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Question about LTE in the basement of a building


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I work in the basement of a hospital. In this basement I only can get Sprint coverage (eHRPD and -67dBm signal. 3G speeds are around 800kbps-1mbps down which doesn't seem overly fast to me compared to some areas above in the real world) because Sprint is the only company that wanted to put in the necessary equipment to allow coverage in the basement.

 

Does a "special" site like this need extra work to get LTE coverage or will LTE simply start working when the towers above in the real world start working?

 

I really don't know how they get signal to the basement like this which is why I am curious if LTE requires different equipment or not since I really don't know how my phone communicates with cell towers while I am down here vs the way it does when I am up in the overworld.

 

And, are situations like this covered in Sprint's overall LTE plan or would situations like this be addressed much later? Anyone else have a situation similar?

 

I got to thinking about this more today because of the Sprint announcement about LTE in Minneapolis.

Edited by shifted
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All towers (with a few dozen exceptions) will be upgraded in Network Vision. In your case I would need to know a little more. Is this an official site or does your place of employment utilize some sort of range extender/signal booster or Airrave type equipment?

 

@S4GRU Hey Robert perhaps you can shed a little light on this when there is additional information available. Will airrave's or other extendability devices benefit from NV or is that equipment not capable?

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It sounds like there is additional equipment inside of the building, because a -67dBm signal inside a hospital, in the basement no less, is very impressive. I don't believe there are and towers, even right above the location, that would give a signal that strong. All towers are part of the NV upgrades, but I think additional equipment for hospitals, ball parks, malls and such is on a different plan.

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If you are getting -67dBm inside a hospital basement if it is from a Sprint macro network site, then you will have great LTE reception in your building. However, I would be very surprised that you can get -67dBm from PCS on a Sprint site outside the building, even if it was on the rooftop of your building.

 

But I'm thinking your hospital must have a "Sprint In-Building Solution" program, which deploys DAS system throughout buildings of major companies and customers. These will not likely be upgraded with the Network Vision deployment and will be handled separately in the future. I don't even know if they have LTE equipment for these systems yet.

 

Robert

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Whether Sprint installed it or the hospital did, I would bet on a bidirectional amp and leaky coax. If so, unless the amp bandwidth includes the PCS G block (unlikely), LTE will not benefit.

 

AJ

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Thanks AJ and Robert! That was my initial line of thought as well. They have some pretty impressive signals in their in-house hospital system and clarification on what that entails inasmuch as LTE/NV is concerned was greatly appreciated. There are a lot of large companies and/or institutions that use these types of in-building solutions, so it is great to receive some clarity in how effective those systems are after all is said and done.

 

That being said, will those signal outliers on an airrave type setup be able to reap any of the benefits of NV buildout and deployment or will Sprint(bank) need to put out new equipment to address said upgrades?

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Thanks AJ and Robert! That was my initial line of thought as well. They have some pretty impressive signals in their in-house hospital system and clarification on what that entails inasmuch as LTE/NV is concerned was greatly appreciated. There are a lot of large companies and/or institutions that use these types of in-building solutions, so it is great to receive some clarity in how effective those systems are after all is said and done.

 

That being said, will those signal outliers on an airrave type setup be able to reap any of the benefits of NV buildout and deployment or will Sprint(bank) need to put out new equipment to address said upgrades?

 

Airave devices will not be capable of LTE until a new version is released. They are currently only capable of 1x and EV-DO. Airaves also only broadcast on 1900mhz. They might release a new version that will broadcast LTE and possibly 800mhz, but if someone is really concerned about data speeds, why wouldn't they just set up WiFi from the same access point of the Airave? The main reason for the Airave is so that voice is available in areas that have no coverage.

 

As AJ said above, a signal amplifier/repeater would be compatible if it was built including the PCS G band, although it is very unlikely that many will include the G band.

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Fantastic signal strength with 800mb+ data in the bowels of a hospital? Jealous over here! Both cinderblock bandaid stations ( its mississippi, humor me) here have shoddy reception on all carriers. To think.. someone at this hospital said "let their cell phones work" and did a good job of it

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Thanks for the info. If I can find some sort of equipment mounted around I'll take some pictures of it. You guys will probably know immediately what it is.
In most buildings they install them above the ceiling tiles in corridors.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

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Yes, that is an awesome signal for a basement. I'm a block over from the tower and just being inside our building even by the windows I see about a -72 to -75 signal.

 

Yeah, it does fluctuate though. Like right now I am at -73.

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What could probably happen is that a new DAS could be run, specifically for LTE, and reuse the existing one for 3G, when/if the site serving it gets upgraded.

 

If the hospital infrastructure is just a bidirectional amp and leaky coax, as I surmise, the coax is fine. Only the bidirectional amp might need to be replaced with a new one that supports the PCS G block.

 

shifted, does the hospital have an arrangement specifically with Sprint? Or does the installed infrastructure benefit most/all carriers?

 

AJ

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If the hospital infrastructure is just a bidirectional amp and leaky coax, as I surmise, the coax is fine. Only the bidirectional amp might need to be replaced with a new one that supports the PCS G block.

 

shifted, does the hospital have an arrangement specifically with Sprint? Or does the installed infrastructure benefit most/all carriers?

 

AJ

 

It depends on how they want to deploy LTE. They might require a MIMO DAS.

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If the hospital infrastructure is just a bidirectional amp and leaky coax, as I surmise, the coax is fine. Only the bidirectional amp might need to be replaced with a new one that supports the PCS G block.

 

shifted, does the hospital have an arrangement specifically with Sprint? Or does the installed infrastructure benefit most/all carriers?

 

AJ

 

It seems to be specific to Sprint. No one else can get cell service down here at all, not even a text will go through. I know for sure Verizon and AT&T users have nothing.

Edited by shifted
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I live in Rockford,Il I'm getting 2 bars coverage of LTE On my IPhone5 in my house. It's ok I guess but when I go downstairs it goes to 3G. My understanding was everywhere I get 3g coverage I would get LTE, is this not the case? or will something change in the Hopefully near future?

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I live in Rockford,Il I'm getting 2 bars coverage of LTE On my IPhone5 in my house. It's ok I guess but when I go downstairs it goes to 3G. My understanding was everywhere I get 3g coverage I would get LTE, is this not the case? or will something change in the Hopefully near future?

 

Has your closest Sprint site been upgraded to LTE yet? Or are you receiving an LTE signal from a more distant site? If your usual serving site already has been upgraded, then, no, nothing will change in the near future. LTE is a more fragile airlink than is EV-DO.

 

Regardless, LTE and EV-DO at home should be irrelevant, as you should be offloading to Wi-Fi with a home broadband Internet connection.

 

AJ

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Yes it is the closest tower, and the whole off load to WiFi is irrelevant, alot of people that is with Sprint is because their the cheapest out there. Not everybody can afford WiFi what's Sprint's main selling point is there the cheapest along with unlimited data.I use this phone as my home phone to make and recieve calls. Should I not use it in my home to make calls either? You got me way off the point,but anyways was it not said lte will cover/blanket 3g ?

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Yes it is the closest tower' date=' and the whole off load to WiFi is irrelevant, alot of people that is with Sprint is because their the cheapest out there. Not everybody can afford WiFi what's Sprint's main selling point is there the cheapest along with unlimited data.I use this phone as my home phone to make and recieve calls. Should I not use it in my home to make calls either? You got me way off the point,but anyways was it not said lte will cover/blanket 3g ?[/quote']

 

AJ has answered your question, with regard to LTE being identical to 3G. The airlink is more fragile.

 

Once sprint adds lte 800 and you have a device capable of picking it up, you will likely find lte in the lower levels of your home.

 

All in all, be glad sprint voice and 3g work everywhere in your home. Sprints pricing and unlimited offerings are in line with the networks current capabilities. If that isnt sufficient and a high speed connection is a priority in the lower levels of your home, sans being able to afford wifi, the increased cost of service with a carrier who uses lower bandwidth spectrum may be worth it.

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  • 5 months later...

Ok I just found out my hospital uses a DAS system. An email was sent out with a planned outage and they described the system as DAS. So I have two questions.

 

1. Will DAS systems ever be upgraded to LTE?

 

2. If not, will DAS systems benefit from network vision?

 

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