Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[wtsguy]

Wheaton remains a black hole for me, which is frustrating as I'm frequently there.

 

I think I'm getting a 4G signal off the tower at Central Dupage Hospital, but by and large the areas around there are still extremely poor. I know some people have claimed they were getting 4G from the Wheaton College campus but I was downtown Wheaton yesterday and I didn't see any 4G at all.

 

I put this together cause I was bored and bummed at everyone seeing LTE pop up everywhere and I can still barely stream Pandora.

 

 

Wheaton test at Geneva / Schmale

Winfield test on Winfield road / Butterfield

Naperville test downtown.

[Zombiebbq]

I think I'm getting a 4G signal off the tower at Central Dupage Hospital, but by and large the areas around there are still extremely poor. I know some people have claimed they were getting 4G from the Wheaton College campus but I was downtown Wheaton yesterday and I didn't see any 4G at all.

 

I put this together cause I was bored and bummed at everyone seeing LTE pop up everywhere and I can still barely stream Pandora.

 

 

 

Wheaton test at Geneva / Schmale

Winfield test on Winfield road / Butterfield

Naperville test downtown.

 

 

Winfield Rd. & Ferry

Warrenville

[Vince]

This might be an obvious yes, but, will boost and virgin phones also be benefiting from faster 3G and better voice quality with these NV upgrades?

[efranco1]

I just heard that Sprint will start updating the S3 to JellyBean beginning tomorrow... Roll out should complete within a few weeks. : )

[aerxx]

I just heard that Sprint will start updating the S3 to JellyBean beginning tomorrow... Roll out should complete within a few weeks. : )

 

Do you know what the final build number is..?

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using JB 4.1.1

[lynyrd65]

This might be an obvious yes, but, will boost and virgin phones also be benefiting from faster 3G and better voice quality with these NV upgrades?

 

For speeds yes (postpaid and prepaid share the new back haul and cell sites), for coverage (1xAdv at 800), it depends on how they configure the Prl.

 

2 klatapaT gnisu III S yxalaG gnusmaS ym morf tnes

 

 

[EndlessDissent]

Do you know what the final build number is..?

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using JB 4.1.1

 

It's LJ7. You can find leaks on XDA if you're interested in that sort of thing.

[aerxx]

 

It's LJ7. You can find leaks on XDA if you're interested in that sort of thing.

 

Thanks. I'm more interested in just trying out the new modem.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using JB 4.1.1

[drock2750]

Has anybody else noticed that on Sensorly, ATT coverage indicates very strong signal across large distances while Sprint seems to have strong signal only in very close proximity to the towers with signal dropping off rapidly beyond that? I'd attribute it to a quirk with Sensorly, but it does kind of seem like the Sprint LTE towers don't cover much ground in my experience. I can be right by a tower at Montrose and Broadway and walk up to Wilson and Racine, and LTE will disappear.

[Dkoellerwx]

AT&T covers a much wider area per cell. That's why their signal seems to be stronger further away from the tower. Because of the signal type, Sprint has to place their towers closer together, and in densely populated areas, they put a severe downtilt on the cells so that they can maximize capacity, but it limits coverage. Some cells only cover a couple of blocks.

 

However, this will work in Sprint's favor, as it will help to keep them from getting overloaded as quickly at AT&T or Verizon will/have already since Sprint has denser coverage.

[S4GRU]

With LTE performance, density is key. More dense, the faster the speeds can be maintained and more users per square mile can be accommodated. And when Sprint deploys LTE 800 next year, AT&T will have not have that advantage at all.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II using Forum Runner

[drock2750]

AT&T covers a much wider area per cell. That's why their signal seems to be stronger further away from the tower. Because of the signal type, Sprint has to place their towers closer together, and in densely populated areas, they put a severe downtilt on the cells so that they can maximize capacity, but it limits coverage. Some cells only cover a couple of blocks.

 

However, this will work in Sprint's favor, as it will help to keep them from getting overloaded as quickly at AT&T or Verizon will/have already since Sprint has denser coverage.

 

Very interesting I never knew that. Is downtilt a physical characteristic of the installation or is the signal digitally "steerable"? ( I'm an audio guy and steerable line arrays are all the rage to let you control directivity of an array without physically moving it.) You'd think that they'd adjust tilt to cover large areas initially and then tilt them down as more sites are added...even if that caused the capacity to be spread thinner in the meantime, most customers would be happier if that 4G light stayed on more.

[Dkoellerwx]

Very interesting I never knew that. Is downtilt a physical characteristic of the installation or is the signal digitally "steerable"? ( I'm an audio guy and steerable line arrays are all the rage to let you control directivity of an array without physically moving it.) You'd think that they'd adjust tilt to cover large areas initially and then tilt them down as more sites are added...even if that caused the capacity to be spread thinner in the meantime, most customers would be happier if that 4G light stayed on more.

 

Physical. Tilting them once, and then going back and changing them again would be a lot of work. That would probably slow down the progress. I'm sure it was something they considered, but doing it this way is more efficient. And they need to be as efficient as they can be.

[ibew697]

In the northern Indiana area, I've noticed that within the last week the Lte signal has been moving further east. I work at multiple steel mills in Lake County (ArcelorMittal East/West & US Steel) and a few weeks ago I would only pick up Lte at the far west mill. I noticed a significantly strong signal today further east at US Steel in Gary. Attached is a screen shot of a speed test i took on Buchanan Street.

[ks-man]

Got my Galaxy Note 2 today and switched from AT&T to Sprint. I'm ready to start experiencing some LTE goodness.

 

Which field test app is the best one to use?

[ibew697]

Got my Galaxy Note 2 today and switched from AT&T to Sprint. I'm ready to start experiencing some LTE goodness.

 

Which field test app is the best one to use?

 

 

I think most on this site recommend the app "sensorly". It is a good app and is very informative.

[ks-man]

I think most on this site recommend the app "sensorly". It is a good app and is very informative.

 

Already using Sensorly but I didn't think they provided the same information that some of the others do. I'll have to take another look.

[hayzooos]

I have a question for you guys...I'm able to get LTE at my house in a few places. I wanted to use my LTE connection to help seed a torrent for a very popular ROM. I'm not one to abuse tethering by any stretch, I usually only use it when I'm in a bind, but wanted to help get this file out to the masses and my home internet isn't that great.

 

I was able to run a speedtest with the speedtest.net app, and I was pushing 10.0-10.5 Mbps upload speeds. I thought that would be nice for a little while, but while running Wifi Tether 3.2-beta2 I was only pushing about 60kBps upload, which would come out to like 0.6Mbps. Anyone know why that would happen?

 

I've read that speedtest.net isn't all that accurate, but I thought that was a pretty big discrepancy so I wanted to see if you guys had any thoughts.

[Boosted20V]

I have a question for you guys...I'm able to get LTE at my house in a few places. I wanted to use my LTE connection to help seed a torrent for a very popular ROM. I'm not one to abuse tethering by any stretch, I usually only use it when I'm in a bind, but wanted to help get this file out to the masses and my home internet isn't that great.

 

I was able to run a speedtest with the speedtest.net app, and I was pushing 10.0-10.5 Mbps upload speeds. I thought that would be nice for a little while, but while running Wifi Tether 3.2-beta2 I was only pushing about 60kBps upload, which would come out to like 0.6Mbps. Anyone know why that would happen?

 

I've read that speedtest.net isn't all that accurate, but I thought that was a pretty big discrepancy so I wanted to see if you guys had any thoughts.

 

At face value, I'd wonder if you still had an LTE connection, or the signal degraded greatly. Outside of that, I would wonder if Sprint is cracking down on tethering on its new network.

[NiteSnow]

I have a question for you guys...I'm able to get LTE at my house in a few places. I wanted to use my LTE connection to help seed a torrent for a very popular ROM. I'm not one to abuse tethering by any stretch, I usually only use it when I'm in a bind, but wanted to help get this file out to the masses and my home internet isn't that great.

 

I was able to run a speedtest with the speedtest.net app, and I was pushing 10.0-10.5 Mbps upload speeds. I thought that would be nice for a little while, but while running Wifi Tether 3.2-beta2 I was only pushing about 60kBps upload, which would come out to like 0.6Mbps. Anyone know why that would happen?

 

I've read that speedtest.net isn't all that accurate, but I thought that was a pretty big discrepancy so I wanted to see if you guys had any thoughts.

 

Don't torrent on mobile networks. Each cell is shared by almost 100 people or more. If you're torrenting it will slow everyone else down. Use your own connection to torrent. You're not going to be able to seed via Sprint's network anyways as NAT is in place. Speedtest.net is decently accurate, you're not going to get results that are that extremely far off.

[NiteSnow]

At face value, I'd wonder if you still had an LTE connection, or the signal degraded greatly. Outside of that, I would wonder if Sprint is cracking down on tethering on its new network.

 

It's likely that the application was using 1xA or 3G instead of LTE due to device compatibility issues.

[hayzooos]

Don't torrent on mobile networks. Each cell is shared by almost 100 people or more. If you're torrenting it will slow everyone else down. Use your own connection to torrent. You're not going to be able to seed via Sprint's network anyways as NAT is in place. Speedtest.net is decently accurate, you're not going to get results that are that extremely far off.

 

I don't know what NAT is off the top of my head, but thanks for the response. Again, this isn't something I would normally practice and it was at about 1:00-1:30 this morning. Not something I would do at any other point in time.

 

I wasn't trying to seed right from my phone, all files were on my laptop.

[digiblur]

 

Physical. Tilting them once, and then going back and changing them again would be a lot of work. That would probably slow down the progress. I'm sure it was something they considered, but doing it this way is more efficient. And they need to be as efficient as they can be.

 

There are two adjustments for downtilt. One physical to start. Then after that the three sections inside the one panel have independent downtilt adjustments that can be done thousands of miles away. They can change the tilt of 800, pcs evdo/1x, and pcs lte all independently.

 

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

 

 

[biker1284]

Returned to my apartment in the city tonight. I live ~200m from a 4g site that is posted on the maps (Near Diversey brown line). Have seen 2.5mbps max, and the far side of my house can't even pick up the 4g. This is significantly worse than wimax, but I'm almost directly next to the tower.

 

Phone service does seem better here than in western suburbs, at least.

 

Anyone else in this Chicago area?

 

Edit: Signal is -115 and I'm 200m away with virtually a clear line of sight. Tower at 2775 N Sheffield must not be turned on yet, although it appears on maps.

[btsprintroller]

On the red line by Chinatown. Pretty decent..seeing 4g all over the place..grateful to be living here...lol.