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Network Vision/LTE - East Iowa Market (Quad Cities, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Dubuque, Waterloo/Cedar Falls)

S4GRU

By S4GRU
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ribbitech Member Level: Analog

ribbitech

Posted
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Is there any reason why a tower might stop broadcasting LTE shortly after coming online? I haven't picked up the one by Clarke in Dubuque the last few times I've been by there, nor have I seen LTE down by Sacred Heart anymore. Could they just have been testing?

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unanimated
unanimated

Picking up some band 26 in downtown Iowa City today, so that's pretty exciting.

jnadke
jnadke

All of Cedar Rapids just lit up quite literally overnight.   Pulling 20 down 10 meg up.

chris92
chris92

Yeah so Speedconnect and Sprint initially did some swaps back in middle of 2017 - mostly Sprint got SC's E, F, and H block for their BRS2 (and probably some money).  Last year, it looks like SpeedConn

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chris5483 Member Level: Analog

chris5483

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Are you talking about the other LTE bands rolling out? If so then yes they will. More likely than not LTE 800, also referred to band 26, is getting installed and activated at the same time as LTE 1900, which is band 25 and the default band all LTE phones support. Then sometime over the next year they will go back and install additional panels that support LTE 2600, band 41.

Hot damn! 4G at my house finally!!!! Slow right now, but hopefully that'll change soon!

Edited by chris5483
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bmoses Member Level: 4G LTE

bmoses

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where are our east iowa sponsor peeps at?!?!!?!? we have a lot of 4G towers that are accepted and need confirmation and GCI/PCI data gathered!!!!! especially dubuque and cedar falls/waterloo! use the link in my sig to go to the sponsor thread to see the spreadsheet and maps and post in there if you can help us fill in the holes!!!!! :D

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SoulSeekerUSA Member Level: Smoke Signals

SoulSeekerUSA

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Just signed up for a Sprint account and got the S4 for free.  I have 30 days to cancel so I decided to give it that much time to see if 4g is live in Dubuque.  Anyone have updates?  I should have my phone tomorrow and will drive around and see what I get as far as 4g goes.

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Doug30 Member Level: Smoke Signals

Doug30

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Hey newbie here, love the site. I've been a Sprint customer for around 10 years and have been constantly told that 4G is just 3-6 months away for almost 3 years now. So its nice to see some LTE finally popping up around the QC. I just got the new galaxy S5, an upgrade from the S3 I had for 2 years prior. I've noticed however that my new S5 seems to get worse reception in my apartment then my S3 ever did. I always had 3-4 bars of voice while in my apartment and never experienced any dropped calls or bad connections. But since I've gotten the new S5 I only have 0-1 bar and have had quite a few dropped calls! What gives? Thank goodness they just rolled out the WiFi calling because that has been the only way I've been able to receive calls lately it seems without dropping signal. Is there something wrong with my specific phone, or is this a common issue with the S5 or with the network in my area? 

 

Thanks for all you guys do at this site! I'll donate as soon as I can, money is a little tight now atm...

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bmoses Member Level: 4G LTE

bmoses

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Hey newbie here, love the site. I've been a Sprint customer for around 10 years and have been constantly told that 4G is just 3-6 months away for almost 3 years now. So its nice to see some LTE finally popping up around the QC. I just got the new galaxy S5, an upgrade from the S3 I had for 2 years prior. I've noticed however that my new S5 seems to get worse reception in my apartment then my S3 ever did. I always had 3-4 bars of voice while in my apartment and never experienced any dropped calls or bad connections. But since I've gotten the new S5 I only have 0-1 bar and have had quite a few dropped calls! What gives? Thank goodness they just rolled out the WiFi calling because that has been the only way I've been able to receive calls lately it seems without dropping signal. Is there something wrong with my specific phone, or is this a common issue with the S5 or with the network in my area? 

 

Thanks for all you guys do at this site! I'll donate as soon as I can, money is a little tight now atm...

 

hello and welcome! Once you are able to donate and get access to the maps you will have a better idea of where the towers are and the status of them which will give you more info to what is going on. but basically what you are seeing is the difference between your S3, a dual radio path device, and your new S5, which is a sing path radio device.

 

what this means is your S3 could be connected to both voice and data at the same time, and your signal bars would have reflected your voice connection. Your S5 on the other hand being a tri-band device can not be connected to both voice and data at the same time. So when you are connected to LTE you are not connected to voice and therefore your signal bars reflect your LTE signal. when you receive a call the network alerts your phone through the LTE connection that you have an incoming call and forces your phone to drop LTE and connect back to the voice network to receive the call.

 

so whats most likely happening in your case is the tower closest to you doesn't have LTE yet, so when you connect to LTE you are connecting to a tower further away which is giving a weaker signal and missing the alerts to incoming voice calls. Once the closer tower gets LTE the issue should go away since you will have a stronger LTE signal and not miss the alerts. your options in the meantime are to either use wifi calling, or change to "CDMA" mode under mobile networks when you are at home, and then back to "CDMA/LTE" when you are out and about.

 

as i said though, once you get access to the maps, specifically the spreadsheet and map we are doing for IA/NE (link in my sig) it will make more sense as you will be able to see where all of the towers are, their status, and using a program like signal check pro in conjunction with our spreadsheets/map, be able to determine which tower your LTE signal is coming from.

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statusquo Member Level: Smoke Signals

statusquo

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Just this morning with the new iPhone 6 I am seeing LTE in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area.  Anyone else notice this?  Speedtest showed 10-15Mbps down/5-7Mbps up   Before today I had the 3G/1x listed in this area. 

Edited by statusquo
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bmoses Member Level: 4G LTE

bmoses

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Just this morning with the new iPhone 6 I am seeing LTE in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area.  Anyone else notice this?  Speedtest showed 15Mbs down/8Mbs up   Before today I had the 3G/1x listed in this area. 

 

what phone did you have before? that area has had most of their towers enabled with LTE for at least 6+ months now.

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statusquo Member Level: Smoke Signals

statusquo

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what phone did you have before? that area has had most of their towers enabled with LTE for at least 6+ months now.

iPhone 5S.  Cedar Rapids/Iowa City was upgraded to LTE,  but I wasn't aware that Cedar Falls/Waterloo was updated until testing it today.  Also, my 6S didn't show LTE until Today, but I've had it in this area for several days now?  I could be wrong, just wanted to check, also needed to create an account to post, since I check this site often. Thanks!

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bmoses Member Level: 4G LTE

bmoses

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the only other thing i can think of is if B26 LTE (LTE over 800Mhz) is enabled in your area and if your prior phone didn't support that and so now when you are in areas where you used to drop LTE you are now switching over to B26 instead of dropping back to 3G.

 

Edit: just saw your reply. i've not been to the area myself so i can't confirm or deny anything, i'm just going off the dates we have as to when sprint showed LTE got enabled. with a 5s though you should have been switching over to B26, unless of course they are working in the area now and just enabled B26. B25 LTE should have been on and working for several months though. 

 

can you check your field test screen and see what band you are on and post a screenshot? in the dialer, dial *3001#12345#* and hit send and it will bring up the filed test screen. then go to serving cell info and it will give you details about the tower/sector you are connected to.

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S4GRU Member Level: LTE Advanced

S4GRU

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iPhone 5S. Cedar Rapids/Iowa City was upgraded to LTE, but I wasn't aware that Cedar Falls/Waterloo was updated until testing it today. Also, my 6S didn't show LTE until Today, but I've had it in this area for several days now? I could be wrong, just wanted to check, also needed to create an account to post, since I check this site often. Thanks!

Cedar Falls/Waterloo has had Sprint LTE for quite a long time. And since you had the 5s, it supported both Band 25 and 26. So, if you were not getting LTE until your new phone, there must have been a problem with your device or it was in 3G only mode (which I don't even know if that's possible on an iPhone).

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bmoses Member Level: 4G LTE

bmoses

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Cedar Falls/Waterloo has had Sprint LTE for quite a long time. And since you had the 5s, it supported both Band 25 and 26. So, if you were not getting LTE until your new phone, there must have been a problem with your device or it was in 3G only mode (which I don't even know if that's possible on an iPhone).

 

its possible to turn LTE off on an iphone, my mother in law has an iphone 5 and i was doing maintenance on it the other day and found that somehow LTE got turned off so she was stuck on 3G. not that she really uses data :)

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Mr.Nuke Member Level: LTE Advanced

Mr.Nuke

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iPhone 5S.  Cedar Rapids/Iowa City was upgraded to LTE,  but I wasn't aware that Cedar Falls/Waterloo was updated until testing it today.  Also, my 6S didn't show LTE until Today, but I've had it in this area for several days now?  I could be wrong, just wanted to check, also needed to create an account to post, since I check this site often. Thanks!

Wecome to the site. Most of the Cedar Rapids sites were broadcasting LTE by last September (so over a year now). There are still some sites yet to be covered, but you must have had a device issue with the 5s or somehow have turned off LTE like bmoses said.

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bkco14 Member Level: 1x Advanced

bkco14

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Dies anyone have any insight?

 

Since February 12th, the network connection will just stop working. I would be surfing and then all of a sudden web pages wouldnt load. I would do a speed test and it wouldn't run. So I toggled airplane mode on and off and then data would work again (around 5mbps). Then about 2 mins later it would stop working again. Another temp solution is doing ##update to get it working again, but again that is only temporary.

 

We are also experiencing dramatic speed swings from 5mbps down to .2 in the same location taken within a minute of each other.

 

I have called Sprint many times and 99% of the time their representatives say everything is working correctly, but 1 time the rep said we have over 30 issues in our area. But, when I call back and reference that, the technician is dumbfounded and can't see a single issue.

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