Network Vision/LTE - South Carolina Market (Columbia/Greenville/Spartanburg)

[stanleywinthrop]

I wanted to give an update on the Columbia/Lexington area.  Since this summer the B41 rollout has been impressive. In Lexington, it has made it all the way out to my neighborhood which I was not expecting for quite some time as I live a ways out.  Overall, I am very pleased and impressed with the rollout in the Lexington area.

Downtown columbia has also seen a pretty good rollout of Band 41.  The USC campus is pretty well covered and although spotty, you can find it down assembly and up towards main street as well.  However as we all know B41 does not penetrate buildings well and does not make it into mine past about 10 feet of a south/west facing  window.  The bad news is that I had expected Band 41's presence to relieve pressure on the way over congested B25 in downtown, but alas B25 is as slow and congested as ever.

[drhz]

Just an update. I experienced Band 41 congestion on a Mini Macro near the Mall in Greenville, SC. It was actually my first negative experience in a while. Also, on my Android I am seeing T-Mobile Roaming and it helps in places like Pelzer, Piedmont, and Easley. I was thinking about leaving for Spectrum Mobile but the T-Mobile Roaming caused me to paused that idea because it worked better than I thought in suburban areas outside of the City of Greenville. I only wished it showed up as Sprint instead of Roaming. I would like the phone to switch to T-Mobile based on speeds instead of coverage. Right now I only get T-Mobile if I'm outside the Sprint LTE coverage area.

[Dkoellerwx]

On 10/13/2018 at 7:56 PM, drhz said:

 I only wished it showed up as Sprint instead of Roaming.

Just curious, what do you mean by this? Do wish Sprint had coverage there, or that while roaming, your phone still displayed Sprint? The latter won't happen since your phone has to display it is roaming. That said, roaming on T-Mobile so far as we know is unlimited, so no data worries there.

On 10/13/2018 at 7:56 PM, drhz said:

I would like the phone to switch to T-Mobile based on speeds instead of coverage.

That will never happen so long as the two are separate companies. That would defeat the purpose of roaming (supplying coverage where you otherwise wouldn't have it).

[drhz]

8 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Just curious, what do you mean by this? Do wish Sprint had coverage there, or that while roaming, your phone still displayed Sprint? The latter won't happen since your phone has to display it is roaming. That said, roaming on T-Mobile so far as we know is unlimited, so no data worries there.

That will never happen so long as the two are separate companies. That would defeat the purpose of roaming (supplying coverage where you otherwise wouldn't have it).

While roaming it says Sprint. 

[belusnecropolis]

Our markets are having quite the issue with the correct time when roaming. It will roam on LTE when all settings to roam are set off on the Sprint handset we have. The performance here is nice though when it is connected.

[Dkoellerwx]

2 minutes ago, drhz said:

While roaming it says Sprint. 

Yeah that's not going to happen because that would be lying. 

[Bob Newhart]

On 10/20/2018 at 9:29 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

Yeah that's not going to happen because that would be lying. 

What do you mean?

On my iPhone Xs, while roaming LTE on T-Mobile, it shows Sprint as it has an 1xRTT voice signal available.

[Dkoellerwx]

19 hours ago, Bob Newhart said:

What do you mean?

On my iPhone Xs, while roaming LTE on T-Mobile, it shows Sprint as it has an 1xRTT voice signal available.

That may be the case since you have a 1x connection available and are using an iPhone. Android phones will show an "R" next to the signal bars, even if a Sprint 1x signal is available, since the bars show data strength. 

[Brad The Beast]

Band 41 has been deployed on a few macros in Beaufort, SC.