Network Vision/LTE - Minnesota Market

[aliensporebomb]

I think I'm tiring of the "they're all done, they just need to flip a switch" story that keeps getting disseminated from stores. It is not true. Once a site is fully complete with LTE upgrades and accepted by Sprint, they turn it on. They are not waiting for the entire St. Cloud area to complete to turn on LTE. That being said, the first site in St. Cloud is probably within 30 days away.

 

Robert

 

Or: it might LOOK like they're finished but does the layman really know what a completed tower looks like?

 

Thinking: I'd classify the average cell phone store employee as being in that category. The cabinet might be on the ground but are the cables connected? have the RRUs and antenna array been properly installed and positioned? What about the microwave backhaul? And even if everything is 100% installed so far as the hardware, remember these things need to be provisioned and antennas aimed and configured and there's a good deal of physical work by a bunch of different people that involves getting even a single cell site up and going. And once the thing is in place it needs to be approved by Sprint because these things are being installed by contractors so......

 

You see what I mean?

[S4GRU]

 

Or: it might LOOK like they're finished but does the layman really know what a completed tower looks like?

 

Thinking: I'd classify the average cell phone store employee as being in that category. The cabinet might be on the ground but are the cables connected? have the RRUs and antenna array been properly installed and positioned? What about the microwave backhaul? And even if everything is 100% installed so far as the hardware, remember these things need to be provisioned and antennas aimed and configured and there's a good deal of physical work by a bunch of different people that involves getting even a single cell site up and going. And once the thing is in place it needs to be approved by Sprint because these things are being installed by contractors so......

 

You see what I mean?

 

You're kidding, right? Store employees don't have anywhere that kind of information to make those kind of determinations. Pure and simple...the story is made up. It may have been made up by someone else and given to them, but it is a fabrication.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[pyroscott]

In my experience, the St Cloud Sprint store employees are friendly and helpful, but lack actual knowledge about the network and future plans. They tried to talk me out of buying the HTC Hero before the OG EVO was released because "4G was coming 'any day." It is now almost 3 years later... still no 4G.

 

They seem to be very good at everything else. I think they just buy in to rumors. I don't think they are misleading customers maliciously.

[n9ovreric]

I saw a guy walking thru my backyard a week ago with an android phone sensorly mapping my area. He said he wanted to be thorough.

 

Now that's funny! Lmao

[Epiclawn]

In my experience, the St Cloud Sprint store employees are friendly and helpful, but lack actual knowledge about the network and future plans. They tried to talk me out of buying the HTC Hero before the OG EVO was released because "4G was coming 'any day." It is now almost 3 years later... still no 4G.

 

They seem to be very good at everything else. I think they just buy in to rumors. I don't think they are misleading customers maliciously.

 

Bingo, right on right on!!

 

This is the same thing that happens to me, and my dumba$$ buys into it always as well. I had to upgrade from my EVO 4G to the EVO LTE "becasue its launching now" "it will be up and running by forth quarter of this year for sure". That is what I was told when I bought the phone back in June or July of 2012.......

[Deval]

Bingo, right on right on!!

 

This is the same thing that happens to me, and my dumba$$ buys into it always as well. I had to upgrade from my EVO 4G to the EVO LTE "becasue its launching now" "it will be up and running by forth quarter of this year for sure". That is what I was told when I bought the phone back in June or July of 2012.......

 

I think the one key difference between the old 4G and the new 4G LTE deployment is that Sprint is doing all the leg work this time around for deploying LTE. They have committed to enable LTE on every site possible, and are actively upgrading each and every tower on the network.

[aliensporebomb]

You're kidding, right? Store employees don't have anywhere that kind of information to make those kind of determinations. Pure and simple...the story is made up. It may have been made up by someone else and given to them, but it is a fabrication.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

Yes, I was totally kidding! They get high school kids or whoever they can get and they're not radio/technology geeks usually. A lot of it is a game of telephone with "Oh, my regional manager heard from the guy who services one of the tower guys washing machine...."

 

I also had a guy tell me in one of the Sprint stores with a straight face that the entire network vision rollout would be done by March in Minnesota and I'm thinking "I know exactly how many sites have been put in place and there's no WAY they'll be done by then unless they're superhuman." Late spring/early summer maybe?

[Deval]

I remember my days in Sprint retail, life was much simpler then, EVDO didn't even exist.

[The Doc]

Yes, I was totally kidding! They get high school kids or whoever they can get and they're not radio/technology geeks usually. A lot of it is a game of telephone with "Oh, my regional manager heard from the guy who services one of the tower guys washing machine...."

 

I also had a guy tell me in one of the Sprint stores with a straight face that the entire network vision rollout would be done by March in Minnesota and I'm thinking "I know exactly how many sites have been put in place and there's no WAY they'll be done by then unless they're superhuman." Late spring/early summer maybe?

 

I had an employee at the Sprint store in Southdale tell me the same thing in November. lol

[pyroscott]

What is ping?

 

http://bit.ly/s9MhbX

[Aspasia]

Hi!

 

I'm hoping someone can tell me if perhaps my Evo LTE isn't getting a LTE even though Sensorly shows it active for my area. I'm in the NE (Forest Lake/Hugo area) and I saw the reports here in early Dec that 4G was showing up, and sure enough I saw the blips to prove it. I decided to do a drive around the area, but it only ever seemed to show 3G as active (at least based on the icon, or going into the settings and looking for the 4g settings information under Mobile data), even when I'm in the "strong LTE" areas shown on Sensorly's map. I've been checking fairly regularly, both before and after I did the Jelly Bean update on my phone.

 

Can anyone confirm if they still get a 4G signal in this area, or if its blocked as an earlier messages on this topic said might be happening in some areas? Just want to see if I have a broken phone or not.

 

Thanks!

[supert0nes]

Hi!

 

I'm hoping someone can tell me if perhaps my Evo LTE isn't getting a LTE even though Sensorly shows it active for my area. I'm in the NE (Forest Lake/Hugo area) and I saw the reports here in early Dec that 4G was showing up, and sure enough I saw the blips to prove it. I decided to do a drive around the area, but it only ever seemed to show 3G as active (at least based on the icon, or going into the settings and looking for the 4g settings information under Mobile data), even when I'm in the "strong LTE" areas shown on Sensorly's map. I've been checking fairly regularly, both before and after I did the Jelly Bean update on my phone.

 

Can anyone confirm if they still get a 4G signal in this area, or if its blocked as an earlier messages on this topic said might be happening in some areas? Just want to see if I have a broken phone or not.

 

Thanks!

 

When you are in an area that you think should have 4g, try cycling your phone into Airplane mode and back. Those towers should still be turned on, but there is always a small chance they turned it off or are denying connections for a small while during some sort of maintenance. Also, even with the Jelly Bean update the EVO LTE is a weaker LTE phone than other Sprint phones, so others might have been able to map to sensorly in areas where you aren't quite able to pick up signal.

 

With wireless there's always like 100 different things it could be, these are just what I could think of off the top of my head.

[pyroscott]

Hi!

 

I'm hoping someone can tell me if perhaps my Evo LTE isn't getting a LTE even though Sensorly shows it active for my area. I'm in the NE (Forest Lake/Hugo area) and I saw the reports here in early Dec that 4G was showing up, and sure enough I saw the blips to prove it. I decided to do a drive around the area, but it only ever seemed to show 3G as active (at least based on the icon, or going into the settings and looking for the 4g settings information under Mobile data), even when I'm in the "strong LTE" areas shown on Sensorly's map. I've been checking fairly regularly, both before and after I did the Jelly Bean update on my phone.

 

Can anyone confirm if they still get a 4G signal in this area, or if its blocked as an earlier messages on this topic said might be happening in some areas? Just want to see if I have a broken phone or not.

 

Thanks!

 

Next time you are in an area that sensorly is showing coverage, toggle airplane mode on and then back off. That will reset your radio and it will look for LTE.

 

Otherwise, hopefully someone can tell you a place to go look or you can stand next to someone with a LTE connection and see if yours works. From all reports on this site, the EVO LTE is not good at picking up LTE in a market that has islands of LTE that are few and far between. Some have said that once the market deployment is more mature, it starts picking up LTE easier and quicker.

 

Dang supert0nes, you beat me to it...

[tbs123456]

Hi!

 

I'm hoping someone can tell me if perhaps my Evo LTE isn't getting a LTE even though Sensorly shows it active for my area. I'm in the NE (Forest Lake/Hugo area) and I saw the reports here in early Dec that 4G was showing up, and sure enough I saw the blips to prove it. I decided to do a 9drive around the area, but it only ever seemed to show 3G as active (at least based on the icon, or going into the settings and looking for the 4g settings information under Mobile data), even when I'm in the "strong LTE" areas shown on Sensorly's map. I've been checking fairly regularly, both before and after I did the Jelly Bean update on my phone.

 

Can anyone confirm if they still get a 4G signal in this area, or if its blocked as an earlier messages on this topic said might be happening in some areas? Just want to see if I have a broken phone or not.

 

Thanks!

Do you have lte/cdma activated in the mobile settings?

[Aspasia]

When you are in an area that you think should have 4g, try cycling your phone into Airplane mode and back. Those towers should still be turned on, but there is always a small chance they turned it off or are denying connections for a small while during some sort of maintenance. Also, even with the Jelly Bean update the EVO LTE is a weaker LTE phone than other Sprint phones, so others might have been able to map to sensorly in areas where you aren't quite able to pick up signal.

 

With wireless there's always like 100 different things it could be, these are just what I could think of off the top of my head.

 

Thanks for the information. Yeah, I tried the Airplane mode after seeing it suggested here before, also tried rebooting my phone, and even updating the PRL (not sure if that would have any effect or not to tell the truth), but its kind of sad to hear the Evo LTE seems so poor at LTE, especially since its right there in its way-to-long-and-cumbersome name .

 

But thank you for the suggestions!

[Aspasia]

Do you have lte/cdma activated in the mobile settings?

 

Yes, that's one the first things I checked. Even toggled it and let it sit a bit at cdma only before switching it back to lte/cdma to see if that would make a difference. Still got nothing . Thanks for the suggestion though!

[pyroscott]

Thanks for the information. Yeah, I tried the Airplane mode after seeing it suggested here before, also tried rebooting my phone, and even updating the PRL (not sure if that would have any effect or not to tell the truth), but its kind of sad to hear the Evo LTE seems so poor at LTE, especially since its right there in its way-to-long-and-cumbersome name .

 

But thank you for the suggestions!

 

Sounds like something is wrong with your phone. I would take it in to a store. They might give you some line about how LTE is not launched in the market and you might be seeing areas where it was testing and inadvertantly picked up and mapped.... But hopefully they have some way to actually test it.

[pyroscott]

Yes, that's one the first things I checked. Even toggled it and let it sit a bit at cdma only before switching it back to lte/cdma to see if that would make a difference. Still got nothing . Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

Also, are you rooted/unlocked/running a ROM? That could be messing with your ability to pick up LTE. I'm guessing no, since you said you accepted the JB update, but worth an ask anyway...

[Aspasia]

Also, are you rooted/unlocked/running a ROM? That could be messing with your ability to pick up LTE. I'm guessing no, since you said you accepted the JB update, but worth an ask anyway...

 

Nope, I'm stock (though I considered rooting during the frustrating wait for word about the JB update) but held off long enough that I got the official update that I'm fairly satisfied with (except for the stupid Google Navigation crashing bug). If I take it to the store, I can only hope that if there is something wrong with it at this point that it can be replaced even without the insurance plan, as there's been no way to test my LTE coverage until recently, and I got the phone at launch (to replace my OG Evo).

[pyroscott]

Nope, I'm stock (though I considered rooting during the frustrating wait for word about the JB update) but held off long enough that I got the official update that I'm fairly satisfied with (except for the stupid Google Navigation crashing bug). If I take it to the store, I can only hope that if there is something wrong with it at this point that it can be replaced even without the insurance plan, as there's been no way to test my LTE coverage until recently, and I got the phone at launch (to replace my OG Evo).

 

I would think that lack of LTE connectivity would be a warranty replacement.

[chrisabaker]

This could be a dumb question... is there ANY way that a phone can show 4G near the signal bars, but not ACTUALLY be in LTE coverage... I swear it seems like my phone plays tricks on me and flashes 4G in Maple Grove in areas that don't have coverage...

 

Or am I nuts...

 

By the way, I mapped the new little blip in Sensorly at Weaver Lake Rd and I-94 today during one of these "moments."

[supert0nes]

This could be a dumb question... is there ANY way that a phone can show 4G near the signal bars, but not ACTUALLY be in LTE coverage... I swear it seems like my phone plays tricks on me and flashes 4G in Maple Grove in areas that don't have coverage...

 

Or am I nuts...

 

By the way, I mapped the new little blip in Sensorly at Weaver Lake Rd and I-94 today during one of these "moments."

 

I'm very intrigued by this! I'll try to map around there this weekend. Oh and signal bars lie. There's a thread about that.

[chrisabaker]

I'm very intrigued by this! I'll try to map around there this weekend. Oh and signal bars lie. There's a thread about that.

 

VERY interesting... just read it... makes sense. There is also a good chunk up to 89th and Dunkirk area... could be bleed over from Bass/101 tower or 30/116 tower...?

[supert0nes]

I've noticed since getting LTE signal will do the funniest things. Driving up 694 through Brooklyn Center, i'll drive down a hill and lose 4g and a mile later and pop up and pick up the tower again.

[S4GRU]

First LTE site was accepted in La Crosse, Wisconsin today. http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/622-network-vision-site-map-minnesota-dakotas-milwaukee-and-north-wisconsin-markets/page__view__findpost__p__93116

 

Robert