Network Vision/LTE - Cleveland/NE Ohio Market

[Joski1624]

That's great. But the problem is when my phone does go to B26, I'll have half my bars, but the data is pretty useless (no data or very slow speeds).

 

Hopefully some optimization will fix that.

Ah yes, I know what you mean. B26 coverage at some sites is downright awful right now. I was in range (line of sight, literally) of the site in Parkman yesterday. I had one device on 800 (hydro icon - my best performer) and one on 1900 (Nexus 5 - best performer). I was consistently getting a 10-20 dB weaker on 800. I've been keeping my hydro on 800 at home, and I've noticed a vast improvement in 2 weeks. These were grabbed from roughly the same spot a few minutes ago. I'm only a 1/2 mile from the site.

 

 

Granted it doesn't account for antenna placement between devices, nor the margin of error in placement, but on average the signal is about 15-20 dB stronger here on 800, and so far the only site where I've found that 800 outreaches 1900. Too bad only one sector is active at my home site. So, there is hope. Just some patience is needed.

[clbowens]

Anybody here having any data/connection issues?  Slow data speeds or "network not available" errors?  Zip is 44124.

[runagun]

This pic is somewhere in Ohio. I took it while I was doing 70.  

[clbowens]

5 hours ago, runagun said:

This pic is somewhere in Ohio. I took it while I was doing 70.  

But I'm assuming somewhere in the Cleveland area of ohio?!

[runagun]

3 hours ago, clbowens said:

But I'm assuming somewhere in the Cleveland area of ohio?!

Actually, no it was NW of Ohio.  I was going to Grover hill from Fort Wayne.  It was off the highway close to Grover Hill.   Just noticed this was posted in the wrong forums.  If there's a better thread for the picture please move.  

[clbowens]

Did anybody else's phone just do a profile update?

[Tengen31]

This pic is somewhere in Ohio. I took it while I was doing 70.  

Is that Sprint?

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[runagun]

3 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

Is that Sprint?

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Yess,  Those are the mobilitie tower uses on the right of ways instead on private land.  Thought more people would be interested to see how one looks in real life.  

[Tengen31]

Yess,  Those are the mobilitie tower uses on the right of ways instead on private land.  Thought more people would be interested to see how one looks in real life.  

Any CA from it? I have yet to see that on any Sprint small cells I've connected to.

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[runagun]

4 hours ago, Tengen31 said:

Any CA from it? I have yet to see that on any Sprint small cells I've connected to.

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Yeah, I believe I got 3 carrier.  

[Joski1624]

Just a quick update:

An additional 5x5 B25 carrier at 10x10 carrier sites in Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, Portage and summit counties has been discovered within the last month.  In SCP, look for GCI endings in 06, 07, 08 on B25, or earfcn 8265 if you happen to stumble across the new 5x5 LTE carrier.  This now gives us the  same 15x15 MHz (5x5 + 10x10) total of B25 LTE that the Columbus market has enjoyed for some time, though the carrier frequencies used there differ from our market.

 

B41 is also being deployed at quite a rapid rate.  There's a growing backlog of B41 finds from folks traveling from Pittsburgh and Columbus and have submitted their SCP logs ( @dkyeager has been gracious enough to process them for us).  There isn't much in-market participation anymore outside of myself and occasionally from another guy who lives on the west side.

[quirkyturtle]

I'm from the Akron/Canton NEO area. Lately I've been seeing the Alpha Wireless Concealed Antenna nodes popping up around my neighborhood in Barberton. There is one a block over from my house, this was the first one I noticed. I don't think it has power yet; the box still has cardboard inside when I drove by recently. I can get a Band 41 signal up the road but switch to B25 when home. My neighborhood is an up and down hill so I hope once this cell goes live I get B41 at home. I'll have a picture once I take one of it.. But here's the link of one that looks identical:

Have you guys seen improvements in NEO too?

[dkyeager]

4 hours ago, quirkyturtle said:

I'm from the Akron/Canton NEO area. Lately I've been seeing the Alpha Wireless Concealed Antenna nodes popping up around my neighborhood in Barberton. There is one a block over from my house, this was the first one I noticed. I don't think it has power yet; the box still has cardboard inside when I drove by recently. I can get a Band 41 signal up the road but switch to B25 when home. My neighborhood is an up and down hill so I hope once this cell goes live I get B41 at home. I'll have a picture once I take one of it.. But here's the link of one that looks identical:
Have you guys seen improvements in NEO too?

We need more help to get a better picture of improvements. From what we can tell there are lots and lots of improvements occurring in the Cleveland market. Various contractor contacts indicate it may be a site every other day.

Help can be a simple as installing Signalcheck Pro (about $3) and sending in the logs which records the best signal location per site sector per band carrier. Other markets get half their site information this way just by people sharing their logs as they go about their normal routine.

Taking pictures of sites that are new or changes at existing sites helps even more. Take pictures of the site and a couple of pictures around it so we can best locate it. Street information is essential, but a screenshot of Signalcheck Pro showing the latitude longitude for the site or close to it is even better combine with those pictures.

Of course the Cleveland Sponsor has more site info (same donation required - same as a cost of your typical lunch is recommended) and the Cleveland Premier covers band 41 LTE 2500/2600 and band 26 LTE 800 in detail for another donation.  Donations are used to keep this site running (volunteer staff help also essential).

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[Joski1624]

The extent of small cell deployments is not really known because there simply needs to be someone who knows of its existence, and my driving around only accomplishes so much.  If you could get lat/long coordinates, it would be helpful.  The easiest way is to just to go to the site and take an SCP screenshot that contains your current coordinates, pics would be a plus.

 

Many of the non conceal small cells have had the site Cascade visibly posted.  These concealed ones that are popping up more often now don't seem to have that advantage.  I also recently had one installed near my work, but it's still too far away to receive. It does at least partly cover what is a B25/41 dead spot right in the center of Middlefield.  If Sprint installs another small cell just north of that area (the current one is just south), it probably would be covered well

[quirkyturtle]

This is at my house, just a block or so from the small cell that was just installed. I haven't had time to get a photo of it. When I'm off this week I will do that and take an SCP screenshot. I'm new to this, I just bought the app today. It seems similar to network cell info. It provided me the location the 1x connection previously and it hasn't changed. Also that I'm on B25 at home. I usually use my wifi at home but it's good info! [emoji16]

 

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Here's a speedtest as well.

[quirkyturtle]

Sorry guys, it's been a while since I've posted but this is the one I was talking about from my last two posts. I took this on May 4th and it still looks the same. It seems as if they installed power to the equipment but I haven't noticed a difference at home. I don't think it's active yet. Still on LTE 25 -110 at home.

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[Tengen31]

Sorry guys, it's been a while since I've posted but this is the one I was talking about from my last two posts. I took this on May 4th and it still looks the same. It seems as if they installed power to the equipment but I haven't noticed a difference at home. I don't think it's active yet. Still on LTE 25 -110 at home.

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Since Tim liked this pic I take it that's a Sprint Small cell?

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[quirkyturtle]

I believe so. I live in Barberton Ohio and there are quite a few of these things around town, some of them have the tops off without a power box yet. Again, I don't think they're active yet. I saw these in a post on here about spotting Sprint Alpha wireless concealed antennas and a few weeks later they popped up. I work in Canton Ohio and I'm originally from New Philadelphia Ohio. I went to visit my parents the other day and I'm pretty a network vision site was just put up from their original tower about a mile or so away. I'd have to get a better look at it to double check but it looked like NV equipment at the bottom, no MassiveMIMO on it though.

[quirkyturtle]

On a side note this was in Canton, OH earlier today outside of work. I see these speeds consistently in my area up through Cleveland with the exception of some buildings.

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[Joski1624]

59 minutes ago, quirkyturtle said:

I believe so. I live in Barberton Ohio and there are quite a few of these things around town, some of them have the tops off without a power box yet. Again, I don't think they're active yet. I saw these in a post on here about spotting Sprint Alpha wireless concealed antennas and a few weeks later they popped up. I work in Canton Ohio and I'm originally from New Philadelphia Ohio. I went to visit my parents the other day and I'm pretty a network vision site was just put up from their original tower about a mile or so away. I'd have to get a better look at it to double check but it looked like NV equipment at the bottom, no MassiveMIMO on it though.

Your observation of finding several in your area describes how these small cells have been deployed so far, in clusters.  The original first found small cell cluster was in Portage Lakes.  Other clusters has been found in Ravenna, Painesville, Fremont, Youngstown and University Heights. Small cells found within Cleveland City limits have been scattered about, not really in clusters.     I sometimes have a difficult time connecting to small cells.  Airplane mode cycling sometimes helps, but I've found that I sometimes just need to sit under the thing for a while.

The expected GCI should be 082Cxx01, and I usually get a solid roughly -60dB signal when underneath the thing.  These ones with condoms are more frustrating to figure out the site ID, but they're more visually appealing to the "average Joe".  Non concealed small cells usually have the site ID right on the electrical box.

Great job on the find.  Please keep us posted on when you find them live

[dkyeager]

In my experience some small cells are to fill outdoor coverage gaps while others are designed for indoor coverage issues. The complicating factor is that it sometimes takes several months for them to go live after power supply lines and meters are installed. The clue is the power meter does start increasing between visits (these sites use a very small amount of power). Then if you are getting good macro band 41 signal at the site look around at the buildings for hospitals, big box stores, restaurants, or other public venues and go inside. Some times it will be visible on the outside from several blocks away (try the cardinal directions or look for low spots). If there is another small cell nearby see if you can carry the signal over from it and then the new small cell should take over. On rare occasions tricky small cells have been found to be using band 26.

 

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[quirkyturtle]

The only thing I can think of around my neighborhood is to extend band 41. If you go a block over, there is Giant Eagle, CVS, Chipotle.. Etc. And a the tower is beside those. Once you get up the road near my home you get b 25 and speeds go way down.

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[Joski1624]

We've entered into an exciting new era here in the Cleveland market, former Clearwire sites are becoming full build macro sites.  This means all of these sites will have CDMA 800/1900, EVDO and Triband LTE.  So far 10 sites are known to have been converted, but likely more currently exist.  They're initially Band 41 only and the other capabilities are activated at a later date.  Two of the known sites, one in the Puritas neighborhood in Cleveland and one in North Royalton have all capabilities active.

I'm willing to sponsor anyone who isn't already a sponsor who is willing to submit to me SCP logs containing field data for Cleveland market sites.  This means that data must contain LTE GCIs starting with 082 or 083.  CDMA data must contain a SID of 4396, 4126 or 22441; NIDs must be either 214, 204 or 202; BIDs in Hex form must either start in 6, 9, A, B or C.

Most former clear sites are within Cuyahoga and Lake counties, so data from these areas is what's needed the most.   I don't want to be the only one trying to find them.  I live and travel mostly within Geauga county, so I don't travel to most of Cuyahoga or Lake counties very often.  One final note concerns exporting SCP logs.  Please make sure the GCI format is set to [GCI].  This prevents editing programs like Google sheets from turning GCIs into exponents which renders the field data useless.

Happy Hunting!

[clbowens]

Anybody else having data issues in the Mayfield Heights area today?  I'm having troubles getting any data connection currently.  And with SCP running, I can see my phone is bouncing around from B41 to B26 a lot.  I usually get a solid B41 connection where I am currently.

[clbowens]

I'm starting to see 4X CA in my area.  And it's using B25 and B41.  So the engineering screen will show the first channel as B25 (10mhz).  Then the other 3 channels will be B41 (20mhz).  Download speeds are...ok.  Not as high as I would expect with 4X CA (peak around 80Mbps).  But upload speeds are terrible.  Max around 1Mbps.  

But at least it's good to see them adding B25/B41 CA.