Network Vision/LTE - New York City Market

[nexgencpu]

Power outage in midtown. Looks like backup generators are doing their thing since cell service has not been interupted so far.

[RedSpark]

Very nice!

[jaybiz81]

Well, after literal years of reporting nearly unusable LTE from small sites in the vicinity of 3rd Ave and the Cross Bronx, I returned from vacation to discover that I'm getting about 25mbps down from the small cell that I used to get frequently unusable data from. I noticed a few more small cells going in the area too. Regardless of what happened, I can finally go outside of my school, off the WiFi, in 4GLTE mode and not 3G mode and use my phone. Just wanted to share the (very) happy and exciting news from my small neck of the woods.

[jaybiz81]

On 6/26/2019 at 8:38 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Speaking just for NYC, Sprint will never get the citywide root score award because of a combination of slower upload speeds than other carriers and poorer performance in the suburbs. It doesn't matter if Sprint is the fastest carrier in the city if they're still in last place in the suburbs. That's not to say they're bad in there but their network is not up to the same standard as it is within the city. Sprint seems to recognize that now and is doing a lot of upgrades in Long Island with the help of Altice to improve density and speeds in the area.

The good news is, Altice is currently building out a FTTH network across its entire footprint including pretty much all of the NYC suburbs so we'll probably see a backhaul increase at sites across the market and after Sprint brings Long Island up to par, they'll likely tackle northern New Jersey, Downstate NY, and much of western Connecticut next.

I just looked at the 2019 first-half awards and scores. It appears that Sprint is faring quite well in NYC relative to some other markets; Sprint's performance (by their metrics) is pretty shabby in some other areas of the country.

[danlodish345]

I just looked at the 2019 first-half awards and scores. It appears that Sprint is faring quite well in NYC relative to some other markets; Sprint's performance (by their metrics) is pretty shabby in some other areas of the country.

Yea well there merger is practically complete they just have to deal with the litigations in court with the states suing them


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[nexgencpu]

Looks like 5G is live on Times Sq. Speeds were nothing spectacular, but solid nontheless considering it was packed as usual.

[nexgencpu]

Found 5G coverage between 41st and 43th street on the west side (7th ave all the way down to west side hway and 2nd ave and 3rd ave between 42nd and 43rd st). Averaged btwn 150-250mb peaked around 400mbs. 

 

 

[nexgencpu]

Looks like 5G is coming online in a bunch of sites!!

Hit a couple of 5G sites near Yankee stadium!

[nexgencpu]

5G live on a bunch of sites in Manhattan and some in the bx. They are moving fast before the official launch.

[transitwatch889]

When is Altice going to make there own announcement on network operation here. I'm sure most of the small cell work was coming from cooperative work between them and sprint. I haven't seen much work on my part of the BX myself. Still no 3 carriers this side of the hill or in upper Manhattan where I trek normally.

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, transitwatch889 said:

When is Altice going to make there own announcement on network operation here. I'm sure most of the small cell work was coming from cooperative work between them and sprint. I haven't seen much work on my part of the BX myself. Still no 3 carriers this side of the hill or in upper Manhattan where I trek normally.

The work with Altice has mainly been done in Long Island which needed it a lot more than NYC. There are parts of Long Island that had no signal at all that now have signal outdoors at the very least thanks to their collaboration with Sprint.

I'm pretty sure that all this work was being done in anticipation of a launch of an MVNO from Altice so I'm just wondering when they plan on making that happen.

[mirskyc]

i went to the flagship Sprint store on Wednesday in Flat Iron and the phones there didn't have 5G. The LG V50 had no sim card in it. The Galaxy S10 5G only had LTE. Going to check the Herald Square location later today and maybe the store in Astoria where there has been a lot of M-MIMO popping up. 

[ingenium]

When is Altice going to make there own announcement on network operation here. I'm sure most of the small cell work was coming from cooperative work between them and sprint. I haven't seen much work on my part of the BX myself. Still no 3 carriers this side of the hill or in upper Manhattan where I trek normally.

They have a lot deployed in Chestnut Ridge, NY at least. I was in that area last summer and found a ton. These are just a few that I marked in a residential area, but riding in the car I kept connecting to them everywhere.

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[Paynefanbro]

Sprint put a small cell about half of a block away from my house. It's a relay small cell with one carrier. Speeds are about 40-50Mbps and pings of about 70ms. It's in a spot where Band 41 would go down to about 1 or 2 bars without it.

[clbowens]

13 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Sprint put a small cell about half of a block away from my house. It's a relay small cell with one carrier. Speeds are about 40-50Mbps and pings of about 70ms. It's in a spot where Band 41 would go down to about 1 or 2 bars without it.

They need to put more small cells in my area.  :-)

[RedSpark]

Good speeds at JFK!

[RedSpark]

So that's why he was in NYC... 😎

[mirskyc]

based on the coverage maps it appears they aren't showing some of the MIMO sites I've found as being 5G yet. I really want to get a hold of a 5G phone but Id rather wait until the X55 modem is out. If the Oneplus 7Pro had the X55 I would pick it up today. 

[nexgencpu]

30 minutes ago, mirskyc said:

based on the coverage maps it appears they aren't showing some of the MIMO sites I've found as being 5G yet. I really want to get a hold of a 5G phone but Id rather wait until the X55 modem is out. If the Oneplus 7Pro had the X55 I would pick it up today. 

funny you mention this..

https://www.sprint.com/en/landings/oneplus/oneplus-5g.html?ECID=Vanity:oneplus5g

Im gonna go check it out now!

[mirskyc]

I went to the Sprint store on 34th st mentioned in the press release. Couldn't find it on display so i was checking out the 2 V50s they have (one was on LTE and 2nd was on Wifi) when the store manager came up behind me and asked if need any help. I always see him in the store and he's always been very helpful. I told him I was looking to see if they had the One+ on display since they were one of the store that are suppose to have it today. He told me it won't be on display until tomorrow. As I turned around another man not in a Sprint uniform stopped me and asked if I was interested in buying the phone today. I explained that I just wanted to check it out since 5G launched today. He offered to get the phone from the back and demo it for me. I felt bad since I'm probably not going to buy and said I would come back tomorrow since the store was really busy. Probably the busiest I've seen that location. I have a feeling the 2nd employee must have been from corporate. Wish I didn't forget his name. 

[nexgencpu]

I think Nokia finally worked out the kinks..

I believe it was all a lack of 4x4 rank 4 on the LTE side that was causing the hold up of 5G for them..

 

[clbowens]

1 hour ago, nexgencpu said:

I think Nokia finally worked out the kinks..

I believe it was all a lack of 4x4 rank 4 on the LTE side that was causing the hold up of 5G for them..

 

Those are great 5G speeds!  Why can't they have those speeds in all their 5G markets?!

[RAvirani]

39 minutes ago, clbowens said:

Those are great 5G speeds!  Why can't they have those speeds in all their 5G markets?!

I've personally noticed that Samsung's M-MIMO equipment broadcasts LTE in TM7-SISO mode, which drops LTE performance significantly. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm sure once they get 4x4 working properly, we'll see a big uptick in speeds in their markets (from ENDC). 

[ingenium]

I've personally noticed that Samsung's M-MIMO equipment broadcasts LTE in TM7-SISO mode, which drops LTE performance significantly. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm sure once they get 4x4 working properly, we'll see a big uptick in speeds in their markets (from ENDC). 

Yeah, we're seeing this in Pittsburgh too. Dead giveaway that the site has been upgraded to MMIMO.

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[RAvirani]

2 hours ago, ingenium said:

Yeah, we're seeing this in Pittsburgh too. Dead giveaway that the site has been upgraded to MMIMO.

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It's definitely a big step down. Hopefully Sprint/Samsung get this resolved soon. Have we seen similar problems in Ericsson markets?