Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[Vince]

You would only connect to one of the two 5x5 carriers at any one time.

Wait, so when USCC gets shutdown, Sprint won't run two combined carriers for 10x10 LTE? It will be either or? How do you know which you're connected to through the phone engineering screens? Thanks

[cdk]

Wait, so when USCC gets shutdown, Sprint won't run two combined carriers for 10x10 LTE? It will be either or? How do you know which you're connected to through the phone engineering screens? Thanks

 

I don't think the spectrum is adjacent so a 10x10 carrier wouldn't be possible. Also I don't think any current phone supports aggregating carriers. However a second carrier will double the number of devices that can be connected before over-saturating the airlink. Throw in another 5x5 carrier on 800 and you have tripled the number.

[lilotimz]

Wait, so when USCC gets shutdown, Sprint won't run two combined carriers for 10x10 LTE? It will be either or? How do you know which you're connected to through the phone engineering screens? Thanks

 

-USCC Network is already turned off. 

- Nope. Breaks compatability with too many 5 mhz LTE only devices 2 5x5 FDD carriers has the same capacity as a single 10 mhz FDD-LTE carrier. 

- Ask AJ

[tommym65]

Wait, so when USCC gets shutdown, Sprint won't run two combined carriers for 10x10 LTE? It will be either or? How do you know which you're connected to through the phone engineering screens? Thanks

At this time, Sprint can't do 10x10 on 1900 PCS, because many devices (such as all Samsungs) are engineered only for 5x5. Sprint can't do 10x10 on 800 SMR because it lacks sufficient spectrum.

[cdk]

At this time, Sprint can't do 10x10 on 1900 PCS, because many devices (such as all Samsungs) are engineered only for 5x5. Sprint can't do 10x10 on 800 SMR because it lacks sufficient spectrum.

 

I think the Samsungs are the only ones that can't, but I have been known to be wrong. They could eventually in some areas have both a 5x5 and 10x10 carrier, but I think they would rather have double the number of devices at a lower theoretical max.

 

As for 800 not having the room, I don't think there is much that can be done at this time....

[Vince]

-USCC Network is already turned off.

- Nope. Breaks compatability with too many 5 mhz LTE only devices 2 5x5 FDD carriers has the same capacity as a single 10 mhz FDD-LTE carrier.

- Ask AJ

I thought the shutdown date was 1/31? Could Sprint already be using this spectrum here in Chicago?

[cdk]

I thought the shutdown date was 1/31? Could Sprint already be using this spectrum here in Chicago?

 

I think that is the correct date, I suppose it is possible they could start using it earlier. I think the Revol shutdown (in IN and OH) is the 15th.

[lilotimz]

I think that is the correct date, I suppose it is possible they could start using it earlier. I think the Revol shutdown (in IN and OH) is the 15th.

 

From what I've been informed specifically for Chicago it was the end of the year. There were less than 800 USCC subscribers approximately ~2 weeks ago. 

[drock2750]

Shouldn't we at a minimum be able to spot the different center frequency of the other carrier in signalcheck?

[cdk]

Shouldn't we at a minimum be able to spot the different center frequency of the other carrier in signalcheck?

 

Yes, I think so. Hopefully one of the experts will chime in with that potential number,

[digiblur]

Shouldn't we at a minimum be able to spot the different center frequency of the other carrier in signalcheck?

Yes, AJ posted a formula on how to calculate the downlink channel for LTE many months ago in a wall article.

 

You will need to watch your engineering screens unless your device shows the mhz of the channels in SignalCheck.

[drock2750]

Yes, AJ posted a formula on how to calculate the downlink channel for LTE many months ago in a wall article.

 

You will need to watch your engineering screens unless your device shows the mhz of the channels in SignalCheck.

Oh, my phone shows up and downlink center frequencies...I'll keep an eye on them and see if they change.

[rmorrisonva]

Not correct in all cases. One market thread hasn't had a post in almost a month, down from 30 or so a day 6 months ago. Work has stopped and people got tired of bitching about dead LTE so no posting has been going on.

Perhaps not all cases, but I still find it to be an encouraging sign in general!

[Joeynach]

Everyone's fingers have been too frozen to type.

 

Seriously, I go downtown only occasionally, and haven't been in the city since just before New Year.  Just before Christmas, I was south of the Loop (in a shopping center near Roosevelt & Wells) and got good LTE signal strength, good speeds, and good SNR values, even inside most of the stores.  Just before New Year's, I was at State St. & the River, and got similar results.  On both trips, I monitored connections all the way in from about Elgin with my Zing hotspot, and was getting Band 41 LTE almost all the way, with very good Band 25 where there was no Band 41. (I was rather surprised at how comprehensive the Band 41 coverage was).  Where I wanted data (including inside the House of Blues), I had no connection or speed problems.  Importantly, both trips were in the late afternoon/evening, so I realize that they may not be representative of weekdays.

Im not sure how we have such different experiences, but I just returned from a several week vacation in Europe and things are worse than ever on the LTE band 25 in the Loop.  I don't have access to band 41, but I am def experiencing the slowest speeds I have ever seen on band 25, both on 3G and LTE.  I have been moving around the Loop a bit this week and noticed extremely poor speeds and signal strengths.  My 3G speed tests midday were resulting in less than 5K DL, while my LTE tests resulting in a stout 20K DL.  I have no explanation, just odd that we have such contrasting experiences, even on the same band.

[tommym65]

Im not sure how we have such different experiences, but I just returned from a several week vacation in Europe and things are worse than ever on the LTE band 25 in the Loop.  I don't have access to band 41, but I am def experiencing the slowest speeds I have ever seen on band 25, both on 3G and LTE.  I have been moving around the Loop a bit this week and noticed extremely poor speeds and signal strengths.  My 3G speed tests midday were resulting in less than 5K DL, while my LTE tests resulting in a stout 20K DL.  I have no explanation, just odd that we have such contrasting experiences, even on the same band.

Probably because of time of day. Both my recent trips were from late afternoon until late evening, and both were technically outside the Loop (1 north, 1 south). I should also have made it clearer that I didn't get any band 41 east of 90/94. My speed and SNR observations were Band 25 on my GS3.

[n9ovreric]

Probably because of time of day. Both my recent trips were from late afternoon until late evening, and both were technically outside the Loop (1 north, 1 south). I should also have made it clearer that I didn't get any band 41 east of 90/94. My speed and SNR observations were Band 25 on my GS3.

gs3 is not tri band

 

Sent from my LG-LS980 using Tapatalk

 

 

[tommym65]

gs3 is not tri band

 

Sent from my LG-LS980 using Tapatalk

In my OP, I explained that I was using a hotspot to see Band 41 while driving in to the city.

[Joeynach]

Probably because of time of day. Both my recent trips were from late afternoon until late evening, and both were technically outside the Loop (1 north, 1 south). I should also have made it clearer that I didn't get any band 41 east of 90/94. My speed and SNR observations were Band 25 on my GS3.

Well thats not good b/c it implies even worse crowding on band 25 than what I had noticed previous to my trip.  Same with the 3G, the overcrowding during the day in the Loop is ridicolous.  The throughput speeds continue to bottom out on both technolgies.  Chicago is in trouble.  At my new hire orientation the other day, the HR leader (a 55 yr old women) was discussing how employees get Sprint discounts and even said outloud something like 'But with how bad things on Sprint have gotten in Chicago recently you might not want to go down that road'.  Thats really bad, when someone my Mom's age notices how much the data connections have degraded in the city over the last several months.  Makes me sad.

[Joeynach]

Also, question for my city folks. Anyone have troubles at Ogilvy station? I now work here at 500 W Madison and my Sprint service is awful. There are fully 4G enabled towers in each direction just a thousand or two feet away and I can't get an LTE signal at all.  Im stuck on 3G only and its unuseably slow.  Im seeing 3G SNR of 1-2 DB.  Just doesn't seem right.  Anyone else had issues at or around Ogilvy?

[kyle_4thousand]

Also, question for my city folks. Anyone have troubles at Ogilvy station? I now work here at 500 W Madison and my Sprint service is awful. There are fully 4G enabled towers in each direction just a thousand or two feet away and I can't get an LTE signal at all.  Im stuck on 3G only and its unuseably slow.  Im seeing 3G SNR of 1-2 DB.  Just doesn't seem right.  Anyone else had issues at or around Ogilvy?

 

Haven't been down there in a while, but this makes me wonder if another 5x5 carrier will be enough in the loop. Unfortunately many people do not have tri band phones and it will take at least a year or more for a significant percentage of subscribers to have these phones in hand to take advantage of the other bands. And when you take into account moral hazard, even if a secondary carrier does improve capacity to some extent, people will be inclined to use even more data once they see it starts working faster again and they may just end up right back to where they where.

 

Obviously I hope this isn't the case, but anyone feel that this might happen if Chicago does get another 5x5 band 25 carrier?

 

 

[JosefTor]

Also, question for my city folks. Anyone have troubles at Ogilvy station? I now work here at 500 W Madison and my Sprint service is awful. There are fully 4G enabled towers in each direction just a thousand or two feet away and I can't get an LTE signal at all. Im stuck on 3G only and its unuseably slow. Im seeing 3G SNR of 1-2 DB. Just doesn't seem right. Anyone else had issues at or around Ogilvy?

SON doesn't mean anything n Samsung phones as it is broke. I had a samsung galaxy s3 next to a Nexus 5 and they both consistently received the same high speed test score. I checked SCR and the Samsung had a really chappy one and the nexus 5 one was a champ.

[JosefTor]

SON doesn't mean anything n Samsung phones as it is broke. I had a samsung galaxy s3 next to a Nexus 5 and they both consistently received the same high speed test score. I checked SCR and the Samsung had a really chappy one and the nexus 5 one was a champ.

stupid auto correct. SON AND SCR should have said SNR

[Joeynach]

Haven't been down there in a while, but this makes me wonder if another 5x5 carrier will be enough in the loop. Unfortunately many people do not have tri band phones and it will take at least a year or more for a significant percentage of subscribers to have these phones in hand to take advantage of the other bands. And when you take into account moral hazard, even if a secondary carrier does improve capacity to some extent, people will be inclined to use even more data once they see it starts working faster again and they may just end up right back to where they where.

 

Obviously I hope this isn't the case, but anyone feel that this might happen if Chicago does get another 5x5 band 25 carrier?

 

 

Im afraid for Sprint, they are basically done with NV (phase 1) in Chicago, touted the hell out of the network over the summer, and now things are worse than ever downtown.  I'm afraid they are going to churn like crazy until real tri band is in place at every tower and at least 50% of users have tri band phones.  Like you, I have no idea what an additional 5x5 carrier on B25 will do. I also have no idea if its 100% set in stone Chicago is getting an additional 5x5 LTE carrier from the USCC shutdown, or when.

 

Either way though, its pretty obvious Sprint was victimized by its own NV program here in Chicago.  They ripped down the old network, built a new one, migrated everyone from WiMax, migrated all USCC customers, migrated everyone with 3G only devices, and now have nothing but a slow and overcrowded LTE network.  I'm really excited for what this network will be once true Tri-Band is in place all over the country and all three spectrum blocks are full deployed, but I am pretty disappointed in NV thus far.  I guess in hindsight, to be completely honest, if I fully understood the differences between LTE deployments (Freq & spectrum width) on various carriers when I re-upped in 2012, I probably would have gone in a different direction.

[kyle_4thousand]

Im afraid for Sprint, they are basically done with NV (phase 1) in Chicago, touted the hell out of the network over the summer, and now things are worse than ever downtown.  I'm afraid they are going to churn like crazy until real tri band is in place at every tower and at least 50% of users have tri band phones.  Like you, I have no idea what an additional 5x5 carrier on B25 will do. I also have no idea if its 100% set in stone Chicago is getting an additional 5x5 LTE carrier from the USCC shutdown, or when.

 

Either way though, its pretty obvious Sprint was victimized by its own NV program here in Chicago.  They ripped down the old network, built a new one, migrated everyone from WiMax, migrated all USCC customers, migrated everyone with 3G only devices, and now have nothing but a slow and overcrowded LTE network.  I'm really excited for what this network will be once true Tri-Band is in place all over the country and all three spectrum blocks are full deployed, but I am pretty disappointed in NV thus far.  I guess in hindsight, to be completely honest, if I fully understood the differences between LTE deployments (Freq & spectrum width) on various carriers when I re-upped in 2012, I probably would have gone in a different direction.

See, someone like me who spends most of my time in the suburbs, I really have no complaints about the service and speed out here. Sure, data gets slow when I go to places like Woodfield Mall or the Loop but in aggregate I'm satisfied with the work they have done. Unfortunately Sprint was a victim of their own success with respect to the city proper. However for the most part I feel NV has been successful for us out in the suburbs. Hopefully by mid-year we will see more tri-band phones out there with the additional carriers deployed, and the problems in the city will be solved. I guess time will tell.

[Joeynach]

See, someone like me who spends most of my time in the suburbs, I really have no complaints about the service and speed out here. Sure, data gets slow when I go to places like Woodfield Mall or the Loop but in aggregate I'm satisfied with the work they have done. Unfortunately Sprint was a victim of their own success with respect to the city proper. However for the most part I feel NV has been successful for us out in the suburbs. Hopefully by mid-year we will see more tri-band phones out there with the additional carriers deployed, and the problems in the city will be solved. I guess time will tell.

I remember expressing a similar sentiment about a month ago.  I left Chicago during rush hour pulling down sub dial up LTE speeds and below 3 SNRs in the Loop.  45 min later out in the south suburbs BOOM, pulling down 5-10Mbps and SNRs 15+.  The difference, population density.  If your a suburbanite you prolly have a completely different experience with Sprint and NV.  Whatever NV Phase 1 is, its not made to handle the traffic of urban centers when all users demand access to one 5x5 carrier of LTE, and I see similar complaints on Sprint's board in relation to NYC, San Fran, etc.  Its just disappointing.