Network Vision/LTE - Milwaukee Market (including Madison)

[mangurt]

I just checked the area around Tokey Rd, and still nothing for LTE.  I hope Sprint hurries up and flips the switch on..

[mmark27]

I just checked the area around Tokey Rd, and still nothing for LTE.  I hope Sprint hurries up and flips the switch on..

 

yeah, when I saw the Sensorly for the Eastside, I immediately had my wife disconnect from WiFi and toggle her airplane mode since she works in Research Park.  She confirms that nothing is broadcasting from the Tokay tower.  I really want to know what's up with that tower as the crew told me, and I asked explicitly, that the backhaul was already in place running to the tower. In fact, the guy showed me the inside of the box where they were connecting the tower fiber to the backhaul fiber as the guy was making connections....in July.

 

I am also not sure if that's the only tower lit up.  If you look at the rest of downtown Madison, there seems to be more purple....and darker purple, in the Isthmus, which can only really mean more towers may have lit up unless it's pulling from that tower near Kraft foods.

[donjohnson]

Interesting story on the Fox 6 website about AT&T activating a new 4G tower in Oak Creek...it also mentions their efforts to improve their network.

If Sprint had any brains they would be using the media to show off their improvements..at the very least it is a great PR move.

 

http://fox6now.com/2013/10/17/att-expands-4g-network-in-oak-creek/

[aarofloyd]

unless someone just happened to catch it during a testing period?   I had to run to the grocery store after work so ill just head to the one over there and do some mapping.  Keep an eye out sometime after 5 on sensorly....

 

also, it was too dark last night to take pictures so, next time im in the area of those other two towers here on the East/SE side, ill try and get some pictures

[jd777]

Does anyone have a good way of viewing the NV Sites maps on mobile devices? I'm thinking about going on a tower hunt and it would be very convenient to use those maps on the run... as it is, getting to those maps on a phone is very clunky.

 

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[mmark27]

Does anyone have a good way of viewing the NV Sites maps on mobile devices? I'm thinking about going on a tower hunt and it would be very convenient to use those maps on the run... as it is, getting to those maps on a phone is very clunky.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

Use Chrome or Firefox on your S3. Both work fine to display the maps. You have to use the web view and not through Tapatalk app. 

 

What I also did was to go through and star every tower in our area on my google maps (just double clicking on the tower gets you to that location in google maps outside of S4GRU) so they would show up in my google maps app and I could actually navigate to them since they were saved locations.  However, remember to NOT share any of that information with anyone that isn't a Sponsor to this site as per the forum guidelines. 

[apphysics]

I know this is Central Wisco market, but I have houses in both places. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if the tower by highway 10 and Stadt Rd just outside of Marshfield is transmitting 800, LTE, or both? I'm going home in about a week and my house is less than a mile away from there so I'm hoping that I will get LTE at my house (preferably 800 LTE, but that's a stretch).

[smalltimehack]

Interesting story on the Fox 6 website about AT&T activating a new 4G tower in Oak Creek...it also mentions their efforts to improve their network.

If Sprint had any brains they would be using the media to show off their improvements..at the very least it is a great PR move.

 

http://fox6now.com/2013/10/17/att-expands-4g-network-in-oak-creek/

The new tower is across the parking lot from a sprint tower on Howell. Lol. If there were pics you maybe could have seen our tower.

[aackmann]

Use Chrome or Firefox on your S3. Both work fine to display the maps. You have to use the web view and not through Tapatalk app. 

 

What I also did was to go through and star every tower in our area on my google maps (just double clicking on the tower gets you to that location in google maps outside of S4GRU) so they would show up in my google maps app and I could actually navigate to them since they were saved locations.  However, remember to NOT share any of that information with anyone that isn't a Sponsor to this site as per the forum guidelines. 

 

I can open the map in Chrome on my phone, and I can zoom in just fine, but I find it extremely hard to scroll around the map. It always just moves the web page back and forth instead of actually moving around the map It's like you gotta hit the screen just right to be able to move around the map. Is there a certain way to do that?

 

I also have starred all the towers in the general Milwaukee/Waukesha area on my google maps account, but the few times I travel outside my zone, I'd like to be able to use the map on my phone to see other areas too...

[mmark27]

I can open the map in Chrome on my phone, and I can zoom in just fine, but I find it extremely hard to scroll around the map. It always just moves the web page back and forth instead of actually moving around the map It's like you gotta hit the screen just right to be able to move around the map. Is there a certain way to do that?

 

I also have starred all the towers in the general Milwaukee/Waukesha area on my google maps account, but the few times I travel outside my zone, I'd like to be able to use the map on my phone to see other areas too...

 

So, I use Chrome Beta on my S4 and I have no problems with the panning and pinch to zoom on the map anymore (a few weeks ago that was an issue).  I use the Chrome (non beta) on my N7 (2012) and it works fine too.  I guess make sure your Chrome is up to date?  You can try to use the Firefox, it's always worked there for me.  But yes, it is clunkier than on a desktop for sure. 

[jd777]

The NV upgraded sites map works pretty well in Chrome browser on the S3. The 'All NV Sites map' does not work well. Perhaps the all sites map was created with an old maps api?

 

In regards to starring towers, the current maps app seems to have removed the ability to star exact GPS coordinates. It reverts to the closest street address. I reverted to the G3 factory Maps app and it was able to star the exact position... it was also way more convenient to star the address in the old Maps version. The more I use the latest version of Maps the more I hate it.

 

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[n13]

Can someone explain to me how this LTE coverage works i have a iphone 5s and I can find LTE signal where it is suppose to be according to sensorly but in some places its seems like its a line of sight down the road and not a blanket coverage unless i am right next to the tower that is broadcasting is this what LTE will be like until 800 LTE and 2600 are done?

[apphysics]

Can someone explain to me how this LTE coverage works i have a iphone 5s and I can find LTE signal where it is suppose to be according to sensorly but in some places its seems like its a line of sight down the road and not a blanket coverage unless i am right next to the tower that is broadcasting is this what LTE will be like until 800 LTE and 2600 are done?

 

The phones only scan for LTE once in a while. On my iPhone 5s I think it is about every 5 minutes, so there's a lot of times I'll e driving down the highway and completely skip LTE even from a site that is broadcasting it. And also, because sprint only has certain towers up it will be spotty until they get the majority of towers done. I would guess that this will probably be right around Christmas for the Milwaukee/Madison market.

[jreuschl]

The phones only scan for LTE once in a while. On my iPhone 5s I think it is about every 5 minutes, so there's a lot of times I'll e driving down the highway and completely skip LTE even from a site that is broadcasting it. And also, because sprint only has certain towers up it will be spotty until they get the majority of towers done. I would guess that this will probably be right around Christmas for the Milwaukee/Madison market.

 

All I want for Christmas is LTE, LTE, LTE...

[aarofloyd]

Ok, so i did a bunch of sensorly mapping at that tower near demetral fields, hopefully that shows up shortly. Speed test got me between 9 and 13 mb down.

Also went out to the tower at 30/90-94 I see 4g equipment, but doesn't look like the ones I've seen pics of. Would be interested to hear your guys two cents.   

[mmark27]

Also went out to the tower at 30/90-94 I see 4g equipment, but doesn't look like the ones I've seen pics of. Would be interested to hear your guys two cents. https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/109122972571752715062/albums/5935359360757544529/5935863190397268018?pid=5935863190397268018&oid=109122972571752715062

First off, it's easier to get a free Imgur account and post the direct links to pictures in the thread so they appear inline. The mobile app works well too. I'll put instructions in my signature later.

 

Second, your first pic, bottom rack is Sprint. Second pic is a bit more confusing but without getting a clearer shot, I'd say the second to the top rack is Sprint NV, just spaced weird. It would be easier to tell if we could clearly see the wires into those antennas. Eitherway, post up the second pic to the In Progress thread with the site ID in the sponsor section so Rickie can dump a white pin on it!

 

EDIT: took a closer look at your pictures on my computer since you've uploaded them to the site. It is clearly like the second "rack" which is like the third set of antennas down from the top. You can see the 800 and 1900 RRUs attached to the antennas and there also seems to be a lot of wires into those antennas too. 

 

Thanks for the speed tests! I see them on Sensorly!

 

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[dequardo]

The phones only scan for LTE once in a while. On my iPhone 5s I think it is about every 5 minutes, so there's a lot of times I'll e driving down the highway and completely skip LTE even from a site that is broadcasting it. And also, because sprint only has certain towers up it will be spotty until they get the majority of towers done. I would guess that this will probably be right around Christmas for the Milwaukee/Madison market.

What happened to October ? Guessing Christmas? Face it. This is a constant moving target.

[mmark27]

Ok, so i did a bunch of sensorly mapping at that tower near demetral fields, hopefully that shows up shortly. Speed test got me between 9 and 13 mb down.

Also went out to the tower at 30/90-94 I see 4g equipment, but doesn't look like the ones I've seen pics of. Would be interested to hear your guys two cents.   

 

These are your NV antennas from your picture: 

 

[aarofloyd]

These are your NV antennas from your picture: 

 

Yeah that's what I figured, interesting alignment....

[aackmann]

I got to talk to the crew at the 92nd and Beloit tower this morning!! The guy said they will be taking down the old panels and lighting up the new ones today, so there will be a little bit of a service interruption around that area. He said the LTE won't go live right away because Sprint is turning them on in clusters. He really seemed to know what he was talking about. He said he's been working on Sprint towers doing upgrades for about a year now. So after today, all the equipment will be up there and in place, just waiting to be turned on. That backs up our theory from before, because I know we've all seen a bunch of Sprint towers with NV panels up but no LTE. So hopefully we will see a bunch of LTE light up around here soon. 

 

The guy also said that they do frequently get people stopping and talking to them when they're on-site working on towers. He said they've been hopping back and forth working on T-Mobile towers and Sprint towers. Well at least we will have supposedly slightly better 3G signal later today around that area. 

 

I'm pissed because I should have asked him about the 1x800 and stuff too :/ But it was at like 6:45 this morning, so I wasn't quite awake yet.

[aarofloyd]

the additional mapping i did on sensorly is now visible, for that tower near Packers. I tried to take the signal as far as i could in each direction.   Im surprised how small the coverage is from this site.  its pretty close to line of sight on 1st a E washington and i could not get a signal there.  granted i have an EVO and it sucks holding a signal, but Im hoping once the others around it are turned on they might turn up the power on that one a bit!?

 

Also, I noticed as i was driving to that tower that i held the signal from the one near 30 & 51 all the way to where 30 hits packers, so that tower appears to have a much greater range than the one that was just turned on.  Hopefully that one will be turned on sooner than later to paint a big portion of the east side purple!

[mmark27]

That's what happened with the Middleton and Rimrock towers. Weak at first, then slightly stronger. Have you updated your PRL?

 

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[aarofloyd]

Did a couple days ago, but worth a shot....

[n13]

The phones only scan for LTE once in a while. On my iPhone 5s I think it is about every 5 minutes, so there's a lot of times I'll e driving down the highway and completely skip LTE even from a site that is broadcasting it. And also, because sprint only has certain towers up it will be spotty until they get the majority of towers done. I would guess that this will probably be right around Christmas for the Milwaukee/Madison market.

How can you figure out how long it is inbetween a scan for a signal.

[aarofloyd]

usually its 20 or 30 minutes, i believe it depends on the phone. easiest way to rescan is to toggle airplane mode.