Shentel / Sprint LTE - (was ntelos - West & N&W Virginia)

[Trip]

9 hours ago, chamb said:

Hummmn, they are still using the old nTelos SID on 1x.

Yes, that's nothing new.  They moved the LTE over to the Sprint PLMN, but left the SID alone.  Additional downside--no way to ID 1X 800.

- Trip

[shawneyboy123]

Curious, does anybody know why customers in old nTelos land arent eligible for Magic Boxes? I figured it was just my area at first due to the lack of B41 but I've punched in addresses in various cities and they all turn out ineligible. Is this just a technical downside of living in an affiliate coverage area as opposed to Sprint directly? 

[dkyeager]

26 minutes ago, shawneyboy123 said:

Curious, does anybody know why customers in old nTelos land arent eligible for Magic Boxes? I figured it was just my area at first due to the lack of B41 but I've punched in addresses in various cities and they all turn out ineligible. Is this just a technical downside of living in an affiliate coverage area as opposed to Sprint directly? 

I would guess it is a question of priorities.  Shentel is losing customers in some of its expansion areas due to limited LTE availability.  New equipment has been installed for many many months yet a lot is reportedly not transmitting LTE despite coverage map claims as of a couple days ago. This was certainly true several months ago when I was last in Shentel territory. Shentel has only begun to deploy B41 in some cities.

[shawneyboy123]

3 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

 Shentel has only begun to deploy B41 in some cities.

 

My personal experience back in 2015 when it was still run through nTelos they had a lot of B41 in Charleston/Huntington/Morgantown/Princeton but I never once saw it here in Beckley, even still 3 years later I frequently check via my family members devices for B41 and it's still a no show.

[dkyeager]

4 minutes ago, shawneyboy123 said:

My personal experience back in 2015 when it was still run through nTelos they had a lot of B41 in Charleston/Huntington/Morgantown/Princeton but I never once saw it here in Beckley, even still 3 years later I frequently check via my family members devices for B41 and it's still a no show.

 Shentel has so much b25 they may not need B41 in many nTelos areas for a while.  WISPs have all that is available in some WV towns.

[bbostwick8]

My personal experience back in 2015 when it was still run through nTelos they had a lot of B41 in Charleston/Huntington/Morgantown/Princeton but I never once saw it here in Beckley, even still 3 years later I frequently check via my family members devices for B41 and it's still a no show.

We don’t have the 2.5 available to us in the Beckley markets so it will never be here, or so I’m told.


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[dkyeager]

21 minutes ago, bbostwick8 said:

 

We don’t have the 2.5 available to us in the Beckley markets so it will never be here, or so I’m told.


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Sprint holds 15.5 and 6 Mhz of B41 Spectrum which touches Raleigh County according to the FCC database.  No one else holds spectrum.  The FCC plans on getting more Band Spectrum available and will comment further this fall after the elections iirc.

[Trip]

Looks like Shentel has started to move their new market pieces to new GCIs.  Passing through Zion Crossroads today, the tower there had changed to 0FE799xx.  Some of the other sites along I-64 also changed, but the sites in Farmville are still on the old Southern Virginia GCIs.

- Trip

[PythonFanPA]

On 7/23/2018 at 9:34 PM, shawneyboy123 said:

Curious, does anybody know why customers in old nTelos land arent eligible for Magic Boxes? I figured it was just my area at first due to the lack of B41 but I've punched in addresses in various cities and they all turn out ineligible. Is this just a technical downside of living in an affiliate coverage area as opposed to Sprint directly? 

I hadn't checked in this section of the forums in a good while much less this thread, so apologies if you'd already long since gotten the insight/answer elsewhere, but I can confirm that MagicBoxes will not work in Shentel-managed territory.

[shawneyboy123]

On 10/5/2018 at 10:13 AM, PythonFanPA said:

I hadn't checked in this section of the forums in a good while much less this thread, so apologies if you'd already long since gotten the insight/answer elsewhere, but I can confirm that MagicBoxes will not work in Shentel-managed territory.

but why? will they ever?

[Galaxyguy]

I just saw B41 3rd carrier in SCP. I checked the engineering screen and Shentel apparently added a 10Mhz 3rd carrier to my local tower. I'm in Woodstock, VA. Is anyone else seeing this? BTW, the 3rd carrier was at 41324.  

[lilotimz]

1 hour ago, Galaxyguy said:

I just saw B41 3rd carrier in SCP. I checked the engineering screen and Shentel apparently added a 10Mhz 3rd carrier to my local tower. I'm in Woodstock, VA. Is anyone else seeing this? BTW, the 3rd carrier was at 41324.  

So 20+20+10? That's a new config that hasn't been seen before. 

In many regions they have BRS high which is 2618-2673.5 which is basically 55 MHz wide. 2673.5-2690 is EBS which often times is not leased by Sprint so they use EBS where possible. I wonder if they could do 20+20+15... maybe..

[Galaxyguy]

1 hour ago, lilotimz said:

So 20+20+10? That's a new config that hasn't been seen before. 

In many regions they have BRS high which is 2618-2673.5 which is basically 55 MHz wide. 2673.5-2690 is EBS which often times is not leased by Sprint so they use EBS where possible. I wonder if they could do 20+20+15... maybe..

Yes, 20 + 20 +10. I thought I wasn't seeing it right at first, but here's a screen shot of it. 

[dkyeager]

1 hour ago, Galaxyguy said:

Yes, 20 + 20 +10. I thought I wasn't seeing it right at first, but here's a screen shot of it. 

That also appears to be the Magic Box plmn.

[lilotimz]

1 hour ago, Galaxyguy said:

Yes, 20 + 20 +10. I thought I wasn't seeing it right at first, but here's a screen shot of it. 

 

So SCP screenshot?

[Galaxyguy]

Unfortunately, I forgot to do that. If I see it again, I will screenshot it.

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[Flompholph]

12 hours ago, dkyeager said:

That also appears to be the Magic Box plmn.

312530 is what my phone says for plmn after volte update. No more SCP notes for me hoping it will be fixed next update.

[Galaxyguy]

On 10/10/2018 at 10:21 PM, lilotimz said:

So SCP screenshot?

 

[lilotimz]

6 hours ago, Galaxyguy said:

 

 

What is the typical GCI heading for B41 in that region?

41/42/43 is usually Nokia GCI ending for #3 carrier. 

[Flompholph]

6 hours ago, lilotimz said:

What is the typical GCI heading for B41 in that region?

41/42/43 is usually Nokia GCI ending for #3 carrier. 

Not sure what you mean by heading but it is a valid Shentel B41 GCI for where GalaxyGuy is around (Woodstock Downtown site).  I don't think we have seen 3rd carrier and it has been months since I have looked at my logs. 40s are expected for 3rd carrier based on vendor. 

[Trip]

Yes, Shentel uses 41/42/43 for third carrier.

- Trip

[Galaxyguy]

On 10/13/2018 at 7:14 AM, Trip said:

Yes, Shentel uses 41/42/43 for third carrier.

- Trip

Have you seen any other instances of a 10MHz B41 carrier? I don't remember seeing anyone else post about them anywhere. Of course, I don't get to read all posts on here so I could've easily missed it. 

[dkyeager]

7 hours ago, Galaxyguy said:

Have you seen any other instances of a 10MHz B41 carrier? I don't remember seeing anyone else post about them anywhere. Of course, I don't get to read all posts on here so I could've easily missed it. 

I have seen 5mhz in this part of the country, but never 10 or 15 especially for the third carrier.  Plenty of markets would be ideally served by 20+20+15 and 20+20+10 is an improvement.

[chamb]

Just caught another instance of 3rd 2500 carrier in Shentel territory.  Note the standard 310120. I also note the 414 PCI that is one of the 3 PCI's for the local site used for carrier one and two. Saw this at a stop light and got the screen shot but had to start moving while going for the "service screen". I think I saw 10 mhz, not 20.  I did not see any aggregation but I only got a quick glimpse of the screen before it rolled to carrier one and two being aggregated as usual.  The 3rd carrier was gone. I do still have a galaxy S-7.  I am not positive that it is capable of using 3Xca, but the service screen looks like it could show it. I did not get  a speed test on carrier 3 either.  I went back through the area again, and even hung around on a side street, but could not acquire carrier 3 at any time.  I was surprised to see this as this local site is not congested. Anytime I check the speed it runs over 30 down and sometimes 60 down.  I am not sure if it might be a magic box or not. I was told that Shentel is not supporting Magic boxes. The area has very good service even inside the big box Wal-mart and Lowes.   I would really be surprised to find a magic box or anything else like that in this neighborhood.   Location: Rouzerville, Pa.

[chamb]

OK, the suspense got to me. I went back and got serious about tracking this down.  Took awhile to get the 3rd carrier again.

When i did , I drove toward the cell site. Signal got better, got worse when directly under the antennas, but that is normal. As I drove away in another direction, it got better again and the PCI changed. again this PCI matched the PCI used by the other 2 carriers.

Then I stopped and did a speedtest and got into Service menu and  then LTE.  Results are attached.

Conclusions, this is a valid 10 MHZ 3rd carrier in Rouzerville, Pa at a Shentel site. Hard to prove, but it appears it is not aggregated with carrier 1 & 2.  Maybe my S-7 is the cause of this or maybe Shentel has not configured it to aggregate yet. I ran some data while trying to see if I had 3 carrier aggregation. I only saw 2 carrier aggregation and that never involved the 3rd carrier.

 

screenshot band 41 3rd cxr.pdf