Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[runagun]

I could almost guarantee you not after this past year of problems. They lost a lot of subs.

 

 

Although one thing to keep in mind is that Sprint is pretty popular in Chicagoland, last I heard the number two carrier right behind AT&T. 

[tongboy]

I have heard dropped call complaints from multiple people on every carrier in the Chicago area. All the carriers are doing major upgrades right now.

 

Sent from my HTCONE

 

 

[mellimel2212]

I could almost guarantee you not after this past year of problems. They lost a lot of subs.

 

Yeah some subs left but I personally know they gained 10 more that I know of just off unlimited and daily upgrades.

 

Sent from my T-Mobile LG Escape running 4.1.2 using Tapatalk 2 (Central n ohio Austin IL)

 

 

[runagun]

I know personally hundreds that left the past two years.  All my family and business accounts left this year.  50+ devices gone except my personal and that's because I'm on Sero.  Funny thing is now Vzw is kinda sucking now too.  

[mellimel2212]

I know personally hundreds that left the past two years. All my family and business accounts left this year. 50+ devices gone except my personal and that's because I'm on Sero. Funny thing is now Vzw is kinda sucking now too.

Thats due to real overcrowding on such few LTE enabled towers in a certain area.

 

Sent from my T-Mobile LG Escape running 4.1.2 using Tapatalk 2 (Central n ohio Austin IL)

 

 

[mhammett]

I don't remember where it was, but someone was talking about Sprint sites not broadcasting their physical location anymore, but some location a couple miles in front of the sector. There was some doubt in the room. I can confirm this has been happening in the DeKalb area for a few weeks now, possibly months. I can provide Signal Check Pro and Google Maps screen shots for documentation.

 

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[tongboy]

I don't remember where it was, but someone was talking about Sprint sites not broadcasting their physical location anymore, but some location a couple miles in front of the sector. There was some doubt in the room. I can confirm this has been happening in the DeKalb area for a few weeks now, possibly months. I can provide Signal Check Pro and Google Maps screen shots for documentation.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

Interesting. Haven't seen it myself on nearby towers. Is it on SMR and PCS?

 

Maybe they are getting ready to finally fire up LTE on those three towers in Dekalb! Lol

 

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[mhammett]

Interesting. Haven't seen it myself on nearby towers. Is it on SMR and PCS?

 

Maybe they are getting ready to finally fire up LTE on those three towers in Dekalb! Lol

 

Sent from my HTCONE

 

It is both SMR and PCS.

[Joeynach]

It's low SNR, like you suggest. I can be a couple miles from an LTE site (in the suburbs) or a few city blocks (in Chicago) and get poor LTE speeds (phone displaying 2-3 bars on LTE), go within within sight of an LTE site and all the sudden LTE speeds skyrocket. IMO it's clearly not backhaul for sure, and whether it's overcrowding or not IDK, but low SNR seems to possibly point to that. 

 

It's also been going on a bit longer then just a few weeks. Perhaps people are just now starting to complain. I've noticed stuff going on since June/July at least, at first in Chicago itself. Now I'm starting to notice strange "flukes" where I live, in Northwest, IN. Almost like clockwork now, if I'm more then 1.5-2 miles from an LTE site (while still getting a good signal) I easily get poor speeds, and slow response/timeouts. It's reminiscent of the AT&T HSPA network I escaped last year in September (which I hear is worlds better now) 

 

All in all, it's still not terrible but it's not as consistent as when it first started. Whatever's going on Sprint definitely needs to keep moving like they already are, and perhaps figure out why the network is losing consistency and fix it. I know it can't be much more then a few tweaks here and there. 

Although one thing to keep in mind is that Sprint is pretty popular in Chicagoland, last I heard the number two carrier right behind AT&T. 

Do we have anyway on this board to get confirmation from someone with technical knowledge of Sprint's network if what many of us are seeing over the past couple months with constantly poor SNR (and dreadful LTE speeds) all over the city is indeed this "overcrowding" of the 1900Mhz PCS band.  I guess by nature that is what is implied with poor Signal to Noise values, and we can only assume from the reports of users all over the city experiencing poor SNR and poor LTE speed that the problem is systematic and not isolated to a tower here or a tower there.

[Joeynach]

Another issue that Im sure someone on this board can answer.  Do any of our 2012 phones with LTE have a chipset to support the 800Mhz or 2500Mhz LTE.  For example, my Samsung Galaxy S3.  And if this and every other non recent LTE phone doesn't support anything but the original 1900 PCS LTE band then we have to purchase another phone, without a contract upgrade, that would be a disaster.  Would Sprint offer assistance in phone upgrade to obtain an LTE device that supports their new spectrum rollout? 

 

I am not thrilled with the idea of shelling out any dollars again to obtain another new device to take advantage of another Sprint NV upgrade, whether is $200 for a new contract like upgrade of $800 for a whole new phone no contract discount.

[Rocket87]

The optimus g2 will be the first tri band lte phone.

 

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[Joeynach]

The optimus g2 will be the first tri band lte phone.

 

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Great so im stuck on 1900 PCS band, which is slower than hell and bogged down to oblivion these days, only until I either decide I have an extra $800 for a phone out of pocket or my contract is up a year from now and I can upgrade for a reasonable $200 or so.  Awful!

[Boosted20V]

Great so im stuck on 1900 PCS band, which is slower than hell and bogged down to oblivion these days, only until I either decide I have an extra $800 for a phone out of pocket or my contract is up a year from now and I can upgrade for a reasonable $200 or so.  Awful!

 

To be fair, the Nexus5 looks to start at $349.

[Joeynach]

To be fair, the Nexus5 looks to start at $349.

Still I don't think its a really good message to your consumers that hey hang with us, the network will keep getting better, and we are happy to tout how much better it will be with all this new technology, but only if you can afford to shell out additional hundreds of dollars to upgrade your device according to our network build out schedule.  Boooo to that.

[Boosted20V]

That's how every wireless operator runs things. VZW didn't include AWS in their phones until recently. Fact of life with technology.

[Joeynach]

That's how every wireless operator runs things. VZW didn't include AWS in their phones until recently. Fact of life with technology.

Yeah but the difference is Verizon was already operating on a dual band LTE network from the get go, 1900 and 700 Mhz bands.  This implies less overcrowding of each frequency by default b/c there are two places for LTE connections to go in to gain their connectivity needed from the tower.  So if you are on VZW the guy who says I don't want to spend $300 on a new phone for LTE-A, I can live and deal with the current LTE performance and current LTE phone is in a way better position than the same scenario with Sprint.  Sprint rolled out with just one LTE band, now we have overcrowding and signal degradation as evident by widespread low SNR values and dial up like throughput's.

 

Rootmetrics October report said VZW's average download speed in Chicago was 13.5 Mbps in October.  Sprints 5.3 Mbps.  The unwilling to shell out for new device VZW customer has a lot less to lose than the unwilling Sprint customer.  The VZW customer is already on average experiencing a network 154% faster than Sprint.

 

So far the solution to the problem, whether you think to play catch up with other carriers or leap other carriers........appears to be wait for more upgrades, spend more money on new device.  That sucks b/c for the most part we Sprint customers did that to get on LTE to begin with at some point in the last year.

[lilotimz]

Yeah but the difference is Verizon was already operating on a dual band LTE network from the get go, 1900 and 700 Mhz bands. This implies less overcrowding of each frequency by default b/c there are two places for LTE connections to go in to gain their connectivity needed from the tower. So if you are on VZW the guy who says I don't want to spend $300 on a new phone for LTE-A, I can live and deal with the current LTE performance and current LTE phone is in a way better position than the same scenario with Sprint. Sprint rolled out with just one LTE band, now we have overcrowding and signal degradation as evident by widespread low SNR values and dial up like throughput's.

 

Rootmetrics October report said VZW's average download speed in Chicago was 13.5 Mbps in October. Sprints 5.3 Mbps. The unwilling to shell out for new device VZW customer has a lot less to lose than the unwilling Sprint customer. The VZW customer is already on average experiencing a network 154% faster than Sprint.

 

So far the solution to the problem, whether you think to play catch up with other carriers or leap other carriers........appears to be wait for more upgrades, spend more money on new device. That sucks.

You're absolutely wrong. Verizon LTE deployment is only 10 mhz 750 mhz c block. THEY DO NOT HAVE LTE ON 1900. Only recent phones have added support for aws 1700/2100. All the rest are 700 only.

Get your facts right before you complain.

 

Sent from my SPH-D710

 

 

[Joeynach]

You're absolutely wrong. Verizon LTE deployment is only 10 mhz 750 mhz c block. THEY DO NOT HAVE LTE ON 1900. Only recent phones have added support for aws 1700/2100. All the rest are 700 only.

Get your facts right before you complain.

 

Sent from my SPH-D710

I wasn't complaining, I was disputing your claim that all things are equal, and all customers have to go through pain of spending for device upgrades to have the goodness of the carriers network.  And I might be wrong on 1900 band for VZW, but my point remains valid.  All things are not equal at this point, both Sprint and Verizon have LTE and many of their users have LTE phones.  The Verizon customers opportunity cost in not spending to upgrade further (to LTE-A) is far far lower than that of the Sprint customer not spending upgrade to upgrade further, to a tri band LTE device.

[Vince]

Another issue that Im sure someone on this board can answer. Do any of our 2012 phones with LTE have a chipset to support the 800Mhz or 2500Mhz LTE. For example, my Samsung Galaxy S3. And if this and every other non recent LTE phone doesn't support anything but the original 1900 PCS LTE band then we have to purchase another phone, without a contract upgrade, that would be a disaster. Would Sprint offer assistance in phone upgrade to obtain an LTE device that supports their new spectrum rollout?

 

I am not thrilled with the idea of shelling out any dollars again to obtain another new device to take advantage of another Sprint NV upgrade, whether is $200 for a new contract like upgrade of $800 for a whole new phone no contract discount.

The iPhone 5c/s is sprint's first multi-band LTE phone, adding band 26. Some new androids will add 26 and 41 making them tri-band. I've been reading that the new lg g2 has bands 26/41 firmware locked out of the box. If that's true, then that's terrible.

[tommym65]

Another issue that Im sure someone on this board can answer.  Do any of our 2012 phones with LTE have a chipset to support the 800Mhz or 2500Mhz LTE.  For example, my Samsung Galaxy S3.    .  .  .

 

I recently asked the same question on another thread (don't recall which): Theoretically, if the GS3 (and GS4) have radios which support 800 MHz and software which supports LTE, could they be programmed to support 800Mhz LTE? I never got an answer. I said "theoretically" because I wouldn't expect Sprint to support such an upgrade, nice though it would be.

 

My solution was to buy a Zing hotspot, which will support all 3 Sprint LTE bands, although I realize that it is an added expense. I travel widely, and use the hotspot for Internet connection in out-of-the-way hotels and customer sites, and I turned off the hotspot in my GS3, so the net cost was only about $15/month over what I was already paying.  (So far in the far Chicagoland Northwest, the hotspot hasn't been very useful, as we don't have any Band 26, and Band 41 is so elusive as to be practically non-existent.)  EDIT: And, it ain't unlimited like phones are.

 

All of that doesn't really ease your pain. The future event which should help you (and all of us in Northeast Illinois) will be when Sprint can fire up the re-farmed USCC spectrum this winter, but that will still have all the shortcomings of 1900 MHz.

[Joeynach]

The iPhone 5c/s is sprint's first multi-band LTE phone, adding band 26. Some new androids will add 26 and 41 making them tri-band. I've been reading that the new lg g2 has bands 26/41 firmware locked out of the box. If that's true, then that's terrible.

And band 26 and 41 are?  The 800Mhz and 2500 Mhz spectrum frequencies?

[Vince]

But, widening the pcs band to 2x10mhz will greatly improve speeds and alleviate some congestion on that band. This is only if sprint chooses to add a 5mhz carrier to LTE.

[Dkoellerwx]

Great so im stuck on 1900 PCS band, which is slower than hell and bogged down to oblivion these days, only until I either decide I have an extra $800 for a phone out of pocket or my contract is up a year from now and I can upgrade for a reasonable $200 or so.  Awful!

 

When Sprint is able to fully use the spectrum purchased from US Cellular, they may elect to add an additional PCS LTE carrier. That would alleviate some of the issues, and give your phone two LTE carriers to choose from.

 

Also, as people upgrade around you, and the additional bands are used, that will help to free up space on the PCS bands. 

 

And band 26 and 41 are?  The 800Mhz and 2500 Mhz spectrum frequencies?

 

Yes.

 

Band 25 = PCS. Band 26 = SMR. Band 41 = EBS/BRS

[Fraydog]

USCC should have already turned over half their spectrum, I can't see too many people on USCC still hanging around. 

 

USCC had 20 MHz and they haven't cleared 10 MHz? What? 

 

 

I don't know if I can blame that on Sprint, the incompetence of USCC (see their forums as evidence) might be what's coming into play. 

[Dkoellerwx]

Also, please note:

 

Keep the conversation to constructive criticism.

 

Constant whining and complaining is not tolerated. 

 

It's clear that there are issues with the network at the moment. Make it known to Sprint. Everyday if you have to. But coming here and complaining everyday will not solve anything.