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


sweyers

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Looks like a Sprint synergy site where they took off one iDen panel and slap on a pcs panel.

 

Notice the 3 narrow band panels and then the one panel that looks completely different?

 

thanks! i was assuming it was nextel since they were on the same platform but hadn't really ever looked at nextel panels before so i wasn't sure what they looked like.

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saw another tower south of blank park zoo that had new fiber run to it :) also stopped but another GMO site and it had new cabinets installed and nice new samsung boxes sitting out that had all the equipment to be installed in them :)

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Been meaning to ask this for awhile, but this part of the GMO article:

 

Samsung has two types of RRU’s. 800MHz and 1900 MHz RRU’s. Each of the two Samsung RRU types can do both CDMA and LTE from the same unit, supporting up to four carriers each. At a Samsung GMO site, only one RRU is needed per sector, as the RRU can do LTE and CDMA on the same unit.

 

Samsung is in charge of Iowa. Am I getting my hopes up too high for the possibilty of LTE (even if limited, as it wouldn't be as good as a full NV build)? I would just be thrilled with 1.0+ Mb 3G at this point, but that bit of information has me excited.

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Been meaning to ask this for awhile, but this part of the GMO article:

 

 

 

Samsung is in charge of Iowa. Am I getting my hopes up too high for the possibilty of LTE (even if limited, as it wouldn't be as good as a full NV build)? I would just be thrilled with 1.0+ Mb 3G at this point, but that bit of information has me excited.

 

All GMO sites are supposed to get LTE assuming new backhaul can be secured. it may not be active right away depending on many factors but at some point it should be. AFAIK there is only 1 Samsung GMO site with LTE active, i don't know if its just cause they are still testing or what.

 

the only thing GMO sites won't get right away is new panels for 800Mhz support, sometime next year they will revisit GMO sites and convert most of them to full build sites.

 

my brother lives in huxley and that town is covered by a GMO site that's in progress now. i have him checking every so often to see if he picks up a 4G signal and will report it here once he does :)

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well both the winterset towers are listed as GMO towers so its possible they could have LTE if they have had work done already, but since they are GMO they would not have new panels installed and i don't see any RRU's up top where the panels are.

 

its hard to tell from the pics if new cabinets have been installed, can you get a better angle and see if any cabinets look like these?

 

IMAG0699.jpg

 

IMAG0687.jpg

 

those are from two other GMO towers around me. also if they do have everything installed there would be a rack near the new cabinets that would have the RRU's mounted to it. I don't have a pic of what they look like as none of the GMO towers i've been too have the RRU's installed yet. also any signs of fiber being trenched recently? would need that in order for LTE to get turned on too.

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I went and scouted a few towers today. The one just north of Douglas on 114th I couldn't get to as it's inside a large fenced off semi truck lot.

 

Looked at the one just south of Hickman on 157th as well (inside the little league park), and it surrounded by a wooden fence, so couldn't see anything.

 

The tower at 86th and Aurora by the Urbandale Golf and Country Club is just a long pole. Nothing attached to it. But going by the map, Sensorly, and the number of bars on my Photon Q, it's definitely a working Sprint tower. Same with the tower in Ankeny (The "Non-Corporate Tower" as I call it, as the only other Sprint tower in Ankeny is behind the corporat store).

 

I finally checked out the tower at Merle Hay Mall. Two towers just next to the water tower.

 

IMG_20130416_141546_011.jpg

 

I want to say the left one is the Sprint one?

 

Also got a picture of the equipment on the bottom of the left tower:

 

IMG_20130416_141615_371.jpg

 

Unfortunately, my Photon Q crapped out before I could get any more pictures. Yeah, I know you really can't see anything.

 

 

Still learning about GMOs, RRUs, and all that, and don't really know what I am supposed to be looking for, but still wanted to contribute.

 

Anyone see anything noteworthy?

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post-14245-0-56945800-1366468014_thumb.png

There is a tower that has been placed here about a year ago and yesterday I passed by and saw that they are adding equipment to it , There was antennas on the ground so I figured that they were going to add them to the top of the tower. I went to sprints website to see if it was a Sprint tower and it looks like it is but I'm no 100% sure. The tower is by E 14th and walker ST .

Edited by eleanos24
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well according to the maps in the sponsor section that is not a sprint tower. there is a sprint tower marked about 1-2 blocks south west of the tower you pointed out there, so they either relocated that tower and it wasn't updated in the data Robert received, or its another carrier that's doing work. The only other carrier i can think of that would be doing work around here, that would involve adding new panels, is T-mobile adding LTE to the tower. all other carriers in this area already have LTE up and running. If you stop by there again and see workers out there stop and ask them who they are doing work for and let us know! :)

 

side note: the building marked as being the sprint tower on the maps i'm not seeing any panels anywhere on it in google maps, so i'm either blind, or its been relocated, or the location is wrong :)

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I believe the tower at Merle Hay is the Wimax test site, not the one at Beaver and Douglas. I believe this because I always had full signal by there when I had my photon and hardly anything when I was at beave and douglas. Do I see wimax equpment at the pictures of the merle hay base ?

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GMO towers will have LTE as long as backhaul is fast enough, and the existing panels can support the new frequency. GMO sites are generally unburdened, in rural areas where 3G should be performing better than urban areas, or where it's not feasible to do a full build at this time.

 

The towers that have been posted over the last couple of days would likely be full build sites, given the overall population density around them. This means that new NV panels, RRUs, and all would be installed before LTE goes live.

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I believe the tower at Merle Hay is the Wimax test site, not the one at Beaver and Douglas. I believe this because I always had full signal by there when I had my photon and hardly anything when I was at beave and douglas. Do I see wimax equpment at the pictures of the merle hay base ?

 

there is a map of all the wimax protection sites on the sponsor area, the one at beaver and douglas, that's supposed to be torn down, is a wimax site. there are 2 others in des moines, one across from sam's club/walmart on the towers by the football field, and another one next to the university ave exit off of I-235 :)

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also forgot to add i drove by another tower this weekend that has the ground all flagged and painted so it looks like they are getting ready to run new backhaul to it too! so they are definitely going full steam ahead getting backhaul in place, hopefully that means tower work on full build sites will be starting soon! :)

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Stopped by a GMO site after work today. There were workers there so i got to talk to one for a bit. He said they were with SBA, which is who owned the tower, and they were there hooking up all the equipment, new 3G and the 4G equipment. i asked him if he knew what backhaul they were using at that tower and if it had been hooked up and he had no idea, sounds like someone else will come out to hook up backhaul if/when its ready.

 

he also made it sound like someone else would be along to actually cut over to the new equipment they were hooking up at some later date, whenever whoever makes that decision, decides. There were 4 of them there working and he said it takes them about 6-8 hours to do their part hooking up all the equipment at a GMO site. as to other sites, he said they mainly just work on SBA sites, sometimes they get contracted through Optimus(?) and will work on other companies towers.

 

I asked him if he knew anything about full build sites and he said they were going to one tomorrow! but then i asked him where and he said he didn't know :( one of the other guys said it was back east somewhere, so no idea if its even in iowa. sounds like they get sent all over the midwest, so the full build they are going to could be anywhere.

 

and thats all i found out :) so no LTE from this site until backhaul and someone comes out and hooks it up and switches everything over to the new equipment :)

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Stopped by a GMO site after work today. There were workers there so i got to talk to one for a bit. He said they were with SBA, which is who owned the tower, and they were there hooking up all the equipment, new 3G and the 4G equipment. i asked him if he knew what backhaul they were using at that tower and if it had been hooked up and he had no idea, sounds like someone else will come out to hook up backhaul if/when its ready.

 

he also made it sound like someone else would be along to actually cut over to the new equipment they were hooking up at some later date, whenever whoever makes that decision, decides. There were 4 of them there working and he said it takes them about 6-8 hours to do their part hooking up all the equipment at a GMO site. as to other sites, he said they mainly just work on SBA sites, sometimes they get contracted through Optimus(?) and will work on other companies towers.

 

I asked him if he knew anything about full build sites and he said they were going to one tomorrow! but then i asked him where and he said he didn't know :( one of the other guys said it was back east somewhere, so no idea if its even in iowa. sounds like they get sent all over the midwest, so the full build they are going to could be anywhere.

 

and thats all i found out :) so no LTE from this site until backhaul and someone comes out and hooks it up and switches everything over to the new equipment :)

 

SBA is a nationwide tower owner. SBA is who did the GMO site next to my house. They were contracted directly by Sprint, outside of their OEM Contract. They will do the cabinet installs and the RRU installs at GMO sites. At full build sites, they just will do the cabinets installs. They mostly only work on SBA owned towers. But occasionally will do work on other towers when requested. They also mostly do GMO sites.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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SBA is a nationwide tower owner. SBA is who did the GMO site next to my house. They were contracted directly by Sprint, outside of their OEM Contract. They will do the cabinet installs and the RRU installs at GMO sites. At full build sites, they just will do the cabinets installs. They mostly only work on SBA owned towers. But occasionally will do work on other towers when requested. They also mostly do GMO sites.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

 

thanks for the additional info. i wonder why sprint would contract them to do NV work outside of the 3 OEMs? that seems kind of odd..... i did check out SBAs site map, just focusing on the des moines area, and it doesn't look like SBA has very many sprint sites around here. they only had 1 of the 2 GMO sites i know are in progress. they also had a full build site that's getting fiber run to it this week. Otherwise there was only a handful of other sites that they owned that sprint was on.

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thanks for the additional info. i wonder why sprint would contract them to do NV work outside of the 3 OEMs? that seems kind of odd..... i did check out SBAs site map, just focusing on the des moines area, and it doesn't look like SBA has very many sprint sites around here. they only had 1 of the 2 GMO sites i know are in progress. they also had a full build site that's getting fiber run to it this week. Otherwise there was only a handful of other sites that they owned that sprint was on.

 

There was an article that came out a few months ago where Sprint was going to be hiring some Contractors directly to help expedite Network Vision because the main Contractors were struggling to handle all the work.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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Did anybody confirm who the towers belong to at Merle Hay Mall ? The one on the left looks like an older sprint and the one on the right looks pretty new. I'm guessing verizon owns one of them, but could it be a new sprint tower already done ?

 

neither of the two towers outside of Merle Hay have sprint on them. sprint is on the hotel that's attached to the mall there.

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Did anybody confirm who the towers belong to at Merle Hay Mall ? The one on the left looks like an older sprint and the one on the right looks pretty new. I'm guessing verizon owns one of them, but could it be a new sprint tower already done ?

 

went there over lunch today and grabbed some pics of the equipment on the roof for the merle hay tower.

 

IMG_5223CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5221CR2.jpg

 

and a google maps view of the building

merlehay.jpg

 

since sprint is on the building and there are 4 carriers on the 2 towers outside the mall i'm guessing they are verizon, at&t, tmobile, and us cellular.

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stopped by the GMO site that had SBA workers at it the other day that i talked to and took some pictures of their finished work.

 

There were 3 RRUs mounted and the cabinets with the new equipment were powered up and running. All thats left at this site is new backhaul and someone to come out and cut over to the new equipment from the legacy.

 

IMG_5224CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5225CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5226CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5227CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5228CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5229CR2.jpg

 

IMG_5230CR2.jpg

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stopped by the GMO site that had SBA workers at it the other day that i talked to and took some pictures of their finished work.

 

There were 3 RRUs mounted and the cabinets with the new equipment were powered up and running. All thats left at this site is new backhaul and someone to come out and cut over to the new equipment from the legacy.

 

Good pics. Definitely a GMO. Good job.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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Hello been reading the thread for a month finally joined. My ? there are two towers on E Euclid and Hubbell. Sprint site show there is a tower at this location. Saw two Vans out there last week after they left i went to take a look one is At&Ts the other in American Tower Corperation on the fence im guessing sprint rents tower space? Sorry if this is posted before i tried to find ATC on the thread. Thanks

Edited by hagerwarrior
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Hello been reading the thread for a month finally joined. My ? there are two towers on E Euclid and Hubbell. Sprint site show there is a tower at this location. Saw two Vans out there last week after they left i went to take a look one is At&Ts the other in American Tower Corperation on the fence im guessing sprint rents tower space? Sorry if this is posted before i tried to find ATC on the thread. Thanks

 

yep one of those is a sprint tower, not sure which one as i can't tell from google maps. i'm not sure about all of the carriers, but several years ago sprint sold all of its towers to different tower companies and then leases them back from them. if you get a chance to go back out there and take some pics of the base cabinets and also the panels up on the tower and post them, we can see if we can tell which set is sprints and if there is any new equipment delivered/installed yet or not :)

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