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

[Galaxyguy]

Well a little bit of news... a well placed source tells me that nTelos is in preliminary talks with the Albemarle County (basically the Charlottesville area) zoning folks about tower upgrades. Apparently, in addition to highly regulated signage ordinances and "viewsheds", the county makes it an arduous process to essentially do any physical work to a cell site w/o an extensive review/approval process. If nTelos were to apply for permitting TODAY, it would likely take 9-12 months to be approved. Why they are just now entering preliminary talks, I have no idea (but this is crapTelos we're talking about after all).

 

That said, I don't know how this would impact upgrades to the cabinets and non-Antenna type equipment but I'm told that might even fall under the purview of the zoning review process, I guess only time will tell.

 

Not sure how the process might differ for site in Charlottesville City proper, so could be a silver lining there.

Charlottesville is probably worse. It's full of tree hugging leftists. I'm sure the requirements will be even more strict than Albemarle Co.

 

Sent from my Note 4.

[rmorrisonva]

You'd be surprised (Charlottesville born and raised, so I completely know what you mean about the huggers... look how long it took for the City to open their half of the 50-years-in-the-making Meadowcreek er.. John Warner Parkway)... but the Albemarle "sign nazis" are well known for being the nastiest of the nasty NIMBYers.

[rmorrisonva]

One can hope right?

[davidtm]

*ouch*

 

(one of the tree-hugging leftists)

 

;-)

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4.9.5 Yep, I downgraded! :-D

[Tfalwell]

Wish I could say I am sad to hear this, but I'm hoping they hop on 29 South for about 45 minutes

 

C-ville has been a joke to work with over the years.  The red tape is nothing new the much needed bypass is another example of the same problem you mention.

[rmorrisonva]

*ouch*

 

(one of the tree-hugging leftists)

 

;-)

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4.9.5 Yep, I downgraded! :-D

 

Don't get me wrong -- I love my trees and forests (I'll take somewhere on the Appalachian Trail over the city any day), I just find that some of the more strident anti-growth folks tend to have misplaced priorities (Meadowcreek Parkway is a good example, especially when the waste water plant down on Moore's Creek continues to dump fecal coliform-laden sewage almost directly in the Rivanna... that's part of the reason it smells like crap over near Pantop's)...

 

My general take is this: "hurry up and wait" is a good philosophy for a lot of things (better roads, cars get A-to-B faster, less emissions), build infrastructure (weather cell towers, bridges, roads, etc.) ahead of time and it tends to be cheaper, more efficient, and better utilized over the long-haul.

 

*Get's down off soapbox*

 

Now if nTelos could have just hurried up and waited with this permitting, arghh!

[Trip]

I doubt nTelos is thinking about new towers, but they should very strongly consider co-locating on the US Cellular tower on Willis Mountain in Buckingham County.  It was amazing to watch the signal as I went down 15 from Dillwyn to Farmville yesterday.  I started out roaming on US Cellular as I left Dillwyn.  Then it jumped to a 1X 800 Sprint tower in Cumberland County, until I went behind Willis Mountain and it jumped onto US Cellular.  Then I watched it try valiantly to hang onto 1X 800 from no less than four different Sprint towers in Prince Edward County while often failing back over to US Cellular 1X, and I saw it try to hold LTE B26 at -124 dBm from one of them twice.  Finally, coming over the hill south of Sheppards, it was able to connect to Sprint 1X PCS from Farmville and soon thereafter connected to LTE B26 (though that tower didn't seem nearly as strong as I'm used to B26 being, maybe not optimized yet?).

 

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.  And probably made the phone unusable for calls or anything as it jumped around and signal went up and down constantly.

 

- Trip

[cdk]

nTelos share prices have shot up over the last two weeks from $4.52 on 2/27 to $6.36 on 3/13 (over 40% if my math is correct)...

 

[ebryana]

Appears some investors may be thinking a sale is coming.

Edited March 15, 2015 by ebryana

[shawneyboy123]

The employees at my local Sprint store sure do seem confident that Sprint is buying nTelos.

[joshnys8913]

The employees at my local Sprint store sure do seem confident that Sprint is buying nTelos.

if that was true that would really help Sprint!! 

[cdk]

nTelos share prices have shot up over the last two weeks from $4.52 on 2/27 to $6.36 on 3/13 (over 40% if my math is correct)...

 

 

Looks like the bubble burst yesterday. Back down to $4.85 a share on Monday.

[GregA]

I haven't followed this thread too closely because I don't live near here but I do know that nTelos has been known as a problem area. However I'm on a trip back home and I've got decent LTE with a strong signal throughout the Harrisonburg area. I don't know if this is new but just FYI!

[Galaxyguy]

I haven't followed this thread too closely because I don't live near here but I do know that nTelos has been known as a problem area. However I'm on a trip back home and I've got decent LTE with a strong signal throughout the Harrisonburg area. I don't know if this is new but just FYI!

Harrisonburg is in the Shentel market.

 

Sent from my Note 4.

[nandjreed]

Hey guys I didn't she this filing on the site so I thought I would share. On March 10th ntelos holding filed a SC 13G. It is where a publicly owned company is selling more that 5 percent of it to anyone.

 

So maybe good news about a majority sale

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[S4GRU]

Hey guys I didn't she this filing on the site so I thought I would share. On March 10th ntelos holding filed a SC 13G. It is where a publicly owned company is selling more that 5 percent of it to anyone.

 

So maybe good news about a majority sale

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Listed on their website:  http://ir.ntelos.com/all-sec-filings#

 

EDIT:  Looks like nTelos is buying executive shares.

[cdk]

Listed on their website:  http://ir.ntelos.com/all-sec-filings#

 

It looks like the third time this year that has happened...

[benson79]

I'm going on a road trip to West Virginia next month for some hiking. What kind of service can I expect have there been any improvements in WV? I'll be in Charleston, Oak Hill, Fayeteville, Summersville and Beckley. 

[shawneyboy123]

I'm going on a road trip to West Virginia next month for some hiking. What kind of service can I expect have there been any improvements in WV? I'll be in Charleston, Oak Hill, Fayeteville, Summersville and Beckley. 

nTelos's service map is pretty accurate service wise from my experience it doesn't exaggerate coverage really at all. Speed wise, i've been to all the places you listed and they have been upgraded and have decent 3G speeds (.8-2mbps) so long as there aren't too many people around bogging down the tower. Beckley being a slight exception because it seems no matter what time of day it is the towers seem to struggle with speed.

Edited March 27, 2015 by shawneyboy123

[davidtm]

So, I've been dropping down to 1x roaming on US Cellular occasionally the last couple of days here in C'ville, which is quite unusual for me.  Has anyone else noticed this?  I just activated my new M9 Tuesday, so I wasn't sure if it was phone or network.  (Hopefully, the latter due to upgrades!!)

[davidtm]

So, I appreciate the likes, but I'm seriously concerned about whether my new M9 is having connectivity issues. That's why I'm quite curious if others had noticed this.

 

Thanks!

 

Sent from my Tapatalk 4.9.5

Yes, I downgraded. :-D

[Galaxyguy]

So, I appreciate the likes, but I'm seriously concerned about whether my new M9 is having connectivity issues. That's why I'm quite curious if others had noticed this.

 

Thanks!

 

Sent from my Tapatalk 4.9.5

Yes, I downgraded. :-D

Have you gone to known ntelos towers in the area and see if any of them are down for maintenance?

 

Sent from my Note 4.

[davidtm]

I haven't noticed any such activity driving by some known locations. Interestingly, my phone seems to be better able to be on EVDO (rather than eHRPD which kills my data connection) when Mobile Networks is set to LTE/CDMA. Again, not sure if this reflects the new phone or network changes. Aaarrgh, too many variables! ;-)

 

Sent from Tapatalk on my Tab 4

[Galaxyguy]

I haven't noticed any such activity driving by some known locations. Interestingly, my phone seems to be better able to be on EVDO (rather than eHRPD which kills my data connection) when Mobile Networks is set to LTE/CDMA. Again, not sure if this reflects the new phone or network changes. Aaarrgh, too many variables! ;-)

 

Sent from Tapatalk on my Tab 4

Have you tried setting the phone to CDMA only to see if that helps?

 

Sent from my Note 4.

[davidtm]

I'll try that again. I had always hoped to function on LTE/CDMA so I'd know right away if LTE became available. :-)

 

Sent from my HTC One M9 on Tapatalk