Network Vision/LTE - East Michigan Market (Detroit/Flint/Ann Arbor/Tri-Cities)

[hoagie]

Your experience is the exact reason why I will never buy a HTC manufactured cell phone.

[Nekcohm]

Is somebody mapping Sensorly in Grand Blanc

[RCM]

Is somebody mapping Sensorly in Grand Blanc

 

Well, it seems a site went live out by Perry and Belsay. I'm not mapping in GB though. I worked the Holly area with the Belford/I-75 site. I'm waiting for the site to go live on the northern side of Fenton but there was still a crew on site and up on the tower as of this weekend.

 

Have fun in GB!

[jefbal99]

 

Well' date=' it seems a site went live out by Perry and Belsay. I'm not mapping in GB though. I worked the Holly area with the Belford/I-75 site. I'm waiting for the site to go live on the northern side of Fenton but there was still a crew on site and up on the tower as of this weekend.

 

Have fun in GB![/quote']

 

I was on the very west edge of Perry yesterday and didn't get any LTE

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Forum Runner

[RCM]

I was on the very west edge of Perry yesterday and didn't get any LTE

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Forum Runner

 

I was at Al Serra for a good chunk of Saturday test driving cars around the dealership and got nothing. I mean I really wasn't looking but I do run Netmonitor to fill out my tower captures in the area and didn't score any LTE. Coverage from that site initially doesn't look like it extends up to Hill/Saginaw Rds that well though I am using the EVO LTE

[RCM]

If service is down at a site, is that typically indicative of upgrades in progress or just down for (x) reason?

[SteveK]

Either and/or both. Corporate answer.

[RCM]

Either and/or both. Corporate answer.

 

Fair enough. A couple weeks ago, Sprint service was down from a site outside of Fenton. Today it was a tower north of the Fenton area. Of course I'm hoping it's NV related.

[jefbal99]

NV Upgrades should not take a tower down. Sprint is adding all new equipment, including cabinets, cabling, antennas, radios, etc. Legacy service will not be removed until the NV is online and has been thoroughly tested.

[robisgnarly]

Does anyone know why the progress in midland MI seems to have gone to lets light it all up to nothing new here? half the city still without LTE the other half seems spotty in lots of places...

[jefbal99]

Does anyone know why the progress in midland MI seems to have gone to lets light it all up to nothing new here? half the city still without LTE the other half seems spotty in lots of places...

 

Both East and West Michigan Markets are still under active deployment. Sprint could be waiting on a backhaul vendor or they may just be scheduled at other towers. I believe midland was a coming soon, with no date attached.

[Chris**]

Does anyone know why the progress in midland MI seems to have gone to lets light it all up to nothing new here? half the city still without LTE the other half seems spotty in lots of places...

 

I wondered the same thing about Midland, the areas where the most money is located... have been neglected for upgrades. The area by the mall is a dead zone for 3g at best. I can't pull over 250k around there. I am also wondering how soon Bay City, Saginaw Township, mainly m-47 between Midland and Saginaw, and the surrounding towers will be completed. Does anybody know the timeline for the upgrades to be completed in MIchigan as a whole? I just want to have an end date in sight...

 

Great info on this thread by the way. Keep up the good work guys.

[Bigjockshawn]

Had my first 4G today in Farmington Hills at Botsford hospital parking LOT. I almost fell over man FB loaded so fast there.. but when I drove across the street it was gone... went back just to play with the 4G for a while in the parking lot..

[Sal313]

Lol I am doing my clinical rotation there and I noticed it 2 weeks ago but didn't post because I thought someone already posted about Farmington Hills

Had my first 4G today in Farmington Hills at Botsford hospital parking LOT. I almost fell over man FB loaded so fast there.. but when I drove across the street it was gone... went back just to play with the 4G for a while in the parking lot..

[hoagie]

I wondered the same thing about Midland, the areas where the most money is located... have been neglected for upgrades. The area by the mall is a dead zone for 3g at best. I can't pull over 250k around there. I am also wondering how soon Bay City, Saginaw Township, mainly m-47 between Midland and Saginaw, and the surrounding towers will be completed. Does anybody know the timeline for the upgrades to be completed in MIchigan as a whole? I just want to have an end date in sight...

 

Great info on this thread by the way. Keep up the good work guys.

 

I would just have a beer and be patient. This is not the WIMAX rollout that started and then stopped permanantly.. Every cell site in the market will be upgraded. Every transceiver at every cell site is going to be replaced. Every antenna array is going to be replaced. It's going to take some time.. When it's done, it's done.. If it's not anywhere near you now, it eventually will be.

 

If you think waiting for LTE/NV is bad, try waiting for Sprint to announce when they're going to sell the Galaxy S4 and you have a Galaxy S2 that you want to upgrade badly..

[Chris**]

I would just have a beer and be patient. This is not the WIMAX rollout that started and then stopped permanantly.. Every cell site in the market will be upgraded. Every transceiver at every cell site is going to be replaced. Every antenna array is going to be replaced. It's going to take some time.. When it's done, it's done.. If it's not anywhere near you now, it eventually will be.

 

If you think waiting for LTE/NV is bad, try waiting for Sprint to announce when they're going to sell the Galaxy S4 and you have a Galaxy S2 that you want to upgrade badly..

 

I actually have LTE where I live in Midland. I occassionally bounce between 3g/4g if my phone is in my pocket and i am in my basement...

 

It just seems to me, it would make more sense to have a crew finish an area they are currently working, rather than send them all over, only to return to an area they've already been.

 

As far as the s4... sprint just asked me Monday evening if I wanted to pre-order one when I called to enquire about the iphone 5s release in June/July.... you might wanna give them a call and find out if you can get on the list to pre-order now.

[lilotimz]

 

It just seems to me, it would make more sense to have a crew finish an area they are currently working, rather than send them all over, only to return to an area they've already been.

 

 

It actually does not make sense at all to wait on cell sites in a specific area when others cell sites in other areas are ready and waiting to be worked on. This 1) waste the time of the contractors who could be making money by working, 2) delays the rollout as that means towers that could be upgraded are left sitting there while contractors are waiting on others towers to be ready, and 3) delays network vision project.

 

The shotgun approach that sprint is doing may be inconsistent but it's far better than sitting on their asses and doing nothing. ATT and Verizon or T-mobile may have that luxury of waiting to complete an entire area but sprint has a failed legacy network that must be replaced as soon as possible. They cannot delay this project as it's their bread and butter for the future.

[jefbal99]

It actually does not make sense at all to wait on cell sites in a specific area when others cell sites in other areas are ready and waiting to be worked on. This 1) waste the time of the contractors who could be making money by working, 2) delays the rollout as that means towers that could be upgraded are left sitting there while contractors are waiting on others towers to be ready, and 3) delays network vision project.

 

The shotgun approach that sprint is doing may be inconsistent but it's far better than sitting on their asses and doing nothing. ATT and Verizon or T-mobile may have that luxury of waiting to complete an entire area but sprint has a failed legacy network that must be replaced as soon as possible. They cannot delay this project as it's their bread and butter for the future.

 

Just a few notes to continue this post...

 

Different subcontractors install each piece, you have to worr about backhaul, tower (antennas/RRUs), cabinets, cabling, etc. You don't have a single group that does everything for a tower, so they spread them out to hit as much as possible.

[PTown]

I wondered the same thing about Midland, the areas where the most money is located... have been neglected for upgrades. The area by the mall is a dead zone for 3g at best. I can't pull over 250k around there. I am also wondering how soon Bay City, Saginaw Township, mainly m-47 between Midland and Saginaw, and the surrounding towers will be completed. Does anybody know the timeline for the upgrades to be completed in MIchigan as a whole? I just want to have an end date in sight...

 

Great info on this thread by the way. Keep up the good work guys.

Does anyone know why the progress in midland MI seems to have gone to lets light it all up to nothing new here? half the city still without LTE the other half seems spotty in lots of places...

 

As far as I can tell, the James Savage and Rockwell towers have been upgraded to LTE. I get solid coverage on the south side of town and as far down as Dow diamond.

 

 

Recent sample:

Edited April 12, 2013 by PTown

[Chris**]

It actually does not make sense at all to wait on cell sites in a specific area when others cell sites in other areas are ready and waiting to be worked on. This 1) waste the time of the contractors who could be making money by working, 2) delays the rollout as that means towers that could be upgraded are left sitting there while contractors are waiting on others towers to be ready, and 3) delays network vision project.

 

The shotgun approach that sprint is doing may be inconsistent but it's far better than sitting on their asses and doing nothing. ATT and Verizon or T-mobile may have that luxury of waiting to complete an entire area but sprint has a failed legacy network that must be replaced as soon as possible. They cannot delay this project as it's their bread and butter for the future.

 

I understand what you are saying... I suppose I should have added another thought vs crews moving around. I have noticed on sensorly that places like Clare MI, and Standish MI are fully functioning... so I suppose the fault lies with the planner who scheuled the first phase of the upgrade to start in these areas, rather than the higher population density demographics, where you know, sprint has lots of customers who are impatiently waiting, for the "bread and butter"... to be put on their plate before the few hundred people in the BFE get theirs. I can tell you first hand that at least 15-20 people I know have moved to verizon out of sheer disgust, of what is mentioned above. I've done eveyrthing in my power to convince them my LTE service is great, and it will be here soon enough... but my comments fell on deaf ears. I get it... I just feel like many of the sprint customers are uninformed, have no idea about sensorly, this forum... In fact, yesterday on Mlive, there was an article about the LTE coverage in MI, and I linked sensorly to hopefully educate a few people who otherwise would have had no idea... as the article clearly stated Sprint had no LTE in MI, which I informed them was not at all true.

[jefbal99]

I understand what you are saying... I suppose I should have added another thought vs crews moving around. I have noticed on sensorly that places like Clare MI, and Standish MI are fully functioning... so I suppose the fault lies with the planner who scheuled the first phase of the upgrade to start in these areas, rather than the higher population density demographics, where you know, sprint has lots of customers who are impatiently waiting, for the "bread and butter"... to be put on their plate before the few hundred people in the BFE get theirs. I can tell you first hand that at least 15-20 people I know have moved to verizon out of sheer disgust, of what is mentioned above. I've done eveyrthing in my power to convince them my LTE service is great, and it will be here soon enough... but my comments fell on deaf ears. I get it... I just feel like many of the sprint customers are uninformed, have no idea about sensorly, this forum... In fact, yesterday on Mlive, there was an article about the LTE coverage in MI, and I linked sensorly to hopefully educate a few people who otherwise would have had no idea... as the article clearly stated Sprint had no LTE in MI, which I informed them was not at all true.

 

Sprint has a plan and is executing it, let people go to verizon and enjoy capped data and an over saturated network.

[RCM]

Really getting annoyed with the city folk and their entitlement attitude. What it really boils down is they are pissed when others have service and they don't - rural or otherwise. I remember metro Detroit members being fussy because other locations had LTE and they were "being ignored" like Sprint was doing it intentionally. I haven't been on the site forever but I can't even count how many posts there are of someone being fussy because they don't have LTE with the more informed members giving explanations that seem to fall on deaf ears.

[hoagie]

I think alot of the things you were seeing from the Metro Detroit members has to do with the frustation from the whole WIMAX rollout empty promise and misinformation about how the NV/LTE rollout would proceed. Everyone wants it today and wants to be able to use it. When you get into that mindset, it's hard to hear a voice of reason.

[LTE_Someday]

I'm getting a 4G signal in my office for the first time. This is in Dearborn on the Ford campus (near intersection of Village & Military Rds).

 

Speeds are not great (500K down, 1400K up), but it's a start. 3G has been so lousy for the last several months that anything will be an improvement.

[Synovialbasher]

I'm getting a 4G signal in my office for the first time. This is in Dearborn on the Ford campus (near intersection of Village & Military Rds).

 

Speeds are not great (500K down, 1400K up), but it's a start. 3G has been so lousy for the last several months that anything will be an improvement.

 

Those speeds are my average 4G. Since Sprint 4G towers are so far and few between, I'm usually in the 1-2 bar range. The fastest I've ever seen is about 12mb down (Considerably slower than my friends on verizon at 20 meg) but that's fast enough in my book. I can relate to you with my first 4G speeds (300k down), but they are making fast progress and by summer there should be more consistant coverage.

 

I can't wait for their 4G coverage to be everywhere, because I plan on streaming HD Netflix and using tons of my unlimited 4G just because I can (to make up for all the stuff I wish I could have downloaded over my first year with sprint). I also find those root wifi tether apps very interesting...

 

Bottom line: I'm good with Sprint's progress so far and I hope they can improve by the time my contract is up so that they'll be as competitive as Verizon.