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Has this tower been upgraded?

prophead
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prophead Member Level: Digital

prophead

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I work for a company that uses Direct Connect quite extensively and yesterday (02-05-13) many of the Direct Connect calls were not completing. I did a speed test and ping times were good less than (100MS on average) however downloads and uploads either did not work at all or were in the order of .01 to .04 Mbps down and up. This tower normally is very good, usually speeds right around 2.0 down and about 1 up.

 

I called Sprint and they stated that Tower ID PL72XC013 was down as a result of receiving Network Vision updates. (Updates would be completed today they said) They claimed this was causing an overload on the surrounding towers including the tower we were connected to and as a result data/Direct Connect was not working right. This sounded logical but I decided to investigate since this is a third round market in a rural area.

 

On the way home from the office I drive almost past this tower and decided to stop in for a look. This is a legacy Nextel site mounted on a power transmission pole. I am no expert on the different installation types however I have seen a few and to me this does not look at all like a NV site, no RRU's (could this unit have ground mounted RRUS?)

 

I took a few pics....was Sprint rep misinformed or is this (NV?) site different than most?

 

The Antenna's - Looks to me like a co-located site but NV? Not convinced.

2013-02-05_17-22-12_707.jpg

 

No equipment visible on the ground - it is all in this shed.

2013-02-05_17-23-03_223.jpg

 

The cabling

2013-02-05_17-23-40_999.jpg

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S4GRU Member Level: LTE Advanced

S4GRU

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Also, it is possible that this site is one of the ones that is now overloaded because an adjacent NV site is down. Just a thought.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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S4GRU Member Level: LTE Advanced

S4GRU

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Also, it is highly unusual for Sprint CDMA equipment ever to be in a building. They are usually outside on a pad in 99% of sites. I assume you're using Sprint CDMA Direct Connect and not Nextel DC on iDEN.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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prophead Member Level: Digital

prophead

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Yes Sprint CDMA Direct Connect. The Sprint rep seemed very certain this was the site being upgraded. Didn't believe him that's why I checked it out....

 

Judging by the antenna's could this be an exception where CDMA equipment is in the shed? The antenna to the left is obviously different than the other three. Could this be a CDMA antenna?

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S4GRU Member Level: LTE Advanced

S4GRU

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Yes Sprint CDMA Direct Connect. The Sprint rep seemed very certain this was the site being upgraded. Didn't believe him that's why I checked it out....

 

Judging by the antenna's could this be an exception where CDMA equipment is in the shed? The antenna to the left is obviously different than the other three. Could this be a CDMA antenna?

 

It possibly may be. Send me a PM and I will look into my data about the site. Because I will not likely come across this post again to remember to look it up.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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squigey Member Level: 1x Advanced

squigey

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The panels look similar to the ones at a site near my work.

 

Here's a couple of pictures of the antennas. I also have pictures of the cabinets, etc. It's an in progress site, but no physical work has started yet....at least as of yesterday when I took another look.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68141989@N07/8451361856/in/photostream

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Boosted20V Member Level: eHRPD

Boosted20V

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The panels look similar to the ones at a site near my work.

 

Here's a couple of pictures of the antennas. I also have pictures of the cabinets, etc. It's an in progress site, but no physical work has started yet....at least as of yesterday when I took another look.

 

http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream

 

All I see is a palm tree? What cell tower!? :lol:

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squigey Member Level: 1x Advanced

squigey

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All I see is a palm tree? What cell tower!? :lol:

 

You know the funny thing is, there is another tower maybe a block down the street that's just a regular looking tower.

 

I'm not sure sure why they decided to camouflage this one.

 

The cool thing is there is no fence or anything around the site...it just sits at the corner of a building. I'm guessing they'll have to put a locked container there when they start the physical work.

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irev210 Member Level: 4G WiMax

irev210

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You know the funny thing is, there is another tower maybe a block down the street that's just a regular looking tower.

 

I'm not sure sure why they decided to camouflage this one.

 

The cool thing is there is no fence or anything around the site...it just sits at the corner of a building. I'm guessing they'll have to put a locked container there when they start the physical work.

 

There is a hilarious one off the 22 fwy where there are about 4 cell towers right at the 22/5 and one is a faux palm tree while the others are just standard towers. Just cracked me up.

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