Network Vision/LTE - Jacksonville Market (including Gainesville/St. Augustine/Ocala)

[tybo31316]

Has anyone been noticing over the past couple days. That their phone is sitting on band 25 more as opposed to band 26. My phone use to sit on band 26 all the time. Now I find it on band 25 more and dropping to band 26 when I can't get band 25 signal. I know this is the way its supposed to work but I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[tybo31316]

I don't like how Verizon does business but I took a long drive into boondock territory yesterday and while Sprint was 3g and faint signals of band 26. Verizon was band 13 all the way and even lots of band 4 in the middle of nowhere it was a massacre. Verizon had speed, capacity, coverage and reliability while Sprint did not. Tmobile was on edge or no service though so there's that at least Sprint had a minimum of 1x800.

I wonder how their signal is so strong and all their RRUs that I have seen is ground mounted. I also wonder if Sprint is running their band 26 at a lower power setting.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[Terrell352]

Has anyone been noticing over the past couple days. That their phone is sitting on band 25 more as opposed to band 26. My phone use to sit on band 26 all the time. Now I find it on band 25 more and dropping to band 26 when I can't get band 25 signal. I know this is the way its supposed to work but I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

Mine has been doing this for about 2 months now

[Terrell352]

I wonder how their signal is so strong and all their RRUs that I have seen is ground mounted. I also wonder if Sprint is running their band 26 at a lower power setting.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

Sprints band 26 over here is running high 800 frequencies on DL and low 800 on UL. Verizon and T-Mobile does the opposite and run 700 DL on low 700 and UL on high 700. I don't know how much impact this has but it could be some of the problem. It doesn't help that sprint loves being either on the bottom of the tower or the top. Mostly the bottom. They are rarely in the middle in central Florida from all of the towers I've seen.

[Ascertion]

Sprints band 26 over here is running high 800 frequencies on DL and low 800 on UL. Verizon and T-Mobile does the opposite and run 700 DL on low 700 and UL on high 700. I don't know how much impact this has but it could be some of the problem. It doesn't help that sprint loves being either on the bottom of the tower or the top. Mostly the bottom. They are rarely in the middle in central Florida from all of the towers I've seen.

Yeah, I don't understand why Sprint always choosing to lease different sites than the competition and always mounted lower.  It's gotta be cheaper to do it lower, but it's at the cost of a few dBm for customers, and with lower amount of sites than the competition, it can be very bad.  We'll see how Sprint does their B41 deployment when it goes widespread.

[tybo31316]

Yeah, I don't understand why Sprint always choosing to lease different sites than the competition and always mounted lower. It's gotta be cheaper to do it lower, but it's at the cost of a few dBm for customers, and with lower amount of sites than the competition, it can be very bad. We'll see how Sprint does their B41 deployment when it goes widespread.

I'm also waiting to see how aggressive Sprint is with band 41. Right now I haven't noticed very many Sprint band 41 sites. 99% of band 41 sites I connect to is Legacy clearwire.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[Terrell352]

I'm also waiting to see how aggressive Sprint is with band 41. Right now I haven't noticed very many Sprint band 41 sites. 99% of band 41 sites I connect to is Legacy clearwire.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

I've seen some but the are in small towns and big cities but none in medium size cities. Like I said they have me confused.

[Deval]

Yeah, I don't understand why Sprint always choosing to lease different sites than the competition and always mounted lower.  It's gotta be cheaper to do it lower, but it's at the cost of a few dBm for customers, and with lower amount of sites than the competition, it can be very bad.  We'll see how Sprint does their B41 deployment when it goes widespread.

 

Usually sites are leased a long, and in my experience, do not get moved once they are on air. In this case, perhaps the market has built out since the site first went on air with 2G? 

[Ascertion]

Usually sites are leased a long, and in my experience, do not get moved once they are on air. In this case, perhaps the market has built out since the site first went on air with 2G? 

I'd be surprised, really.  There's a site near my house that has 5-6 rows of panels, all carriers except Sprint is on it.  The site hosting Sprint is about 200 yards off within a neighborhood.  (The non-Sprint cell tower is positioned better imo.)

 

EDIT: There's also a handful of Clear sites broadcasting WiMax that only Clear has panels on. Weird.

[Deval]

I'd be surprised, really.  There's a site near my house that has 5-6 rows of panels, all carriers except Sprint is on it.  The site hosting Sprint is about 200 yards off within a neighborhood.  (The non-Sprint cell tower is positioned better imo.)

 

EDIT: There's also a handful of Clear sites broadcasting WiMax that only Clear has panels on. Weird.

 

I bet it was cheaper to get on the other site to be honest. Also, some of the Clear sites may either get full NV builds, or at the least get B41 broadcasting on them. I know in my market, Clearwire had a bunch of WiMAX only sites which are now broadcasting both WiMAX and LTE.

[Terrell352]

One of the villages towers just got optimization. Should be on the next spark map

[Ascertion]

No one will in this market.

 

Sprint only owns 10x10 of PCS A-F in the market plus the G block.

Just curious. Did Sprint recently grab some extra PCS in the B-Block? This spectrum map shows Sprint has additional PCS in Jacksonville.

http://specmap.sequence-omega.net/

 

EDIT: I guess I misunderstood. Looks like they have additional PCS spectrum, but not enough to warrant a second PCS carrier on LTE.

[lilotimz]

Just curious. Did Sprint recently grab some extra PCS in the B-Block? This spectrum map shows Sprint has additional PCS in Jacksonville.

http://specmap.sequence-omega.net/

 

EDIT: I guess I misunderstood. Looks like they have additional PCS spectrum, but not enough to warrant a second PCS carrier on LTE.

never use spec.map omega if you want 100% accurate information. It's a good site to get a get glance of what type of spectrum carrier holds but it's not 100% accurate. Always use fcc spectrum dashboard if you want to know exactly who holds what.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

[Ascertion]

Anyone seeing any action lately?  B41 updates anywhere?  Been quite slow around me (zip 32259).

[Terrell352]

Does Verizon have small cells deployed? I went there today and my tablet had a 79 dBm band 4 signal while my sprint nexus 6 had 110-115 dBm band 26. I know for a fact that both of them are on the closest tower plus Verizon is on the bottom and Sprint is in the middle. 79 dBm on band 4 is almost impossible last time I checked.

[jdray]

Anyone else having issues keeping LTE? Or it taking forever to switch from 3G to LTE?

 

Note4 with 5.0.1 and there are quite a few towers with this issue. The one in Orange Park on south Blanding never wants to connect to LTE when I leave my house unless I toggle airplane mode. It will stay on 3G from Old Jennings to Publix at College before it switches.

 

I'm also dropping LTE and switching to 3G at Deerwood and Southside Blvd.

 

Downtown is still solid, I can keep LTE even in elevators, so it's not the phone.

[Ascertion]

Anyone else having issues keeping LTE? Or it taking forever to switch from 3G to LTE?

 

Note4 with 5.0.1 and there are quite a few towers with this issue. The one in Orange Park on south Blanding never wants to connect to LTE when I leave my house unless I toggle airplane mode. It will stay on 3G from Old Jennings to Publix at College before it switches.

 

I'm also dropping LTE and switching to 3G at Deerwood and Southside Blvd.

 

Downtown is still solid, I can keep LTE even in elevators, so it's not the phone.

I was on Southside Blvd yesterday, not quite at Deerwood, a bit south of it (near the Avenues Mall.)  But I haven't experienced any issues with LTE.  I'm on an HTC One M8, 5.0.1 ROM.

 

They might be optimizing or changing the way the panels face yesterday and testing the results.  I'll let you know if I discover anything different.

[EvanA]

Does Verizon have small cells deployed? I went there today and my tablet had a 79 dBm band 4 signal while my sprint nexus 6 had 110-115 dBm band 26. I know for a fact that both of them are on the closest tower plus Verizon is on the bottom and Sprint is in the middle. 79 dBm on band 4 is almost impossible last time I checked.

Yes, Verizon has tons of pico cells deployed.

[Terrell352]

I was unaware they beat Sprint to the punch. I thought only At&t and Sprint was doing pico cells?

Yes, Verizon has tons of pico cells deployed.

[EvanA]

I was unaware they beat Sprint to the punch. I thought only At&t and Sprint was doing pico cells?

Nope. In fact, Verizon has been deploying pico cells since they started deploying their AWS spectrum.

[Terrell352]

Nope. In fact, Verizon has been deploying pico cells since they started deploying their AWS spectrum.

Is it only deployed in aws? Also has any other carrier have active pico cells deployed besides Verizon?

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[tybo31316]

Is it only deployed in aws? Also has any other carrier have active pico cells deployed besides Verizon?

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

I think Clearwire had Wimax Pico cells deployed in NYC.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[tybo31316]

I spotted band 41 panels being installed on the cell site that's in downtown Baptist Hospital parking lot. There's a clearwire band 41 that's in the area but it doesn't reach into the hospital where I'm sure there's hundreds of people using their cellular connection instead of WiFi.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[Ascertion]

I was on Southside Blvd yesterday, not quite at Deerwood, a bit south of it (near the Avenues Mall.) But I haven't experienced any issues with LTE. I'm on an HTC One M8, 5.0.1 ROM.

 

They might be optimizing or changing the way the panels face yesterday and testing the results. I'll let you know if I discover anything different.

Just drove to fscj south campus. My internet radio never went out the entire drive back home. Sprint seems to be getting better at consistency. Maybe they did do some optimizations in that area.

 

Sent from my M8

[Ascertion]

Anyone know when Sprint comes and decommissions WiMax, if they'll convert the sites to B41 LTE at the same time?  Or is it a different team of technicians that come out for that?  There's two Wimax sites by me that could really help with capacity/coverage if they were on B41. 

 

EDIT: If they converted them to full-builds (broadcast PCS and SMR), that'd be even more awesome!