LTE Plus / Enhanced LTE (was "Sprint Spark" - Official Name for the Tri-Band Network)

[S4GRU]

What offsets that low signal? Is it low noise and the quality of the signal even though its a low signal? Can you explain in depth?

 

If memory serves, EVDO maintains up to 80% of its performance at -100dBm, but it starts to drop significantly between -100dBm and -106dBm. So if the channel is clear without much noise, and there isn't a lot of traffic on the channel, you can maintain about 70% of the performance of an EVDO channel in good conditions at -102dBm.

 

At my office, my EVDO channel is pretty under utilized on my sector. My airlink is probably functioning near the 2.6Mbps maximum speed. So, at my -102dBm connection, I can keep roughly 70% of the performance. So the airlink can support up to 1.8Mbps at my location. My site is connected to T1 backhaul. Which is pretty much limited to 1.4Mbps speeds. So, since the maximum airlink speed at my office location exceeds the speed of the backhaul still, it is the speed of the backhaul that will govern my final throughput download performance, not the quality of my signal.

 

At some point, your signal and quality will degrade to the point where the airlink is capable of less performance than the site backhaul, and then the EVDO signal quality is impacting your performance.

 

Many people assume their signal strength and quality is the issue to their EVDO performance. However, in most cases it is sector airlink saturation, poor quality signal or backhaul causing their EVDO performance. There are a lot of variables at play here. However, in good conditions, EVDO can be usable up to -106dBm.

 

Robert

[digiblur]

You should have been burning that EVDO down so they would come put another one and bond them so you could easily hit 2.0+ speeds

[CriticalityEvent]

If memory serves, EVDO maintains up to 80% of its performance at -100dBm, but it starts to drop significantly between -100dBm and -106dBm. So if the channel is clear without much noise, and there isn't a lot of traffic on the channel, you can maintain about 70% of the performance of an EVDO channel in good conditions at -102dBm.

 

At my office, my EVDO channel is pretty under utilized on my sector. My airlink is probably functioning near the 2.6Mbps maximum speed. So, at my -102dBm connection, I can keep roughly 70% of the performance. So the airlink can support up to 1.8Mbps at my location. My site is connected to T1 backhaul. Which is pretty much limited to 1.4Mbps speeds. So, since the maximum airlink speed at my office location exceeds the speed of the backhaul still, it is the speed of the backhaul that will govern my final throughput download performance, not the quality of my signal.

 

At some point, your signal and quality will degrade to the point where the airlink is capable of less performance than the site backhaul, and then the EVDO signal quality is impacting your performance.

 

Many people assume their signal strength and quality is the issue to their EVDO performance. However, in most cases it is sector airlink saturation, poor quality signal or backhaul causing their EVDO performance. There are a lot of variables at play here. However, in good conditions, EVDO can be usable up to -106dBm.

 

Robert

 

Are you saying that the performance of the signal drops exponentially with the signal strength, or is the drop fairly linear from, say, -65 to -100dBm with a dramatic change occurring at -100 to -106dBm? Either way, this seems fairly robust when compared to LTE. Even at its worst, LTE appears to perform better than EV-DO, but I feel there’s something to be said about performance as a function of signal strength.

 

Given what we use LTE for right now, nobody should have a problem using it when it’s at its worst, but what about future applications? For example, even at 70 to 80% of its maximum throughput, EV-DO can still stream a YouTube video, even though this means that you’re quickly approaching the limits of usable signal. What if people start adopting LTE and LTE-A for some purpose that requires it to perform at 80% of its maximum throughput? The use of this application would be limited to areas of high signal strength. Will we see another network technology as “robust” as EV-DO?

[S4GRU]

 

Are you saying that the performance of the signal drops exponentially with the signal strength, or is the drop fairly linear from, say, -65 to -100dBm with a dramatic change occurring at -100 to -106dBm? Either way, this seems fairly robust when compared to LTE. Even at its worst, LTE appears to perform better than EV-DO, but I feel there’s something to be said about performance as a function of signal strength.

 

Given what we use LTE for right now, nobody should have a problem using it when it’s at its worst, but what about future applications? For example, even at 70 to 80% of its maximum throughput, EV-DO can still stream a YouTube video, even though this means that you’re quickly approaching the limits of usable signal. What if people start adopting LTE and LTE-A for some purpose that requires it to perform at 80% of its maximum throughput? The use of this application would be limited to areas of high signal strength. Will we see another network technology as “robust” as EV-DO?

 

With EVDO, it's the latter explanation you cite. All ultra high speed wireless technology (LTE, WiMax and HSPA+) have more fragile air links. Trying to make data faster and faster has disadvantages.

 

As for LTE capacity, it is gonna get used and it is going to fill the one PCS LTE carrier in most areas. Fortunately, Sprint already is planning to start rolling out additional PCS LTE carrier, SMR LTE carriers and TD-LTE carriers to keep LTE capacity up. In fact, Sprint has more options to keep their LTE network more robust than other carriers in America. SoftBank will not allow the Sprint network to managed the way that caused 3G to get overwhelmed.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[CriticalityEvent]

With EVDO, it's the latter explanation you cite. All ultra high speed wireless technology (LTE, WiMax and HSPA+) have more fragile air links. Trying to make data faster and faster has disadvantages.

 

As for LTE capacity, it is gonna get used and it is going to fill the one PCS LTE carrier in most areas. Fortunately, Sprint already is planning to start rolling out additional PCS LTE carrier, SMR LTE carriers and TD-LTE carriers to keep LTE capacity up. In fact, Sprint has more options to keep their LTE network more robust than other carriers in America. SoftBank will not allow the Sprint network to managed the way that caused 3G to get overwhelmed.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

EDIT: I completely missed the point you made, sorry!

 

Are you saying that additional carriers can be used to compensate for signal loss? For example, a single PCS LTE carrier will experience significant throughput loss in a low-reception area, but using a second PCS carrier in that same spot can help mitigate that loss so the throughput stays more consistent?

 

 

 

 

Original post (if interested):

 

Oh, I don’t think that I phrased my question well, sorry. I wasn’t curious about the capacity so much as I was curious about the degradation in throughput from signal loss.

 

Let’s take the YouTube example again and assume that you’re the only person using a nearby tower and you want to stream a standard definition video that required 1.5Mbps of throughput. In a 3G-only EV-DO world, a tower could’ve supported a maximum throughput 2.6Mbps to your device which, for the sake of this example, has a maximum signal strength of -65dBm RSSI. If you have a clear line-of-site to the tower, you have a big surplus of available throughput. Now, you decide to go inside a nearby building and your signal drops to -102dBm, but you still can stream at 1.8Mbps despite a huge drop in signal strength (still a surplus, but not by much).

 

Now let’s go to some point in the future where everything is running on LTE-A with 100Mbps maximum throughput to your device and you’re streaming an Ultra-HD video on YouTube which requires 58Mbps (same proportion as required throughput to available throughput as the EV-DO example). Outside this building, you have a signal strength of -85dBm RSRP which allows you to pull the full 100Mbps if you wanted. When you walk into the same building, your LTE signal drops to -122dBm.

 

Given what you had said before regarding the sensitivity of LTE’s throughput based on its signal strength, I feel that the drop in throughput would be much greater than the 30% drop seen in the EV-DO example. If this is the case, then you are no longer able to use the signal for that application. This concerns me because, as conservative as I try to be with my data usage, I might still like to occasionally use an application to its fullest potential. Getting used to the consistency of EV-DO performance given large changes in signal could lull people into a false sense of security with LTE when future applications like these are being considered.

 

So, to re-phrase my question, are there any network technologies that would see the same marginal drop in throughput despite large changes in signal strength like EV-DO but perform at true 4G speeds?

[WiWavelength]

So, to re-phrase my question, are there any network technologies that would see the same marginal drop in throughput despite large changes in signal strength like EV-DO but perform at true 4G speeds?

 

HSPA+ (W-CDMA), but you have to be willing to throw a ton of bandwidth (20-40 MHz) at it.

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

HSPA+ (W-CDMA), but you have to be willing to throw a ton of bandwidth (20-40 MHz) at it.

 

AJ

 

In my observations with HSPA+ in Wichita Falls side by side with Sprint LTE, it seemed to degrade the same as LTE. LTE 1900 and Tmo AWS WCDMA degraded about the same from the same locations, in both signal strength and performance. However, this was not with 20-40MHz channels, of course.

 

Robert

[S4GRU]

EDIT: I completely missed the point you made, sorry!

 

Are you saying that additional carriers can be used to compensate for signal loss? For example, a single PCS LTE carrier will experience significant throughput loss in a low-reception area, but using a second PCS carrier in that same spot can help mitigate that loss so the throughput stays more consistent?

 

 

 

 

Original post (if interested):

 

Oh, I don’t think that I phrased my question well, sorry. I wasn’t curious about the capacity so much as I was curious about the degradation in throughput from signal loss.

 

Let’s take the YouTube example again and assume that you’re the only person using a nearby tower and you want to stream a standard definition video that required 1.5Mbps of throughput. In a 3G-only EV-DO world, a tower could’ve supported a maximum throughput 2.6Mbps to your device which, for the sake of this example, has a maximum signal strength of -65dBm RSSI. If you have a clear line-of-site to the tower, you have a big surplus of available throughput. Now, you decide to go inside a nearby building and your signal drops to -102dBm, but you still can stream at 1.8Mbps despite a huge drop in signal strength (still a surplus, but not by much).

 

Now let’s go to some point in the future where everything is running on LTE-A with 100Mbps maximum throughput to your device and you’re streaming an Ultra-HD video on YouTube which requires 58Mbps (same proportion as required throughput to available throughput as the EV-DO example). Outside this building, you have a signal strength of -85dBm RSRP which allows you to pull the full 100Mbps if you wanted. When you walk into the same building, your LTE signal drops to -122dBm.

 

Given what you had said before regarding the sensitivity of LTE’s throughput based on its signal strength, I feel that the drop in throughput would be much greater than the 30% drop seen in the EV-DO example. If this is the case, then you are no longer able to use the signal for that application. This concerns me because, as conservative as I try to be with my data usage, I might still like to occasionally use an application to its fullest potential. Getting used to the consistency of EV-DO performance given large changes in signal could lull people into a false sense of security with LTE when future applications like these are being considered.

 

So, to re-phrase my question, are there any network technologies that would see the same marginal drop in throughput despite large changes in signal strength like EV-DO but perform at true 4G speeds?

 

Wireless carriers are going to have to increase site density even further if they are going to try to get uniform speeds all over their coverage. And they are addressing that to some extent with small cell development.

 

However, even weak LTE signals outperform EVDO. So I'm not sure I share your concern. I would love some weak LTE in the areas I go now with poor EVDO performance. And fortunately Sprint already has pretty high site density in most markets, so LTE signal strength should be pretty good.

 

Most Sprint site spacing in suburban and urban locations is much better than what the max LTE 1900 can handle. But there are a few markets that will suffer in the initial LTE 1900 deployment. Like Baton Rouge. However, the LTE 800 overlay that occurs next year can handle farther spacing that LTE 1900. And surely what is lacking can be shored up with small cells.

 

No doubt that Sprint LTE will be a vast improvement over the current network. And with all the plans in the short and mid term, and with what Softbank will do in the long term, this is really a non issue in my opinion.

 

Robert

[WiWavelength]

In my observations with HSPA+ in Wichita Falls side by side with Sprint LTE, it seemed to degrade the same as LTE. LTE 1900 and Tmo AWS WCDMA degraded about the same from the same locations, in both signal strength and performance. However, this was not with 20-40MHz channels, of course.

 

To clarify, when I said 20-40 MHz bandwidth, I meant total bandwidth, not downlink bandwidth. So, T-Mobile may already be running 20 MHz bandwidth as DC-HSPA+ (two 5 MHz x 5 MHz aggregated W-CDMA carriers) in Wichita Falls, as it has the AWS spectrum there to do so. But we would need an engineering screen readout or a few sectors on my spectrum analyzer to confirm that the deployment is indeed dual carrier.

 

That said, T-Mobile is also running traditional circuit switched voice on its DC-HSPA+ carriers, so that more or less continuously adds "noise" to the channel and degrades packet data performance. For QC-HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, or even HSPA+ to come close to its full potential throughput and coverage, it would have to be run as just a packet data carrier with no voice traffic -- à la EV-DO.

 

AJ

[2fastkuztoms]

Its is possible to the phone to show LTE signal on debug screen without been connected to it?

 

I'm on eHRPD on my work, but its shows RSRP:-116 RSRQ:-15 SNR:-1.6 on my LTE enginerring screen.

 

Update: I check on LTE eng. screen on another place and It gave the same numbers.

[WiWavelength]

Its is possible to the phone to show LTE signal on debug screen without been connected to it?

 

I'm on eHRPD on my work, but its shows RSRP:-116 RSRQ:-15 SNR:-1.6 on my LTE enginerring screen.

 

Have you connected to LTE previously? If so, that is probably just extant data. I have noticed that sometimes the engineering screen readouts get "stuck."

 

AJ

[2fastkuztoms]

Have you connected to LTE previously? If so, that is probably just extant data. I have noticed that sometimes the engineering screen readouts get "stuck."

 

AJ

 

Thanks, look like is stuck, it gave me the same numbers at home with no LTE connection.

[2fastkuztoms]

-114 on a bad spot at home, -98 outside.

[Synovialbasher]

I don't know if this is the best forum to post my question, and I'd be happy to ask it where it should be if someone directs me to where that would be...

 

Anyways, I live in a fair to poor signal area (most 1x bars I get is about 3. Usually I get less than 1). The tower that I think I get my service from isn't in a very rural area, and I have a feeling that it will be upgraded to lte when it comes to my town (even though I can get up to 1 Mbps from a certain room upstairs right now with 3G). When lte comes, do you think my signal strength will improve at all, or if I take my phone to the parts of my house with three bars, will I get faster speeds possibly above 5mbps?

 

Thanks everyone,

 

Joe

[tampaflusa]

I read over the thread, maybe I missed it, but I was able to get signal strength in the about screen in settings under network on my EVO running Jellybean.

[chamb]

I don't know if this is the best forum to post my question, and I'd be happy to ask it where it should be if someone directs me to where that would be...

 

Anyways, I live in a fair to poor signal area (most 1x bars I get is about 3. Usually I get less than 1). The tower that I think I get my service from isn't in a very rural area, and I have a feeling that it will be upgraded to lte when it comes to my town (even though I can get up to 1 Mbps from a certain room upstairs right now with 3G). When lte comes, do you think my signal strength will improve at all, or if I take my phone to the parts of my house with three bars, will I get faster speeds possibly above 5mbps?

 

Thanks everyone,

 

Joe

Joe,

It is impossible to give you an answer and be totally positive it is correct. But I do have some experience with this. Generally a NV site will give you slightly better CDMA 1X and CDMA 3G data. It you now get 1 meg on 3G, I would guess you will get several times that speed on 4G LTE. When they kill Nextel and start using those frequencies for CDMA voice(this Spring), you should really get a boost on Voice. Later, they will also use Nextel frequencies for LTE and you will get another boost.(toward Year end)

Of course, you need the newer phones to get the maximum benefit. It will get better in several steps.

[egonadrian]

Could these come from the same tower? Im only pulling 2mbps download and I have great signal. Could 1x and LTE come from the same tower?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[wyattwalter]

I've recently downloaded a Cydia tweak called "Bars." I suggest those with iPhones check it out.

[digiblur]

Numbers is my thing.

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

 

[Synovialbasher]

Just upgraded to the latest version of cyanogenmod (10.1) and it seems now whenever I connect to 4G the bars will suddenly change to an accurate reading. I know whenever I'm on 3G the bars show my 1X signal strength, which on sprint apparently is terrible, but as soon as the 4G light comes on the entire thing changes completely. Does anyone know if in Cyanogenmod the bars don't lie and in fact show your true signal strength?

[S4GRU]

Just upgraded to the latest version of cyanogenmod (10.1) and it seems now whenever I connect to 4G the bars will suddenly change to an accurate reading. I know whenever I'm on 3G the bars show my 1X signal strength, which on sprint apparently is terrible, but as soon as the 4G light comes on the entire thing changes completely. Does anyone know if in Cyanogenmod the bars don't lie and in fact show your true signal strength?

 

It's been reported that CM 10 series shows LTE signal strength. And fortunately it does, because it will not allow you to use dialer codes and access your LTE Engineering screen.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[Synovialbasher]

It's been reported that CM 10 series shows LTE signal strength. And fortunately it does, because it will not allow you to use dialer codes and access your LTE Engineering screen.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

So glad they got that in! Now if I could only change the bars to show the right data while on 3G... Still, as 4G becomes more common I guess it really won't matter.

 

Thanks!

[modplan]

So glad they got that in! Now if I could only change the bars to show the right data while on 3G... Still, as 4G becomes more common I guess it really won't matter.

 

Thanks!

 

I came here to ask the same question about CM 10.1, because I also thought that the LTE bars were accurate, good to see that confirmed.

 

I'm using SignalCheck Pro (created by a member of this forum) to check LTE/CDMA/1x signal strength, works great.

[jefbal99]

So glad they got that in! Now if I could only change the bars to show the right data while on 3G... Still, as 4G becomes more common I guess it really won't matter.

 

Thanks!

 

CM shows me 1X or 3G depending on the connectivity and the "bars" match what I see from the SignalCheck Pro App.

[S4GRU]

Many Custom ROM's show bars correctly with EVDO and LTE. It can be an advantage of a custom ROM. The OP is referring to stock ROM's. There is no way for us to track all the Custom ROM's out there. But this is a good use of the responding posts in this thread to report when our members discover a custom ROM that does show LTE signal strength, and also report the ones that don't.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD