Network Vision/LTE - Houston Market

[greenbastard]

14 hours ago, avb said:

Not sure I like the upload speeds on configuration 2 so much. On Clearwire towers, before the configuration change, it wasn't uncommon to see 10Mb/s download speeds with 300-500Kb/s uploads. Now those uploads are around 100Kb/s.

Is carrier aggregation coming for uploads?  If so are any current phones able to take advantage of that?

Agreed. These new uploads are quite terrible and very noticeable. They should have waited until they got B25+B41 CA figured out to pull this stunt. I'm getting sub 100 kbps speeds in a lot of places.

[greenbastard]

Anyone else notice Mobilitie using green Steele poles for Sprint's small cells inside the city limits? Very odd they would paint their poles considering Houston has no zoning ordinances. Even more odd they aren't using wooden poles in order to save costs. 

[S4GRU]

On 10/9/2017 at 6:03 AM, greenbastard said:

I'm getting sub 100 kbps speeds in a lot of places.

The thing about this though is if the issue is sub 100kbps upload speeds on B41, the old configuration wouldn't have helped much. If you have 100k on the new config, the speed on the old config would at best be 2x to 3x more.

On the old config, you wouldn't drop from 7-8Mbps to 100k.  Or even 1-2Mbps to 100k.  If you are getting 100kbps now, that same site would probably be pushing 200-300kbps on the old config.

The new config doesn't have a huge impact on Upload speeds. But it is reminding us how Sprint does not have robust upload on B41, regardless of configuration.  Sprint should work toward other upload solutions for B41. Like CA.

However, most of us are not heavy uploaders. And the ones who are, and can only use B41, they may need another network than Sprint. This will not change soon.

[lilotimz]

32 minutes ago, greenbastard said:

Anyone else notice Mobilitie using green Steele poles for Sprint's small cells inside the city limits? Very odd they would paint their poles considering Houston has no zoning ordinances. Even more odd they aren't using wooden poles in order to save costs. 

These are likely multi sector mini macro sites. We've got up close pictures and information on one such example that is progress. 

[greenbastard]

4 hours ago, lilotimz said:

These are likely multi sector mini macro sites. We've got up close pictures and information on one such example that is progress. 

This one was a work in progress as well. Everything looks ready to go, except for that pesky little thing known as electricity . It only had one RRU so I doubt it is one of these multisector Small Cells. But then again, I only got a good look at it from one side. It's quite possible there was another radio attached on the other side.

I just find it odd that the pole was painted green. The small cell has a clean line of sight to a Sprint/Clearwire site that is already overloaded. It will be interesting to see if Sprint decides to replace the Clearwire equipment in order to feed the small cell and add capacity to both areas.

[avb]

Pings seem better (10-15ms) across the board on all 3 bands when I do speedtests now (speeds are still roughly the same).

[deankelem]

3xCA? 

The Clearwire converted tower near my house went from 1 carrier to 3 last week and while I know there are now 3 carriers I am not sure if all 3 are aggregated, not sure if sprint is starting to roll this out but I got over 200mbps many times!! I ran another speed test yesterday and this is what i got!

 

 

[nexgencpu]

24 minutes ago, deankelem said:

3xCA? 

The Clearwire converted tower near my house went from 1 carrier to 3 last week and while I know there are now 3 carriers I am not sure if all 3 are aggregated, not sure if sprint is starting to roll this out but I got over 200mbps many times!! I ran another speed test yesterday and this is what i got!

 

 

3xCA has been going live on Samsung Clearwire sites. Nice to see this outside of NY. 

[greenbastard]

8 hours ago, nexgencpu said:

3xCA has been going live on Samsung Clearwire sites. Nice to see this outside of NY. 

Dean will have to confirm if this was a Clearwire update or if Sprint swapped the antenna panels/radios. There's a good chance Sprint replaced the Clearwire equipment and this isn't a Clearwire 3rd carrier. The reason I say this is because Sprint purchased a bunch of construction permits for Sprint/Clearwire colocated sites this Winter from the COH. 

[lilotimz]

42 minutes ago, greenbastard said:

Dean will have to confirm if this was a Clearwire update or if Sprint swapped the antenna panels/radios. There's a good chance Sprint replaced the Clearwire equipment and this isn't a Clearwire 3rd carrier. The reason I say this is because Sprint purchased a bunch of construction permits for Sprint/Clearwire colocated sites this Winter from the COH. 

It is very much so. 

The Samsung clear dual mode equipment are capable of up to 80 MHz of spectrum if the high capacity split transmit path configuration is done just like how Sprints 8T8R 2.5 is capable of 120 MHz. 

They basically did a software update to enable this capability and added a 3rd contiguous carrier via software en masse to add capacity to existing equipment. They'll be replaced eventually as the permits show but until then the additional capacity is well appreciated. 

[RAvirani]

3 hours ago, lilotimz said:

It is very much so. 

The Samsung clear dual mode equipment are capable of up to 80 MHz of spectrum if the high capacity split transmit path configuration is done just like how Sprints 8T8R 2.5 is capable of 120 MHz. 

They basically did a software update to enable this capability and added a 3rd contiguous carrier via software en masse to add capacity to existing equipment. They'll be replaced eventually as the permits show but until then the additional capacity is well appreciated. 

Seattle is a Clear Huwei market but I’ve noticed that there are four jumpers to each antenna at all of our Clear sites...are these Huwei antennas capable of the same thing?

[lilotimz]

55 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Seattle is a Clear Huwei market but I’ve noticed that there are four jumpers to each antenna at all of our Clear sites...are these Huwei antennas capable of the same thing?

Huawei RAN is 100% decommissioned and no those equipment weren't. Their capability (2007-2010) was extremely lacking compared to the 2011-2012 era Samsung equipment Clear was deploying and the new RRU32xx series they planned to deploy but which got nixed by the Softbank - Clear - Sprint buyout. 

Those antennas are also passive so it'll just broadcast whatever radio is wired into it and doesn't really have a big impact on radio virtual sector splitting.

[RAvirani]

24 minutes ago, lilotimz said:

Huawei RAN is 100% decommissioned and no those equipment weren't. Their capability (2007-2010) was extremely lacking compared to the 2011-2012 era Samsung equipment Clear was deploying and the new RRU32xx series they planned to deploy but which got nixed by the Softbank - Clear - Sprint buyout. 

Those antennas are also passive so it'll just broadcast whatever radio is wired into it and doesn't really have a big impact on radio virtual sector splitting.

Oh wait — my bad! Seattle had Huwei RRUs and basestations although those were all replaced (with Nokia mini macros and such). I actually don’t remember what vendor the Clear antennas are from. Here’s a picture of one if you can identify it. 

https://m.imgur.com/RVlLkfL

We mostly have the antennas on the right. The antenna on the left was recently swapped in because the old one kept randomly failing. 

[greenbastard]

On 3/26/2018 at 11:02 PM, lilotimz said:

It is very much so. 

Once again, you're spot on. Just found this on my way out of Houston. Checked other clear sites along tthe way and it was the only one with a 3rd carrier.