Network Vision/LTE - Central Iowa Market (Des Moines and surrounding areas)

[bmoses]

1x800 just started showing up in Indianola. Signal in my house is usually 1-2 bars, now have one short of full bars, wow.

 

yep, guess i forgot to post that here, i had put it in the sponsor thread. there are 2 towers in indianola that are 1x800 live and another by carlisle

[bmoses]

was able to hit some sites over the past few days, seems like things are picking back up. we had a ton of towers getting done for a few weeks there and then nothing for a few weeks and now they are back at it

 

this was a GMO site i saw workers at back in may but never confirmed they installed anything. went by and got a pic of the GPS antenna so BTS is installed (its a sprint/nextel/verizon site)

 

this site is in the middle of grimes, i checked it on 09/15 and there was nothing installed or even sitting waiting at the site yet, went back by on 09/20 and literally everything is installed now 

 

this site covers the fair grounds and now has the honor of being our first (and only?) high capacity site

 

this one is south of the 4G accepted site on 14th st, no panels/RRUs yet as they will have to modify the site to support them, but the BTS was installed.

 

also drove by a few other sites but no work was going on. updated the no-work dates and added all of these to our spreadsheet and maps

[4starcashier]

Perhaps it's just congestion, but is anyone who is near Downtown DSM having data problems?

[repthrd]

Hello, I have been trolling here and following this thread and you guys are doing a great job!  So far I have not hit any 4G yet in the Des Moines area.  I live in Ankeny and just in general I have been having tons of trouble in the last week.  Undelivered texts, and since I got a new phone Friday I seem to pick up 1x in Ankeny a lot.  I talked to Sprint and they blamed it on the current upgrades to infrastructure.  I was wondering if others have experienced similar issues?  They told me to hold on until the end of October.  I got so frustrated this weekend I almost thought about taking the phone back and swapping, but I feel I have rode out Sprint this long and they are almost over the hump.

[bmoses]

Perhaps it's just congestion, but is anyone who is near Downtown DSM having data problems?

 

since its downtown its probably congestion. i know 1 tower downtown has had the new equipment installed but the other ones are in locations that its been hard to check on. usually actually installing the equipment shouldn't have an effect on anything though. its when they come back to fire up the new equipment and do testing and stuff that you see the most issues.

[bmoses]

Hello, I have been trolling here and following this thread and you guys are doing a great job!  So far I have not hit any 4G yet in the Des Moines area.  I live in Ankeny and just in general I have been having tons of trouble in the last week.  Undelivered texts, and since I got a new phone Friday I seem to pick up 1x in Ankeny a lot.  I talked to Sprint and they blamed it on the current upgrades to infrastructure.  I was wondering if others have experienced similar issues?  They told me to hold on until the end of October.  I got so frustrated this weekend I almost thought about taking the phone back and swapping, but I feel I have rode out Sprint this long and they are almost over the hump.

 

welcome to the site! if you really want to see a ton more info consider becoming a sponsor, we have a thread in the sponsor section with a spreadsheet and maps of the IA and NE markets that we are using to track the upgrades and figuring out what towers are live and what not

 

the past few weeks have flared up for texting, calls, and data issues. they are actively installing the new equipment everywhere right now (the tower behind the sprint store in ankeny got new panels last week!) there is currently 1 4G tower in des moines and in the central iowa market there are 4 total. we are over half of the towers in central iowa either having been accepted or have equipment installed and in progress so they are making headway.

 

based on what i've seen so far end of october will be pushing it for being 100% done. i would hope that we will have more 4G accepted towers in the des moines area by then but the central iowa market as a whole i would think end of december would be more accurate for being 100% done.

 

so while it does suck now being that it is so close to being done i would stick it out for a little while longer anyway

 

also you put your phone number in the "phone" spot on your profile, might want to change that unless you want lots of random people calling you

[cerebasan]

Downtown is always terrible for data. Hoping they get the LTE in soon. There are only a few towers downtown and people camp on their phones all day. It gets so bad texts don't send and you can't use voicemail because it's all data driven.

[bmoses]

guess i never posted this pic in this thread, this is of them installing the antennas on the tower behind the sprint store in ankeny last week.

 

[repthrd]

welcome to the site! if you really want to see a ton more info consider becoming a sponsor, we have a thread in the sponsor section with a spreadsheet and maps of the IA and NE markets that we are using to track the upgrades and figuring out what towers are live and what not

 

the past few weeks have flared up for texting, calls, and data issues. they are actively installing the new equipment everywhere right now (the tower behind the sprint store in ankeny got new panels last week!) there is currently 1 4G tower in des moines and in the central iowa market there are 4 total. we are over half of the towers in central iowa either having been accepted or have equipment installed and in progress so they are making headway.

 

based on what i've seen so far end of october will be pushing it for being 100% done. i would hope that we will have more 4G accepted towers in the des moines area by then but the central iowa market as a whole i would think end of december would be more accurate for being 100% done.

 

so while it does suck now being that it is so close to being done i would stick it out for a little while longer anyway

 

also you put your phone number in the "phone" spot on your profile, might want to change that unless you want lots of random people calling you

Thanks, I noticed that right after I posted.  My Auto-Fill must have put it in there.  I agree with you.  I think I am going to just stick it out.  Just reached my breaking point this weekend it seemed.  I never noticed on my Droid as much about when I did/didn't have 3G, but now on the iPhone is distinctly labels them and when I see 1x it makes me cringe.  Especially when I am in the middle of what their map shows as 3G service.

[adame233]

I love those pictures with the workers on the towers! It's hard to get a sense of the scale of the Network Vision panels and RRUs from a lot of the pictures. Seeing the size of them really underscores the huge undertaking the entire Network Vision project is!

[cerebasan]

The good news is that they probably won't delay it due to snow/winter. On the t1/T3 side once the ground freezes you can forget about it until spring. It's a matter of contractor availability. I called sprint over the weekend and the rep volunteered that LTE was available soon.

[cerebasan]

The Quad Cities are getting LTE lit up over in their thread. Parts of Moline and Davenport.

[4starcashier]

Booooooooooooooo!!!  I wish they'd say "we are turning them on tomorrow!"  I hope by Christmas it's up!

[Dkoellerwx]

Booooooooooooooo!!!  I wish they'd say "we are turning them on tomorrow!"  I hope by Christmas it's up!

 

That means within 3 months. That means some this week, some the next, some the next, until most are done in 3 months or so.

[cerebasan]

That means within 3 months. That means some this week, some the next, some the next, until most are done in 3 months or so.

Other than the one south side tower I don't see some being turned on every week....

[bmoses]

Booooooooooooooo!!!  I wish they'd say "we are turning them on tomorrow!"  I hope by Christmas it's up!

 

not saying it won't happen in 3 months, but 3 months seems to be the default customer service response for all inquiries related to NV.

 

and in our case with about 35% of the towers not having had anything installed or accepted yet 3 months would actually be a good guess.

[Dkoellerwx]

not saying it won't happen in 3 months, but 3 months seems to be the default customer service response for all inquiries related to NV.

 

and in our case with about 35% of the towers not having had anything installed or accepted yet 3 months would actually be a good guess.

 

When you get an answer like that, it generally means you got an answer from someone with access to the schedule. Sites are only marked on the schedule in three month intervals. Either <90 days, 90-180 days, or 180+ days. What this means is that most sites in the area are scheduled to be at least upgraded in the next 90 days. Whether or not backhaul is in place for them to activate LTE is another matter. 

[bmoses]

Other than the one south side tower I don't see some being turned on every week....

 

check the sponsor shreadsheet, there is a stats tab, about 1/3 of the towers have already been at least 3G accepted, 1/3rd are in progress and have equipment installed, and 1/3 either haven't started or we don't know their state yet. did you see the acceptance reports? 12 towers accepted in central iowa in the past week. 

[cerebasan]

not saying it won't happen in 3 months, but 3 months seems to be the default customer service response for all inquiries related to NV.

 

and in our case with about 35% of the towers not having had anything installed or accepted yet 3 months would actually be a good guess.

I'm not optimistic but I'm excited.

[cerebasan]

check the sponsor shreadsheet, there is a stats tab, about 1/3 of the towers have already been at least 3G accepted, 1/3rd are in progress and have equipment installed, and 1/3 either haven't started or we don't know their state yet. did you see the acceptance reports? 12 towers accepted in central iowa in the past week.

I gotta check out that spreadsheet. I need a checklist!!!

[bmoses]

I gotta check out that spreadsheet. I need a checklist!!!

 

and the map too! you can find them all in the first posts of this thread here

[digiblur]

I love those pictures with the workers on the towers! It's hard to get a sense of the scale of the Network Vision panels and RRUs from a lot of the pictures. Seeing the size of them really underscores the huge undertaking the entire Network Vision project is!

 

Have a few trophy ones myself...  miss taking pictures like this!

 

My favorite site...aka "Gangsta' lean"  yes, the RRUs and rack is leaning.  It's gotten worse since they took down legacy.  And to top it all off the mixed up the sectors so it drops calls going in and out of the site coverage.  The north sector LTE coverage has diminished over the months to like half a mile.  Try explaining this to a Sprint rep.

 

 

 

 

 

[cerebasan]

Wow. That was useful! Sponsorship is good.

[j50327]

I was on my way to newton and had the 800 service. From Colfax all the way to newton and back. Towers in Colfax, Kellogg an newton had the 800. I got one screenshot showing it.

[bmoses]

I was on my way to newton and had the 800 service. From Colfax all the way to newton and back. Towers in Colfax, Kellogg an newton had the 800. I got one screenshot showing it.

 

yep, 1x800 is awesome! i connected to the tower in your screenshot there south of huxley on hwy 69. the furthest i've connected to 1x800 is ~60 miles