Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[ThomasM]

As an interested bystander who has read this entire thread (and only lives 20 miles from the Chicago market) I am curious if this mysterious low SNR/terrible data speed issue only involves 4G.  Not having a 4g phone yet, can you disable 4g and force the phone to use 3g?  What about folks who have both a 4g and a 3g phone.  What's the data throughput on 3g?

 

Here in the Milwaukee market, prior to the Samsung equipment being installed, the 3g data speeds seemed to get slower and slower every week until they bottomed out at around 150kB!!!  Then, one day I almost flipped out.  They suddenly went to 900kB to almost 2Mb!!!

 

DId this mysterious interference/data issue appear just like my speed increase?  (overnight)  Or did the 4g speeds just get slower and slower and slower as well as the SNR getting worse and worse and worse??

[Joeynach]

As an interested bystander who has read this entire thread (and only lives 20 miles from the Chicago market) I am curious if this mysterious low SNR/terrible data speed issue only involves 4G.  Not having a 4g phone yet, can you disable 4g and force the phone to use 3g?  What about folks who have both a 4g and a 3g phone.  What's the data throughput on 3g?

 

Here in the Milwaukee market, prior to the Samsung equipment being installed, the 3g data speeds seemed to get slower and slower every week until they bottomed out at around 150kB!!!  Then, one day I almost flipped out.  They suddenly went to 900kB to almost 2Mb!!!

 

DId this mysterious interference/data issue appear just like my speed increase?  (overnight)  Or did the 4g speeds just get slower and slower and slower as well as the SNR getting worse and worse and worse??

I tried this.  When I make the phone go 3G only I don't get much better 100-300K down.  Same old Sprint 3G pains, at least in Chicago.

[digiblur]

PRL updates will do nothing for your LTE speeds or ability to connect. That area GEO has had LTE enabled for a long time.

Updating profile will also do nothing as your phone is already setup for data services.

 

Sprintcare fixes some things like sites that are down completely. Other things like speeds and other oddities.. Not so much. Been telling them about two sites that went LTE in May that dont work right. Still nothing. Another legacy site has a dead evdo channel. Been busted for over a year now. They keep saying they are working on it. The only thing that has got me traction is some customer care groups with Dan@sprint email. I usually have to threaten to cancel but it does at least get the Ericsson truck to show up at the site for them to attempt to fix it plus they usually give you some credits depending on the issue.

 

[Fraydog]

I have a friend who lives in Lincoln Park on an iPhone 5 on Sprint and he has absolutely no issues right now.

[Vince]

I have a friend who lives in Lincoln Park on an iPhone 5 on Sprint and he has absolutely no issues right now.

But, are they testing with a speedtest? Reporting dBm and snr levels? Trying to watch hd movies? If someone doesn't know much, even a crap network will refresh Facebook.

[Vince]

This is why I suspect sprint isn't aware of this problem. How many of their subs in Chicago are real power users? Not many casual users will complain as long as social media refreshes, emails pull down from the server, and texts go through, most people probably aren't aware of how fast LTE should be.

[Madfelon]

To me, this is where sprint excels in Chicago. My calls are crystal clear, and don't drop, indoors or out. Just data problems.

Agree 100% with you. Being a power user who chews through over 10 gigs a month I have noticed that it's slowing down and unusable more often than not. I'm giving it till June 1st to fix this or I'm jumping to ship to T Mobile, brother in law has them and their 4g LTE is very nice here in Chicago.

[Fraydog]

But, are they testing with a speedtest? Reporting dBm and snr levels? Trying to watch hd movies? If someone doesn't know much, even a crap network will refresh Facebook.

I'll see if I can get him to send me a speed test.

[Joeynach]

I'll see if I can get him to send me a speed test.

Get him to install Signal Check Lite and send a screenshot so we can see his SNR.

[Joeynach]

I have a friend who lives in Lincoln Park on an iPhone 5 on Sprint and he has absolutely no issues right now.

Well I am sitting at home in Lincoln Park watching the Bears game at 10:30pm.  Pulling down a -102 dbM LTE signal and 1.2 SNR.  Good for a stout 67.3 kB/s download and 167.7 kB/s upload.  That just ain't right, but guess what, Facebook still loads, so does my WhatsApp, emails, and Fantasy Football Apps (albeit slowly).  If I didn't do the speed test and I am an average Sprint customer would I know im pulling down dial up like speeds on a brand new LTE network?

[bucdenny]

That is pretty bad for LTE.  Possibly LTE was turn up with no fiber back haul?  Possible only T3 back haul that is overloaded?

[bucdenny]

Agree 100% with you. Being a power user who chews through over 10 gigs a month I have noticed that it's slowing down and unusable more often than not. I'm giving it till June 1st to fix this or I'm jumping to ship to T Mobile, brother in law has them and their 4g LTE is very nice here in Chicago.

 

Only time will make it better.  Sprint Spark is around the corner.  As more and more fiber back haul gets installed it can only get better.  Would assume if fiber is pending install, T3 can be installed temporary just to turn up LTE sites.

 

From our experience, fiber installation can take 3 months and up to 1 year depending on the provider and how fast they move. Even there was no trenching involved it took 1 year for AT&T just to deliver fiber to one of our client.  

 

NO red tape from local, just slow as AT&T take their sweet time.  Though it took only took 3 months to deliver 100Mbps fiber to one of our union client.  

[Vince]

Agree 100% with you. Being a power user who chews through over 10 gigs a month I have noticed that it's slowing down and unusable more often than not. I'm giving it till June 1st to fix this or I'm jumping to ship to T Mobile, brother in law has them and their 4g LTE is very nice here in Chicago.

Tmobile's pricing can't be beat. Unfortunately, during a one-month trial run over the summer, I wasn't impressed with their network in Chicago, either. LTE was absolutely blazing fast with pings in the 20's. The problem is their indoor coverage, and areas outside of the collar counties. Very spotty, lots of edge. I actually started a thread on a forum about a data issue that I discovered, and soon noticed others had the same issue, regardless or location or device. The problem was: when naturally dropping down to edge, then regaining 4g or LTE, speeds were throttled at 10kbps up and down, give or take. I immediately took to Twitter and tweeted John Legere. Within 24 hours he responded that he notified his engineering team. Within one week, the problem was fixed, nationwide. The communication and care that he delivers is amazing. If sprint users only had a similar way to speak their issues to someone other than a robotic, programmed csr on the phone, life would be much easier.

[mhammett]

T3s are usually delivered over fiber.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

 

 

[drock2750]

That is pretty bad for LTE.  Possibly LTE was turn up with no fiber back haul?  Possible only T3 back haul that is overloaded?

Backhaul can affect speed, but not SNR. If you have bad SNR, all the backhaul in the world won't help.

[idontwantthis04]

Does the 800 mHz network work for voice yet? I try to force it every once in a while but nothing goes through.

[tommym65]

Does the 800 mHz network work for voice yet? I try to force it every once in a while but nothing goes through.

It hasn't been activated everywhere. In Samsung NV markets, it seems to be very common, but I think I have read that it is non-existent in Erickson markets.

[idontwantthis04]

It hasn't been activated everywhere. In Samsung NV markets, it seems to be very common, but I think I have read that it is non-existent in Erickson markets.

 

Ok.  Thanks.

[mhammett]

Become a sponsor and check the maps. ;-)

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

 

 

[Cubbiefan82]

http://www.wireless-nets.com/resources/tutorials/define_SNR_values.html they use wireless lan but it is easy read and helps people understand what snr is

[Vince]

http://www.wireless-nets.com/resources/tutorials/define_SNR_values.html they use wireless lan but it is easy read and helps people understand what snr is

Exactly. Now, if we can only figure out what is crushing sprints network in Chicago. Interference from somewhere, and I find it hard to believe some bad galaxy s3's are the blame.

[Cubbiefan82]

Yea they do!! I was just in the city a few days ago and my snr was fine and speeds were lower because of usage(being in the medical district) But overall 2-3 mbps during the day, I know everyone would take that over what they are getting now.

[Joeynach]

I spoke with a guy named Samuel at OpenSignal.  He was willing to help.  I believe OpenSignal uses user based Apps that run in the background to monitor wireless networks and send the data back to OpenSignal to catalog. Samuel told me he investigated speed reports from Chicago on Sprint and noticed a decline starting in September, though not to the point of complete crash we have noticed.  He asked if myself and others in this board would be willing to install the OpenSignal App to start feeding them so more data so he could investigate further.  I volunteered and said OK.  Will my friends Vtrossi, CubbieFan82, Drock2750, ChiWestLoop, and any others please follow suite and install the OpenSignal app?  

 

[Vince]

I spoke with a guy named Samuel at OpenSignal. He was willing to help. I believe OpenSignal uses user based Apps that run in the background to monitor wireless networks and send the data back to OpenSignal to catalog. Samuel told me he investigated speed reports from Chicago on Sprint and noticed a decline starting in September, though not to the point of complete crash we have noticed. He asked if myself and others in this board would be willing to install the OpenSignal App to start feeding them so more data so he could investigate further. I volunteered and said OK. Will my friends Vtrossi, CubbieFan82, Drock2750, ChiWestLoop, and any others please follow suite and install the OpenSignal app?

Done.

[Vince]

Unfortunately, open signal for iOS only collects speed test/latency because of iOS's locked down nature. Hopefully, the android version reports more data than this.