Network Vision/LTE - Chicago Market

[tongboy]

 

 

I do not the reason of the MW backhaul hold up in the Chicago market. I'm flabbergasted it's taken this long.

 

 

 

 

Is it like this in other markets?

 

Sent from my EVO LTE

 

 

[tommym65]

I do not the reason of the MW backhaul hold up in the Chicago market. I'm flabbergasted it's taken this long.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

My gast is a little flabbered, too.  Seems like McHenry County (Crystal Lake, McHenry, and up to the Cheddar Curtain) and Dekalb County (Dekalb & Sycamore) have gotten lost in the Chicagoland shuffle.  Both areas had tower upgrades early last fall, but many of those towers seem to be languishing in backhaul Neverland.  It doesn't seem like a permit issue, as the affected towers are in several, different municipalities, and in towns, not in the counties. And many (most?) of them already have 800 SMR (working and detectable, although not yet accepted).

 

4G LTE is all around, south, east, and west, so close that it teases you with -110 to -115 dbm signals, but not really usable in most of our 2 hopelessly neglected counties. So, woe is us.

 

The nice Sprint Customer Care lady said her system showed LTE at least at the Cog Circle site within 90 days. One can hope.

 

I know that many areas haven't even seen have a glimmer of that hope, and I don't mean to whine (although I am VERY good at it!), but dadgummit, Sprint, give me my 4G before Charlie Ergen bleeps up the whole Sprint universe.

 

Thanks for listening.

[tongboy]

I would be extremely shocked if these areas aren't live with upgraded backhaul within 90 days. Most of then appear complete with the old panels removed.

 

We can then, in Chicago all stop complaining to Robert who, despite running a site dedicated to Sprint LTE info, can touch his nearby gmo only site. Lol!

 

Sent from my EVO LTE

 

[digiblur]

And to think with all the BFE areas around me, I haven't seen one site fed via microwave here even if it is only accessible by boat either.

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

 

[userkv8031]

And to think with all the BFE areas around me, I haven't seen one site fed via microwave here even if it is only accessible by boat either.

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

Maybe they enjoy the challenge?

[Joeynach]

Maybe they enjoy the challenge?

I cant remember how I got this stuck in my head, but I thought I heard from a Sprint rep they were supposed to be finished with the Chicago market by August 2013.  I assume that means backhaul too.  Im not sure why Robert is so shocked the backhaul has taken so long in many places.  I thought he was the one that said backhaul was being provided by ATT, a strict conflict of interest.  And I think he even made the point that as ATT knows what Sprint is doing with new backhaul there sure as hell aren't probably moving as fast as they can to keep Sprint on schedule.  Corporate political shuffle is in play here.

[drock2750]

I cant remember how I got this stuck in my head, but I thought I heard from a Sprint rep they were supposed to be finished with the Chicago market by August 2013.  I assume that means backhaul too.  Im not sure why Robert is so shocked the backhaul has taken so long in many places.  I thought he was the one that said backhaul was being provided by ATT, a strict conflict of interest.  And I think he even made the point that as ATT knows what Sprint is doing with new backhaul there sure as hell aren't probably moving as fast as they can to keep Sprint on schedule.  Corporate political shuffle is in play here.

 

I have no information as to whether Att is dragging their feet on backhaul, but I can tell you that if Sprint felt that it was happening, they'd instantly be in federal court filing a complaint. On a multibillion dollar project they're not just going to shrug their shoulders and tell Samsung et al to go play solitaire until Att gets it together. Also, let's not forget that Sprint is an ISP too...people forget that sprint.net is a thing.

[S4GRU]

I cant remember how I got this stuck in my head, but I thought I heard from a Sprint rep they were supposed to be finished with the Chicago market by August 2013.  I assume that means backhaul too.  Im not sure why Robert is so shocked the backhaul has taken so long in many places.  I thought he was the one that said backhaul was being provided by ATT, a strict conflict of interest.  And I think he even made the point that as ATT knows what Sprint is doing with new backhaul there sure as hell aren't probably moving as fast as they can to keep Sprint on schedule.  Corporate political shuffle is in play here.

 

To clarify, I am shocked that the microwave backhaul has taken so long in the Chicago market.  I don't see why these sites wouldn't have been first.  Typically, MW is faster to deploy than waiting on fiber.  The MW sites went first in the Texas markets.

 

Robert

[mhammett]

That is permissible. Just reference where you got the Site ID if posting it in a public place. That way our Mods don't think you are quoting it from Sponsor content.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Site IDs are also littered throughout ULS.

 

 

My gast is a little flabbered, too.  Seems like McHenry County (Crystal Lake, McHenry, and up to the Cheddar Curtain) and Dekalb County (Dekalb & Sycamore) have gotten lost in the Chicagoland shuffle.  Both areas had tower upgrades early last fall, but many of those towers seem to be languishing in backhaul Neverland.  It doesn't seem like a permit issue, as the affected towers are in several, different municipalities, and in towns, not in the counties. And many (most?) of them already have 800 SMR (working and detectable, although not yet accepted).

 

4G LTE is all around, south, east, and west, so close that it teases you with -110 to -115 dbm signals, but not really usable in most of our 2 hopelessly neglected counties. So, woe is us.

 

The nice Sprint Customer Care lady said her system showed LTE at least at the Cog Circle site within 90 days. One can hope.

 

I know that many areas haven't even seen have a glimmer of that hope, and I don't mean to whine (although I am VERY good at it!), but dadgummit, Sprint, give me my 4G before Charlie Ergen bleeps up the whole Sprint universe.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Permits are not an issue as the dishes have been installed for months. Well, they have to be using the backhaul before 02/14/2014 or else they lose their licenses...  not that they're hard to get new ones.

 

And to think with all the BFE areas around me, I haven't seen one site fed via microwave here even if it is only accessible by boat either.

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

There's a lot of fiber out there they can use. Actually, they're not even using all that is out there. I'm not sure who was in charge of designing this network, but I'm not sure how hard they thought.

 

I cant remember how I got this stuck in my head, but I thought I heard from a Sprint rep they were supposed to be finished with the Chicago market by August 2013.  I assume that means backhaul too.  Im not sure why Robert is so shocked the backhaul has taken so long in many places.  I thought he was the one that said backhaul was being provided by ATT, a strict conflict of interest.  And I think he even made the point that as ATT knows what Sprint is doing with new backhaul there sure as hell aren't probably moving as fast as they can to keep Sprint on schedule.  Corporate political shuffle is in play here.

 

It likely is not all being provided by AT&T. AT&T isn't the ILEC for the entire market. Frontier is much less aggressive with fiber and EoC. I'm not sure if they did, but they should have used Windstream or some BTOP fiber out in a lot of the Frontier areas. Comcast does some FTTT as well.

 

 

 

 

They have one tower lit with LTE that is in the middle of the chain. The furthest "left" link would make the most sense from a fiber availability perspective and from a link capacity perspective.

 

On another chain of four towers, I noticed sporadic connectivity today, briefly had LTE and pulled 1.7/1.7 on a speed test...  when I never got near that before. Maybe they're actually getting ready to launch a bunch of LTE on new towers.

[lilotimz]

 

It likely is not all being provided by AT&T. AT&T isn't the ILEC for the entire market. Frontier is much less aggressive with fiber and EoC. I'm not sure if they did, but they should have used Windstream or some BTOP fiber out in a lot of the Frontier areas. Comcast does some FTTT as well.

 

 

 

The vast majority of the Chicago market are backhauled by ATT if everything still fits the original network vision document information on the area. 

[mhammett]

The vast majority of the Chicago market are backhauled by ATT if everything still fits the original network vision document information on the area. 

 

AT&T does serve a significant part of the market, yes, but the DeKalb\Sycamore area being referenced is not AT&T. AT&T does, however, serve McHenry and Crystal Lake. Now that's not to say that AT&T isn't just subbing out these other areas (perhaps at a loss) to get the big contract. *shrugs*

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9u87aosolox1w6/lecmap.pdf

 

Around here, Windstream did Verizon's backhaul and I suspect US Cellular as well, based on who has built fiber to what towers. Frontier has done AT&T wireless's backhaul. I guess Frontier is doing the backhaul for a Sprint tower as well as no one else has started any fiber construction to it and it is several miles from anyone else. Frontier actually just built out 7.25 miles of fiber to get to this tower with AT&T and Sprint.

[lilotimz]

AT&T does serve a significant part of the market, yes, but the DeKalb\Sycamore area being referenced is not AT&T. AT&T does, however, serve McHenry and Crystal Lake. Now that's not to say that AT&T isn't just subbing out these other areas (perhaps at a loss) to get the big contract. *shrugs*

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9u87aosolox1w6/lecmap.pdf

 

Around here, Windstream did Verizon's backhaul and I suspect US Cellular as well, based on who has built fiber to what towers. Frontier has done AT&T wireless's backhaul. I guess Frontier is doing the backhaul for a Sprint tower as well as no one else has started any fiber construction to it and it is several miles from anyone else. Frontier actually just built out 7.25 miles of fiber to get to this tower with AT&T and Sprint.

 

Possibly but the premier sponsor region holds the original network documentation that specifies who's the backhaul contractor for which market. It's fluid and does change but the point still stands that the vast majority of the market uses ATT backhaul and a select few other ILEC's.

[mhammett]

Possibly but the premier sponsor region holds the original network documentation that specifies who's the backhaul contractor for which market. It's fluid and does change but the point still stands that the vast majority of the market uses ATT backhaul and a select few other ILEC's.

 

I know the Premium Sponsor section contains that information, but being a ISP\telecom company in this region who is familiar with all of the operators in play...  I'll believe what I observe on the ground, what the ULS has and what I know about the industry over what that information says.

[tommym65]

It turns out that virtually every NV site in far northwest Chicagoland that does NOT have LTE at this time is a microwave backhaul site. And virtually every site that DOES have LTE is an "Ethernet" (=fiber) backhaul site, and virtually every fiber backhaul site already DOES have LTE.

 

Fiber = LTE. Microwave = no LTE.

 

So what the heck is with the microwave?

[Deval]

It turns out that virtually every NV site in far northwest Chicagoland that does NOT have LTE at this time is a microwave backhaul site. And virtually every site that DOES have LTE is an "Ethernet" (=fiber) backhaul site, and virtually every fiber backhaul site already DOES have LTE.

 

Fiber = LTE. Microwave = no LTE.

 

So what the heck is with the microwave?

 

Do we know if the microwave links are actually up? Or is the equipment installed but legacy backhaul still in place?

[tommym65]

It turns out that virtually every NV site in far northwest Chicagoland that does NOT have LTE at this time is a microwave backhaul site. And virtually every site that DOES have LTE is an "Ethernet" (=fiber) backhaul site, and virtually every fiber backhaul site already DOES have LTE.

 

Fiber = LTE. Microwave = no LTE.

 

So what the heck is with the microwave?

 

Do we know if the microwave links are actually up? Or is the equipment installed but legacy backhaul still in place?

 

3G data speeds on these microwave-to-be sites have been mediocre or worse, suggesting that the microwave links have not been activated, even though the dishes are mounted. I did a speed test yesterday about 100 yards south of the Cog Circle site and got <250 kbps down, very slow up (the test failed before completion), and >300 ms ping. Then, earlier today I did a speed test on the Cog Circle site from about 3/4 miles west and got 1.176 Mbps down, 0.828 Mbps up, 107 ms ping, which suggests things are better on that tower today. At this moment,  I am getting 0.086 Mbps down, 0.142 Mbps, and 124 ms ping from (I think) Bard Rd. in Crystal Lake (about 1.25 miles).

 

An educated guess, then, is that the microwave links are not yet active, and the towers are still on legacy backhaul.

[aerxx]

Microwave equipment is up all over DeKalb/Sycamore, has been for over 2 months or longer. Only one tower is LTE live, and that was 3 weeks ago when it first went live. Your argument about Microwave = no LTE is not always true. I really have no clue what is going on out here. They are not following the normal template that was used when deploying Chicago and suburbs.

[Bird_Chicago]

With iDEN sunsetting this month, what is the realistic expectation that LTE800 will be broadcasting in Chicago any time soon? I'm currently considering picking up a HTC One but due to the lack of a Snapdragon 800 in it, I'm wavering. As it is, the connectivity on my Galaxy Nexus is spotty at best on the north side with almost zero building penetration.

[lilotimz]

With iDEN sunsetting this month, what is the realistic expectation that LTE800 will be broadcasting in Chicago any time soon? I'm currently considering picking up a HTC One but due to the lack of a Snapdragon 800 in it, I'm wavering. As it is, the connectivity on my Galaxy Nexus is spotty at best on the north side with almost zero building penetration.

 

Within 3 months in the Chicago regions, The region will be the first to have all 3 bands (LTE 800 / 1900 / 2500) up and running. 

[Paynefanbro]

Within 3 months in the Chicago regions, The region will be the first to have all 3 bands (LTE 800 / 1900 / 2500) up and running.

 

You think so? I think NYC will be one of the first markets to get Clear LTE but I think Sprint will be hesistant to announce LTE from Clear and their PCS network is ready here yet.

[lilotimz]

You think so? I think NYC will be one of the first markets to get Clear LTE but I think Sprint will be hesistant to announce LTE from Clear and their PCS network is ready here yet.

 

It's all but confirmed by Roberts sources. In addition, Clearwire has been deploying TD-LTE equipment in Chicago for many months now of which are all are waiting to be connected to Sprint MSC's in order to go live. They need the boost and Sprint knows it too.

[mhammett]

Microwave equipment is up all over DeKalb/Sycamore, has been for over 2 months or longer. Only one tower is LTE live, and that was 3 weeks ago when it first went live. Your argument about Microwave = no LTE is not always true. I really have no clue what is going on out here. They are not following the normal template that was used when deploying Chicago and suburbs.

 

If in a series of microwave links, Sprint has fiber at the site with the highest capacity microwave license, then Sprint indeed has one microwave fed site with LTE in DeKalb/Sycamore. They also have LTE active on a series of microwave sites from Sycamore to Rochelle. Fiber fed sites in the area remain without LTE as well.

 

I know you know this, but for the rest...

 

Damn it, I leave for a Cubs game in the AM, but I want to investigate the microwave sites in the southern part of the county.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[tommym65]

Microwave equipment is up all over DeKalb/Sycamore, has been for over 2 months or longer. Only one tower is LTE live, and that was 3 weeks ago when it first went live. Your argument about Microwave = no LTE is not always true. I really have no clue what is going on out here. They are not following the normal template that was used when deploying Chicago and suburbs.

I was referring only to McHenry County, and candidly, I have not map-checked every site even here, so I can't demonstrate the complete accuracy of my statement. Nonetheless, it is an interesting trend, IMO.

[Deval]

Hanging out in terminal C (I think, United has all their flights out of it) and LTE connectivity is great. I'm watching Netflix while waiting two hours for a connecting flight and I have yet to hit buffering.

 

Not bad at all!

 

 

Sent from my Sprint iPad using Tapatalk HD

[ks-man]

Definitely been seeing improvement with LTE connectivity in downtown Chicago the past few weeks.  Sprint seems to be adding 4G towers in-between the first run sites and it appears to have a nice impact.  Still far from perfect but I would say the likelihood of having an LTE connection downtown (Loop area) is now over 50%.