How long, once technician begins work, to complete tower upgrade?

[iScReAm612]

Lets say permits, regulations, blah blah blah has been completed at a site, and a technician actually arrives on site to begin work. Whats a rough time frame that it takes for the site to be completed? I know a lot of sites are different, so different factors can contribute. I am just interested in developing a guestimate. I am in Omaha, NE and ive been told work has actually begun at several sites.

 

[TyrellCorpse]

I don't know how long but a couple weeks ago Omaha didn't show up on Sensorly maps and not it's appearing in several areas...

http://sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint

[lilotimz]

Lets say permits, regulations, blah blah blah has been completed at a site, and a technician actually arrives on site to begin work. Whats a rough time frame that it takes for the site to be completed? I know a lot of sites are different, so different factors can contribute. I am just interested in developing a guestimate. I am in Omaha, NE and ive been told work has actually begun at several sites.

 

A little over a week in the best case scenario to over 15 months. 

[iScReAm612]

A little over a week in the best case scenario to over 15 months. 

 

So if you're saying it could be 15 months, and sprint was saying work is underway, then I can expect to have crappy 3G and very spotty 4g service in omaha for up to the next 2 years? Why would i want to renew my contract with Sprint when AT&T and Verizon has had immaculate service in my area for over 2 years? =(

[Rukin1]

Eh one tower here took a year lol.

[peteyz24]

They sneaked in and installed cabinets and new antennas and had it 3g accepted in 3 days on a site by me.  That was almost 2 months ago.  Still no LTE.  Damn Time Warner hasn't hooked up the back haul yet.  Or they haven't been back to turn it on and test it.  I prefer to blame TWC though.

[milan03]

In NYC it takes two days for T-Mobile crew to upgrade the existing site for example. To build a brand new site, takes about 30 days. I would assume it should take about the same for Sprint crew to upgrade their existing rooftop site. 

 

Just came back from one of the sites, had an opportunity to speak with the crew members. 

[S4GRU]

 

 

A little over a week in the best case scenario to over 15 months.

 

 

So if you're saying it could be 15 months, and sprint was saying work is underway, then I can expect to have crappy 3G and very spotty 4g service in omaha for up to the next 2 years? Why would i want to renew my contract with Sprint when AT&T and Verizon has had immaculate service in my area for over 2 years? =(

Or it could just be a few days. *sigh*

 

The odds are you're not going to be one of the 15 month sites. Sites being done this year are going MUCH FASTER. These extremely long sites have been a very small handful. Maybe a dozen or two nationwide. And it's because of things outside of Sprint control. Not a conscience choice.

 

Most sites take 2-3 weeks. And these later to start markets like yours have a much larger percentage of average time to convert sites.

 

When will your specific site be done and how long will it take? We don't know. We will not suggest you hang around and keep Sprint. That choice is yours. However, to leave while your market is being upgraded doesn't seem like a good move now.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[Deval]

So if you're saying it could be 15 months, and sprint was saying work is underway, then I can expect to have crappy 3G and very spotty 4g service in omaha for up to the next 2 years? Why would i want to renew my contract with Sprint when AT&T and Verizon has had immaculate service in my area for over 2 years? =(

 

You don't have to, you can port out.

 

Others have chosen to stick it out. I've seen a site go from working, to crap, to working, within a two week span. 

[Xlegendxero]

So if you're saying it could be 15 months, and sprint was saying work is underway, then I can expect to have crappy 3G and very spotty 4g service in omaha for up to the next 2 years? Why would i want to renew my contract with Sprint when AT&T and Verizon has had immaculate service in my area for over 2 years? =(

15 months would be worst case scenario. a complete upgrade starting with equipment install to complete broadcasting will take a few months. Near my work, i spoke with a contractor that was in the process of installing the new NV equipment. that was back on April 5th. As far as I know, that site finally began broadcasting LTE on July 1st. (Sprint claimed 3G was upgraded even earlier, and I was connected to 800 by late April/early May. ) So yes, 15 months is alot, but that is worst case. Best scenario would be less than six months. the time will vary as others have stated.

 

Keep in mind, Sprint is not keeping you against your will to continue service with them. You are free to cancel and move to a different provider if the service is not meeting your needs.

[Dkoellerwx]

So if you're saying it could be 15 months, and sprint was saying work is underway, then I can expect to have crappy 3G and very spotty 4g service in omaha for up to the next 2 years? Why would i want to renew my contract with Sprint when AT&T and Verizon has had immaculate service in my area for over 2 years? =(

 

I don't foresee the same issues we've seen in other ares occurring in Omaha. And those issues have been few and far between. Even if one tower does take 15 months, it's likely there are enough other towers in the area to fill in the gap.

[MrZorbatron]

They sneaked in and installed cabinets and new antennas and had it 3g accepted in 3 days on a site by me.  That was almost 2 months ago.  Still no LTE.  Damn Time Warner hasn't hooked up the back haul yet.  Or they haven't been back to turn it on and test it.  I prefer to blame TWC though.

They did the reverse of that near me, in Clarkston, MI, at I-75 and M-15.  No activity at all, no new hardware, neither cabinets or on tower, as of under two weeks ago.  About a week ago, less than a week after I checked it out, all the new hardware is installed and the site is online with LTE.

[iScReAm612]

So when all updates are said and done, can we expect Sprints new network to be faster and more efficient than any other network? I saw in PC mag that AT&T dominated as far as speed, with verizon not very far behind at all. Of course Sprint was last, but they expressed dramatic signs of improvement

[S4GRU]

 

 

So if you're saying it could be 15 months, and sprint was saying work is underway, then I can expect to have crappy 3G and very spotty 4g service in omaha for up to the next 2 years? Why would i want to renew my contract with Sprint when AT&T and Verizon has had immaculate service in my area for over 2 years? =(

 

 

15 months would be worst case scenario. a complete upgrade starting with equipment install to complete broadcasting will take a few months. Near my work, i spoke with a contractor that was in the process of installing the new NV equipment. that was back on April 5th. As far as I know, that site finally began broadcasting LTE on July 1st. (Sprint claimed 3G was upgraded even earlier, and I was connected to 800 by late April/early May. ) So yes, 15 months is alot, but that is worst case. Best scenario would be less than six months. the time will vary as others have stated.

 

Keep in mind, Sprint is not keeping you against your will to continue service with them. You are free to cancel and move to a different provider if the service is not meeting your needs.

The best case scenario in a Samsung market is not 6 months, but can be as little as a few days from start off work to LTE being fired up.

 

Robert from Note 2 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

[Dkoellerwx]

So when all updates are said and done, can we expect Sprints new network to be faster and more efficient than any other network? I saw in PC mag that AT&T dominated as far as speed, with verizon not very far behind at all. Of course Sprint was last, but they expressed dramatic signs of improvement

 

It may not necessarily be the fastest, but it will be a very strong network. The max speed on Sprint's LTE network is 37.5Mbps.

 

This is slower than the max possible on say, Verizon, but when you combine the speed with the fact that Sprint will have at least two LTE networks overlaid on each other (PCS and SMR) which will expand their footprint and allow for better in build reception, they will have more capacity than Verizon, meaning speeds will not tank like they have on Verizon lately. 

 

In addition, Clearwire (soon to be owned by Sprint) is working on setting up LTE "hotspots" in high capacity, urban areas. Their network will likely be capable of delivering speeds of 60+Mbps at times. 

 

So Sprint's new network may not be the fastest overall, but with low ping times and a dense network, it should provide a great end user experience. 

[MrZorbatron]

So when all updates are said and done, can we expect Sprints new network to be faster and more efficient than any other network? I saw in PC mag that AT&T dominated as far as speed, with verizon not very far behind at all. Of course Sprint was last, but they expressed dramatic signs of improvement

Sprint will not be the fastest in terms of out and out speed to a single user, though will likely end up with the highest capacity in at least half of places due both to number of separate LTE carriers in a given market and to PCS cell spacing.  Imagine 2-3 5x5 channels, each with its 38Mbps capacity that a phone could select between to distribute loading.  Modern base station hardware can balance loading by essentially kicking a device off of a more crowded channel and onto one with lighter load.

 

What would you rather have?

 

Fewer larger channels can have higher peak speeds to fewer devices, but there is much less inherent load balancing.  A crazy user could slow everyone else down.  50 megabit speed to a phone is more or less useless.  It's like putting a Corvette engine in a Yugo.  It's more speed than you could need and more power than you could even keep on the pavement.  

 

More and narrower channels can have the same capacity, though individual users on an uncrowded network would not be able to access as much of it.  10MHz channels can offer up to 76Mbps in raw capacity.  While this will look good on paper and in reviews, you are holding a phone in your hand, not a server.  Additionally, a small number of idiots could bring the entire 10x10 channel to a crawl through programs that create excessive numbers of TCP/IP connections.

 

This is the problem I ran into recently in an apartment complex that my company recently wired for central high speed internet, to be included with rent (along with all other utilities).  It's fed by a 100Mbps connection.  There are 22 units.  One would think that that is more than enough speed to go around, and it was all great until we started getting complaints of slow service to the point that college students were unable to stream lectures (under 800Kbps).  When I went through the statistics on the router and switches, I found that the capacity was being all used up.  My solution was to limit the switches in each building to 8192Kbps to one port in each unit, or a little over 8 megabits, and 4096Kbps to the other, giving each unit a maximum capacity of 12 Mbps.  Even though this is still far more than the total bandwidth available by about 175%, the complaints of slow service immediately ended.  The difference between ports was explained clearly.

 

A solid 5-6 Mbps with low latency would have most cellular users extremely happy.  The only way they would ever know the difference would be if downloading something huge.  I can personally say that I have done some pretty big downloads such as computer security tool updates, OS updates, etc, on Sprint's LTE and WiMAX networks, but I use a utility that throttles download rate and connection count.  I just let them run while I am in the car and as long as the download is finished by the time I get where I am going, a limit of 4 megabits serves me well in downloading Dr. Web CureIT, at 110 MB, in under 15 minutes.

 

Incidentally, before anyone starts accusing me of abusing the network, I DID run this by Sprint before i started doing it.  They told me that this is acceptable within the unlimited data smartphone plan as long as I am doing this download or streaming of content onto the phone to be later transferred off, and not onto a device tethered to it by USB or wifi.  My monthly data use typically runs from 1.5 to 4 GB.

 

Incidentally, I got a Manhattan out of one of my local friends while I was sitting at the bar finishing up some paperwork at Christi's in Orion Township because my Sprint LTE beat his Verizon 2 out of 3 times.  My numbers were between 18 and 26 megabit and his were between 13 and 27.

[Mikey_Bloop]

A tower across the street from my schoolhere in riverside california was getting decent 3G speeds (.60-1mbps down) and the i noticed a couple technicians working on it. (Note that this was late april early May) The entire time they were working on the speeds were terrible. I was getting .00-.30 mbps down. It took them about a week and a half and then the technicians never came back so im assuming they finished. But ever since then the speeds are still around .10-.40 mbps . I dont know if thats the upgraded speeds or not but still no LTE. The tower is fairly small with only 6 white panels on it. So now im left with slow 3G and no LTE. I dont know what sprint is waiting for but hopefully they get it done. I beleive in sprint saying that it will be more reliable and better building penetration but my contract is going to end soon and im thinking about switching if they dont roll LTE out soon.

[MicroLampart]

I'm in NYC, an A/L market, I'm following closely an area where Sprint has around 50 sites, 29 of it have already NV upgrades, 21 LTE and 8 3G only (including my tower), what i have seen from my observation is that 2-3 month ago it took them about 90 days to go from 3G accepted to LTE accepted, as time goes on it becomes longer and longer, average now is about 4 month to go from 3G to LTE.

[baba booey]

A fellow member here gave me a link to a city permit hearing for a cell site upgrade. The application was dated in march. I emailed the city last week and they said that they will come up with a decision on whether it will be approved or not at the end of this month. That's 4 months!

 

Not the original question, but it shows you how San Diego works.

[MrZorbatron]

A fellow member here gave me a link to a city permit hearing for a cell site upgrade. The application was dated in march. I emailed the city last week and they said that they will come up with a decision on whether it will be approved or not at the end of this month. That's 4 months!

 

Not the original question, but it shows you how San Diego works.

I don't even see why this is relevant to the city.  Why should you need approval to remove a couple to four big refrigerator to bigger-than-refrigerator sized cabinets, replace them with a couple of small refrigerator sized cabinets, replace six old antennas with three new ones and 3-6 tower mounted radios, and generally neaten up and compact almost everything in the base of the site?

 

Cities are idiotic.

[baba booey]

 

 

A fellow member here gave me a link to a city permit hearing for a cell site upgrade. The application was dated in march. I emailed the city last week and they said that they will come up with a decision on whether it will be approved or not at the end of this month. That's 4 months!

 

 

Not the original question, but it shows you how San Diego works.

 

 

I don't even see why this is relevant to the city. Why should you need approval to remove a couple to four big refrigerator to bigger-than-refrigerator sized cabinets, replace them with a couple of small refrigerator sized cabinets, replace six old antennas with three new ones and 3-6 tower mounted radios, and generally neaten up and compact almost everything in the base of the site?

 

Cities are idiotic.

I Agree.

 

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[baba booey]

The fact that particular site has a half of a tree antenna mast may have something to do with needing city approval?

 

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[thewezgrays]

I don't even see why this is relevant to the city.  Why should you need approval to remove a couple to four big refrigerator to bigger-than-refrigerator sized cabinets, replace them with a couple of small refrigerator sized cabinets, replace six old antennas with three new ones and 3-6 tower mounted radios, and generally neaten up and compact almost everything in the base of the site?

 

Cities are idiotic.

1.  Money

2.  Justification of power and their jobs themselves.

[MrZorbatron]

The fact that particular site has a half of a tree antenna mast may have something to do with needing city approval?

 

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Tree?  Real or false?

[baba booey]

 

 

The fact that particular site has a half of a tree antenna mast may have something to do with needing city approval?

 

 

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Tree? Real or false?

The fake trees used to camouflage cell antennas.

 

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