Jump to content

Chicago and Boston LTE discoverable on Sept 21


Rasta Cheesehead

Recommended Posts

248900617.png

 

I connected to LTE for the first time driving on NW highway through palatine on my way to Lake Barrington. The connection was solid. I did many speed tests. The average was around 7 mbps down and 6 mbps up. Latency between 40-60ms. I have a Galaxy Nexus LTE and the 4G indicator had full bars.

Edited by abepilot
Link to comment
Share on other sites

248900617.png

 

I connected to LTE for the first time driving on NW highway through palatine on my way to Lake Barrington. The connection was solid. I did many speed tests. The average was around 7 mbps down and 6 mbps up. Latency between 40-60ms. I have a Galaxy Nexus LTE and the 4G indicator had full bars.

 

sweet...i live in palatine, just off NW Hwy, and my EVO LTE arrives tomorrow!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

sweet...i live in palatine, just off NW Hwy, and my EVO LTE arrives tomorrow!

 

FYI. It basically starts at NW highway and 59. I played golf in Lake Barrington and I had a consistent 4G signal. I actually downloaded you tube videos, checked email, placed a few phone calls, and conducted a video Google Hangout with my wife who was at work on Wi-Fi. Crystal clear video. This of course was after my round of golf! I also noticed that when connected to Sprint LTE my battery did not drain while using my golf GPS app. Charge went from 100% after disconnection from my car down to 63% 4 hours later. Amazing!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Corner of Lake cook rd and Wilmot rd in Deerfield

 

Likely from the site at Lake Cook Road and Discover Way, just to the west of there. Right behind the Holiday Inn Express. You can see this site, and other completed sites in our NV Sites Completed thread that gets updated every week. It's located in our Sponsor section. For more info about becoming a S4GRU Sponsor, you can visit this thread: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1195-information-about-s4gru-sponsorship-levels-and-how-to-become-a-sponsor/

 

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesomesauce...pure awesomesauce!

 

I haven't been in the northern IL area for a while, but I live right down the street from a 3G/4G tower. Another 3G/4G tower is right where I spend a lot of other time (shopping, gym, food, movies). Super excited!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wanted to add my two cents...I'm in Round Lake Beach (~10 mi west of Waukegan). My phone is acting strange...I can connect to LTE when I turn my phone on, and keep a signal for approximately 45-60 seconds once it's locked. I ran a speedtest and was getting ~2-2.5 Mbps down. The strange part is that I drop the connection and switch to 3G after that time. This has been over the last few nights ~10pm-12am. I just tried it again, and I am not even getting the 4G connection. On top of that, it's taking ~2-3 minutes to connect to 3G from a fresh reboot in current hours.

 

I'm sure this will be resolved soon, Sprint is doing everything they can to keep me on...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And you probably really had zero bars of LTE. Either two signal strength indicators is needed or they should have it switch to read LTE signal strength when a LTE connection is made.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

Long term once NV is complete it will be less of an issue though since all the towers will have LTE, it'll be less likely to be grabbing a remote LTE and nearby 1x....at least that might be some of the reasoning. In general, it's worked well for 1x and EVDO

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also live in RLB, but I can say I have not gotten a 4G signal yet here on my EVO. I have picked 4G up in other places for short periods of time but then it is gone when I drive back through. I have been out to Waukegan a few times and can say they are getting it all the time now. I think we will find out on Friday the 21st.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Long term once NV is complete it will be less of an issue though since all the towers will have LTE' date=' it'll be less likely to be grabbing a remote LTE and nearby 1x....at least that might be some of the reasoning. In general, it's worked well for 1x and EVDO[/quote']

 

The issue will become less and less over time. But will always be an issue at the edge of service, in the area where LTE starts to peter out but 1x is still going strong. LTE will drop off around -93dBm RSSI but 1x will go out to -106dBm from the same site. Much different coverage between LTE and 1x.

 

So even in a fully deployed area, you are still going to have people with mid range 1x signal with the 4G icon showing, but an extremely weak LTE signal being received. And they will be thinking they have a mid range LTE signal and only getting 1Mbps. They will think something is wrong with Sprint's LTE. And if they have 800 CDMA, but 1900 LTE, they may even have full bars showing when this occurs, even in a fully deployed NV network.

 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So anyone know WHY they dropped the wimax system which showed a separate signal bar for 4g than for voice?

 

Probably because WiMax ran on a different spectrum than CDMA (2500MHz vs 1900MHz). Odds are it was probably easier to make separate signal meters for those two spectrums. With the new NV config, that may complicate it just a tad as CDMA and LTE will run simultaneously on the same spectrum (at least for now until LTE on SMR goes live, which would then add another layer of complexity).

 

 

Sent from my JB iPhone 4S using Forum Runner

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello all,

I realize I am really just asking for folks' informed specuation here, but trying to decide if a Sprint iPhone 5 is going to be a viable solution here in the Western Chicago 'burbs. My wife currently has AT&T (and I hate that company) with a legacy unlimited data account, so I could get her the iPhone 5 through them, but I would rather not. I'd rather go with Sprint, for whom I have a soft spot and of course they offer unlimited data as opposed to Verizon. With the LTE rollout happening now wondering if the Sprint network will be pretty robust by the end of the year, or if I'm fooling myself and I should just suck it up and stick to AT&T.

 

If it were my phone I'd probably make the leap to Sprint and hope for the best, but my wife is not going to be happy if I saddle her with a crummy network : ) Also I understand that AT&T spectrum is limited in Chicago, so their LTE here is slower than Verizon's and hopefully slower than what Sprint's will be.

 

Any thoughts appreciated; I will definitely be checking in here for user reports as the network starts to come up.

I live in Aurora and work in Naperville, so a solid LTE signal there is a must.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

End of the year? Yes. Next week...spotty. but getting better and better every week through the end of the year.

 

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Come to think of it... are there any maps which show Sprint's intended LTE coverage for the Chicago market? My google's came up empty on that.

 

Sprint is deploying over every site in its network. They are not picking and choosing like AT&T and Verizon.

 

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

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes but how far out is considered "the Chicago Market?" I can see from their maps that 3G coverage expands way past Aurora (where I live) into far Western Illinois, but certainly they aren't going way out there with LTE anytime soon.

 

I would think Aurora with it's large population (and I live on the East side closer to Naperville) would have to be covered, but I don't want to assume. Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Chicago market extends past Rockford to Freeport and Dixon to the west, La Salle to the SW, Kankakee to the south, Portage IN to the east and the Wisconsin border to the north.

 

They are putting LTE on all the sites in the market. All of them. Even the rural sites. Even sites in DeKalb, Marengo, Ottawa, Rochelle, Matteson, Kentwood, Valparaiso. All of them. And the physical work at most of these sites is complete. Just waiting on backhaul. Some will start to go live as soon as this weekend. Others will take a few more weeks, and some a few more months.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone know when the towers are switched to discoverable? would it be 12:01am tomorrow' date=' or just at some point during the day?[/quote']

 

They already seem to be popping up one at a time. There have been several new site sightings in the past 24 hours in both Boston and Chicago. I think this will continue all day today and tomorrow.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

  • large.unreadcontent.png.6ef00db54e758d06

  • gallery_1_23_9202.png

  • Posts

    • Since this is kind of the general chat thread, I have to share this humorous story (at least it is to me): Since around February/March of this year, my S22U has been an absolute pain to charge. USB-C cables would immediately fall out and it progressively got worse and worse until it often took me a number of minutes to get the angle of the cable juuuussst right to get charging to occur at all (not exaggerating). The connection was so weak that even walking heavily could cause the cable to disconnect. I tried cleaning out the port with a stable, a paperclip, etc. Some dust/lint/dirt came out but the connection didn't improve one bit. Needless to say, this was a MONSTER headache and had me hating this phone. I just didn't have the finances right now for a replacement.  Which brings us to the night before last. I am angry as hell because I had spent five minutes trying to get this phone to charge and failed. I am looking in the port and I notice it doesn't look right. The walls look rough and, using a staple, the back and walls feel REALLY rough and very hard. I get some lint/dust out with the staple and it improves charging in the sense I can get it to charge but it doesn't remove any of the hard stuff. It's late and it's charging, so that's enough for now. I decide it's time to see if that hard stuff is part of the connector or not. More aggressive methods are needed! I work in a biochem lab and we have a lot of different sizes of disposable needles available. So, yesterday morning, while in the lab I grab a few different sizes of needles between 26AWG and 31 AWG. When I got home, I got to work and start probing the connector with the 26 AWG and 31 AWG needle. The stuff feels extremely hard, almost like it was part of the connector, but a bit does break off. Under examination of the bit, it's almost sandy with dust/lint embedded in it. It's not part of the connector but instead some sort of rock-hard crap! That's when I remember that I had done some rock hounding at the end of last year and in January. This involved lots of digging in very sandy/dusty soils; soils which bare more than a passing resemblance to the crap in the connector. We have our answer, this debris is basically compacted/cemented rock dust. Over time, moisture in the area combined with the compression from inserting the USB-C connector had turned it into cement. I start going nuts chiseling away at it with the 26 AWG needle. After about 5-10 minutes of constant chiseling and scraping with the 26AWG and 31AWG needles, I see the first signs of metal at the back of the connector. So it is metal around the outsides! Another 5 minutes of work and I have scraped away pretty much all of the crap in the connector. A few finishing passes with the 31AWG needle, a blast of compressed air, and it is time to see if this helped any. I plug my regular USB-C cable and holy crap it clicks into place; it hasn't done that since February! I pick up the phone and the cable has actually latched! The connector works pretty much like it did over a year ago, it's almost like having a brand new phone!
    • That's odd, they are usually almost lock step with TMO. I forgot to mention this also includes the September Security Update.
    • 417.55 MB September security update just downloaded here for S24+ unlocked   Edit:  after Sept security update install, checked and found a 13MB GP System update as well.  Still showing August 1st there however. 
    • T-Mobile is selling the rest of the 3.45GHz spectrum to Columbia Capital.  
    • Still nothing for my AT&T and Visible phones.
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...