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Network Vision/LTE - Upper Central Valley Market (Sacramento, Stockton, Redding, Eureka & Reno/Lake Tahoe)


iwalkthrowwalls

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The only issue I (and a huge number of individuals) have with the network deciding your band is when a device hops onto EVDO it takes an extremely long time before the device will scan and lock onto LTE. 

 

It's part network and part device. Most of the time if I notice I'm on 3G i'll toggle airplane mode and get back onto a LTE connection easily. It's just that it takes a long time if someone doesn't do that manually.

 

I followed up with sprint 72 hours later and they apparently were tracking the wrong address 72 hours ago. After explaining that i have a tower with band 25 down the street and getting kicked to 3g, ect. ect., they tossed me over to samsung. I had done everything but go to safemode which i did with the same results. They said poss. the sim card reader and wanted me to send it, 6-9 days. Not an expert but ive seen a phone with a bad reader and it gave me no sim notices and i didnt get any lte. Declined this option.

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Well well well. 

 

Looks like some of the sites in the City of Sacramento cluster around my home area got fired up for LTE 800 tonight for everyone to use. I've noticed the signal being detected by my phone via signalchecks adjacent sector setting with two identical PCI connections with slightly different RSRP but could never connect to the other one. 

 

Nice new years present this is. From a handful of LTE 800 active sites to almost every available site in about 4 weeks. 

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Well well well.

 

Looks like some of the sites in the City of Sacramento cluster around my home area got fired up for LTE 800 tonight for everyone to use. I've noticed the signal being detected by my phone via signalchecks adjacent sector setting with two identical PCI connections with slightly different RSRP but could never connect to the other one.

 

Nice new years present this is. From a handful of LTE 800 active sites to almost every available site in about 46weeks.

Crazy how fast Sacramento got rolled out!

 

Also all the 88r sites around my house and all over Sacramento for fired up also :)

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Well well well. 

 

Looks like some of the sites in the City of Sacramento cluster around my home area got fired up for LTE 800 tonight for everyone to use. I've noticed the signal being detected by my phone via signalchecks adjacent sector setting with two identical PCI connections with slightly different RSRP but could never connect to the other one. 

 

Nice new years present this is. From a handful of LTE 800 active sites to almost every available site in about 46weeks. 

Sprint is launching LTE 800 rather quickly all over Sacramento. I've noticed though however that when I am connected to B26/B25 via the same tower my RSSI(Signal Strength) is nearly the same via both B26/B25 on the same tower. You would think my signal strength would be greater on B26 from the same tower that is also broadcasting B25. I believe this is because Sprint is setting lower power settings on B25/B26 upon early site acceptances, so that they can roll out B26 really quickly and keep interference issues at a minimum. This is fine by me though because just having B26 is an immediate increase in network capacity. I think this is where next year in 2015 when Sprint starts focusing resources on site optimizations that we will see better signal strengths from B25/B26 as they slowly increase each sites transmit power...optimizing...and improving coverage/performance. This goes for all bands actually including B41. Optimizations are going to take some time just like the rip and replace of all the equipment has taken awhile, but I think once they start focusing resources on optimizations and not new equipment roll out it will go rather quickly considering permits/etc will no longer be involved. They can do a lot if not most of site optimizations remotely too without actually having to be at the site itself. They still need a guy/vehicle like the old Verizon Commerical (Can you hear me now? How about now?) that is out and about testing real world signal strengths in various places though as they do optimizations. Haha. Nice to see the progress really pick up speed before we go into the new year 2015!

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Was at Mercy hospital today and had great Clear B41 around that area and Band 26 indoors and out. 

 

Most Sprint sites are actively broadcasting B26 from what I observed and the network seemlessly handed me off between each band which I only noticed by checking Signalcheck Pro.

 

Clear B41 outside Mercy Hospital

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Sprint B26 inside and nearby.

 

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Was at Mercy hospital today and had great Clear B41 around that area and Band 26 indoors and out. 

 

Most Sprint sites are actively broadcasting B26 from what I observed and the network seemlessly handed me off between each band which I only noticed by checking Signalcheck Pro.

 

Clear B41 outside Mercy Hospital

 

 

Sprint B26 inside and nearby.

 

 

When I was therea month or so ago I had really fast Band 25 while my wife had 1x on Verizon.  It was nice for once to have the more usable phone. Sprint has come a long way.

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I work just down the street from the water tower on Peter A. McCuen Blvd. in Rancho Cordova (see photos of that site). For months I've had killer LTE signal and performance while at work. Today it's 3G-ville here. I'm hoping this is a sign that they're optimizing that site.

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I work just down the street from the water tower on Peter A. McCuen Blvd. in Rancho Cordova (see photos of that site). For months I've had killer LTE signal and performance while at work. Today it's 3G-ville here. I'm hoping this is a sign that they're optimizing that site.

Since Friday its been 3g or intermittent 4g throughout Sacramento

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how can I tell what band I'm on with the iPhone 6+?

Dial *3001#12345#* then press Call. This takes you to the Field Test app. Select "Serving Cell Info". Here you should see Freq Band Indicator and the current LTE band you are on. This value will be either 25,26, or 41. You can look at "Download Bandwidth" and it will tell you how wide the LTE channel is. In sac band 25/26 are both 5Mhz wide and band 41 is 20Mhz wide. 

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There's a major crazy outage here in cali. Seems to be affecting most of 209. Been roaming since 10 am. Seems to be affecting multiple carriers here in Lodi. So far I've seen Sprint, Verizon, and Metro affected. Estimated time for restoration for sprint at least is Friday at noon.

Anyone know what's up?

 

https://twitter.com/sprintcare/with_replies

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There's a major crazy outage here in cali. Seems to be affecting most of 209. Been roaming since 10 am. Seems to be affecting multiple carriers here in Lodi. So far I've seen Sprint, Verizon, and Metro affected. Estimated time for restoration for sprint at least is Friday at noon.

Anyone know what's up?

 

https://twitter.com/sprintcare/with_replies

 

Fiber cut possibly since it affects all the major carriers. 

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Market Situation Report... 1-28-2015

Of the 549 sites that exist in this market.. all have been upgraded to Samsung equipment.

Of those 549, 170 remains as 3G until backhaul is acquired with more than half being rural sites mainly situated along the highways. On the other side there are 379 sites that are 4G live. One site has been decomissioned and is currently replaced by a COW with a future permanent site being rebuilt at a future date.

LTE 800 was mass launched market wide beginning in November and now the vast majority of sites have it live though most are not yet optimized with performance similar to Band 25 LTE 1900. Even so it provides double the capacity compared to before and raised Band 25 speeds in some areas which was sub 1 mbps back over 1 mbps and made life more bearable for many that are not in range of Band 41.

Sprint 2.5 is being installed at a steady pace for Band 41 "Spark" while the old Clearwire network of 300+ sites situated within the urban confines of Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto are live also with Band 41 though performance varies depending on the backhaul sitaution of each individual site.

In summary, compared to 6 months ago, Sprint is now very usable in most areas of the market and is competitive with the other three in certain areas where one gets Band 41.

There's a lot to look foward to in the coming months now that the hard physical work is complete and it's a hell of an improvement compared to before. :)

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