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


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It also helps to set Sensorly to only upload over WiFi. I've found that my HTC ONE connects to LTE faster than I think to look for it sometimes. I don't even bother with LTE Discovery most of the time now.

That's the phone I got! I'll try sensorly on Wi-Fi upload

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Something is going on in Iowa City today.  I started seeing this yesterday but on the north side and up to north liberty I have been seeing a lot of Rev. A connections which I was not seeing before.  Anyone who has gone through the start of an upgrade know if that is a precursor?

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Something is going on in Iowa City today.  I started seeing this yesterday but on the north side and up to north liberty I have been seeing a lot of Rev. A connections which I was not seeing before.  Anyone who has gone through the start of an upgrade know if that is a precursor?

 

The network fluctuates between EVDO and eHRPD fairly often, even in completed markets. Usually an airplane toggle or reboot puts you back on eHRPD. It's generally not a good indication of much. Upgrades are going on around Iowa city though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

New member and thought I would share this info. I have a Samsung Ativ S Neo on ting. Today on Oct 5 my phone said 4g, I power cycled it just to make sure, voice and data worked though no speed test. It was in Muscatine (52761) near the intersection of Cedar St and Houser St. I didn’t have 4g last week, also even though there was a crew tearing up a street near there I’m pretty sure it’s unrelated.

Is there an engineering menu or app that will tell me which tower I’m connected to? There are two different towers in the area and I’m not sure which one it was.

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Hey my friend mentioned that he had LTE on sprint the other day.  I had him run a speed test and it was about 10mbps down.  This was at Spicoli's on University Ave.  

 

I left sprint at the beginning of the year and plan to come back when they have LTE in Cedar Falls and Waterloo.  Is it "switched on" now or is it just one cell testing still?

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New member and thought I would share this info. I have a Samsung Ativ S Neo on ting. Today on Oct 5 my phone said 4g, I power cycled it just to make sure, voice and data worked though no speed test. It was in Muscatine (52761) near the intersection of Cedar St and Houser St. I didn’t have 4g last week, also even though there was a crew tearing up a street near there I’m pretty sure it’s unrelated.

Is there an engineering menu or app that will tell me which tower I’m connected to? There are two different towers in the area and I’m not sure which one it was.

 

signalcheck will give you information about your different signals. voice on 800 is the only thing that will tell you what tower you are connected to (and it would only be for voice on 800). for LTE the only way to know would be to become a sponsor and get access to the maps and spreadsheets we are updating in the sponsor section :)

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Hey my friend mentioned that he had LTE on sprint the other day.  I had him run a speed test and it was about 10mbps down.  This was at Spicoli's on University Ave.  

 

I left sprint at the beginning of the year and plan to come back when they have LTE in Cedar Falls and Waterloo.  Is it "switched on" now or is it just one cell testing still?

 

well its "switched on" in the sense that the towers that they have currently completed and accepted and turned on are on for use. they are however still deploying in the area so not all of the towers are live with LTE yet, they will continue to work on them and accept them and turn them on for use as they do over the next weeks and months until they are done with every tower in the area :)

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That signalcheck app is for android, I have windows phone 8. I would go digging through the debug menus but I'm not sure which commands I would need to use.

 

ah, sorry, thats what i get for multi tasking and not fully paying attention :) i have no idea how to access those screens on WP8, i know there are sections on this site devoted to the different phones, you might be able to find something in there, but like i said, voice on 800 is the only thing that will broadcast exact coordinates to the tower's location. voice on 1900 broadcasts offset coordinates for each sector and 3G and 4G don't broadcast any kind of coordinates.

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well its "switched on" in the sense that the towers that they have currently completed and accepted and turned on are on for use. they are however still deploying in the area so not all of the towers are live with LTE yet, they will continue to work on them and accept them and turn them on for use as they do over the next weeks and months until they are done with every tower in the area :)

Great to hear!  I'm paid through the next 6 months through straight talk, so unless AT&T gets LTE here before than I'll be heading back to sprint.  I will say though, AT&T's HSPA+ is around 6-7mbps so it really has been a pretty good experience.

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I haven't heard or seen anythign for the DBQ region a couple of the towers i have seen do not have the new recievers on them. thinking this is a bad sign. Does anyone have any word on dubuque?

 

looks like all the towers in that area are 3G accepted which means all the equipment is installed and they are just waiting on backhaul.

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Excuse my newb to this but what does backhaul mean? I have an idea just not positive on the process.

 

no problem :) basically its the connection to the internet for data, aka 3G and 4G. thats one of sprints faults is they only had T1 lines run to their towers, which is extremely slow by todays standards. one of the things they are doing with the upgrades is running new backhaul to the towers, the majority of the towers will get fiber run to them which will give them anywhere from 10 to 100x more speed at the tower than what they currently have.

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Has anybody near Waterloo Cedar Falls driven up to Waverly?  Does the LTE signal reach that far?  I am right on the sharp bend on 218.  The sensorly map doesn't show 4g but that might have been whoever was collecting data just turning around and going home lol...thanks 

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Has anybody near Waterloo Cedar Falls driven up to Waverly?  Does the LTE signal reach that far?  I am right on the sharp bend on 218.  The sensorly map doesn't show 4g but that might have been whoever was collecting data just turning around and going home lol...thanks 

 LTE signals only travel about 5 miles on average...line of sight maybe 10 miles, in town with buildings, 2 miles.

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 LTE signals only travel about 5 miles on average...line of sight maybe 10 miles, in town with buildings, 2 miles.

 

LTE 1900*

 

LTE 700mhz - 800mhz is good for 4-7 miles in urban areas and up to 10+ in rural areas. 

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LTE 1900*

 

LTE 700mhz - 800mhz is good for 4-7 miles in urban areas and up to 10+ in rural areas. 

 

I can get 10+ miles in rural areas on 1900. I have to imagine that 800 LTE will be even better, considering we're seeing 800 1x signals bouncing around for 30+ miles. 

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