDen conversion is too far to reach this area. 

That Sensorly map looks good to me. I would have to strongly suspect that Sprint 4G LTE is alive as Sensorly shows. Notice the darkness of the purple near your "dots" which are the cell site locations.

[zodiac12345]

Take some photos of the ground mounted RRU's too. If you have a good camera, zoom in on the bottoms of the antennas so we can see the connectors. I would suspect that any new install today would have more that just the one PCS G Carrier.     You could find a Band 26 carrier too, but not close to the cell site.  As the Band 25 carrier dies as you get away from the site, you might see a band 26 carrier.

Here is a picture of the tower, or rather one sector of the tower, with live LTE in State College. 

 

 

Here is a zoom in of the antenna array

 

 

And finally, here is a comparison between two of the four antennas and the Samsung NV panels from this thread on Equipment Spotting. They appear identical to me, but I am not an expert in this matter and would prefer more experienced users to provide input. Are the two antennas boxed in red NV Samsung panels? Or are they legacy antennas?

 

 

Edit: Both of the antennas boxed in red have been present at this sector since at least September 2015.

[zodiac12345]

2nd GMO LTE site is live in State College. The location of the site is near where College Ave. and University Dr. intersect. I mapped out part of it on Sensorly. 

 

Edit: At least one more GMO site is live in the State College area, as I was driving on Interstate 99 North, I noticed my Note 5 / Signal Check kept showing an LTE signal. While PCI's are a nothing special, I was able to notice that it was a different site. 

 

I will try to pinpoint the exact towers while I am doing a final move out from the university. But overall, GMO LTE sites are a much needed improvement over the 3G only sites. 

 

And also, the hand off between the GMO LTE towers was quick and painless. The Note 5 takes forever to scan and authenticate with EV-DO after it loses LTE. 

[belusnecropolis]

http://www.thecourierexpress.com/news/sykesville-water-line-project-ongoing/article_d772142a-d492-5892-8eda-cce12066731c.html

This popped up in muh feed, figured you cats could use the info.

Tucked in the article, Mobilitie seeking a 120 footer in Sykesville.  

[Jones]

I recall reading about this a while ago...looks like it has resolved in Sprint's favor. 

 

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/sprint-wins-appeal-to-put-cell-phone-antennas-back-atop-10-story-condo-building-in-scranton-1.2114323

 

Interesting snippet:

“The Hill Neighborhood is disappointed that Sprint was able to bypass the city ordinance that states cell towers/antennas are not permitted in a residential area,” HNA President Nicole Pettinato said in an email. “The HNA is committed to fight any company that wants to put antennas in our neighborhood.”

 

 

[grapkoski]

A Redditer is reporting that LTE is live in Williamsport, PA. Seems that GMO retrofitting continues.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/5d6w5f/lte_god_has_graced_us_finally/

[shannonbrian]

I was looking at sensorly lately man lot gmos going live on I 80 .looks like they finally hitting this market , hope other gmos start getting up graded in 2017.

[ingenium]

I was looking at sensorly lately man lot gmos going live on I 80 .looks like they finally hitting this market , hope other gmos start getting up graded in 2017.

Yup, I just laid down the purple on Sensorly a few days ago [emoji39]. Drove from Ohio to NYC. Unfortunately I forgot to start mapping on Sensorly until after I passed Clarion (going east), so I missed the western portion of I-80. Logs were submitted for processing tonight. More detailed info with GCIs is on CellMapper (that was logging the whole time, along with SCP, so it shows the western portion of I-80).

 

It seems in some stretches they upgraded every other site to GMO LTE (CDMA often showed -60 while LTE was -110ish as I passed some sites). Overall pretty solid coverage for most of I-80, I was surprised.

 

It's 2x2 MIMO too surprisingly, so it's not limited to half the usual 5 Mhz B25 capacity like 1x1 would be. I guess the antennas had enough ports for it. NSG showed TM3 MIMO, at least in Clarion and to the west. I didn't test after that, so it could drop to 1x1 further east.

 

 

Some stretches had B25 on Sprint but HSPA for ATT (no LTE).

 

EDIT: Actually it looks like Clarion is Pittsburgh market based on the GCI. Western PA starts just east of there.

[shannonbrian]

Still show great find and not stop upgrading so called lost market.gunther not bs about gmos getting upgraded.

[PythonFanPA]

Anyone live in/near or frequent the Lititz area?  We were there yesterday for the 200th anniversary 4th of July celebration at Lititz Springs Park;  all day long, both mine and my wife's phone would end up shunted to B41 over 25/26 - which under proper circumstances I'd have preferred, but for whatever reason the B41 carrier there was completely non responsive.  Actual signal was fine, but absolutely no throughput at all.   If I had a nickel for every time I cycled airplane mode to temporarily connect back to B25/26 yesterday I'd be rich.

[Galaxyguy]

Anyone live in/near or frequent the Lititz area? We were there yesterday for the 200th anniversary 4th of July celebration at Lititz Springs Park; all day long, both mine and my wife's phone would end up shunted to B41 over 25/26 - which under proper circumstances I'd have preferred, but for whatever reason the B41 carrier there was completely non responsive. Actual signal was fine, but absolutely no throughput at all. If I had a nickel for every time I cycled airplane mode to temporarily connect back to B25/26 yesterday I'd be rich.

My brother-in-law lives there but uses Verizon. Always remember when you're at a large event to try to switch to CDMA if LTE is unusable. It's usually sailing along at 2-3 mbps since hardly anyone uses it anymore.

 

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[PythonFanPA]

My brother-in-law lives there but uses Verizon. Always remember when you're at a large event to try to switch to CDMA if LTE is unusable. It's usually sailing along at 2-3 mbps since hardly anyone uses it anymore.

 

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

 

LTE wasn't unusable - there was something specifically wonky/wrong with the B41 carrier.  Everything else was fine.

[ingenium]

LTE wasn't unusable - there was something specifically wonky/wrong with the B41 carrier. Everything else was fine.

Probably not load balancing correctly off of B41. They don't anticipate B41 being over capacity I don't think. And even so, B25/26 probably wouldn't last very long if they were actively moving people to it because B41 was overloaded.

 

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[PythonFanPA]

You're probably right to some extent - though B25/26 were both pretty snappy as long as you could hang on to them, no issues there at all.  B41 just behaved like there was no backhaul whatsoever, totally dead/non-responsive, not that it was slow as a dinosaur or something along those lines - kind of like if you connected to a WiFi router at home or someone's house and you were only feet away and had a very strong signal/connection, but there would be no cable/DSL modem feeding into it.  

 

Granted, the experience of too many mouths/not enough virtual food with mobile cells may be that way, but I suppose I would have expected some sort of ebb and flow where at least sometimes you could get some kind of sluggish responsiveness and sometimes nothing - this was consistent long-term 'nothing' every single time you connected to it no matter how long you tried anything.

[leozno1]

This past Saturday night I went to TGI Fridays in Park City Mall in Lancaster, and I saw that my SignalCheck Pro was reporting that I was connected to B41MM which I've never seen before. I ran a quick speed test and got these results, by FAR the best speeds I've gotten in South Central PA.

 

[Galaxyguy]

This past Saturday night I went to TGI Fridays in Park City Mall in Lancaster, and I saw that my SignalCheck Pro was reporting that I was connected to B41MM which I've never seen before. I ran a quick speed test and got these results, by FAR the best speeds I've gotten in South Central PA.

That's a mini macro setup. It appears 2xCA is running on it. The limitation is that it won't be able or do 3xCA like the 8T8R setup.

 

Sent from my Galaxy S8+ using Tapatalk

[mirskyc]

Hows the network in Lake Ariel PA? I see that Scranton is decently covered with B41 but as you move outside the city it is only Standard LTE. And it seems like its also GMO sites that recently went live so its only B25. Is B25 only 5x5 here? Or is there a second B25 Carrier or hopefully its 10 x 10.

[ingenium]

Hows the network in Lake Ariel PA? I see that Scranton is decently covered with B41 but as you move outside the city it is only Standard LTE. And it seems like its also GMO sites that recently went live so its only B25. Is B25 only 5x5 here? Or is there a second B25 Carrier or hopefully its 10 x 10.

I think it's only single carrier B25. I have logs from a couple months ago that covers there. The service is pretty bad, but Verizon roaming was also failing, and AT&T was no service indoors, so it could just be a bad area for all providers.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[mirskyc]

12 hours ago, ingenium said:

I think it's only single carrier B25. I have logs from a couple months ago that covers there. The service is pretty bad, but Verizon roaming was also failing, and AT&T was no service indoors, so it could just be a bad area for all providers.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

Thanks. Going to that area for a few days. I just canceled my t-mobile hotspot/tablet plan. Hopefully AT&T is good with my Mobley 

[poconoprime]

GMO sites are getting upgrades throughout Samsung OEM markets in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh and west PA are further along in the process than central PA at this time. 800 Mhz CDMA and LTE (outside of IBEZ) come standard with the upgrade, though some sites have gotten band 41 also. More details are available to premier sponsors regarding each market.

[Jim S.]

I thought they were supposed to go tri-band on all towers by next year.  Did that get forgotten after the merger announcement?

 

[nexgencpu]

2 hours ago, Jim S. said:

I thought they were supposed to go tri-band on all towers by next year.  Did that get forgotten after the merger announcement?

 

Nope, permits popping up everywhere..

[poconoprime]

On 10/4/2018 at 8:26 PM, Jim S. said:

I thought they were supposed to go tri-band on all towers by next year.  Did that get forgotten after the merger announcement?

 

 

On 10/4/2018 at 11:16 PM, nexgencpu said:

Nope, permits popping up everywhere..

I don't know, at the rate work is being done, it does not look like all sites will get tri-band by 2019. The weather has not been good for cell site work the last few months in these markets. Central PA GMO sites are ~10% upgraded. Unless they are incorporating band 41 antennas into the current upgrades, I don't see how they can pull off such a goal. Besides, in most rural areas of PA, band 41 seems practical only for fixed mobile broadband service. Urban areas seem to be getting significant tri-band upgrades in order to relieve data traffic congestion.