LTE 700

[caleuche]

Off topic given the sprintness of the forum, but just a general side comment - midday in downtown Portland, particularly indoors, EVDO coverage on Verizon is much more solid than LTE. I can't estimate how many and average spacing of LTE towers are vs EVDO, but if they are roughly the same its sort of interesting that EVDO has ancedotally better coverage.

[caleuche]

And, naturally, the speed test.

[WiWavelength]

Reports are that VZW is deploying LTE 750 for coverage breadth first, density second. So, only some sites get LTE overlay the first go round. If that is true in a given area, then LTE to EV-DO cannot be an apples to apples coverage comparison -- at least, not yet.

 

That said, my expectations for LTE have tempered somewhat from empirical observation of VZW's and Sprint's LTE roll outs. LTE does seem to be a more fragile airlink than does EV-DO. And that is almost to be expected, as LTE is made up of hundreds of small subcarriers that, individually, are not as robust as is a single spread spectrum carrier.

 

Now, maybe the disparity is a function of devices that are still relatively early in the LTE development cycle. After all, EV-DO development is going on a decade, is now very mature. So, newer LTE devices may continue to improve radio performance. But I do think that we have to consider the real possibility that Sprint's LTE 1900 will usably cover only 80-90 percent of the underlying CDMA1X/EV-DO 1900 footprint.

 

AJ

[supert0nes]

Seems very closely related to http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1715-700-mhz-lte-on-verizon/ I think you would find good information from AJ in that thread about signal strength on 700. AJ, Robert, and others have also discussed LTE vs EVDO signal strength extensively.

[S4GRU]

I can tell you as a frequent Verizon network user, that I get Verizon EVDO 850 noticeably farther from a site (and in buildings) than LTE 750 from the same site. However, this is at least partially due to my device (A Verizon ZTE 890L Hotspot).

 

Thankfully, Verizon mostly shows their LTE device signal strength in RSSI, so it makes it a little easier to compare apples to apples. Most of the time, my Verizon EVDO runs around 3-5dBM stronger than LTE from the same site. However, where I really notice the difference is above -90dBm. Verizon LTE dives off a cliff around -92dBm on my hotspot. And download drops to 10% to 20% of full strength speed. Upload usually will drop to 0-200kbps. Around -95dBm RSSI, my Verizon LTE is useless.

 

However, EVDO keeps going strong on VZW 850 through the Nineties, with only a slight drop in performance. EVDO on VZW 850 stays with 80% of speed until approximately -100dBm, and then starts dropping off quickly. At -105dBm, it keeps about 30%-40% of its performance. at -110dBm, it is pretty much unusable.

 

I think AJ's point about the fragile nature of the LTE airlink is the likely culprit, with my device LTE radio playing a minor second role.

 

Robert

[WiWavelength]

I think AJ's point about the fragile nature of the LTE airlink is the likely culprit, with my device LTE radio playing a minor second role.

 

If people knew how similar an airlink LTE is to Wi-Fi (802.11a/g/n but not 802.11b, which is more akin to CDMA1X), they might be surprised that LTE works at all as WWAN.

 

AJ

[irev210]

Sort of makes me wonder if Sprint knows this.

 

Using the tower spacing that Sprint has now now, LTE probably leave small holes... but deploying voice and LTE on ESMR on just about every site gives it the coverage that users will probably expect.

 

I've noticed similar findings with Verizon 4G.

[WiWavelength]

Sort of makes me wonder if Sprint knows this.

 

Oh, I am sure that Sprint is aware, as are VZW and AT&T. But no carrier is going to come right out and say, "Hey, LTE data speeds will be a huge leap forward, but coverage will take a step back." This is one reason why I tell those who want to hit the accelerator on VoLTE roll out instead to slow down. For voice coverage and quality, we take for granted how good we have it with CDMA1X.

 

AJ

[supert0nes]

Is 1x better than EVDO coverage or is that just more towers out there serving 1x?

[digiblur]

And even with the tower spacing I have now, 1x isn't all that great either. Looks like I will have to make that mod to my case with that high gain retractable antenna

 

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

[bigsnake49]

And even with the tower spacing I have now, 1x isn't all that great either. Looks like I will have to make that mod to my case with that high gain retractable antenna

 

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

 

What you don't have one yet?

[S4GRU]

Is 1x better than EVDO coverage or is that just more towers out there serving 1x?

 

It seems in wide open rural places, I can usually get 1x beyond the edge of service for EVDO a short distance. Rarely more than a mile.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

[caleuche]

 

It seems in wide open rural places, I can usually get 1x beyond the edge of service for EVDO a short distance. Rarely more than a mile.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

 

I am curious why this is, that in terms of range it seems to be 1x is better than EVDO is better than LTE.

 

You would sort of think that with the most simple modulation possible given equal power and frequencies the wider bandwidth would be able to maintain a useful data signal longer (more bits devoted to error correction / process gain) and thought LTE makes use of a bunch of narrow sub carriers I'd think it would still be an aggregate gain.

 

Is LTE's coding supposed to be significant better than turbo coding?

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2