Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[Vince]

I don't think they monitor anything, or if they do, they don't do anything about it. I reported terrible speeds today and they acted like it was something new. No, its been slow here for three or four years.

 

Some new PCS LTE will help downtown, but the biggest help will be EBS/BRS.

 

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What is ebs/brs?

[Vince]

I also think some of the huge coverage gaps/slow speeds during the day are attributed to cellular breathing. A guaranteed daily stretch of I-55 where I get 3G/1X and speeds

[mhammett]

What is ebs/brs?

The 2.5 GHz band.

 

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[Joeynach]

It seems like it's an issue with the Chicago 4G core, but knowing nothing about how it really functions, I'm merely speculating.

I took my phone to a Sprint Store over the weekend to complain, although Sprint Care told me to do this cuz they said they can see nothing wrong with Towers i frequently use.  It was a complete joke.  First the Sprint Rep tried to tell me there was nothing wrong with anything b/c she ran the speed test in store and it pumped like 3Meg down, which is great, but I also noticed the LTE Signal was at -82Dbm, the store is right on top of a tower.  I showed her the Speed log in the OOKLA App and she saw all the 40, 50, 60K download tests and finally agreed to look at my tower usage and look for open trouble tickets on towers.  She then tried to claim that my slow speed was the result of me using Advanced Task Killer which could be "killing apps the phone needs for optimum LTE speed".  That's total BS, Task Killer kills background 3rd party apps, not OS system services, and I have been using it for a year without any affect on LTE speed until now.

 

She found only one tower with any trouble ticket in the entire Chicago area which me and my phone have visited in the last 4 weeks and that was Grand/Michigan tower, which she said is finally receiving its NV equipment and slated to be completed mid Nov.  Any connectivity surrounding that tower is understandable.  Other than that everything else was fine.  She just blamed most of my speed problems on NV and the non activation of the Nextel & USCC spectrum slated to improve network performance sometime in the future, and also noted 800 Mhz and 2500Mhz LTE haven't been released yet either.  She literally was saying I shouldn't be expecting full awesome uber performance of LTE b/c these spectrum and other NV upgrades haven't been put in place yet.  It almost sounded like an admission of yeah we knew our new LTE network would suck and get bogged down until we can release additional enhancements over time.  Tell that to their marketing team right.

 

Im still shocked that it took less than a year for LTE performance in Chicago to degrade that much.  My average LTE DL speeds are in the 50-200K range now for about the last 4 weeks.  I used to get 1-5Meg everywhere I go.  Stupid Sprint people just ripped off the company line "do a hard reset" and see what happens on my way out.  Def not going to wipe out a year's worth of data and apps for obvious network capacity issues.

 

She did show me that screen that showed the % Completion of NV in Chicago.  I saw the 4G Towers were at like 96% complete, but the 3G upgrades only at 80%, while the 4G 800 Mhz still showed 0%.  Chicago has a long way to go.

[drock2750]

I took my phone to a Sprint Store over the weekend to complain, although Sprint Care told me to do this cuz they said they can see nothing wrong with Towers i frequently use.  It was a complete joke.  First the Sprint Rep tried to tell me there was nothing wrong with anything b/c she ran the speed test in store and it pumped like 3Meg down, which is great, but I also noticed the LTE Signal was at -82Dbm, the store is right on top of a tower.  I showed her the Speed log in the OOKLA App and she saw all the 40, 50, 60K download tests and finally agreed to look at my tower usage and look for open trouble tickets on towers.  She then tried to claim that my slow speed was the result of me using Advanced Task Killer which could be "killing apps the phone needs for optimum LTE speed".  That's total BS, Task Killer kills background 3rd party apps, not OS system services, and I have been using it for a year without any affect on LTE speed until now.

 

She found only one tower with any trouble ticket in the entire Chicago area which me and my phone have visited in the last 4 weeks and that was Grand/Michigan tower, which she said is finally receiving its NV equipment and slated to be completed mid Nov.  Any connectivity surrounding that tower is understandable.  Other than that everything else was fine.  She just blamed most of my speed problems on NV and the non activation of the Nextel & USCC spectrum slated to improve network performance sometime in the future, and also noted 800 Mhz and 2500Mhz LTE haven't been released yet either.  She literally was saying I shouldn't be expecting full awesome uber performance of LTE b/c these spectrum and other NV upgrades haven't been put in place yet.  It almost sounded like an admission of yeah we knew our new LTE network would suck and get bogged down until we can release additional enhancements over time.  Tell that to their marketing team right.

 

Im still shocked that it took less than a year for LTE performance in Chicago to degrade that much.  My average LTE DL speeds are in the 50-200K range now for about the last 4 weeks.  I used to get 1-5Meg everywhere I go.  Stupid Sprint people just ripped off the company line "do a hard reset" and see what happens on my way out.  Def not going to wipe out a year's worth of data and apps for obvious network capacity issues.

 

She did show me that screen that showed the % Completion of NV in Chicago.  I saw the 4G Towers were at like 96% complete, but the 3G upgrades only at 80%, while the 4G 800 Mhz still showed 0%.  Chicago has a long way to go.

 

I still stands to reason that the system hasn't suddenly become overrun in the past couple weeks. It also would seem impossible that a city-wide slowdown would be attributable to problems with any individual towers. Are there any topics that anybody could direct me to that deal with how traffic is routed for a whole market? 

[JosefTor]

Does anyone know what kind of monitoring sprint is able to do on their new towers?

 

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[Joeynach]

Does anyone know what kind of monitoring sprint is able to do on their new towers?

 

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She was trying to explain this me in the store.  For a tech support perspective it wasn't much.  They can see the towers a user has been connected to and then see how many times when connected to sed tower the user has received call drops or connectivity losses.  Other than that all they can see is if their are open service tickets on the tower already.  Im not sure what they do at the corporate level, Im sure they have some sort of network performance Ops center that monitors things the macro level.  Hopefully those corporate folks are seeing what we are seeing on the ground here, the Chicago network as taken a turn for the worse over the past month or so. 

 

Also as an update to my problems, I did the same speedtests with my roommate's phone who has a GS3 on Sprint too.  Got the exact same pings and speeds with the exact same signal strength and LTE connectivity, in the neighborhood of 100K DL/UL over and over again with -100Dbm signal.  Pathetic.

[JosefTor]

Are these issues related to backhand issues that can be fixed by purchasing more fiber lines or are these spectrum issues that will only get fixed via other means such as 2600

 

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[drock2750]

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. The backhaul was sufficient a few weeks ago... Unless the population of Chicago doubled in the past few weeks, backhaul capacity doesn't explain whats happening.

[Joeynach]

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. The backhaul was sufficient a few weeks ago... Unless the population of Chicago doubled in the past few weeks, backhaul capacity doesn't explain whats happening.

Now this from RootMetrics.com Chicago, IL RootScore Report for October 2013.

• AT&T’s average download speed increased from 17.8 Mbps to 19.1 Mbps since May testing, and its average 
upload speed rose from 8.4 Mbps to 9.5 Mbps.
  • AT&T won the Combined and Data RootScore Awards outright for 
the first time in Chicago. AT&T also won the Text RootScore Award.
• Sprint’s average download speed decreased from 8.0 Mbps to 5.3 Mbps since May, and its 
average upload speed fell from 5.1 Mbps to 4.0 Mbps.
• T-Mobile’s average download speed increased from 8.6 Mbps to 9.6 Mbps, and its average upload speed jumped from 1.8 Mbps to 3.9 Mbps.
• Verizon’s average download speed decreased from 14.8 Mbps to 13.5 Mbps, and its average upload speed fell from 9.3 Mbps to 6.6 Mbps.

Doing the math that equates to a 33.8% loss in Download speeds in just five months....AND THE NETWORK IS BRAND NEW!!!

[tongboy]

Well, seems like it is the network where you live. Its not an issue everywhere in the Chicago area though

 

 

 

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[tongboy]

Sorry for the double post...

 

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[Joeynach]

Sorry for the double post...

 

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Well I don't know how things can be so drastic between you and me.  Where in the city are you running these tests from?  I used to get results like yours in the Loop where I work and Lincoln Park where I live, not anymore.  I am currently sitting in my office. Van Buren and Wells, there is an active LTE site across the street from me.  I get the following.

 

 

[goldenkidx]

This Rootmetics review says it all. I had the iPhone 5S on Sprint for a couple days and the LTE speeds and connection were pitiful in the Loop and W. Loop. Switched to T-Mobile which is similar in price and it's like night and day! Pulling 2-16MB down on LTE and 8-22MB down on 4G

[chgoguy80]

Hey we can celebrate, NOT. The Rootmetrics data has hit the Chicago Tribune about carriers speed. Let's cheer We're number 4!

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-att-tops-wireless-testing-20131014,0,5863826.story

[tongboy]

Well I don't know how things can be so drastic between you and me. Where in the city are you running these tests from? I used to get results like yours in the Loop where I work and Lincoln Park where I live, not anymore. I am currently sitting in my office. Van Buren and Wells, there is an active LTE site across the street from me. I get the following.

 

 

 

I am in the far NW suburbs. Your SNR tells the story. There is a lot of noise in the area either from other phones and devices or something else is up. I would definitely call them and get a credit of some type.

 

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[Joeynach]

I am in the far NW suburbs. Your SNR tells the story. There is a lot of noise in the area either from other phones and devices or something else is up. I would definitely call them and get a credit of some type.

 

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Please explain what I am looking for on the SNR side of things to determine if 'something is up'

[Joeynach]

Hey we can celebrate, NOT. The Rootmetrics data has hit the Chicago Tribune about carriers speed. Let's cheer We're number 4!

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-att-tops-wireless-testing-20131014,0,5863826.story

Well at least Sprint acknowledges that they are still behind on infrastructure despite all the marketing for the new LTE network.

 

Sprint, which is in the midst of building a new network in Chicago, ranked last in data, calling and text. The company said it is 95 percent finished with upgrades to its 3G network and 80 percent done with its 4G LTE build-out. The entire upgrade is expected to be finished in the first quarter of 2014.

 

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like they have been given the run around on timing.  When the network will get better, when NV will be complete, when all the NV stuff will be over, when the USCC spectrum will be used, when the Nextel spectrum will be used, when the 800 Mhz and 2500 Mhz LTE will be lite up, etc etc.  Honestly, it just seems like there are way too many variable to have ever thought that the network would be comparable to Verizon or ATT's LTE by anytime this year.  I'm not implying Sprint or anyone on this board did anything to deliberately deceive, it just seems like there were way too many variable, way too many delays, way too many over zealous time tables floated about. 

[tongboy]

Please explain what I am looking for on the SNR side of things to determine if 'something is up'

Two things I was specifically looking at that tell me something is wrong in your area. Your Rsrp was around 85 which is a really strong signal, however with the SNR being 2 or so means that your lte radio is being overwhelmed with noise from other sources and those noise sources are very strong.

 

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[Vince]

It's almost like some LTE sites are live with out backhaul in place. I'm not sure that's even possible because I was under the assumption that LTE only goes live when the upgraded connection is in place. There are so many places where I'd love to have the old legacy equipment in place for a "speed boost." Chicago has always been sprints biggest problem city and I think they jumped the gun with the marketing department to try and get back on a level playing field with the other carriers as quickly as possible. Some things as far as speed just don't make sense. Like when I'm driving to work, right at my exit on the Stevenson I'll get 200-400kbps, then when I get to work (which is the same tower, just on the other side, and presumably a different sector) I have a VERY usable 20mbps connection.

[Vince]

Hopefully, there's a deeper issue going on that nobody knows about yet. Maybe they're turning down the power on sites and testing 800 LTE in certain clusters around the market. I know when that goes live, they have to increase the fiber speed at sites. Maybe this is causing some kind of issue. It would be great if we could get some kind of knowledgable response from sprint instead of their bs, generic, canned responses. Most people on this forum know more about sprints network than sprint csr which is why I don't even bother calling to complain.

[tongboy]

Was everyone's speed Ok then just went bad two weeks ago?

 

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[Vince]

Was everyone's speed Ok then just went bad two weeks ago?

 

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It was tolerable in most places, and still is. The problems are mostly in or near city limits during peak times. And yes, that time frame seems about right.

[Vince]

I will give sprint one positive. Voice calls are crisp and clear and don't drop for me. It seems like no matter where I am, about 10 seconds in to a voice call, my signal goes full strength (I'm assuming that's when the phone switches to 800 voice). Texting really isn't an issue for me, either. The data is just flakey at times.

[lilotimz]

There's been confirmation of a certain device affecting multiple CDMA carriers and shitcanning towers which is prompting legal action by said CDMA carriers right now against this oem.