Jump to content

Network Vision/LTE - Central Illinois Market (Peoria, Springfield, Quincy, Bloomington/Normal, Terre Haute)


DaQue

Recommended Posts

I couldn't fine an official thread for my neighbors to the east so I started one after asking nicely if I missed one.

 

Things may start popping in the Central Illinois market soon and I wanted to follow the tread so I can check out any sites close to me In St Louis.

 

 

Let the LTE games begin!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First sites in the Terre Haute area in this market this week. More on the horizon. Thanks for opening this thread.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First sites in the Terre Haute area in this market this week. More on the horizon. Thanks for opening this thread.

 

Interesting factoid...

 

If you own any CDs, DVDs, BDs, etc., chances are good that they were pressed at Sony DADC in Terre Haute.

 

AJ

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder if the Decca plant is still running in my home town of Pinckneyville Illinois. Mom used to work there back when the made records. One day the press came down and cut off about half of the part of her finger past the last knuckle. The hospital sewed it back on at the hospital and she went back to work. She said the heat from the press made it feel better. They didn't get it quite straight, you could notice it. Years later they switched to CD etc. They went from a couple hundred people working there to less than a dozen to make trainloads of CDs. Very automated. Its not Decca anymore, can't remember the new name.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From the Missouri market thread:

Picked up a new source today. They provided me a list of Missouri, Central Illinois and East Iowa sites that are on a site dispatch report. I will be marking the sites In Progress later tonight when I get home.

 

Robert

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Robert any of the towers in the Peoria area?

 

Not in this initial wave. Just Terre Haute and Quincy. But I think this will change rapidly.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not in this initial wave. Just Terre Haute and Quincy. But I think this will change rapidly.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

I will check on sites in Quincy if I have time when I am there next. I live near Rushville and have heard that fiber is being run to many of the older sites in the area. Most of the sites are about three years old and already have fiber run to them. I guess they could be running more fiber to the towers. I'm sure not much was run the first round since iPCS tended to skimp on everything. There are a lot of iDEN only towers in this area where there is no CDMA coverage. I have been watching those as they have popped up numerous times on Sprint coverage maps as future towers. They would be crazy not to upgrade some of them as one covers the headquarters of the largest food redistributor in the nation. I know they used a lot of Nextel devices in the past, I'm not sure what they are using now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will check on sites in Quincy if I have time when I am there next. I live near Rushville and have heard that fiber is being run to many of the older sites in the area. Most of the sites are about three years old and already have fiber run to them. I guess they could be running more fiber to the towers. I'm sure not much was run the first round since iPCS tended to skimp on everything. There are a lot of iDEN only towers in this area where there is no CDMA coverage. I have been watching those as they have popped up numerous times on Sprint coverage maps as future towers. They would be crazy not to upgrade some of them as one covers the headquarters of the largest food redistributor in the nation. I know they used a lot of Nextel devices in the past, I'm not sure what they are using now.

 

Sprint is only planning to convert approx. 100 iDEN only sites to Network Vision CDMA/LTE. I'm hoping with the SoftBank investment, Mr. Son will convince Sprint to keep more. I once did a take off and only approx. 800-1000 iDEN only sites are outside of Sprint CDMA coverage. It would be great if they kept all these sites.

 

Let us know when/if you take any photos. Thanks!

 

Robert

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

One good sign is that I got a few mailers from Sprint the last weeks and this that say they are expanding coverage in the area. Since they were mailed to the business I would guess they have already been thrown away. I take that as a good sign for the Rushville-Mt. Sterling area. I was getting the we are upgrading the network in your area in the coming months mailers in December. I seem to get those every three or so months so I don't think much about those mailers. Last time I got the mailers for improved coverage was when they added towers from Springfield, IL to Beardstown (IL125) and Jacksonville to Macomb (US67). The area of US24 between Quincy and Rushville is a bit of a hole in the network for this area.

 

Once I get feeling a bit better I will make the rounds and get some pics of the towers in this area. There are some rather large towers in the area...250 feet or so. They are guyed towers, hopefully they can support all of the new equipment up on the tower. 800 is sorely needed in this area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I went to Quincy a few days ago and nothing was being done at the few towers I wandered by. Time did limit how many towers I was able to go by. I did notice a new tower was being erected by Fowler, IL. I doubt it is for Sprint as they have a tower nearby. I did notice what was once a Nextel tower had all the panels removed as was the electrical service. It looks like iDEN has started to be dismantled in this area.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First sites in the Terre Haute area in this market this week. More on the horizon. Thanks for opening this thread.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

We really need the love, TH has some of the oldest equipment still running and that was the reason we are seeing this upgrade.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Any news or info about NV in Champaign/Urbana?    All I know is that 3G data speeds here are somewhat better than 6-12 months ago, but still not great.    I'm still using my ol' faithful HTC Arrive... I like Windows Phone and was waiting for the WP8 devices on Sprint, now the dilemma is whether to grab an Ativ S Neo or wait for dual/triband LTE phones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what's going on in Decatur but data speeds have been significantly slower than usual. I can't even send a picture while I'm out. And web browsing...Don't even bother try doing that lol. I was barely able to get to this site and post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is there any LTE coming to central Illinois area anytime soon? Here in Decatur where I'm at the speeds are significantly slower than usual. I've been seeing towers worked on and a new tower put up but I'm not sure if its sprint.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what's going on in Decatur but data speeds have been significantly slower than usual. I can't even send a picture while I'm out. And web browsing...Don't even bother try doing that lol. I was barely able to get to this site and post.

Somebody tripped over the ethernet cable and no one realized as the legacy network is that slow in some areas. I hope things improve soon and that at the minimum some 3G upgrades come along.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is the champaign/Urbana area really bad? I'm moving there in 2 weeks

 

Voice coverage is good, 3G data speeds are all over the place, I see anywhere from 100 kbps to 1 Mbps, mostly in the 100-300 range, higher only late at night and away from the U of I campus.   On campus during the school year you are lucky to get 100 kbps much of the time.  And this is improved from a year or two ago; Sprint has added some data capacity at most towers but it is still far short of sufficient.   There is no 4G yet (Wimax never made it here).

Edited by JPSmith
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was in Macomb today and the network was extremely slow. Voice also seemed weak in town. I guess they could be working on the water tower (near WIU) where they have a rack full of legacy antennas. In order to do the upgrade it looks like they will have to remove at least one of those antennas per sector. I would think that would cause a decrease in signal quality. I don't know if they would need more than one antenna per sector on that tower or not. I think they even stuck antennas on each corner. It is something like four on each side with one on each of the three corners. Most towers I see just have the corners loaded up but this one is just loaded all the way around. I think if they added another tower or two in town they could better manage the traffic and provide better service.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Get used to it all going up and down. My phone keeps seeing RTT & 800 for voice and EVDO & eHRPD for data in Springfield. The data side has been most stable and once eHRPD goes up pretty decent speeds. Voice has been and continues to be spotty. With the rework of towers I'm imagining a lot of balancing between them. When the new stuff is working its great otherwise its worse than before they started.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I drove through Macomb the other day and I have my answer for the panels on the Macomb water tower. The legacy panels are gone so I would say they are broadcasting 1900 only through the new panels right now. Probably to get at least that part done and through before the students came back. The rack now holds six panels which is down considerably from what was there. It actually looks more organized and manageable than the mess that was there before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Central Illinois market is officially under way now. First three sites accepted yesterday. Sites are shown in the Sponsor NV Sites Complete map.

 

Hey Robert, is there any good news for the Decatur IL area? Or surrounding cities?

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • large.unreadcontent.png.6ef00db54e758d06

  • gallery_1_23_9202.png

  • Posts

    • Excuse my rookie comments here, but after enabling *#73#, it seems that the rainbow sim V2? requires n70 (I turned it off along with n71 - was hoping to track n66) to be available else it switches to T-Mobile.  So this confirms my suspicion that you need to be close to a site to get on Dish.  Have no idea why they don't just use plmn. To test, I put it into a s21 ultra, rebooted twice, came up on T-Mobile (no n70 on s21).  Tried to manually register on 313340, but it did not connect (tried twice). I am on factory unlocked firmware but used a s22 hack to get *#73# working.  Tried what you were suggesting with a T-Mobile sim partially installed, but that was very unstable with Dish ( I think they had figured that one out).  [edit: and now I see Boost sent me a successful device swap notice which says I can now begin to use my new device.  Sigh.  Will try again later and wait for this message - too impatient.]
    • Hopefully this indicates T-Mobile hasn't completely abandoned mmwave and/or small cells? But then again this is the loop, so take that as you will. Hopefully now that most macro activity is done (besides rural colo/builds), they will start working on small cells.   
    • This has been approved.. https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/fcc-approves-t-mobiles-deal-to-purchase-mint-mobile/  
    • In the conference call they had two question on additional spectrum. One was the 800 spectrum. They are not certain what will happen, thus have not really put it into their plans either way (sale or no sale). They do have a reserve level. Nationwide 800Mhz is seen as great for new technologies which I presume is IOT or 5g slices.  T-Mobile did not bite on use of their c-band or DOD.  mmWave rapidly approaching deadlines not mentioned at all. FWA brushes on this as it deals with underutilized spectrum on a sector by sector basis.  They are willing to take more money to allow FWA to be mobile (think RV or camping). Unsure if this represents a higher priority, for example, FWA Mobile in RVs in Walmart parking lots working where mobile phones need all the capacity. In terms of FWA capacity, their offload strategy is fiber through joint ventures where T-Mobile does the marketing, sales, and customer support while the fiber company does the network planning and installation.  50%-50% financial split not being consolidated into their books. I think discussion of other spectrum would have diluted the fiber joint venture discussion. They do have a fund which one use is to purchase new spectrum. Sale of the 800Mhz would go into this. It should be noted that they continue to buy 2.5Ghz spectrum from schools etc to replace leases. They will have a conference this fall  to update their overall strategies. Other notes from the call are 75% of the phones on the network are 5g. About 85% of their sites have n41, n25, and n71, 90% 5g.  93% of traffic is on midband.  SA is also adding to their performance advantage, which they figure is still ahead of other carriers by two years. It took two weeks to put the auction 108 spectrum to use at their existing sites. Mention was also made that their site spacing was designed for midrange thus no gaps in n41 coverage, while competitors was designed for lowband thus toggles back and forth for n77 also with its shorter range.  
    • The manual network selection sounds like it isn't always scanning NR, hence Dish not showing up. Your easiest way to force Dish is going to be forcing the phone into NR-only mode (*#*#4636#*#* menu?), since rainbow sims don't support SA on T-Mobile.
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...