Network Vision/LTE - West Kentucky Market (Louisville, Evansville, Bowling Green)

[AppleFanBoy]

Well it's been over a month since someone last posted in this thread. No news could be good news meaning that since this market is almost complete with 3G NV and close for LTE no one has any new site info or anything to complain about. I guess our next watch will be for those fancy B41 NSN setups to start popping up in the next year.

[AppleFanBoy]

FYI latest round of PRL updates for some phones have enabled real 3G roaming on Bluegrass Cellular. I think is a good thing for our market if you just want to check email or Facebook or download SMS attachments and in my IMO greatly increases Sprint coverage. However mind your data roaming limits.

[duddys31]

That is great cause bluegrass has great coverage in ky. I usually only get 1x roaming on their network past few times I was out of sprint native coverage. It would be absolutely amazing if bluegrass and sprint inked some kind of LTE roaming agreement between them. What prl were you on when getting 3g roaming?

[AppleFanBoy]

That is great cause bluegrass has great coverage in ky. I usually only get 1x roaming on their network past few times I was out of sprint native coverage. It would be absolutely amazing if bluegrass and sprint inked some kind of LTE roaming agreement between them. What prl were you on when getting 3g roaming?

 

PRL 51102 on a LG G2.  I saw posts in the Sprint PRL thread where people were getting 3G roaming on Verizon and decided to test at a location I always roam on BG and sure enough I was pulling down 2.3+ mbps and Signal Check showed CMDA instead of 1xRTT as it normally would.

 

I know BG is looking into the Roaming Hub so who knows roaming on BG LTE might happen!

[mdob07]

That is great cause bluegrass has great coverage in ky. I usually only get 1x roaming on their network past few times I was out of sprint native coverage. It would be absolutely amazing if bluegrass and sprint inked some kind of LTE roaming agreement between them. What prl were you on when getting 3g roaming?

 

 

PRL 51102 on a LG G2.  I saw posts in the Sprint PRL thread where people were getting 3G roaming on Verizon and decided to test at a location I always roam on BG and sure enough I was pulling down 2.3+ mbps and Signal Check showed CMDA instead of 1xRTT as it normally would.

 

I know BG is looking into the Roaming Hub so who knows roaming on BG LTE might happen!

This will help me a lot! I travel the KY parkways a lot for work, and large stretches are roaming on BG. I would love for Sprint to buy them out but that will probably never happen. Can't wait to see LTE roaming.

[AppleFanBoy]

This will help me a lot! I travel the KY parkways a lot for work, and large stretches are roaming on BG. I would love for Sprint to buy them out but that will probably happen. Can't wait to see LTE roaming.

 

Unfortunately BG operates on LTE bands that most of the current Sprint phones do not support.  I had a back and for with AJ on this and he educated me on the on what the circumstances would have to be: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/5684-sprint-to-join-rural-operators-roaming-hub-cca-and-rrpp-thread/page-14&do=findComment&comment=337405

 

Read on down to the last couple of posts from AJ to me about this.

Edited August 22, 2014 by AppleFanBoy

[AppleFanBoy]

Look what I found in Louisville today near Jefferson Mall.

 

 

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[mdob07]

Look what I found in Louisville today near Jefferson Mall. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1416092881.806684.jpg

 

 

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That one has been on for awhile, but speeds have not been too great. We have several more tracked b41 sites in the premier thread.

[AppleFanBoy]

That one has been on for awhile, but speeds have not been too great. We have several more tracked b41 sites in the premier thread.

Kind of figured I wasn't the first to see B41 in Louisville but thought this thread has been dormant for way too long.

 

 

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Edited November 16, 2014 by AppleFanBoy

[AppleFanBoy]

Elizabethtown!

 

 

One bar almost 12 Mbps!

 

 

 

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Edited November 20, 2014 by AppleFanBoy

[duddys31]

Has anyone seen how they are installing these new b41 sites in a market? I just wonder if they will just do overburdened sites or the whole network like with b26 and b25.

[pforst]

Has anyone seen how they are installing these new b41 sites in a market? I just wonder if they will just do overburdened sites or the whole network like with b26 and b25.

So far most of the B41 installs are right in line with the known schedule that is available in the Premier thread. I don't know if the scheduled sites were already in the pipeline before the shift in focus to overburdened sites and key markets. If I was to take a guess, most of the current B41 sites were probably already permitted and scheduled prior to shift. I would also bet that we are at least a year out or more before we start seeing anything near a whole market build out of B41 just due to equipment shortages and our market status.

 

In my opinion, B26 (outside of the few main metro areas) and especially the potential CCA agreements are key to providing better overall service in the market. If they fire up B41 on some strategic towers in the metro areas to provide capacity then the current network in the less populated areas can likely survive for a few quarters.

[pforst]

Beginning to wonder if we have techs in the area starting to optimize the network. In the past 2 days my B25 signal at home has increased by about 8-10 dBm. I'm usually sitting around -87 to -92 according to SignalCheck compared to the upper 90s that I've had since B26 was flipped on. It could be the winter weather and lack of leaves but I did see a white Jeep parked at the tower earlier this week.

 

Anyone else noticing improved signal levels around town?

[mdob07]

Beginning to wonder if we have techs in the area starting to optimize the network. In the past 2 days my B25 signal at home has increased by about 8-10 dBm. I'm usually sitting around -87 to -92 according to SignalCheck compared to the upper 90s that I've had since B26 was flipped on. It could be the winter weather and lack of leaves but I did see a white Jeep parked at the tower earlier this week.

 

Anyone else noticing improved signal levels around town?

I haven't yet but I hope they work on B41 at the same time if that's what they are doing. Most of the sites are still at low power levels.

[duddys31]

I think that everything is going pretty good around here . We have b41 on three sites so far so things are looking better all the time I think.

[mdob07]

Any news on the Shepherdsville site ?

 

 

Nothing yet. I check it at least once per week. The only sign of NV work at the site is the Windstream fiber that was ran over a year ago. I think at this point it has to be some sort of permitting or engineering issue specific to Shepherdsville with the city. Several of the neighboring towers are similar structures (water towers) and have been upgraded either as a full build site or as a GMO. Those close sites also are using Windstream fiber so I doubt there is an issue with that. Even if there was an issue with backhaul, they have been converting the sites and 3G accepting the equipment using the old T1 lines. The fact that there is not a trace of work leads me to believe that the city is holding something up. 

 

This site needs NV badly. Tonight at 11:30 in the middle of town EvDo was so bad I could not stream spotify on the lowest quality settings at all. Couldn't even get my email to update. This site seems to be way overburdened, which is a bit shocking seeing that all of its neighboring sites are broadcasting LTE. These sites bleed significantly into this cells territory, which should help to relieve some of the stress from this site. The fact that it is still under performing so badly means that either there is just not enough T1s bonded together, or that there is a data abuser somewhere on the cell sucking up the bandwidth. I think (hope) it is the first one, meaning that Sprint is not adding additional T1s to the site as they are getting ready to rip out the old equipment anyway. This site has been bad for as far as I can remember. I have to use my tmo hot spot if I need data in town. As soon as I go north, south, or east, I pick LTE back up. Its a fairly small area that this site still serves for 3G. 

 

Long story short, I have no idea what the issue is, but I hope it gets resolved quickly. 

 

 

Still no change for this site. Besides fiber, there is absolutely no sign that an upgrade is even planned. Going on 15 months now since I noticed the Windstream fiber. All of the other sites that were pulled around the same time have been active for 6 months or more. It pretty much has to be a city issue at this point. I wish I knew someone within engineering. If the city is giving them too much grief on their current location, then there is an actual cell tower not more than 1/4 mile from the current site where every other carrier is setup. There is plenty of space at the same elevation or even much higher that the current setup. I got another message from Sprint telling me that they are upgrading one of the towers I use most, hopefully it means this one. I'll check it again at the end of the week when I get back from Nashville.

 

Update on Shepherdsville site, still no changes to this site as far as I can tell. Its getting close to the two year mark of Windstream trenching in fiber to this site. Its sad that so many sites have been converted but are waiting on backhaul to turn on LTE while this site sits 100% legacy with fiber waiting for almost two years. Hopefully something will happen after the first of the year. I have noticed a few GMOs and some of the other remaining legacy sites have appeared on the NV schedule in the premier sponsors section.  

[asomers]

Im curious as to where you find an application filled for a site upgrade. Is it filed with the fcc? And how would you search for it?

[bgguy]

It depends on the location.  Here in BG most building permits are printed by the paper (though I've never seen one for cell sites).  Some places you can find them on city/county webpages.

[caspar347]

Have there been any reports of Ericsson lowering power levels of Band 25 in the Louisville area over the past few months? I'm sitting in my grandparents' house on -118dbm average where I had about -107 average back in April when I last visited.

[pforst]

Have there been any reports of Ericsson lowering power levels of Band 25 in the Louisville area over the past few months? I'm sitting in my grandparents' house on -118dbm average where I had about -107 average back in April when I last visited.

We saw some reduction in B25 signal strength when they flipped the switch for B26...usually in the 8-10 dBm range. However in the past few months, I've seen the B25 signal revert back to the pre-B26 levels. I was hoping it was them optimizing the new work but that hasn't panned out yet.

[caspar347]

We saw some reduction in B25 signal strength when they flipped the switch for B26...usually in the 8-10 dBm range. However in the past few months, I've seen the B25 signal revert back to the pre-B26 levels. I was hoping it was them optimizing the new work but that hasn't panned out yet.

That seems completely unnecessary (typical Ericsson, I already miss ALU) but at least it sounds like they're working on reverting it.

[pforst]

That seems completely unnecessary (typical Ericsson, I already miss ALU) but at least it sounds like they're working on reverting it.

B41 has been popping up all over the Louisville area so hopefully once it's more widespread, they can get a tech to start optimizing all 3 bands. I still spend most of my time on B25 even when in range of active B41 and occasionally switch to B26.

[mdob07]

LTE should be going live soon in Shepherdsville finally. Noticed today they relocated to a different location and installed new equipment.

 

Pictures and more details in the sponsors thread.

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4956-kentucky-nashville-maps-and-stats/?p=393703

[iceee]

Anyone else have any thoughts of when Spark will make its way to Louisville?

[mdob07]

Lots of B41 around already, just not official yet.