Network Vision/LTE - Milwaukee Market (including Madison)

[aarofloyd]

update:  so now that a lot of the leaves are off the trees, i was able to get on cityview drive and take a look down at the antennae on park bank and they do not appear to be upgraded. i did notice there are all sorts of utility markers down the hill from the bank in front of Unos, as in the entire hillside is covered with them. Maybe backhaul work? 

[mmark27]

update:  so now that a lot of the leaves are off the trees, i was able to get on cityview drive and take a look down at the antennae on park bank and they do not appear to be upgraded. i did notice there are all sorts of utility markers down the hill from the bank in front of Unos, as in the entire hillside is covered with them. Maybe backhaul work? 

 

Well, that's disappointing.  Try to get a picture with a camera with a zoom if possible. Sometimes they sneak that equipment up there in other locales.

[madtownbadger81]

There was a crew of guys climbing up and working on the Fish Hatch tower this afternoon. Safe to assume I'll get a healthy signal on my Galaxy S4 on Post Rd. and Fish Hatch once it goes live?

[grumpwagon]

There was a crew of guys climbing up and working on the Fish Hatch tower this afternoon. Safe to assume I'll get a healthy signal on my Galaxy S4 on Post Rd. and Fish Hatch once it goes live?

 

The one by the beltline? How did I miss that?? 

[mmark27]

The one by the beltline? How did I miss that??

They already have one antenna up! Sweet, fast workers.

 

 

 

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[madtownbadger81]

The one by the beltline? How did I miss that??

Behind the Subway and Dean Health buildings on beltline frontage rd. Just a lurker and assume that's the right one?

[mmark27]

Behind the Subway and Dean Health buildings on beltline frontage rd. Just a lurker and assume that's the right one?

Yup

 

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[kallistos]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/29/sprints-lte-network-now-covers-nyc-and-45-more-markets/?ncid=rss_truncated

 

Stevens Point and Janesville

[grumpwagon]

It figures the day I actually do work all afternoon instead of looking out the window at the tower is the day they work on it.

[apphysics]

So here in the North Shore of Milwaukee I have been on roaming all night (since about 6pm). Big changes coming??? *gets hopeful*

[mmark27]

The one by the beltline? How did I miss that?? 

 

Not sure your binoculars will get through this dense fog.

[mmark27]

My little blip of LTE on the morning dog constitutional walk.....it click into LTE for a second, I couldn't get a screen shot fast enough in LTE engineering mode to see what tower is pumping the LTE.  This doesn't always work on my morning walks, so something might be in testing (Fitchburg east or Verona), or I'm getting the Rimrock tower??  Clearly not the tower across the street, otherwise it'd be pretty dark purple!

 

[SolidSnake]

There's a lot of work done. I believe the October date. According to other threads here, they have to have all towers in urban areas done before switching them on if they're going to turn on 800SMR at the same time. Otherwise they have hand-off issues with active phone calls. I'm optimistic that it'll happen soon as most towers have NV equipment.

 

And I can believe that with experiencing 800 here in Baltimore. It's not seamless at all yet.

 

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Do you still believe the October date?

[mangurt]

Still nothing in the research park area of Madison.  Pretty hard to see anything with the thick fog this morning, but data speeds are in the low 100 mbits

[apphysics]

Do you still believe the October date?

 

If it weren't for Samsung stopping testing, I believe we would have been announced. However, with Samsung stopping testing (easy in winter) to push installs (tough to do in the winter), I imagine we will be closer to late november or early december now.

[SolidSnake]

If it weren't for Samsung stopping testing, I believe we would have been announced. However, with Samsung stopping testing (easy in winter) to push installs (tough to do in the winter), I imagine we will be closer to late november or early december now.

Like I said, but had deleted, the guy I talked to at Sprints HQ in Texas( They have a NYC and TExas office besides the main one in KC) said the very earliest for Madison would be December. I gave a number for people to call. 

[napali]

I've been out hunting the whole time man. It doesn't pay to take pictures anymore because most of the towers in my area have NV panels up already. So we're all waiting for an unseen delay at this point.

 

My tower on 92nd and Beloit has all of it's panels replaced. I see all the old panels are off and all new ones are up. Most of the panels have both RRU's sitting behind them, but there are a couple that only have one RRU behind them, and the ropes are still hanging from the rack, so I'm guessing they still have a couple to mount. After that, it should be ready to go. Fiber and new cabinet has been in place for a while now. 

 

I don't know what they're waiting for. The contractor I talked to said they turn on LTE in "clusters", but that doesn't seem to be the case for the Milwaukee area's existing LTE towers. So far the towers that are broadcasting LTE aren't in any kind of "cluster", they're kind of spread out. So I don't know if I really believe the cluster theory. I just can't wait to see some more action around here. It looks like literally every tower outside of the Milwaukee/Waukesha area has had at least one upgrade (3g, 800, or LTE). So they've essentially "worked their way in" and all that's left is the actual Milwaukee/Waukesha areas. 

There is further progress on the Muskego (south) tower, the guys are there today to finish the wiring of the antennas that were installed earlier this month. Usual story though, they are from down South and don't know towers by name or location. The guy in charge said very little and told me they bounce tower to tower wherever they are told to go. I asked him about my home tower in Big Bend/Vernon that is on top of high power lines and he said it would be a slow process as they get a very short window of time by the power company to do the work and it could still be months away. No one on the ground really knows anything except what they are supposed to be doing. I am quite sure we will be dragging well through the winter months before anything more (substantial) in 4g becomes of this market.

[grumpwagon]

Not sure your binoculars will get through this dense fog.

Went home early today, but I'm almost sure I saw someone up there working on it 3 hours or so ago.

[mangurt]

I went walking around during my lunch today.  No work going on at the Tokey Blvd site, and network speeds are back to 0.55 Mbps down, and 0.45 Mbps up.  I have not seen work in the Tokey site since late Aug.  Hope they did not forget about that site...

[mmark27]

I went walking around during my lunch today.  No work going on at the Tokey Blvd site, and network speeds are back to 0.55 Mbps down, and 0.45 Mbps up.  I have not seen work in the Tokey site since late Aug.  Hope they did not forget about that site...

 

That site, according to the crew that was there in late July, is finished for work. Only needs approval.  They said the backhaul was complete and he showed me where the guy was making the connections to the tower lines into the box that feeds from the backhaul.  Then his next statement was that they were supposed to inspect it next week and turn it on Aug. 1.  I don't think he wasn't telling me the truth, but clearly someone from above made the call to skip approval and move on to a new tower.  So it never got turned on.

 

So if you do see anyone there, I assume it would be very brief checking, testing and then they'd be gone.  I could be wrong though.

[mmark27]

Went home early today, but I'm almost sure I saw someone up there working on it 3 hours or so ago.

 

I'll be by there about 5:15 and I'll take whatever pictures I can.  My tower camera with zoom died and I had to ship it back, so I'll depend on my S4 now and test out this new 4.3 camera firmware.  With the fog and low light, could make for some turrible pictures.

[mmark27]

Well FH tower has 2 of 3 done now.

 

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[ColinJay]

My tower camera with zoom died and I had to ship it back, so I'll depend on my S4 now and test out this new 4.3 camera firmware.  With the fog and low light, could make for some turrible pictures.

 

It's probably a pipe dream, but you didn't get 4.3 via Sprint did you? Or did you just root? Sorry if this is a little off topic just curious.

[mmark27]

It's probably a pipe dream, but you didn't get 4.3 via Sprint did you? Or did you just root? Sorry if this is a little off topic just curious.

Yes via Sprint. I put instructions in the device forum area of this website. Look under Devices, Samsung. I'm not rooted. Totally stock. 4.3 rocks. Lots of fixes under the hood.

 

The Hill Dale tower now has its network vision equipment. Sorry the picture sucks.

 

 

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[mmark27]

Update instructions here:  Its the legit file from Google OTA servers, so have no fear! 

http://www.s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/3664-Samsung-Galaxy-S4-User-Thread&do=findComment&comment=228211

How to update the S4 to 4.3: 

 

Get file from Google OTA servers: http://t.co/tC0XTZema9

Move file to External SD card storage.  (leave as zip file, no need to change the name)

Turn phone off.

Hold vol up, home button, power button until Samsung logo appears, release buttons. 
Once in recovery, with the vol up/down button move to Update from External Storage, or whatever, hit power button to select
Find your file by moving with vol keys, press power button to select file. 
Sit back and relax. it takes about 10 minutes or so to install. 

Enjoy.