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Network Vision/LTE - Rochester Market (Rochester, New York)


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Rochester...a tale of two cities. It used to have a thriving middle class. Like most major rust belt cities. The middle class fled with the jobs, leaving just the poor and the upper middle class/wealthy class.

 

Rochester still fared better than most other rust belt cities because it had a much larger white collar base than other similar cities. Otherwise it could have been a lot worse. But if it had diversified better in the 70's, it could have fared much better, retaining more of its middle class, and preventing the middle class holdouts who didn't leave from dropping into the poverty zone.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

I agree Rochester has faired for the most part, one thing that drives people away is taxes and the cost of living in NY state is bad (NYC hurts upstate). The other thing is Winter, the great lakes make it worse here.

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Jobs are coming back but its mainly health related jobs, some manufacturing. Kodak is well under 1,000 people there from what I hear. B&L well thats a sore subject for a lot of people in Rochester.... B&L got bought out by some company in NJ and laying off people in Rochester.

 

That's what this lady mentioned. Largest employer was now a university? I chuckled a bit and she said that included 'University' hospital(s). ROC airport is comfortable at least :)
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It's still a pretty noteable optics hub, and is economically more diversified than most other cities in New York. I live practically right next to Murphy's Law and I've never dropped LTE around here on my Nexus 5, not even in Murphy's Law. I have issues with slow ass speeds during the day because the network is crowded as hell, but other than that I can't say I've shared your experience around this specific area.

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Rochester still fared better than most other rust belt cities because it had a much larger white collar base than other similar cities.

 

If anything, Rochester was not a Rust Belt city -- or it was an anomaly in the Rust Belt region.  For many years, Rochester was something of a Silicon Valley of the Northeast -- with an emphasis on imaging technology.  Headquartered in Rochester, Eastman Kodak and Xerox were world leading giants in their fields, but both failed to keep up with technology and have fallen on hard times.  Rochester has severely felt their pain.

 

AJ

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If anything, Rochester was not a Rust Belt city -- or it was an anomaly in the Rust Belt region. For many years, Rochester was something of a Silicon Valley of the Northeast -- with an emphasis on imaging technology. Headquartered in Rochester, Eastman Kodak and Xerox were world leading giants in their fields, but both failed to keep up with technology and have fallen on hard times. Rochester has severely felt their pain.

 

AJ

There is still a lot going on in the optics field in the area though, including research done by the University of Rochester, as well as other optics based companies around here. The city is definitely an anomaly, though.
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There is still a lot going on in the optics field in the area though, including research done by the University of Rochester, as well as other optics based companies around here. The city is definitely an anomaly, though.

 

Yes, but my understanding is that the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology became well regarded science and engineering schools in large part because of the local presence of Kodak, Xerox, etc.  With those companies fading, will the schools continue to thrive?  Or will they take hits -- funding, reputation, enrollment -- and start to decline, too?

 

I think that Rochester may be remembered as a 20th century boomtown.  But sooner or later, the gold runs out.  For Rochester, it was George Eastman who yelled "Eureka!"  And it is the gold colored boxes of film that have run out.

 

For wireless relevance, Rochester is forever frozen in time at the FCC as CMA034 -- the 34th largest Cellular Market Area at the time of the 1980 Census.  Now, almost no one thinks of the Rochester metro area as that prominent.  Indeed, if current figures were used, Rochester would be 51st.

 

AJ

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If anything, Rochester was not a Rust Belt city -- or it was an anomaly in the Rust Belt region.  For many years, Rochester was something of a Silicon Valley of the Northeast -- with an emphasis on imaging technology.  Headquartered in Rochester, Eastman Kodak and Xerox were world leading giants in their fields, but both failed to keep up with technology and have fallen on hard times.  Rochester has severely felt their pain.

 

AJ

 

Yes.  And these companies, and many more, had huge manufacturing and warehousing facilities that offered the lion's share of the jobs.  Today's Silicon Valley does not have the manufacturing base like Rochester of the 50's, 60's and 70's did.  I don't want to under sell the significant vintage tech sector that Rochester had.  I made reference to it with my significant white collar population comment.  

 

However, Rochester is still a rust belt city because those middle class tech manufacturing jobs at IBM, Xerox, Kodak and others are long gone.  Probably more than 100,000 of these jobs.  In some ways, the white collar jobs stayed longer and some even still survive, as they outsourced manufacturing to non Union parts of the country or overseas.

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That's what this lady mentioned. Largest employer was now a university? I chuckled a bit and she said that included 'University' hospital(s). ROC airport is comfortable at least :)

The U of R is the biggest Employer in the Rochester area yes. 

 

It's still a pretty noteable optics hub, and is economically more diversified than most other cities in New York. I live practically right next to Murphy's Law and I've never dropped LTE around here on my Nexus 5, not even in Murphy's Law. I have issues with slow ass speeds during the day because the network is crowded as hell, but other than that I can't say I've shared your experience around this specific area.

Sometimes it depends on your device, I agree.

 

If anything, Rochester was not a Rust Belt city -- or it was an anomaly in the Rust Belt region.  For many years, Rochester was something of a Silicon Valley of the Northeast -- with an emphasis on imaging technology.  Headquartered in Rochester, Eastman Kodak and Xerox were world leading giants in their fields, but both failed to keep up with technology and have fallen on hard times.  Rochester has severely felt their pain.

 

AJ

I agree!! Unfortunately Kodak is almost gone, Xerox is not doing as much as what they were really known for (copying and such). Technology took over a lot, and Kodak was into film, not many people use film anymore but if you want a taste of history, Eastman Kodak has a awesome museum, I haven't been to but its not that far from me but I plan on visiting soon. Also, like I said before taxes and cost of living in NY state. 

 

Yes, but my understanding is that the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology became well regarded science and engineering schools in large part because of the local presence of Kodak, Xerox, etc.  With those companies fading, will the schools continue to thrive?  Or will they take hits -- funding, reputation, enrollment -- and start to decline, too?

 

I think that Rochester may be remembered as a 20th century boomtown.  But sooner or later, the gold runs out.  For Rochester, it was George Eastman who yelled "Eureka!"  And it is the gold colored boxes of film that have run out.

 

For wireless relevance, Rochester is forever frozen in time at the FCC as CMA034 -- the 34th largest Cellular Market Area at the time of the 1980 Census.  Now, almost no one thinks of the Rochester metro area as that prominent.  Indeed, if current figures were used, Rochester would be 51st.

 

AJ

yup!!

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I hope that Rochester can get back on its feet. New York has virtually one notable city. Being the 4th largest state in the county (in terms of population) it sucks that when you ask somebody about NY, they tend to immediately think of NYC. 

 

I hope that one day people will think "NYC, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers..." the same way we think about California, Texas, or Florida and are able to list a bunch of large notable cities.

 

EDIT: I guess it doesn't help that there are 23 Million+ people in the NYC metro area alone.

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I hope that Rochester can get back on its feet. New York has virtually one notable city. Being the 4th largest state in the county (in terms of population) it sucks that when you ask somebody about NY, they tend to immediately think of NYC. 

 

I hope that one day people will think "NYC, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers..." the same way we think about California, Texas, or Florida and are able to list a bunch of large notable cities.

Yes I agree, when I go and vacation I always have to say the city in NY state I am closest to (Rochester) because if I just say NY or even upstate NY people still think NYC. 

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Kodak still has large swaths of tape in warehouses, I believe before they stopped manufacturing they over produced and stored enough for what they considered to be 100 years of sales. The film I'm talking about is the expensive stuff previously (and sometimes still, though increasingly not) used in movies. I don't think they'll probably get the chance to sell most of it, though. Kodak had a pretty terrible time with the advent of digital imagery in general, and their huge film stock is just another ironic piece of "imagery" illustrating their failure to predict the influence of digital cameras.

 

I know a lot of people who were laid off from Kodak, and I even know one or two past executives of the company. Once upon a time, it was the bee's knee's to work there. Excellent pay, great benefits, and job security (so they thought) were the order of the day. It is only in today's world that the "image" of the word Kodak is turning from sour to nostalgic, in my opinion. The layoffs ruined a lot of people's lives. Like Josh said above me, I highly recommend a visit to the George Eastman house if you're in the area, it's a very neat place.

 

In terms of cellular service, I'm just glad at this point we have Band 41. I wish Sprint would take steps to improve network capacity, but I also understand that the market is not a priority for them, or for most others. While something of a hub in upstate NY, we are neither the only city, nor significant on a national scale. In addition to capacity, 800 is badly needed to improve coverage indoors. Until some of these things come to fruition, Sprint in Rochester will be mediocre at best. Better than the other carriers in lots of places, horrible in others, and par in general seems to be what we are going to get.

 

The other notable issue is the areas surrounding Rochester still have no LTE. Whether or not this is because of backhaul, or lack of interest, this causes the customer experience to suffer. Rochester has a lot of bedroom communities, where people live away from the city and work in it. There are a lot of commuters here. I think Sprint's image in the area would be strongly improved if people had LTE in most of the places they spend their time, even if they aren't actively using it. As it stands, those who have VZW can go home and they have LTE, just like they did at work. If they go to the grocery store in their town and want to look something up, they know their wireless service will be fast and reliable. Many Sprint customers can only count on that if they work AND live in a high traffic area, because that seems to be Sprint's focus. And while it makes good sense to upgrade and pay attention to those areas, in the Rochester market broader LTE coverage is also important.

 

On a closing note, I do think this is a good place to live. There is excellent food, unique culture, and at least a little bit of opportunity still to be had here. Try and enjoy it while it lasts and who knows, it just might.

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Coverage has improved dramatically in the last year on the east side.  We've gone from lots of dead spots and very poor 3g to very few dead spots and enough data to stream spotify.  I have not dropped a call in a long time...that used to happen at least once a week before the upgrades started.  I'm still looking forward to 800mhz and being able to have fast data in most places.

 

This is a pretty good place to raise a family.  I grew up in LA, went to college and worked in Boston, and then a few years in Auburn AL, and Ann Arbor MI before moving here.  It does get cold but I've lived in one place that was consistently colder.  Summers are great here...long days and not too hot or too cool. People are friendly and helpful. And there is close to zero traffic.  I tell my LA friends that I what I consider bad traffic is having to use my brakes on the highway before the off ramp.  Our rush hour is their 10pm traffic.  Our 10pm traffic is their 3am traffic. 

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Kodak still has large swaths of tape in warehouses, I believe before they stopped manufacturing they over produced and stored enough for what they considered to be 100 years of sales. The film I'm talking about is the expensive stuff previously (and sometimes still, though increasingly not) used in movies. I don't think they'll probably get the chance to sell most of it, though. Kodak had a pretty terrible time with the advent of digital imagery in general, and their huge film stock is just another ironic piece of "imagery" illustrating their failure to predict the influence of digital cameras.

 

Yes, this is largely correct.  Hollywood is keeping Kodak's film business alive.  Over the next few years, several of the major studios have agreed to guaranteed purchases of film -- enough to ensure that Kodak's film manufacturing remains at least break even viable.  The studios have made this move in large part to keep happy many established filmmakers -- Spielberg, Nolan, Abrams, Tarantino, et al. -- who prefer to shoot on film stock instead of via digital capture.  Additionally, the rest of the world is not as far along in the transition to digital projection, so Kodak also continues to manufacture print stock for film distribution in developing countries.  That said, Kodak has ceased all new film research and development.  The film products that Kodak still offers are the final state of the art -- they will never be improved further.

 

AJ

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Yes I agree, when I go and vacation I always have to say the city in NY state I am closest to (Rochester) because if I just say NY or even upstate NY people still think NYC. 

 

Yeah, they probably think you're from Peekskill or something lol. People's perceptions are dreadfully inaccurate -- it's a city-state to most of the country. If you're in Downstate NY, everyone automatically assumes that if it's north of White Plains or New Rochelle it's just "upstate NY". 

 

Then again, being from e.g. New Jersey and going on vacation is not any better, in fact that can be worse.  :rolleyes:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Kodak still has large swaths of tape in warehouses, I believe before they stopped manufacturing they over produced and stored enough for what they considered to be 100 years of sales. The film I'm talking about is the expensive stuff previously (and sometimes still, though increasingly not) used in movies. I don't think they'll probably get the chance to sell most of it, though. Kodak had a pretty terrible time with the advent of digital imagery in general, and their huge film stock is just another ironic piece of "imagery" illustrating their failure to predict the influence of digital cameras.

 

I know a lot of people who were laid off from Kodak, and I even know one or two past executives of the company. Once upon a time, it was the bee's knee's to work there. Excellent pay, great benefits, and job security (so they thought) were the order of the day. It is only in today's world that the "image" of the word Kodak is turning from sour to nostalgic, in my opinion. The layoffs ruined a lot of people's lives. Like Josh said above me, I highly recommend a visit to the George Eastman house if you're in the area, it's a very neat place.

 

In terms of cellular service, I'm just glad at this point we have Band 41. I wish Sprint would take steps to improve network capacity, but I also understand that the market is not a priority for them, or for most others. While something of a hub in upstate NY, we are neither the only city, nor significant on a national scale. In addition to capacity, 800 is badly needed to improve coverage indoors. Until some of these things come to fruition, Sprint in Rochester will be mediocre at best. Better than the other carriers in lots of places, horrible in others, and par in general seems to be what we are going to get.

 

The other notable issue is the areas surrounding Rochester still have no LTE. Whether or not this is because of backhaul, or lack of interest, this causes the customer experience to suffer. Rochester has a lot of bedroom communities, where people live away from the city and work in it. There are a lot of commuters here. I think Sprint's image in the area would be strongly improved if people had LTE in most of the places they spend their time, even if they aren't actively using it. As it stands, those who have VZW can go home and they have LTE, just like they did at work. If they go to the grocery store in their town and want to look something up, they know their wireless service will be fast and reliable. Many Sprint customers can only count on that if they work AND live in a high traffic area, because that seems to be Sprint's focus. And while it makes good sense to upgrade and pay attention to those areas, in the Rochester market broader LTE coverage is also important.

 

On a closing note, I do think this is a good place to live. There is excellent food, unique culture, and at least a little bit of opportunity still to be had here. Try and enjoy it while it lasts and who knows, it just might.

 

 

IIRC, "Rochester Telephone" had set up cell towers way back when in the area.  Eventually, I think these got sold to VZW, so they had a head start in the area.

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Rochester Telephone became Frontier then the cellular branch becam Bell Atlantic Mobile then Verizon Wireless.

 

It became so difficult to keep the billing correct on my legacy Frontier plan that I switched to Sprint.

 

After I graduated from RIT in 1983, I took a job with my current employer.  At my suggestion, the owner now has a Sprint tower on the roof that pays for the campus utilities. :-)

 

I turned down an interview with Kodak shortly after accepting the job and my many Kodak friends thought I was nuts.  Only 2 still work for Kodak today.

 

I believe that Kodak developed the imager/sensor technology that started the digital camera revolution.  They made a strategic misjudgement of how fast the market would change that was fatal.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak#Shift_to_digital

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Rochester Telephone became Frontier then the cellular branch becam Bell Atlantic Mobile then Verizon Wireless.

 

It became so difficult to keep the billing correct on my legacy Frontier plan that I switched to Sprint.

 

After I graduated from RIT in 1983, I took a job with my current employer.  At my suggestion, the owner now has a Sprint tower on the roof that pays for the campus utilities. :-)

 

I turned down an interview with Kodak shortly after accepting the job and my many Kodak friends thought I was nuts.  Only 2 still work for Kodak today.

 

I believe that Kodak developed the imager/sensor technology that started the digital camera revolution.  They made a strategic misjudgement of how fast the market would change that was fatal.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak#Shift_to_digital

 

 

Yeah, I didn't quite remember the lineage, but know that the local phone company (whatever they were called at the time) built towers that ended up as VZW towers. 

 

Kodak is definitely a poster child for epic failure.

 

I always wonder what it would have been like if they actually had gotten into digital photography/printing/software earlier and gave it the investments it needed.  There are a couple of guys that attend our LUGOR meetings that worked in the Digital Movie group and some of the stuff they were doing was cutting edge at the time but the higher ups never continued development of the projects.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello test

 

If you are looking for your two earlier posts, staff has removed them.  S4GRU does not take "3G" site reports from members -- unless there is a conflict with our internal site reports that needs to be investigated.

 

We know which sites are now "4G" or still "3G."  We track and map that info in our sponsor section.  But you refuse to become a sponsor, so you do not have access to that info.

 

AJ

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Sprint network.......right now im in sodus and sodus point.....no 4g anyware here...

 

We know that the two Sprint sites proximate to Sodus have only "3G" upgrades thus far.  That info is precisely on our sponsors maps.  Even the Sprint coverage tool shows no LTE, only "3G" right now in Sodus.  So, you have no reason to post this.  What is your point?  

 

Consider this your final warning.  Stop with the passive aggressive posts.  Otherwise, you will be gone from S4GRU.

 

AJ

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  • 3 weeks later...
I live in Brighton near 12 corners.  I've been up for an upgrade for a 4-5 months now.  I have an HTC One M7 and my wife has a Galaxy S4.  The last year or so, she consistently gets LTE when I am standing/sitting feet away do not.  We ran some errands in Henrietta yesterday so I did some "tests".  I had both phones on me and a few times she had LTE and I didn't.  Once was outside Home Depot on Jefferson.
 
A few questions...
 
Is this an issue with the HTC One compared to other phones?  I have updated all the software, PRLs, etc. 
 
Spark...is that something working now in Rochester?  
 
I've been android the last few phones but I'm looking at possibly moving to an iPhone once their new phone is announced next month (I'm hoping the base model moves from 16 to 32GB since my One is 32GB)  Have people fared well with a consistent LTE connection in the city/east side with iPhones?  
 

 

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I live in Brighton near 12 corners.  I've been up for an upgrade for a 4-5 months now.  I have an HTC One M7 and my wife has a Galaxy S4.  The last year or so, she consistently gets LTE when I am standing/sitting feet away do not.  We ran some errands in Henrietta yesterday so I did some "tests".  I had both phones on me and a few times she had LTE and I didn't.  Once was outside Home Depot on Jefferson.
 
A few questions...
 
Is this an issue with the HTC One compared to other phones?  I have updated all the software, PRLs, etc. 
 
Spark...is that something working now in Rochester?  
 
I've been android the last few phones but I'm looking at possibly moving to an iPhone once their new phone is announced next month (I'm hoping the base model moves from 16 to 32GB since my One is 32GB)  Have people fared well with a consistent LTE connection in the city/east side with iPhones?  

 

 

Well, don't HTC phones have weaker antennas or that has been my experience with the EVO 4g LTE (model before the M7).

 

What might help is a more modern phone that supports Sprint's 3 main LTE bands now.  The M7 only supports one.  I had a LG Volt that did well in the area.  I do not know if the iphone currently (or will support) supports that.

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