Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[gusherb]

Yes. Having the same issues around the Loop (where I work) and in the West Loop (where I live). The problem is much worse indoors. I always thought that Band 26 was supposed to address weak indoor signals but so far I don't see any improvements.

It will once they actually tune it properly. I've been camping out on AT&T the past few months as I've broadcasted across here many times so I've been out of touch with Sprint on a day to day basis. I do check them on my Nexus 5 with an unactivated SIM periodically and still saw the same old same old at 33rd and Halsted (LTE dropping as soon as I walk indoors).

 

Now that we have a lot of 2nd B41 carrier and CA live, I now REALLY don't get what the hold up is....unless they think that B26 performing no better then B25 is perfectly acceptable? I wouldn't mind coming back if that were all taken care of across the area as AT&T in Northwest, IN is a bit congested.

[ChiWestLoop]

It will once they actually tune it properly. I've been camping out on AT&T the past few months as I've broadcasted across here many times so I've been out of touch with Sprint on a day to day basis. I do check them on my Nexus 5 with an unactivated SIM periodically and still saw the same old same old at 33rd and Halsted (LTE dropping as soon as I walk indoors).

 

Now that we have a lot of 2nd B41 carrier and CA live, I now REALLY don't get what the hold up is....unless they think that B26 performing no better then B25 is perfectly acceptable? I wouldn't mind coming back if that were all taken care of across the area as AT&T in Northwest, IN is a bit congested.

I wish Sprint was more transparent with this project. Things have improved a lot in the last 2 years but they are not definitely at the same level as Verizon, for example, especially in Downtown Chicago. I do speedtests in my office and while my phone struggles to pull 1mbps, my coworker pulls >20mbps with Verizon. I know things will keep improving but there's never official word.

[gusherb]

I wish Sprint was more transparent with this project. Things have improved a lot in the last 2 years but they are not definitely at the same level as Verizon, for example, especially in Downtown Chicago. I do speedtests in my office and while my phone struggles to pull 1mbps, my coworker pulls >20mbps with Verizon. I know things will keep improving but there's never official word.

I just hope that they realize what's going on and how they're wasting their spectrum by not optimizing the LTE bands especially B26. The fact that's it's been well over a year now and B26 hasn't seen any improvements makes me worry. Even B25 seemed overly short distanced in some places. It would be nice if their were some insight to this matter.

[Vince]

I just hope that they realize what's going on and how they're wasting their spectrum by not optimizing the LTE bands especially B26. The fact that's it's been well over a year now and B26 hasn't seen any improvements makes me worry. Even B25 seemed overly short distanced in some places. It would be nice if their were some insight to this matter.

When I spoke to (presumably) a Chicago network engineer, he told me they're optimizing clusters slowly. He told me the market is mostly B26 deployed, but can't be cranked up because of neighboring interference from some kind of old Nextel repeaters/amplifiers that are still in operation, and haven't been decommissioned. He said as those come down, optimization can proceed.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[jreuschl]

When I spoke to (presumably) a Chicago network engineer, he told me they're optimizing clusters slowly. He told me the market is mostly B26 deployed, but can't be cranked up because of neighboring interference from some kind of old Nextel repeaters/amplifiers that are still in operation, and haven't been decommissioned. He said as those come down, optimization can proceed.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

The ghost of Nextel still haunts. Need an exorcism

 

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[Vince]

Since Sprint is the official sponsor, I wonder if they'll do something similar? One would hope they can at least match this:

 

 

Verizon adding small cells in Grant Park to boost data capacity for Lollapalooza

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/29640909/verizon-adding-small-cells-in-grant-park-to-boost-data-capacity-for-lollapalooza

[kyle_4thousand]

Since Sprint is the official sponsor, I wonder if they'll do something similar? One would hope they can at least match this:

 

 

Verizon adding small cells in Grant Park to boost data capacity for Lollapalooza

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/29640909/verizon-adding-small-cells-in-grant-park-to-boost-data-capacity-for-lollapalooza

I sure hope so, get a half a dozen Triband COWs out there and they might have a decent chance of having usable data there. I have a 3 day pass and I'm hoping the network is at least somewhat usable

 

 

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[nick]

I sure hope so, get a half a dozen Triband COWs out there and they might have a decent chance of having usable data there. I have a 3 day pass and I'm hoping the network is at least somewhat usable

 

 

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be sure to report back, I was at summer fest in Milwaukee this year and band 41 was strong but completely unusable all day/ night, friends with Att, Verizon, and T mobile had slow but usable data the entire event, indoor out door didn't matter.  I was really hoping for a better experience..

 

 

 

, and   

[shannonbrian]

Baltimore , philly ,dc .there are no optimized areas for too much band 26 is bad no building pentration . Triband coming a big failure on east cost.

[Paynefanbro]

You can't make a blanket statement like that in the Northeast Band 26 has helped tons.

[kyle_4thousand]

Baltimore , philly ,dc .there are no optimized areas for too much band 26 is bad no building pentration . Triband coming a big failure on east cost.

This is the Midwest, Chicago market specifically. Away you troll.

 

 

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[S4GRU]

Even where B26 is not fully optimized for coverage, it still offloads a ton of capacity. Doubling what's available over B25 alone.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

[nexgencpu]

Baltimore , philly ,dc .there are no optimized areas for too much band 26 is bad no building pentration . Triband coming a big failure on east cost.

B26 works perfectly fine here in NYC..

[always_learner]

Even where B26 is not fully optimized for coverage, it still offloads a ton of capacity. Doubling what's available over B25 alone.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

Out of curiosity, does B26 really double B25 capacity since Chicago has two B25 carriers?

[S4GRU]

Out of curiosity, does B26 really double B25 capacity since Chicago has two B25 carriers?

Not in the Chicago market. But I was addressing shannonbrian, who spends most of his time in the Delaware/Philly/Baltimore markets. However, there are far more markets with one B25 carrier than two. So that is more an exception than the rule. Also, when B26 was added to Chicago, there was only one PCS carrier. Thus, doubling capacity when added.

 

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[kyle_4thousand]

Out of curiosity, does B26 really double B25 capacity since Chicago has two B25 carriers?

Originally when LTE launched in Chicago it was a single B25 5x5 carrier. Then they launched the second PCS carrier, which doubled capacity initially. Once B26 came online, capacity was increased by a factor of 1.5 (If my can remember my maths).

 

Currently Chicago has triple the capacity of the original single G block 5x5 carrier. (Not counting B41)

 

 

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[kyle_4thousand]

Not in the Chicago market. But I was addressing shannonbrian, who spends most of his time in the Delaware/Philly/Baltimore markets. However, there are far more markets with one B25 carrier than two. So that is more an exception than the rule. Also, when B26 was added to Chicago, there was only one PCS carrier. Thus, doubling capacity when added.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

B26 came before the second B25 carrier in Chicago? I thought it was the other way around, or I've just lost all perception of time.

 

 

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[S4GRU]

B26 came before the second B25 carrier in Chicago? I thought it was the other way around, or I've just lost all perception of time.

 

 

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I'm not willing to bet, but the first B26 sightings happened in Chicago before the end of 2013 if memory serves. Didn't B25 2nd carrier not show up until the end of 2014? It's probably all recorded in this thread if someone wants to go back and look through 100's of pages.

 

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[Mr.Nuke]

B26 came before the second B25 carrier in Chicago? I thought it was the other way around, or I've just lost all perception of time.

 

 

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We had Band 26 acceptances for Chicago in late 2013. I don't believe second carrier spottings started happening before Early 2014.

[gusherb]

I'm not willing to bet, but the first B26 sightings happened in Chicago before the end of 2013 if memory serves. Didn't B25 2nd carrier not show up until the end of 2014? It's probably all recorded in this thread if someone wants to go back and look through 100's of pages.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

 

No not that late! Second B25 carrier was coming online in March/April. I left for my trip in May, got back in June and 2nd carrier B25/B26 were just about everywhere by then. They both came online en masse within the same time frame. The USCC network was shut off January 30th or something? So B26 may have been sighted first. 

[Cubbiefan82]

Sprint closed the uscc specturm deal on may 17 2013 and they sunset the chicago market on january 31 2014. The nextel network was shut down june 2013. I am sure that band 26 was spotted first before second channel was turned on, seeing how they had almost 6 months lead time from the time they turned off the nextel network until the uscc network was shut down.

[Joeynach]

When I spoke to (presumably) a Chicago network engineer, he told me they're optimizing clusters slowly. He told me the market is mostly B26 deployed, but can't be cranked up because of neighboring interference from some kind of old Nextel repeaters/amplifiers that are still in operation, and haven't been decommissioned. He said as those come down, optimization can proceed.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

Sounds like a mis-alignment of expectations here.  For whatever reason most of us expected by mid 2015 all the tweaks and additions to the network post NV 1.0 would be in place by now.  I can't remember if that came from heresay, insider info, or via physical announcement from Sprint.  I had the same expectations, 8x8TR, band optimization, carrier aggregation, that you would see all these things fully in place by now.  I can't recall if/when there is some termination date for the NV program, maybe its rapidly approaching in our minds, and without the benefits of the features I mentioned being found implemented widely enough its causing some anxiety from Chicago users.

[kyle_4thousand]

Lollapalooza report for Friday:

 

Held LTE 90% of the time and was only able to check engineering screens twice, both times I was on B26. Data was relatively usable outside the main stage areas, but deep in the crowds not much was able to be sent/received. iMessage worked flawlessly the entire time, which was great!

 

Calls/SMS had absolutely zero issues. Even in the crowded Perry stage I was able to call my friend (also on Sprint) and was able to hear him fine thanks to HD voice. Someone with AT&T even came up to me and asked if they could use my phone too, she said she couldn't do anything on hers and she was only on 3G and No Service most of the time.

 

Not bad, Sprint. Let's see how the rest of the weekend shapes up.

 

 

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[gusherb]

Sounds like a mis-alignment of expectations here.  For whatever reason most of us expected by mid 2015 all the tweaks and additions to the network post NV 1.0 would be in place by now.  I can't remember if that came from heresay, insider info, or via physical announcement from Sprint.  I had the same expectations, 8x8TR, band optimization, carrier aggregation, that you would see all these things fully in place by now.  I can't recall if/when there is some termination date for the NV program, maybe its rapidly approaching in our minds, and without the benefits of the features I mentioned being found implemented widely enough its causing some anxiety from Chicago users.

I remember it being passed around here as insider info that once B26 was fired up that it would be optimized within 6 months I think? Then later on it became until band 41 was live everywhere (this may have been heresay). Now both band 41 and 26 have been everywhere for a long time now and still no optimization as well as no more info about that. That's when the anxiety started. (Or frustration)

[Vince]

Lollapalooza report for Friday:

 

 

Any band 41? Did you run any speed tests during peak times just to see what it was?