Network Vision/LTE - Columbus Market

[imex99]

I am only receiving 3G service in Grand View on North Star road on Northwest blvd I usually have a strong signal of all 3 variations of LTE and as I drive around testing I know the saying that the speed I'm getting is about one down when I finally get on to 4G. It seems like the power goes up-and-down on the tower because I will be able to receive it inside for a few moments and then it goes away again . I've been using signal Check pro.
 
Any insight

What phone are you using?

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[dkyeager]

2017 S4GRU Confirmation Report for Columbus

6 Ground Mounted Radio sites with Remote Radio Heads added

7 sites confirmed with 1x800 CDMA

119 sites upgraded to Band 25 LTE 1900 5x5 plus 2nd Carrier 10x10

38 sites upgraded to Band 25 LTE 1900 10x10

44 sites with new Band 41 LTE 2500/2600

81 Band 26 LTE 800 confirms (mostly 3x3)

 

2017 Band 41 Totals by Type:

Macro Sites

209 8T8R

121 Mini Macros

3 Tri Sector Split 8T8R

Small cells

6 Air Harmony 1000 (5 with directional antennas)

17 Air Harmony 4000 (2 at Sprint Stores)

4 Alpha Wireless Concealed Access Nodes (3 variants)

 

Looking Ahead to 2018

Shentel

At the start of 2017, it looked like Sprint might inherit the nTelos Sites outside of the nTelos Market near Portsmouth (Columbus Market) plus Gallipolis, Marietta and Parkersburg (West Virginia Market).  In April 2017 an Expansion deal was signed by Shentel with Sprint for at least the nTelos sites in these areas.  We have since learned it will include the Sprint sites in these counties as well.  The Shentel sites added around Portsmouth have been removed from our sheets and maps.  The 086 sites (Samsung) will be removed as they are replaced with ALU sites around Portsmouth.  Columbus could inherit West Virginia Market remnant sites in Noble and Jackson counties.  Changing them to 086 could be low priority.

New Permits

Near the end of year we noticed a dramatic increase in permit activity.  The summaries released to the public are often scanty in details and often only represent a fraction of permit activity.  Here is what we have recorded since the start of the year that are open:

24 Network Vision sites to get Band 41 LTE 2600

6 Outstanding Small Cell permits (Band 41 LTE 2500, includes 2 billboard sites)

3 Network Vision Ground Mounted Radio sites to get Band 26 LTE 800

11 former Clear sites to get Band 25 LTE 1900 and Band 26 LTE 800

9 other sites are to have other work performed (uncertain)

Of course these permits may also not be completed.  All of us will just need to be observant for new construction.  New permits were being issued up to the last business day of 2017 and thus are expected to continue.

Forth Carrier

Band 41 LTE 2500/2600 forth carrier has also been promised for sometime in 2018.  It will generally just affect the large metropolitan areas. Third carrier is a prerequisite.

Note:  I typically provide this information earlier in the year, sorry for the delay.  This was posted in Premier on January 2 and should have been posted here two weeks later. If you become a Sponsor member by making a donation (cost of your typical lunch is recommended) you will know where the Network Vision sites are located and whether they have LTE or 1x800 and other important features.  Premier membership adds band 26 and band 41 information.  This level is the most active.  There is also honorary membership level.

[lburgdavid]

Hey S4GRU! Long time no sprint. 

So I moved back to columbus from VA and due to the iPhone XS promotion, I switched from ATT to Sprint. 

So I was hoping things had improved, but it seems like the coverage I remember from 6-8 years ago. I really don't want to give these phones back but man these first 2 days have been rough. Any tips for dealing with sprint coverage?

[UPdownLoAD]

Hey S4GRU! Long time no sprint. 

So I moved back to columbus from VA and due to the iPhone XS promotion, I switched from ATT to Sprint. 
So I was hoping things had improved, but it seems like the coverage I remember from 6-8 years ago. I really don't want to give these phones back but man these first 2 days have been rough. Any tips for dealing with sprint coverage?

Welcome back!

Personally, I have very little issues with Sprint coverage now days, especially since I have a Magic Box at home. What part of Columbus are u having issues with Sprint?

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[lburgdavid]

1 minute ago, UPdownLoAD said:

Welcome back!

Personally, I have very little issues with Sprint coverage now days, especially since I have a Magic Box at home. What part of Columbus are u having issues with Sprint?

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South East - Groveport/Canal Winchester. 
I saw 3G pop up today sitting in the parking lot of a mcdonalds and I about lost it.

What is this magic box you speak of? Just a wifi repeater? 

[dkyeager]

4 hours ago, lburgdavid said:

South East - Groveport/Canal Winchester. 
I saw 3G pop up today sitting in the parking lot of a mcdonalds and I about lost it.

What is this magic box you speak of? Just a wifi repeater? 

Unfortunately they are tough to come by right now.  Sprint keeps stating that should improve soon.

[lburgdavid]

9 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

 

Interesting...so more of a small cell. Nice!

That would solve my problem inside my house but doesn't solve the 500 ping and .8 mbps downstream out in Canal Winchester. 
I sent some cash to get access to the sponsor maps...I am wondering where this awful tower actually is located. 

[derrph]

2 minutes ago, lburgdavid said:

Interesting...so more of a small cell. Nice!

That would solve my problem inside my house but doesn't solve the 500 ping and .8 mbps downstream out in Canal Winchester. 
I sent some cash to get access to the sponsor maps...I am wondering where this awful tower actually is located. 

I’m on the south east side as well and i’ve never been a fan of Sprints service whenever I go out to Canal.  

[lburgdavid]

2 minutes ago, derrph said:

I’m on the south east side as well and i’ve never been a fan of Sprints service whenever I go out to Canal.  

Well I am glad its not just me. I was stunned when I got 3G in the parking lot of the McDonalds on Gender today. 

Got .8 up and .9 down with a 500ms ping at my house (in canal)

Im glad Sprint has a 14 day return period. We're going to kick the tires some more but it doesn't look good. 

[dkyeager]

8 minutes ago, lburgdavid said:

Interesting...so more of a small cell. Nice!

That would solve my problem inside my house but doesn't solve the 500 ping and .8 mbps downstream out in Canal Winchester. 
I sent some cash to get access to the sponsor maps...I am wondering where this awful tower actually is located. 

 

4 minutes ago, derrph said:

I’m on the south east side as well and i’ve never been a fan of Sprints service whenever I go out to Canal.  

The key item we are waiting for is the update of a number of former Clear sites from b41 to full Network Vision (we have lots of permits showing on the premier hunters maps).  Most will have LTE 1900 and LTE 800 added with 4x4 capabilities for better performance at the edge.  No word on whether they will have CDMA.  Also have three permits for new sites plus discussions of others.  But they do not exist until  work is complete.  When work begins the sponsor maps will be updated to show the known permits.

[derrph]

6 minutes ago, lburgdavid said:

Well I am glad its not just me. I was stunned when I got 3G in the parking lot of the McDonalds on Gender today. 

Got .8 up and .9 down with a 500ms ping at my house (in canal)

Im glad Sprint has a 14 day return period. We're going to kick the tires some more but it doesn't look good. 

It’s definitely not. From the places I go in Columbus, everything is fine overall. A magic box could help but I don’t think you’ll get it within 14 days. 

I have a magic for my apartment and it helps. I get around 5down and 1up without it and with it I push about 20down and 5up.  Not ultra fast but it’s enough for me. 

[derrph]

3 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

 

The key item we are waiting for is the update of a number of former Clear sites from b41 to full Network Vision (we have lots of permits showing on the premier hunters maps).  Most will have LTE 1900 and LTE 800 added with 4x4 capabilities for better performance at the edge.  No word on whether they will have CDMA.  Also have three permits for new sites plus discussions of others.  But they do not exist until  work is complete.  When work begins the sponsor maps will be updated to show the known permits.

I hope that some of those sites affected are near the intersection of College(southeast expressway) and Petzinger Rd. I haven’t been premier section in a while. 

[lburgdavid]

10 hours ago, dkyeager said:

 

The key item we are waiting for is the update of a number of former Clear sites from b41 to full Network Vision (we have lots of permits showing on the premier hunters maps).  Most will have LTE 1900 and LTE 800 added with 4x4 capabilities for better performance at the edge.  No word on whether they will have CDMA.  Also have three permits for new sites plus discussions of others.  But they do not exist until  work is complete.  When work begins the sponsor maps will be updated to show the known permits.

It’s interesting you should say that as sprint CS is telling me the primary site serving my area is down right now and that’s why I’m getting 500 ping and .8 up and down. 

[imex99]

Do you have scp pro installed with site notes installed?

It’s interesting you should say that as sprint CS is telling me the primary site serving my area is down right now and that’s why I’m getting 500 ping and .8 up and down. 

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[lburgdavid]

12 minutes ago, imex99 said:

Do you have scp pro installed with site notes installed?

 

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

 

Running iOS, iPhone XS which is why I switch back to sprint. Their deal was insane. So no, I’m not running SCP. 

[lburgdavid]

20 minutes ago, lburgdavid said:

Running iOS, iPhone XS which is why I switch back to sprint. Their deal was insane. So no, I’m not running SCP. 

Pulled up field test and I looks like I’m bouncing between a B41 and a B25 site with db strength over -115db all the time. 

Which makes sense why my coverage is trash. Does the site ID correlate to the maps on the sponser side? (I still haven’t been upgraded yet)

[Flompholph]

2 hours ago, lburgdavid said:

Does the site ID correlate to the maps on the sponser side? (I still haven’t been upgraded yet)

By site ID do you mean cell ID in the IPhone? If yes then sort of but you have to work to match the sites up. IPhone shows the cell ID in decimal (base 10) and the maps use androids and Sprints GCI in Hexadecimal (base 16). So you would have to convert the decimal number you have to hex.  I don't know if dkyeager is going to add a column for GCI in Decimal for you to make it easier. But it would still be difficult because Cell ID would fall in a range for a site like 140513792-141845060 for 086012xx. 

How I got the range with google sheets if a column where to be added W4 is a place holder for the GCI column.  =CONCATENATE(HEX2DEC(CONCAT(W4,"00")),"-",HEX2DEC(CONCAT(W4+1450,"44")))

[dkyeager]

9 hours ago, Flompholph said:

  I don't know if dkyeager is going to add a column for GCI in Decimal for you to make it easier. But it would still be difficult because Cell ID would fall in a range for a site like 140513792-141845060 for 086012xx.

Decimal GCI as been there in the Premier Hunters maps for a long time.  Typically we try to keep sponsor maps a little easier to understand, but could do it if requested.

[amcferrin90]

On 9/23/2018 at 9:41 AM, lburgdavid said:

Pulled up field test and I looks like I’m bouncing between a B41 and a B25 site with db strength over -115db all the time. 

Which makes sense why my coverage is trash. Does the site ID correlate to the maps on the sponser side? (I still haven’t been upgraded yet)

Welcome to the area! I live in Pickerington near Meijer and frequent Pickerington and Canal. What you're experiencing is normal for that geographic area. The nearest site is a couple miles from that restaurant to the NNW. The next closest site is about 3 miles dues east and then the next closest is about 7 miles SSE. Voice coverage is pretty fair thanks to B26 coverage but data, not so much! It is sad because a huge shopping area and a water tower with every other carrier known to mankind does not have Sprint on it. There is a Sprint store in the strip behind the McDonalds which may have a MB or SC which might have been affecting you too. There was a store near Kroger that had an Airave at one time. 

When you see the high pings nowadays, that generally is old backhaul like T-1 or T-3 lines and not fiber. As the case in Pickerington, there's a HUGE lapse in fiber. There is fiber going in down Diley Rd; I don't know who's paying for it so it might be for the cable companies. For instance going up 256 south of 70 was high pings and miserable speeds but literally north of 70 was low pings and tons of speed. 

I hope that the merger with T-Mobile will open up some bandwidth in those areas.

[dkyeager]

Massive MIMO antennas found today in the Columbus market.  Can broadcast many beams of B41 LTE 2500 and 5NR (5G).

[runagun]

1 hour ago, dkyeager said:

Massive MIMO antennas found today in the Columbus market.  Can broadcast many beams of B41 LTE 2500 and 5NR (5G).

Yay, you found Mimo.  You know what tower it was?

[dkyeager]

7 hours ago, runagun said:

Yay, you found Mimo.  You know what tower it was?

Of course, that is S4Gru Premier member info: https://s4gru.com/forums/topic/4825-columbus-market-mapspreadsheet-premier-edition/page/126/?tab=comments#comment-540873

S4Gru Sponsors get more clues: https://s4gru.com/forums/topic/4742-columbus-market-mapspreadsheet/page/198/?tab=comments#comment-540872

 

[amcferrin90]

3 hours ago, dkyeager said:

Of course, that is S4Gru Premier member info: https://s4gru.com/forums/topic/4825-columbus-market-mapspreadsheet-premier-edition/page/126/?tab=comments#comment-540873

S4Gru Sponsors get more clues: https://s4gru.com/forums/topic/4742-columbus-market-mapspreadsheet/page/198/?tab=comments#comment-540872

 

Of course now that it's been spotted AND known, anyone hunting will be able to spot them. Just like the clear to full build work. Seeing that more and more too however I wonder if those also include the MMIMO configuration?

 

[dkyeager]

S4Gru has always been about education.  Hopefully any non paying member posts their finds here.  Who knows, they may even find themselves getting promoted. 

Sponsors and Premier members should post details in the highest ranking thread linked above.  The Premier thread will also contain a map of confirmed sites once we get a few more.

[imex99]

Massive mimo

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