35 replies to this topic

[4ringsnbr]

I was driving over to Towne Center last night and noticed the tower at Jefferson & Old Hammond had what appeared to be RRUs attached to the antennas on the bottom rung of the tower. I was going to snap a pic, but the traffic was actually flowing (which is a rare blessing there), and I didn't have time. Any Folks in Baton Rouge, LA should go check it out.

[S4GRU]

 4ringsnbr, on 27 February 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

I was driving over to Towne Center last night and noticed the tower at Jefferson & Old Hammond had what appeared to be RRUs attached to the antennas on the bottom rung of the tower. I was going to snap a pic, but the traffic was actually flowing (which is a rare blessing there), and I didn't have time. Any Folks in Baton Rouge, LA should go check it out.

That's great news! That would be ahead of schedule in the Sprint New Orleans market. I haven't announced NOLA, but am going to soon. Calling Baton Rouge! If any of you BTR S4GRU members are in the area, stop and take some pics and post! Please.

[digiblur]

 4ringsnbr, on 27 February 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

I was driving over to Towne Center last night and noticed the tower at Jefferson & Old Hammond had what appeared to be RRUs attached to the antennas on the bottom rung of the tower. I was going to snap a pic, but the traffic was actually flowing (which is a rare blessing there), and I didn't have time. Any Folks in Baton Rouge, LA should go check it out.

Interesting... is sprint on the bottom rack? If I remember right that tower has 2 or 3 carriers on it.

[david279]

BR before Nola would make some sense. Less work in BR. Metairie, New Orleans,kenner,Jefferson and the west bank that's a lot more work than Baton Rouge.

Edited by david279, 27 February 2012 - 04:02 PM.

[S4GRU]

 david279, on 27 February 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

BR before Nola would make some sense. Less work in BR. Metairie, New Orleans,kenner,Jefferson and the west bank that's a lot more work than Baton Rouge.

In Chicago, they are starting in the outliers and working their way into denser locations. I don't know if this repeats itself in every market. But in the Sprint New Orleans market, it makes sense to start in Baton Rouge and work your way down the river and end in the CBD.

[runagun]

S4gru, send me ur email. I took some pics of the vision tower by me.

[jason1980]

any pics???

[jason1980]

please post

[S4GRU]

I'm waiting for someone in Baton Rouge to send us pics. Runagun is in the exurbs of the Chicago market.

[4ringsnbr]

 david279, on 27 February 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

BR before Nola would make some sense. Less work in BR. Metairie, New Orleans,kenner,Jefferson and the west bank that's a lot more work than Baton Rouge.

That's also a problem now-- BR needs way more towers from Sprint-- they're spaced too far out and a weak signal for one user will cause slower 3G speeds for everyone on the sector-- it takes more timeslices of EVDO to deliver the same data rate as the signal gets weaker-- so weaker signals means less throughput of the sector. I doubt they'll thicken the coverage in BR with NV-- at least in the initial deployment, but they need to badly. Verizon has towers closer together here and they run most carriers on 850.

[jason1980]

i will be in chicago next month for the weekend in the willowbrook area to be exact i will keep my eyes open.

Edited by jason1980, 27 February 2012 - 04:47 PM.

[ericdabbs]

 4ringsnbr, on 27 February 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

That's also a problem now-- BR needs way more towers from Sprint-- they're spaced too far out and a weak signal for one user will cause slower 3G speeds for everyone on the sector-- it takes more timeslices of EVDO to deliver the same data rate as the signal gets weaker-- so weaker signals means less throughput of the sector. I doubt they'll thicken the coverage in BR with NV-- at least in the initial deployment, but they need to badly. Verizon has towers closer together here and they run most carriers on 850.

Would it help if Sprint kept some of the Nextel towers and converted them to NV to fill in those gaps? I am not familiar with the Sprint tower layout in BR.

[S4GRU]

I can tell you that the New Orleans Sprint market currently has 340 CDMA sites, and will have 344 sites after Network Vision. A net gain of 4. I have no idea within the market where these 4 are going. Hopefully they are all in BTR.

I remember early on being told that Sprint was evaluating select iDEN only sites for conversion to host Network Vision. But that was in Spring 2011, and I have not heard it said one more time since. SO I wonder if this plan has been scrapped? I can tell you that in my area, that is not occurring. I have a map with the post Network Vision sites in the ABQ market, and not a single one of the iDEN only sites I know of are being converted to Network Vision.

However, in general, we have good PCS spacing here and Nextel didn't have much extra coverage than Sprint in my area. But I know that is not the case NE of BTR. There is a lot of iDEN only coverage in that area.

- Robert

[bigzeto]

 4ringsnbr, on 27 February 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

I was driving over to Towne Center last night and noticed the tower at Jefferson & Old Hammond had what appeared to be RRUs attached to the antennas on the bottom rung of the tower. I was going to snap a pic, but the traffic was actually flowing (which is a rare blessing there), and I didn't have time. Any Folks in Baton Rouge, LA should go check it out.

I'm really not sure if this is a NV site. Lots of towers in BR have panels with the radios directly behind them. Most are with AT&T and maybe T-Mobile. I would be ecstatic if it is, but I'm thinking not.

[4ringsnbr]

 bigzeto, on 27 February 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:

I'm really not sure if this is a NV site. Lots of towers in BR have panels with the radios directly behind them. Most are with AT&T and maybe T-Mobile. I would be ecstatic if it is, but I'm thinking not.

True-- there are like 3 carriers on this tower and AT&T has been building new towers all over town like crazy (just about 3-4 years too late-- LOL!)-- just caught my eye when I saw it, and I know it is a Sprint tower and a fairly congested cell.

[bigzeto]

 4ringsnbr, on 27 February 2012 - 06:48 PM, said:

True-- there are like 3 carriers on this tower and AT&T has been building new towers all over town like crazy (just about 3-4 years too late-- LOL!)-- just caught my eye when I saw it, and I know it is a Sprint tower and a fairly congested cell.

Actually, I typically get good speeds from that site. I was at Mugshots last week and was pulling close to 2 Mb/s down.

[4ringsnbr]

 bigzeto, on 27 February 2012 - 06:53 PM, said:

Actually, I typically get good speeds from that site. I was at Mugshots last week and was pulling close to 2 Mb/s down.

You must've been on the good channel-- that's the problem with most Sprint towers here-- the EVDO pilot doesn't change your channel. If you're stuck on channel 100 or 175 at Coursey / Sherwood, you're stuck at 5 - 50 kbps unless you reprovision and luck up to get on channel 75-- then you get 300 - 500--- LOL

When you force roam on Verizon (or when I turn off my LTE and run on EHRPD), my phone jumps all over the place-- every session is usually on a different channel.

[digiblur]

 4ringsnbr, on 27 February 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

That's also a problem now-- BR needs way more towers from Sprint-- they're spaced too far out and a weak signal for one user will cause slower 3G speeds for everyone on the sector-- it takes more timeslices of EVDO to deliver the same data rate as the signal gets weaker-- so weaker signals means less throughput of the sector. I doubt they'll thicken the coverage in BR with NV-- at least in the initial deployment, but they need to badly. Verizon has towers closer together here and they run most carriers on 850.

And there lies the issue with BTR Sprint layout. Some of the sites barely cover what is needed. So you end up with users with a -100 signal hanging off the tower all day trying to use it.

I also doubt that will thicken any coverage in BTR. This market is tooooo far gone to turn around the customers.

[digiblur]

 ericdabbs, on 27 February 2012 - 04:57 PM, said:

<br />Would it help if Sprint kept some of the Nextel towers and converted them to NV to fill in those gaps? I am not familiar with the Sprint tower layout in BR.

I have a google map link on my site to the BTR towers. www.batonrougebroadband.info

There are some other towers listed on there too so be sure and read the map key in the description.

I still 100% believe that we had an 850mhz engineer design the 1900mhz network in BTR.

Edited by digiblur, 27 February 2012 - 07:31 PM.

[S4GRU]

While we wait on BTR photos...I have photos that I just posted from a site in the Sprint Chicago Market submitted by a S4GRU Member: http://s4gru.com/ind...rengo-illinois/