Jump to content

SID Boundary question


prophead

Recommended Posts

First a little history to better understand my question:

 

Long time Nextel user - switched to Direct Connect on Sprint in 2008 - moved to a new home in 2010 that did not have a good Sprint signal therefore Direct Connect on Sprint did not work....however, I was aware of the planned network upgrades and hoped to sometime switch back so I did not want lock into a contract with anybody. I signed up with Page Plus which turned out to be a dropped call nightmare even with the phone indicating a good signal. I then switched to a Prepaid AT&T MVNO and this worked well.

 

This fall a change in jobs again has me back to Sprint again as a Direct Connect user. I still do not have a good signal at my home (Hopefully with 800 I will). The would not be a problem if I had no signal but I have just enough that inside my home I am constantly switching back a forth from Sprint to Roam causing me to miss and/or drop calls.

 

So....I decided to take matters into my own hands a make a PRL that would solve the problem....

 

What I did was took a Sprint Corporate PRL (16012), inserted the relevant for my area Sprint 800 MHZ SIDS (dont want to miss out on them when they finally get lit up) :) at the beginning with a priority of more, followed them up with the relevant Verizon SIDS with a a priority of same and then the Sprint 1900 SIDS with a priority of same.

 

This works great, when my phone loses the Sprint signal it will lock onto the Verizon signal and stay locked on. When I go outside I simply switch my roam settings to Sprint Only and am back on the native Sprint network.

 

Now finally to my question....I am apparently on the Verizon SID boundary of 8 and 96. My phone is constantly switching between SID 8 and 96 and continually switching channels. This would seem to indicate I am receiving a signal of the same or near the same strength from two Verizon towers, one on SID 8 and the other on SID 96.

 

So....What happens when a phone switches from one SID to another even while on the same carrier? Will calls drop? Could that be why my Page Plus phone dropped calls even while the phone indicated a good signal?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now finally to my question....I am apparently on the Verizon SID boundary of 8 and 96. My phone is constantly switching between SID 8 and 96 and continually switching channels. This would seem to indicate I am receiving a signal of the same or near the same strength from two Verizon towers, one on SID 8 and the other on SID 96.

 

So....What happens when a phone switches from one SID to another even while on the same carrier? Will calls drop? Could that be why my Page Plus phone dropped calls even while the phone indicated a good signal?

 

I love these kinds of questions. They are right in my wheelhouse.

 

First, can you post some engineering/debug screen data of RSSI, Ec/Io, and carrier channels? That would assist in fully diagnosing the issue.

 

Second, inhabiting a SID/NID boundary can easily result in missed incoming calls because each SID/NID tends to be connected to a different MSC. If the SID/NID boundary also requires an inter frequency hard handoff, that can also result in dropped calls.

 

AJ

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will get some screen shots however it will be at least Monday till I can do that.

 

If the SID/NID boundary also requires an inter frequency hard handoff, that can also result in dropped calls.

 

Interesting....Does this mean we are going to get dropped calls when switching from 1900 to 800 or vice versa? Or has Sprint done something to prevent that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting....Does this mean we are going to get dropped calls when switching from 1900 to 800 or vice versa?

 

Maybe. For CDMA1X, an inter frequency hard handoff is never a sure thing -- it is a "break before make" connection. That said, most CDMA1X 1900 to CDMA1X 800 handoffs (or vice versa) will be covered by the same MSC. So, the dropped call rate should be relatively low.

 

AJ

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm on Verizon and where I live, inter-market handoffs happen all the time.

 

Chester, Illinois towers are in SID 1189, which is part of the Carbondale MSC. There's another tower in Missouri which is SID 2 and feeds into the St. Louis MSC. Some places in Chester you hit the nearest VZW tower off the other bluff, which is SID 2. The results are absolutely brutal. Ironically it's a tower that was built because of weak coverage, but it created another engineering problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm on Verizon and where I live, inter-market handoffs happen all the time.

 

Chester, Illinois towers are in SID 1189, which is part of the Carbondale MSC. There's another tower in Missouri which is SID 2 and feeds into the St. Louis MSC. Some places in Chester you hit the nearest VZW tower off the other bluff, which is SID 2. The results are absolutely brutal. Ironically it's a tower that was built because of weak coverage, but it created another engineering problem.

 

I'm not familiar with VZW MSC's, but I would expect there are some varied setups and vendors with all the different companies VZW has purchased over the years. Probably an inconsistent nightmare.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I'm not familiar with VZW MSC's, but I would expect there are some varied setups and vendors with all the different companies VZW has purchased over the years. Probably an inconsistent nightmare.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

Southern Illinois always had serious issues with this, but VZW has existed here for 13 years. They came into my market after buying divestures off SBC and another failing company that was a pile of crap in SoILL, Douglas Telecommunications d/b/a Cellular One. Sprint had a similar affliction here too with affiliates. Roberts Tower Company was an affiliate in Perryville and they did an awful job at building out that area.

 

I wish I could be a Sprint customer, but as Chester is an area where you can technically buy service but is "limited coverage", I'm doing them a favor by not switching to them. If I would subscribe here I'd get the golden ticket roaming onto ATNI towers. 3G roaming is going to be dead here soon anyway with ATNI's sale of Alltel Southern Illinois to AT&T.

 

T-Mobile offers service here too but it's EDGE, and AT&T is just now upgrading Chester to Faux G after my 3 years of begging them. So that's a start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

T-Mobile offers service here too but it's EDGE, and AT&T is just now upgrading Chester to Faux G after my 3 years of begging them. So that's a start.

 

T-Mobile upgraded three of our sites to HSPA+ here in the Espanola, New Mexico area. Too bad they connected them to their T1 lines. I love it when my Tmo friends brag about my them having "4G" here and laugh at me for using Sprint. I ask them to run a speed test, my Sprint 3G runs between 1-2Mbps, their Tmo 4G runs at 300k-800kbps. And then I tell them to sod off.

 

However, I don't offer the same challenge when in Santa Fe. My Sprint 3G runs at 400k, and their Tmo HSPA+ is over 20Mbps in places. :blush:

 

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

T-Mobile upgraded three of our sites to HSPA+ here in the Espanola, New Mexico area. Too bad they connected them to their T1 lines. I love it when my Tmo friends brag about my them having "4G" here and laugh at me for using Sprint. I ask them to run a speed test, my Sprint 3G runs between 1-2Mbps, their Tmo 4G runs at 300k-800kbps. And then I tell them to sod off.

 

However, I don't offer the same challenge when in Santa Fe. My Sprint 3G runs at 400k, and their Tmo HSPA+ is over 20Mbps in places. <img src='http://s4gru.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blush.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blush:' />

 

Robert

 

There's fiber backhaul options now other than the local ILEC here, Frontier (ex-Verizon).

 

http://www.clearwave.com

 

So if T-Mobile upgraded their site here, I'd look into that.

 

If I had to guess, I'd say T-Mobile has more fiber connections than Sprint does right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...