Voice Issues during NV upgrade?

[ThomasM]

Hi everyone!  First post here....

 

The towers in my area are currently being upgraded to NV (Racine County, WI just south of Milwaukee)  I noticed that the NID changed from 84 to 224 on many towers in my area and at the same time 3G dataspeed went way up after being pitiful for a couple months.  The map reports spotty 4G coverage in my area also.  I don't know as I haven't popped the extra $10 a month for a 4G phone yet since there was no telling when it would be available when I bought my last phone.

 

So now here's the BIZARRE thing I am experiencing since this "half converted to NV" has begun.  When I place a voice call IT DOESN'T HAND OFF!!  Yup, I drag whatever tower I am on until I just run out of it's coverage and the call drops!  Then the phone rescans and logs on to the closest tower.  On one call, I had almost driven right up to the next site before the call dropped and then, of course, after a rescan I got full bars.

 

Has anyone experienced this?  Could this be due to misprogrammed neighbor sets?  Sprint, of course, offers the "canned" responses about NV which are of no help.  I have seen numerous posts on the Sprint web site in the blogs about dropped calls but the folks doing the posting have no clue WHY the calls are dropping.  I updated my PRL and PROFILE (of course) to no avail.

 

It's not the phone either because when I visit Milwaukee (that still has NID 84) things work perfectly.

 

Oh, I also noticed that the base ID's all changed when the NID changed.  And now they are transmitting the ACTUAL tower coordinates while before they transmitted a "pseudo" coordinate that was about a mile from the tower in the direction of that particular sector.

[drlovety]

First off, become a member and you'll get great info, such as maps showing locations of NV upgraded towers (cheaper than 10/month too!).  Second, in my area our legacy towers were Lucent, and out NV equipment was Samsung.  Legacy equipment did not hand-off to NV equipment (or vise versa), leading to constant drop calls.  Good luck!

[owensri2]

Yes, I've traveled about 2,000 miles over the last week, and it happened a lot in select areas.  I got pretty disgusted, but it's just temporary due to the incompatibility between NV and Legacy equipment.

[greenvillesc]

I have lots of sites with bad echoes during voice calls.

[COZisBack]

Hi everyone!  First post here....

 

The towers in my area are currently being upgraded to NV (Racine County, WI just south of Milwaukee)  I noticed that the NID changed from 84 to 224 on many towers in my area and at the same time 3G dataspeed went way up after being pitiful for a couple months.  The map reports spotty 4G coverage in my area also.  I don't know as I haven't popped the extra $10 a month for a 4G phone yet since there was no telling when it would be available when I bought my last phone.

 

So now here's the BIZARRE thing I am experiencing since this "half converted to NV" has begun.  When I place a voice call IT DOESN'T HAND OFF!!  Yup, I drag whatever tower I am on until I just run out of it's coverage and the call drops!  Then the phone rescans and logs on to the closest tower.  On one call, I had almost driven right up to the next site before the call dropped and then, of course, after a rescan I got full bars.

 

Has anyone experienced this?  Could this be due to misprogrammed neighbor sets?  Sprint, of course, offers the "canned" responses about NV which are of no help.  I have seen numerous posts on the Sprint web site in the blogs about dropped calls but the folks doing the posting have no clue WHY the calls are dropping.  I updated my PRL and PROFILE (of course) to no avail.

 

It's not the phone either because when I visit Milwaukee (that still has NID 84) things work perfectly.

 

Oh, I also noticed that the base ID's all changed when the NID changed.  And now they are transmitting the ACTUAL tower coordinates while before they transmitted a "pseudo" coordinate that was about a mile from the tower in the direction of that particular sector.

 

Hello and welcome to S4GRU. As discussed above, you're experiencing the standard handoff issue between upgraded Network Vision equipment and Legacy Sprint equipment from various vendors. I do believe Milwaukee is a legacy Motorola market, but I may be thinking of a different market. The markets that have seen the most handoff issues are markets that are Legacy Motorola markets being upgraded to Samsung Network Vision equipment which Milwaukee is.

 

Noticing a change of NIDs and BIDs are normally the first thing you'll see when a site has been upgraded to Network Vision equipment. In terms of getting better 3G results may just be a matter of being on an NV site that isn't experiencing  high traffic at the time. The better 3G results may also be due to new backhaul provided to the site, if that is the case, that site should also be 4G LTE active. Unfortunately, you won't be able to confirm that unless you're using a device that is LTE capable obviously.

 

Doing a PRL and Profile update will not provide you with better service as a PRL is not a list of sites (towers) but a list of technologies. You can read more about that here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-338-what-is-a-prl/ Reading that article and the Part 2 of it, you'll know more about a PRL than 80% of Sprint employees.

 

If you'd like to learn more about what's going on in your market, you can check the Milwaukee market here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1983-network-visionlte-milwaukee-market-including-madison/

 

Also, there is more information available here on S4GRU to Sponsors in your area, such as exact locations of sites as well as the status of them during the Network Vision conversions. That's available here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4186-network-vision-site-map-minnesota-dakotas-milwaukee-and-north-wisconsin-markets/ but does requires Sponsorship.

 

If interested in becoming a Sponsor (to help keep the lights on here) you can find more information here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1195-information-about-s4gru-sponsorship-levels-and-how-to-become-a-sponsor/

 

Thanks for stopping in and let us know if you have any additional questions.

[ThomasM]

Thanks for all the replies!  I DID read that PRL article and it was very informative.

 

I worked for Nextel for 7 years so I know all about towers and knew iDEN backwards and forewards.  But CDMA is a new animal for me as I finally knuckled under in July 2012 and switched to a CDMA smartphone.  In the past year I've been reading everything I can about CDMA, 3G, 4GLTE and all the other niceties Sprint is into now.  Also, 1900MHz was a new experience for me.  It sure doesn't act like 800MHz!!  One hill between you and the tower and bye-bye-HA HA.

 

Thomas

[digiblur]

Been working on Part 3 more that explains 800smr stuff and LTE scans as it should answer the questions that keep popping up. Plus it helps that Ericsson blessed us with 800smr for a few weeks there so I could play around with things.

[ThomasM]

I ran some more tests today on my voice issues.  I placed a call in a known non-NV area and looked at the debug screen.  As I drove towards home, you could see the active PN sets change and the phone move to the next site.....until I left the area and got closer to my home area which now has a new NID and some NV upgrades (but maybe not full 4G).  As I got closer to the tower that serves my home, the call quality got poorer and poorer.  And the Rx signal level kept dropping even though I was only a half mile from the next tower.  I exited the freeway right where my local Sprint tower is but the quality of my voice call was awful and the active PN on the debug screen WASN'T the one being transmitted by the tower I was in front of!  Literally, I was "dragging" a tower from miles away instead of utilizing the tower right next to me.  Then I disconnected the call.  The base ID went to ZERO for about 15 seconds and then it "found" the tower I was parked in front of and, of course I had full bars and an Rx level of -57 which is super.

 

I wonder how many complaints Sprint is getting from folks who do not understand that calls aren't being handed off between towers during this NV upgrade.  And, of course, Sprint customer service hasn't a clue either-they just read the script stating that the service might not be too good until the upgrade is complete.....while customers defect to the competitors.  If I didn't know what was going on I'd be shopping around right now too.

[amcferrin90]

There's not much you can do about it. That's normal. Be glad you could actually complete the call. If I travel from a NV area into a Legacy area or the other way around on PCS, the call will drop. Actually there's like a dark zone between the two areas. If I try and originate a call while in the dark zone (I call the Sprint zone lol not), the call will ring until answered and then drop. If I receive a SMS message while in the zone, I get hours of that messages repeating over and over and over again. It's pretty bad. 

 

I'm fortunate that Sprint has accepted several 800 sites around the area. So I use an 800 preferred PRL and that seems to get around the problem. The 800 sites reach well into the legacy area (10-20 miles) so I mentally make myself aware of where I can and can't make calls.

[soulgrnd]

Tons of upgrades in Northern NJ in the past 6 months and my SERVICE HAS BEEN TERRIBLE! Dropping calls left and right, daily dropped calls way into the double digits. Recently things have improved and I'm not dropping many calls at all. Added bonus usable data (LTE with decent speeds) is available in many of the areas where I dropped the most calls just a few weeks ago.

[Joey SR]

Tons of upgrades in Northern NJ in the past 6 months and my SERVICE HAS BEEN TERRIBLE! Dropping calls left and right, daily dropped calls way into the double digits. Recently things have improved and I'm not dropping many calls at all. Added bonus usable data (LTE with decent speeds) is available in many of the areas where I dropped the most calls just a few weeks ago.

Which area is this

 

Sent from Evo now Free

 

 

[soulgrnd]

Which area is this

 

Sent from Evo now Free

 

In the past month or so I went from constantly dropping calls dozens per day to consistent LTE and smooth handoffs on Route 4 more or less from Englewood & Fort Lee all the way down to Route 208 and up thru to Hawthorne/Wyckoff. Data speeds ranging from 10mbps to 20mpbs with pings under 100. 

 

EDIT: LTE also shows up at Starbucks on Route 17 South & all over the place in Paterson, Little Falls, Parsippany & even a little in Wayne.

[Deval]

In the past month or so I went from constantly dropping calls dozens per day to consistent LTE and smooth handoffs on Route 4 more or less from Englewood & Fort Lee all the way down to Route 208 and up thru to Hawthorne/Wyckoff. Data speeds ranging from 10mbps to 20mpbs with pings under 100. 

 

EDIT: LTE also shows up at Starbucks on Route 17 South & all over the place in Paterson, Little Falls, Parsippany & even a little in Wayne.

 

Also shows up further east as well (Edgewater, North Bergen, etc.) 

[Joey SR]

Also shows up further east as well (Edgewater, North Bergen, etc.)

A lot of that comes from ny

 

Sent from Evo

 

 

[Deval]

A lot of that comes from ny

 

Sent from Evo

 

I can personally tell you that some of those sites are upgraded, I've seen them

 

I was getting a shave at the Hudson River Social Club and surfing the web on LTE. 

[ThomasM]

UPDATE!

 

I finally got frazzled about my dropped call issue and Monday (10-14) was a beautiful autumn day so I decided to do a little field testing on my problem.

 

FIrst, I drove up to the tower which seems to be the root of all the problems. (North Cape, a little 'burg in the middle of Racine County, WI).  Much to my surprise, all of the legacy equipment was gone except for the 800MHz Nextel antennas (this was a shared tower).  At the very top of the tower was a new Samsung panel on each face.  (So it's no longer a legacy site even though it may not be 4g yet).  I know from talking to friends that the tower serving my home on interstate 94 and county highway g IS 4g and all the legacy antennas are gone.  So I began a voice call in front of the North Cape tower and began driving towards the highway g tower.

 

As I was driving I had the engineering screen displaying the "active sets" and the "neighbor sets" PN codes.  The call just hung on the PN codes from the North Cape tower as the call quality got poorer and poorer.  I dragged the call on that tower until I was within a half mile of the highway g tower.  Call quality was horrible-I couldn't believe the call hadn't dropped!  But then it did with NO BARS being displayed.  Within 15 seconds the phone rescanned and found the highway g tower and displayed full bars.  It also displayed ALL DIFFERENT PN CODES!

 

I think the goofs in the Sprint engineering dept. have the wrong neighbor set PN codes programmed into North Cape such that if a poor phone ends up on that tower it doesn't know how to hand off to the adjoining towers!  The dropped call scenario only involves being unfortunate enough to be the coverage area of that tower.  If you begin a call on another tower and drive into the "bad" towers area, the call can't hand off to it.  And, of course, I described what happens if you BEGIN a call in it's area.

 

Now, how could you ever convey something like that to Sprint without getting the usual "it will get better after NV is complete" routine???