Network Vision/LTE - Oregon/SW Washington (including Portland/Vancouver/Salem/Eugene/Medford)

[RAvirani]

The last I read was there was still a Washington State public agency that has not fully cleared. But that should be out of the way anytime now.

 

Using Tapatalk on Note 8.0

Public safety in Washington has until December 31st to clear the 800mhz band. Canada is already clear. I'm hoping to see some 800mhz antennae going up soon.

[evancg]

Traveled from Eugene to Waldport over the weekend, and stayed in Yachats. A little disappointed in coverage, as it seems to have remained stagnant if not slightly degraded over the last year...

 

My mom lives in Waldport, and I could've sworn when I switched back to Sprint last year, the LTE in Waldport was solid. This time, I jumped between LTE\3G, and at times even when I had LTE, I didn't actually have data. My mom also noted that in the last couple of months, something has changed because her phone connection has just not been as good. Figured it was her G3, but my S7 Edge had the same issues.

 

Also surprised by the Yachats coverage. In downtown Yachats, it's only roaming (in fairness to Sprint, their coverage maps actually accurately represent this!) - and while staying at the Adobe, I jumped between LTE\3G, but again, at times I had LTE with 11mbps, and other times I had LTE but data didn't actually work.

 

Uplink issues along the coast maybe? Also, anyone know why Sprint is still stuck at 3G in Florence? I noticed Tmobile hasn't been able to add any LTE there either, so I'm assuming there's a reason.

[JimBob]

Sprint Earns Shared First Place for Overall Network Performance in Portland

 

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161102005405/en/Sprint-Earns-Shared-Place-Network-Performance-Portland

[RAvirani]

Today I mapped a ton of LTE on Sensorly along 197 and 97 in southern Washington and northern Oregon. Should be on their maps soon .

[Stspdx]

Has Sprint turned off half thier network in Portland? Not sure if it’s Volte testing, or a deliberate attempt to show thier crappy network, but wow pretty much useless  throughout city. 

[nexgencpu]

27 minutes ago, Stspdx said:

Has Sprint turned off half thier network in Portland? Not sure if it’s Volte testing, or a deliberate attempt to show thier crappy network, but wow pretty much useless  throughout city. 

4x4MIMO and VoLTE testing has caused some big issues on the network. Hopefully in the coming weeks we will see some big time improvements once they work out the bugs.

[Stspdx]

Always wonder why a quick email stating “improvement are coming, and please be aware of short term network congestion”is so hard for them to do! Thanks for the info!

[superbluepsd]

I've been away in Austin for business for the last 3 weeks.  Has the Portland network had issues?    I can say that the Austin network has been bad the whole time I have been here.   Very slow data.    My hotel has a severely overloaded magic box to a mini macro that is so bad I had to turn off calling plus just to make phone calls.    

[S4GRU]

22 hours ago, superbluepsd said:

I've been away in Austin for business for the last 3 weeks.  Has the Portland network had issues?    I can say that the Austin network has been bad the whole time I have been here.   Very slow data.    My hotel has a severely overloaded magic box to a mini macro that is so bad I had to turn off calling plus just to make phone calls.    

It was fine when I was down in Portland last weekend.  Although VoLTE is supposedly going live there this week.  That may cause issues.

Robert

[Stspdx]

There are certain towers on my daily commute where LTE is either offline or functionality is diminished. On 3g in weird places, and lots of LTE <1mbps. It’s fine, but will see as it’s been about two weeks. 

[Stspdx]

On 10/8/2018 at 9:36 AM, Stspdx said:

There are certain towers on my daily commute where LTE is either offline or functionality is diminished. On 3g in weird places, and lots of LTE <1mbps. It’s fine, but will see as it’s been about two weeks. 

South end if downtown is still total deadzone. I now see that my phone (IPhone 7) bounces between 25, and 26, and never 41. There is a lot of construction going on, and wonder if they lost a building top location? Idk but I am not seeing any new improvements in Portland and network is very bogged down. First time in almost 15 years really considering being done. Fingers crossed they will flip the magic switch and things will get better. 

[S4GRU]

3 hours ago, Stspdx said:

South end if downtown is still total deadzone. I now see that my phone (IPhone 7) bounces between 25, and 26, and never 41. There is a lot of construction going on, and wonder if they lost a building top location? Idk but I am not seeing any new improvements in Portland and network is very bogged down. First time in almost 15 years really considering being done. Fingers crossed they will flip the magic switch and things will get better. 

I have T-Mobile.  I was in PDX a few weeks ago and they have a lot of bad spots there.  About 1/3 of the towers are crawling.  You may need to go to VZW or ATT there if you switch.

[Stspdx]

On 10/29/2018 at 12:35 PM, S4GRU said:

I have T-Mobile.  I was in PDX a few weeks ago and they have a lot of bad spots there.  About 1/3 of the towers are crawling.  You may need to go to VZW or ATT there if you switch.

Well, switch flipped. Back to acceptable service and actually improved in a few places in my commute. Seems like whatever they have been up to is  back online. Nice to see improvements. Looking at new phone and curious what all the fancy tech can offer. 

[wispiANt]

I realize I'm reviving a dead thread here, but damn is the T-Mobile network hurting in Portland.

 

Stayed in North Portland (Kenton) for the past month and speeds were very lackluster. At multiple points I had to ask my girlfriend (who has an iPhone 8 on Sprint) to hotspot me, even just to make Google Maps functional. Did a speedtest comparison at one of our AirBNBs (near N Winchell and N Peninsular) - 10Mb/s avg on T-Mobile, 120Mb/s avg on Sprint. Speeds tended to follow this trend most other places I tested (N/NW/NE Portland). That said, on the few sites T-Mobile had 20+20MHz of B41 active, speeds tended to be pretty usable - if you were close enough to the site to connect to B41.

 

On the other hand, as we traveled around the more rural areas outside Portland (Silverton, Tillamook, and Sauvie Island come to mind) it was pretty likely my gf would run into coverage issues far more likely than I would.

 

Can't wait for network integration hell to be over with.

[wispiANt]

Looks like T-Mobile is planning to deploy on a few sites along OR-126. 

https://maprad.io/us/search/licence/WROE619?source=US

[PythonFanPA]

What's the state of the network experience along the coast - say from Tillamook southward into north Cali - these days since the merger?  We'll be heading out there late August into early September.

[S4GRU]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:58 PM, PythonFanPA said:

What's the state of the network experience along the coast - say from Tillamook southward into north Cali - these days since the merger?  We'll be heading out there late August into early September.

I did the entire Oregon Coast drive back in January to break in my new Ford Maverick pickup.  I had real good Tmo service, except in the remote sections around Heceta Head.  I did roam a little on AT&T and VZW, but only for very short sections.  It seems where I lost service it was just remote sections where everyone struggled to serve.

 

[PythonFanPA]

Thanks Robert!  We're flying in/out of San Fran, and only going to be as far north as Portland (basically driving through to the coast after going up Bend way showing the wife the WWII Stonehenge south of Goldendale WA and then hitting Multnomah again for a bit), or otherwise I'd ping you about possibly meeting for lunch or something just to face-to-face for once. 

Most of our time while in Oregon will be in the Lincoln C/Dep Bay to Bandon region (2 nights at Otter Crest/Foulweather and 2 nights in Bandon), but we'll definitely be driving all of 101 from Tillamook southward all the way back into Cali/to SF except for where the CA-1 splitoff happens around Leggett or thereabouts which we'll be taking.  Towards the end we're also going down to Big Sur and a little past as well.   When we did (mainly) just an Oregon Coast exploration drive back in 2016, furthest down we hit was Klamath (for the tour thru tree) south of Crescent City.

[S4GRU]

I found Triband SA NR live in the Portland/Vancouver/Hillsboro area this past weekend.  Logged SA n41 and n25, as well as the ubiquitous n71.

Robert

[rcw123]

Triband SA NR is not yet live on an iphone 13 pro in my part of Southwest Washington.

I can also still interestingly still pick up Sprint B25 broadcasting on 312-250.  Its on the same tower (well power line equipment) with TMobile B66.  Sprint is higher up, so Tmobile is replacing the Sprint equipment with modern Tmobile. 

Portland area has definitely densified with the TMobile-Sprint merger as the two had pretty different networks here. Starting to see more permits in Portland for the removal of Sprint equipment. Night and day difference between now and 2 years ago.

[S4GRU]

19 hours ago, rcw123 said:

Triband SA NR is not yet live on an iphone 13 pro in my part of Southwest Washington.

I can also still interestingly still pick up Sprint B25 broadcasting on 312-250.  Its on the same tower (well power line equipment) with TMobile B66.  Sprint is higher up, so Tmobile is replacing the Sprint equipment with modern Tmobile. 

Portland area has definitely densified with the TMobile-Sprint merger as the two had pretty different networks here. Starting to see more permits in Portland for the removal of Sprint equipment. Night and day difference between now and 2 years ago.

Yeah, I had the same issue with my LG V60.  It would not connect to any standalone NR except n71.  That's why I switched to the Pixel 7 Pro.  Was getting frustrated not being able to connect and map those SA bands. 

Robert

[CellFinder21]

Anyone else seeing some Sprint sites still live around Portland or SW Washington? I’m still getting a couple as of last week, while T-Mobile mapping with CellMapper

[S4GRU]

14 hours ago, CellFinder21 said:

Anyone else seeing some Sprint sites still live around Portland or SW Washington? I’m still getting a couple as of last week, while T-Mobile mapping with CellMapper

I had one appear to pop back live outside of Olympia, Washington on Friday. Had not seen it be live since October.  

Robert

EDIT:   Checking out SCP Logs/Mapping, I see I hit one outside The Dalles, Oregon on 12/28/22.

[chamb]

5 hours ago, S4GRU said:

I had one appear to pop back live outside of Olympia, Washington on Friday. Had not seen it be live since October.  

Robert

EDIT:   Checking out SCP Logs/Mapping, I see I hit one outside The Dalles, Oregon on 12/28/22.

Are you hitting band 26 on these sites?  For some reason, T-Mobile is keeping band 26 alive on just a few sites. Maybe to keep the license active????   I have seen 26 totally alive on  a few updated sites.

[S4GRU]

14 hours ago, chamb said:

Are you hitting band 26 on these sites?  For some reason, T-Mobile is keeping band 26 alive on just a few sites. Maybe to keep the license active????   I have seen 26 totally alive on  a few updated sites.

In my case, all the recent Sprint connections were B25.  And they were in Washington State, Oregon and Idaho.

Robert