Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[dannible]

Ehrpd's ears where burning. The slippery fellow showed his face in downtown Des Plaines

[S4GRU]

the tower i ahve been commenting on (CH50XC246) that has already been accepted had workers at it today. i stopped and talked to them and they were removing all of the legacy equipment. They ahd it all loaded up by the time i left adn they showed me the new equipment that in installed (this is old news ofcourse) and the backhaul lines feeding into the NV box. They work for a sub contracted company based out of Rockford. The tower is fully complete with all the NV equipment and backhaul.

I thought it a little odd that i havent noticed any 4g signal coming from this tower and i have been checking multiple times a day since last May. according the them it is just waiting on them to hit the switch though...

 

BTW still no ehrpd in the north chicagoland area since about 2 weeks ago.

 

Site deinstall has no bearing on LTE upgrades, only 3G upgrades. The legacy hardware can be removed before LTE is completed, because LTE does not use any legacy components at all. Only the 1x and 3G do.

 

The LTE may be complete at this site, but I can tell you as of this past weekend, Sprint has not accepted the site as complete with LTE upgrades.

 

Robert

[S4GRU]

True it covers the whole town of Kenosha while they won't get LTE until Milwaukee does. But I'm excited because the other day I read the article and it listed my town. http://s4gru.com/ind...k-is-under-way/

 

Sent From EVO LTE

 

This is no indication of LTE imminence in Southern Wisconsin. The sites in Southern Wisconsin near the Illinois border must have eHRPD when the adjacent Chicago sites across the border in Illinois go live. In order for LTE data to seamlessly transfer to 3G data when someone crosses the border (or vice versa), then all the sites they would transfer to must have eHRPD. Otherwise there will be a hard handoff. This is true of all LTE market boundaries. eHRPD is being deployed in many non LTE markets where there is any chance of being handed off from a LTE connection.

 

Robert

[92EG8]

 

This is no indication of LTE imminence in Southern Wisconsin. The sites in Southern Wisconsin near the Illinois border must have eHRPD when the adjacent Chicago sites across the border in Illinois go live. In order for LTE data to seamlessly transfer to 3G data when someone crosses the border (or vice versa), then all the sites they would transfer to must have eHRPD. Otherwise there will be a hard handoff. This is true of all LTE market boundaries. eHRPD is being deployed in many non LTE markets where there is any chance of being handed off from a LTE connection.

 

Robert

thanks Robert good read once again

 

Sent From EVO LTE

[CriticalityEvent]

I've been getting eHRPD again in Gurnee, Arlington Heights, and Chicago over the last couple of days.

[dannible]

I just noticed that the BSID has changes at the site nearest my house that has recently been accepted by sprint.

[Deval]

So for all my Chicago buddies on this site, how is the coverage and speeds on 3G in your personal experience? I'm porting my cousin over from T-Mobile to Sprint, but am concerned how the network is currently.

 

I checked the maps and he has a NV site a block from his apartment, but what about the rest of the city proper?

[strav22]

So for all my Chicago buddies on this site, how is the coverage and speeds on 3G in your personal experience? I'm porting my cousin over from T-Mobile to Sprint, but am concerned how the network is currently.

 

I checked the maps and he has a NV site a block from his apartment, but what about the rest of the city proper?

 

Not good right now but improvements are on the way. I would not port over to Sprint just yet. He'll see a significant decrease in speed moving from Tmobile to Sprint right now.

[fatonuseni]

So for all my Chicago buddies on this site, how is the coverage and speeds on 3G in your personal experience? I'm porting my cousin over from T-Mobile to Sprint, but am concerned how the network is currently.

 

I checked the maps and he has a NV site a block from his apartment, but what about the rest of the city proper?

 

I'd wait until Chicago land is officially launched.

 

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

[CriticalityEvent]

So for all my Chicago buddies on this site, how is the coverage and speeds on 3G in your personal experience? I'm porting my cousin over from T-Mobile to Sprint, but am concerned how the network is currently.

 

I checked the maps and he has a NV site a block from his apartment, but what about the rest of the city proper?

 

Do you know what neighborhood your friend lives in? The loop area can be pretty damn good for Sprint, but some of the northern neighborhoods (Uptown, Edgewater, some parts of Lincoln Park, etc…) can really drag.

 

… He'll see a significant decrease in speed moving from Tmobile to Sprint right now.

 

This. T-Mo is fantastic in Chicago. My friends who are on it consistently get 2-3Mbps on speed tests (even at Cubs games), with spikes up to 6 or 7. They like to taunt me with their results. :-(

[TrulyNotSoTweet]

So for all my Chicago buddies on this site, how is the coverage and speeds on 3G in your personal experience? I'm porting my cousin over from T-Mobile to Sprint, but am concerned how the network is currently.

 

I checked the maps and he has a NV site a block from his apartment, but what about the rest of the city proper?

 

I'd definitely hold off as its really been erratic at best ! I don't have access to the maps, but it seems to me, and maybe I'm wrong, but the LTE launch that was initially expected late summer / early fall looks to be more like the end of the year? I hope it's sooner, but if they are doing the city last as they are working outside to inside then that's a lot of towers still needing service work in Chicago proper.

 

sent from my G III via tapatalk.

[CriticalityEvent]

…I don't have access to the maps, but it seems to me, and maybe I'm wrong, but the LTE launch that was initially expected late summer / early fall looks to be more like the end of the year? I hope it's sooner, but if they are doing the city last as they are working outside to inside then that's a lot of towers still needing service work in Chicago proper.

…

 

I believe the plan was to have the Chicago market (which really extends out to Rockford) go live late this month with a completion date of December:

http://s4gru.com/ind...chedule-update/

 

There are some more recent posts that seem to indicate that the market might not go live until October with an estimated completion of January, so it was really just pushed back a month.

[TrulyNotSoTweet]

Ya, the initial word I remember hearing and this was from way back when it was first announced that Chicago would be in the 2nd group after the KC group, was the end of August. This was coming from a Sprint employee in KC that worked at the HQ.

 

For the last 2 years I've been splitting time in KC and Chicago, but primarily in KC, until the end of June, and now back in Chicago almost all the time.

 

What's crazy is this whole last year, while they were upgrading KC I guess I almost never noticed anything like the service issues and ''transition'' craziness that I've been dealing with here in Chicago? I wonder why that is, because other than tweaking my home agent setting, I consistently got at least 400k connection- most times it was around 750k, and NEVER this unusable 10-30k connection I'm suffering with lately here in downtown.

 

sent from my G III via tapatalk.

[supert0nes]

I suggest reading this article if you haven't yet. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-166-sprint-battling-network-vision-deployment-woes-in-the-windy-city/

[david279]

Hello

 

http://m.engadget.com/2012/09/13/sprint-flipping-the-lte-switch-in-boston-and-chicago/

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

[supert0nes]

Cheese and rice! You can't make this stuff up! If Sprint announced Chicago launched on the 21st, S4GRU forum space would probably fill up.

 

Ok actually read the article. Looks like they are going to do what S4GRU has been asking for all along and making the sites discoverable. They even have a term for it. "pre-launch mode"

[ks-man]

Hello

 

http://m.engadget.co...on-and-chicago/

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

That would be awesome. Robert, can you tell if the quoted document looks authentic based on your past experience with Sprint docs?

[TrulyNotSoTweet]

I suggest reading this article if you haven't yet. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-166-sprint-battling-network-vision-deployment-woes-in-the-windy-city/

 

Ya I read that before but still curious not so much with dropping calls because of hard handoff but why the data connection is basically running at 5-10k. The towers are there and running and I'm in downtown and have 5 towers close enough to pull a signal in from at my place- at least 1 is ehrc.

 

What I'm saying is there is definitely something different probably in the allowance of crippled service compared to when KC was upgrading, as it is Sprint's headquarters. Swapping out gear and dropping calls don't equate with weeks on end of 1rxtt service, or the article doesn't expound on this and maybe I just don't know how and why this would be the cause and the case.

 

sent from my G III via tapatalk.

[supert0nes]

My guess is that there's a few reasons. Sprint had less spectrum in Chicago (thinking pre G block). Chicago has a lot more people. Back haul has taken forever. KC is home base for Sprint, Chicago is not the only crippled Sprint network out there.

[S4GRU]

 

That would be awesome. Robert' date=' can you tell if the quoted document looks authentic based on your past experience with Sprint docs?[/quote']

 

Yes.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[franky_402]

The question I have is, will all completed NV towers have LTE? I have two towers very close to me that have 3G and 800 MHz complete. My 3G speeds are consistently 1.5-2.1Mbps so I can't wait to see what LTE brings.

 

Sent from my Evo 4G LTE going through AnthraX withdrawal!

[S4GRU]

The question I have is' date=' will all completed NV towers have LTE? I have two towers very close to me that have 3G and 800 MHz complete. My 3G speeds are consistently 1.5-2.1Mbps so I can't wait to see what LTE brings.

 

Sent from my Evo 4G LTE going through AnthraX withdrawal![/quote']

 

Yes, for the most part. There are less than 100 Sprint CDMA sites that will not receive LTE. When you consider Sprint has over 38,000 CDMA sites, less than 100 is a very small percentage. The only sites that will not get LTE are sites where Sprint cannot install it because of a limiting factor.

 

Since you appear to already have a site with upgraded backhaul, it seems highly likely you will get LTE. And probably pretty soon.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[Tiger]

Well we will find out very soon if this is true or not.......

[fatonuseni]

Things have gotten worse in Elgin. This morning speeds were really bad. Not even usable and now its kind of ok. I really have no idea why it fluctuates like this. I guess it can only get better. I hope sept 21 will be the day they flip on the new equipment.

 

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

[ndeno]

Wanna make a bet, over/under market launch November 5th?

 

im really liking the under