Network Vision/LTE - South West Florida Market

[rhambling]

I have seen alot of activity on the tower at lee blvd and gunnery near lehigh senior hs. crane was out yesterday and there have been contracters on site for the last week. company was ATLAS Communications.

[tampaflusa]

Sarasota and Bradenton have been added to the sprint.com coverage map so I guess it's officially launched. Sarasota shouldn't have though because coverage there is still bad with many towers still not 4G accepted.

[S4GRU]

Sarasota and Bradenton have been added to the sprint.com coverage map so I guess it's officially launched. Sarasota shouldn't have though because coverage there is still bad with many towers still not 4G accepted.

Meets 40% outdoor coverage. It's the same threshold used throughout the country. For better or worse. Might as well make it official and let customers open tickets on the existing towers.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

[DavoM]

I hope this isn't considered hijacking this thread, but it is time for me to upgrade from my HTC One (M7).  I'm considering the G2 & Nexus 5 and would love to know from those of you down here in SW Florida which one of these is performing well.  

 

LTE connectivity is very high on my list of priorities and my One has frustrated me in that regard over the past year.  I've read much here in the user threads here on both being tri-band phones, but I'm curious which one you all recommend for our area.  I believe both now have Kit-Kat.  

 

Thanks in advance for the help.  

 

Peace,

 

DM

[DavoM]

In addition to my questions above, I called the Sprint Corp Store here in Ft Myers and asked if we have "spark" in our area and they resoundingly said "No," so is that true?  

[rhambling]

just noticed that the tower in FGCU went live this week. the speed is crappy; barely making a 1 mb down/up. i drove around the area mapping it on sensorly

[PO58]

Only one more towers to have LTE on it in Cape Coral and it's the one closest to my house. go figure. 

[droidjosh]

Only one more towers to have LTE on it in Cape Coral and it's the one closest to my house. go figure.

I got it at my house finally. 15 down 5 up. Not too shabby

[DavoM]

In addition to my questions above, I called the Sprint Corp Store here in Ft Myers and asked if we have "spark" in our area and they resoundingly said "No," so is that true?  

 

Ok, I got my wife an S4 Mini and via the update, it now has spark.  I have seen with my own eyes that they are at least testing Spark and it does work.  It's my wife's phone so I rarely have it & I don't even have a speed app on her phone, but pulling up a non-cached website I blinked and it was fully loaded.  Pretty cool.  

 

Peace,

 

DM

[jamisonshaw125]

In addition to my questions above, I called the Sprint Corp Store here in Ft Myers and asked if we have "spark" in our area and they resoundingly said "No," so is that true?  

Ft meyers does not show up as a spark market on the coverage maps, therefore it isn't. yet.

[DavoM]

Right, that's what they told me, but they are testing here for sure.  

[tampaflusa]

Ok, I got my wife an S4 Mini and via the update, it now has spark. I have seen with my own eyes that they are at least testing Spark and it does work. It's my wife's phone so I rarely have it & I don't even have a speed app on her phone, but pulling up a non-cached website I blinked and it was fully loaded. Pretty cool.

 

Peace,

 

DM

All Spark phones have the Spark symbol. Ft Myers doesn't have Spark.

 

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[jamisonshaw125]

Right, that's what they told me, but they are testing here for sure.  

If you think they are testing it, do a speed test. And even better, get the engineering screenshot so we can see what band its on. Ft meyers doesn't have spark yet, but its not impossible that they might be testing it. 

[DavoM]

All Spark phones have the Spark symbol. Ft Myers doesn't have Spark.

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

 

Of that, I was not aware.  Interesting.

 

If you think they are testing it, do a speed test. And even better, get the engineering screenshot so we can see what band its on. Ft meyers doesn't have spark yet, but its not impossible that they might be testing it. 

 

I just downloaded the Sensorly app on my wife's phone.  I know how to upload the speed test results for that app, but I have no idea how to get to the engineering screen on her phone to take a screenshot.  Let me know if you all know how to do that for the S4 mini.

 

DM

[atm4three]

I can't even get a good enough 3g signal on the lower level of my house to send text messages or make phone calls most of the time, let alone have a 4g signal. Had to have Sprint send me an Airave. Had to download Google Voice to send text messages from most places in my work as well. It seems like Plantation Road, especially between Colonial and just north of Daniels, is just bad. And the area around the Target Plaza at 41 and Daniels often isn't much better. I'm debating whether to get rid of my Note 2 and get an S5, but not sure it is worth it at this point.

[greencat]

Hey how's it going. I was wondering if you guys had any idea abt the time frame for sprint to improve the service around ft myers. I have had weak and spotty service all around ft myers. Was down at the beach and the service was bad there too. I thought they had CDMA 800 on but my 3g is bad and 4g is almost nonexistent. I have the lg g2 so I should be able to pick up the best signal available.

[greencat]

So the towers around hwy 41 and Daniels and on the way down to the beach are still operating on the old legacy service. Previously 4g had been active on at least some of them. Sucks.

[tampaflusa]

I had Band 26 near the University exit on 75, also some near Downtown Sarasota but no csfb so I was kicked to 3G.

 

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[corys00]

Hey how's it going. I was wondering if you guys had any idea abt the time frame for sprint to improve the service around ft myers. I have had weak and spotty service all around ft myers. Was down at the beach and the service was bad there too. I thought they had CDMA 800 on but my 3g is bad and 4g is almost nonexistent. I have the lg g2 so I should be able to pick up the best signal available.

I'm showing some progress in that area from back in late February through end of April. Can you give me an idea of a specific area and I can give you a better idea of what's going on in that area.

 

 

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[greencat]

On hwy 41 from Daniels north up to the river I've had 3g. Its been over capacity so it is terribly slow. There is a tower real close to that intersection and it has previously had 4g turned on. Why it's not now I'm not sure.

 

Taking sumerlin to the beach there was almost no 4g. Around San Carlos and sumerlin I did get some 4g. Once south on Carlos it goes to 3g. It was 3g all along the beach.

 

There were a couple of spots on McGregor that I did get 4g a couple of times.

[atm4three]

Has anyone in this market (especially the Fort Myers area) noticed any performance degradation over the past month or so? I thought it might be quirks with the S5 after it's update, but my son said he has noticed it on his Note 2 as well. I'm now getting 3g service where I was consistently getting LTE service before.

[S4GRU]

Has anyone in this market (especially the Fort Myers area) noticed any performance degradation over the past month or so? I thought it might be quirks with the S5 after it's update, but my son said he has noticed it on his Note 2 as well. I'm now getting 3g service where I was consistently getting LTE service before.

They are doing optimizations as they bring Band 26 LTE online that may effect B25 LTE signals. This could be affecting you, or it could be something completely different in your area.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[atm4three]

They are doing optimizations as they bring Band 26 LTE online that may effect B25 LTE signals. This could be affecting you, or it could be something completely different in your area.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

Thanks. Would there be a timeline on that, or will that just be similar to when LTE was originally going live in that we would need to Speedtest and look at Engineering screens until the Spark market is officially announced?

[S4GRU]

Thanks. Would there be a timeline on that, or will that just be similar to when LTE was originally going live in that we would need to Speedtest and look at Engineering screens until the Spark market is officially announced?

If it is a temporary optimization issue, I would suspect things would return to normal in 6 weeks max. If it lasts longer than that, they may had to make a lot of physical downtilt adjustments that actually has permanently affected B25 coverage.

 

Sometimes these changes just have unintended consequences. RF engineering is almost as much an Art as a science. Things sometimes just don't work out as planned when making changes.

 

If you don't see any improvements within another week or two, I'd call Sprint and insist on opening a trouble ticket. There's a good chance that an Ericsson engineer will go check out the affected areas. If there is an obvious problem detected from recent work, he may be able to get that fixed.

 

Hopefully this info helps.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[greencat]

Has anyone in this market (especially the Fort Myers area) noticed any performance degradation over the past month or so? I thought it might be quirks with the S5 after it's update, but my son said he has noticed it on his Note 2 as well. I'm now getting 3g service where I was consistently getting LTE service before.

If you look at my posts you will see sevice has been horrible. After looking at some maps of the towers the tower spacing and number of towers for the area is significantly insufficient. Unless you live close to a tower or are using ur phone close to a tower expect degraded service. Especially west of Winkler. Hopefully once 800LTE is running it will be better, but im skeptical.

 

Sprint has told me there are no plans to build more towers in the area right now.