Network Vision/LTE - Albuquerque market (including El Paso, Las Cruces, Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Roswell)

[jroepcke51]

NV panels and rrus in Los Alamos at trinity and central. I just drove by a few minutes ago. It's the first I've noticed them.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

sweet. 8001xA would be great up there.

[khammondnm]

sweet. 8001xA would be great up there.

I noticed this site wasn't gmo, has it had new panels for a while? I hadn't noticed them until today.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[S4GRU]

I noticed this site wasn't gmo, has it had new panels for a while? I hadn't noticed them until today.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, it was full build and accepted about 5-6 months ago.  I had a friend email me the day they were working on it.  It's the only LA site that is not GMO, though.

 

Robert

[Nm45chavez]

Finally getting LTE on the west side of town. Speeds are bad, but is enough to use.

[e127nb]

Finally getting LTE on the west side of town. Speeds are bad, but is enough to use.

I noticed it was on the day before yesterday and it had high speeds just a quarter mile from the tower and now it's slowed and have connection issues

[jroepcke51]

Finally getting LTE on the west side of town. Speeds are bad, but is enough to use.

I see that you are not a sponsor of the site. If you were, there is another ABQ market thread that has every site and the ones that are getting updated. In addition, Robert posts updates for what sites have been LTE accepted. He confirmed there have been 5 sites confirmed this past week. I believe there will be 4 in addition to those.

[S4GRU]

I love that many now believe 4Mbps is bad. That's what WiMax averaged during its peak. And we all would have done nearly anything to get WiMax all around ABQ.

 

VZW was down below 1Mbps at heavy use LTE sites before adding Band 4. VZW was really bad in Farmington. Until all the sites in ABQ are live, all Sprint LTE sites will be heavily used.

 

And Sprint advertises 5-8Mbps LTE speeds. So if that's not fast enough for you, you may need to switch.

 

*sigh*

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[jroepcke51]

I love that many now believe 4Mbps is bad. That's what WiMax averaged during its peak. And we all would have done nearly anything to get WiMax all around ABQ.

 

VZW was down below 1Mbps at heavy use LTE sites before adding Band 4. VZW was really bad in Farmington. Until all the sites in ABQ are live, all Sprint LTE sites will be heavily used.

 

And Sprint advertises 5-8Mbps LTE speeds. So if that's not fast enough for you, you may need to switch.

 

*sigh*

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I agree completely. I do notice he is in the west sir and that may be one of the new towers I found this morning. It could be all alone like you allude to you.

[TheCUJuan]

So I got another text from Sprint yesterday that said: "We're continuing to make network upgrades in your area. See how this affects your service at: sprint.us/networkupdate3" The website that it sends you to says:

"Network Update

In the next few days we will be updating one of the towers you use most. This construction may cause temprary service disprtions. We are working to ensure the udpates are made quickly to minimize any inconvenience to you. Visit sprint.com/network for information about network improvements."

Anyone else get this text? AFAIK the two towers nearest to me are the one on San Pedro south of Paseo and the one by the Del Norte Plaza on San Antonio and Wyoming and neither had been upgraded yet.

[techcj_manzer]

So I got another text from Sprint yesterday that said: "We're continuing to make network upgrades in your area. See how this affects your service at: sprint.us/networkupdate3" The website that it sends you to says:

"Network Update

In the next few days we will be updating one of the towers you use most. This construction may cause temprary service disprtions. We are working to ensure the udpates are made quickly to minimize any inconvenience to you. Visit sprint.com/network for information about network improvements."

Anyone else get this text? AFAIK the two towers nearest to me are the one on San Pedro south of Paseo and the one by the Del Norte Plaza on San Antonio and Wyoming and neither had been upgraded yet.

I got that text days before my nearest tower was upgraded to LTE.

[jroepcke51]

So I got another text from Sprint yesterday that said: "We're continuing to make network upgrades in your area. See how this affects your service at: sprint.us/networkupdate3" The website that it sends you to says:

"Network Update

In the next few days we will be updating one of the towers you use most. This construction may cause temprary service disprtions. We are working to ensure the udpates are made quickly to minimize any inconvenience to you. Visit sprint.com/network for information about network improvements."

Anyone else get this text? AFAIK the two towers nearest to me are the one on San Pedro south of Paseo and the one by the Del Norte Plaza on San Antonio and Wyoming and neither had been upgraded yet.

Both do those towers has permits issued in May 20ish. I have a feeling that those are going to be done soon.

[john69]

Seriously, Sprint in Albuquerque is pretty damned good, now. Has Albuquerque even been officially launched here? I'm having some disruption (3G/4G/zilch G) but that's because of the work being done. I remember when getting 1+ downloads was freakishly good. Let's be happy, Sprint people.... we have good service.

[S4GRU]

Seriously, Sprint in Albuquerque is pretty damned good, now. Has Albuquerque even been officially launched here? I'm having some disruption (3G/4G/zilch G) but that's because of the work being done. I remember when getting 1+ downloads was freakishly good. Let's be happy, Sprint people.... we have good service.

 

 Not launched yet.  I think it is getting close.  If they get another 3-5 sites with LTE live by the time they do they next round, they may be willing to call ABQ launched.  I'm actually surprised that no Santa Fe or Farmington sites have gone live yet.

 

Robert

[SeanK_]

Seriously, Sprint in Albuquerque is pretty damned good, now. Has Albuquerque even been officially launched here? I'm having some disruption (3G/4G/zilch G) but that's because of the work being done. I remember when getting 1+ downloads was freakishly good. Let's be happy, Sprint people.... we have good service.

Indeed!

 

 Not launched yet.  I think it is getting close.  If they get another 3-5 sites with LTE live by the time they do they next round, they may be willing to call ABQ launched.  I'm actually surprised that no Santa Fe or Farmington sites have gone live yet.

 

Robert

I would say we would be on the next round.

[jroepcke51]

Indeed!

 

I would say we would be on the next round.

I don't think so. Still work to be done in far ne, se and rio rancho. I've said it in the sponsor forums. 3-4 in rr and 9-10 in abq.

[S4GRU]

I don't think so. Still work to be done in far ne, se and rio rancho. I've said it in the sponsor forums. 3-4 in rr and 9-10 in abq.

 

Tmo launched ABQ LTE just covering I-40 from Coors to Tramway, I-25 from San Mateo/Osuna to the Airport, and a couple of sites in the NE.  No South Valley, No North Valley, No NE Heights, No West Mesa except near I-40, No Rio Rancho or Bernalillo.  I mapped it all at the time.

 

Sprint already has more LTE coverage than Tmo did when Tmo launched.  We are getting close.

 

Robert

[RSC405]

Saw CL working on the site. They put in the white box. Didn't get a chance to talk to the guy. It's progress. So does mean all we are waiting on is the fiber box and intagration team?

 

 

[e127nb]

I've noticed that in the morning I can get decent speeds 2-3 mbps and then the speeds diminish down to .36 mbps. Hoping that they are still working on this issue because it's nice to see 4g but if you can't use it, it is kind of pointless.

[shmoe723]

I've noticed that in the morning I can get decent speeds 2-3 mbps and then the speeds diminish down to .36 mbps. Hoping that they are still working on this issue because it's nice to see 4g but if you can't use it, it is kind of pointless.

I agree. To Robert's point earlier about the TMO rollout, they eventually did cover the rest of the area and comparing their current download performance on sensorly to Sprint's, there is far less yellow and red on T Mobiles results. I do hope and have to believe this will eventually get better.

[S4GRU]

I've noticed that in the morning I can get decent speeds 2-3 mbps and then the speeds diminish down to .36 mbps. Hoping that they are still working on this issue because it's nice to see 4g but if you can't use it, it is kind of pointless.

They need more sites up. They are working on it. Not all sites/sectors are overloaded.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[e127nb]

They need more sites up. They are working on it. Not all sites/sectors are overloaded.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

This site is a monopole type setup also, maybe that will have an affect on performance?

[khammondnm]

This site is a monopole type setup also, maybe that will have an affect on performance?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but even if the site has ground mounted rru's, which is the case for most monopoles, it won't affect the theoretical max throughput of the site.  Ground mounted sites only suffer from lower signals at the boundaries of coverage (in general) in comparison to tower mounted rru's.  You are likely seeing a speed drop due only to tower load.  The demand on the tower changes during different times of the day and will affect your speed.

[S4GRU]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but even if the site has ground mounted rru's, which is the case for most monopoles, it won't affect the theoretical max throughput of the site. Ground mounted sites only suffer from lower signals at the boundaries of coverage (in general) in comparison to tower mounted rru's. You are likely seeing a speed drop due only to tower load. The demand on the tower changes during different times of the day and will affect your speed.

Most monopoles actually have RRU's up top still. At least nationally. However, the rest of your logic is spot on. A ground mount LTE site does not run slower. The signal distance will be reduced between 1% and 20% depending on the length of the run from radios to antenna.

 

The radio loss from a 50' monopole with RRU's at the base is very small. The radio loss on a 300'+ boomer with the radios 100' from the tower base is approx. 20%. Given that most of the monopoles in ABQ are 50' to 100' with the RRU's very proximate to the tower base, this is not really an issue.

 

In a city where deployment is going on and a lot of sites still missing is going to have a sector here or there that are way overburdened. AT&T is deploying LTE here and it happens all the time. I sometimes have to turn off LTE on some sectors.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[shmoe723]

this morning, near Blake's on Unser and Wexford in RR

[S4GRU]

this morning, near Blake's on Unser and Wexford in RR

Not shabby speed and ping since you have almost no signal at all.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro