Breaking Band: Tri-band LTE / eCSFB issues thread

[mikejeep]

eHRDP should indicate that the upgrades are either in process or completed though since eHRDP uses the LTE network as a backend. I get LTE at other places in O'Fallon so that lead me to my conclusion that it is the one tower down the road from me that isn't completely finished.

 

Hmph alright. Maybe I'll go down and check out the tower site sometime and see if the equipment is there.

 

You are right, that tower down the road from you might not be completely finished.. in fact that's probably why you're not connecting to LTE.

 

If you do go check out the tower, the equipment may already be installed but is waiting on backhaul or something else. Site upgrades require a lot of different things to happen. The shiniest new cabinets are not much good if there isn't any fiber hooked up to them, or if the equipment hasn't passed the necessary testing and inspections. There are dozens of sites near me that have all of the new equipment in place, but are not broadcasting LTE yet -- my guess (and that's all it is, a guess) is that the backhaul is not in place.

 

An incomplete NV site and the CSFB issue are two totally different things. If you're not having problems connecting to other LTE sites nearby, it's a reasonable indicator that it's not an issue in your area.

 

By the way, welcome to S4GRU! You seem interested in this stuff, so poke around and read up on all of the great information that has already been posted. There are some very informative articles on "The Wall".

 

-Mike

[EvanA]

You are right, that tower down the road from you might not be completely finished.. in fact that's probably why you're not connecting to LTE.

 

If you do go check out the tower, the equipment may already be installed but is waiting on backhaul or something else. Site upgrades require a lot of different things to happen. The shiniest new cabinets are not much good if there isn't any fiber hooked up to them, or if the equipment hasn't passed the necessary testing and inspections. There are dozens of sites near me that have all of the new equipment in place, but are not broadcasting LTE yet -- my guess (and that's all it is, a guess) is that the backhaul is not in place.

 

An incomplete NV site and the CSFB issue are two totally different things. If you're not having problems connecting to other LTE sites nearby, it's a reasonable indicator that it's not an issue in your area.

 

By the way, welcome to S4GRU! You seem interested in this stuff, so poke around and read up on all of the great information that has already been posted. There are some very informative articles on "The Wall".

 

-Mike

Thanks for the info and welcome! I've already been poking around the site and have found a lot of helpful/interesting info.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[lilg740]

Thanks for the info and welcome! I've already been poking around the site and have found a lot of helpful/interesting info.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

You should definitely check out the Missouri Market thread.(Metro east is in MO Market). Let me know where you are and maybe I can help you.

[EvanA]

You should definitely check out the Missouri Market thread.(Metro east is in MO Market). Let me know where you are and maybe I can help you.

I was checking out that thread earlier - will post some details over there.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Tajustin95]

Man east side San Jose, ca still has ecsfb issues. Think I am going to return my nexus 5 till everything is finalized.

[S4GRU]

Man east side San Jose, ca still has ecsfb issues. Think I am going to return my nexus 5 till everything is finalized.

South Bay 3G deployment is straggling. But I'm told most of the sites are complete/nearing completion. Some cluster launches should not be very far off. But it could be a month still.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[Tajustin95]

Thanks! I will be looking forward to it and hopefully more band 41 will be completed!

 

South Bay 3G deployment is straggling. But I'm told most of the sites are complete/nearing completion. Some cluster launches should not be very far off. But it could be a month still.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[jthawks]

I hope this is the right place. OK so I have the lg g2 and I live in Denver. LTE is on in spots and I enabled my band 41. I also know and the ecsfb issue with these phones. So my question is why can I keep a band 41 connection for a long time in some areas, mind you lte is limited here, but some areas it connects for a second or maybe a minute but signal is very low. Also I was able to pull between 35 and 48mps on band 41 a week ago with strong signal. Can someone explain more please.

 

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[mikejeep]

I hope this is the right place. OK so I have the lg g2 and I live in Denver. LTE is on in spots and I enabled my band 41. I also know and the ecsfb issue with these phones. So my question is why can I keep a band 41 connection for a long time in some areas, mind you lte is limited here, but some areas it connects for a second or maybe a minute but signal is very low. Also I was able to pull between 35 and 48mps on band 41 a week ago with strong signal. Can someone explain more please.

Sprint is not releasing the software update to officially enable the "Spark" connectivity on some devices, including the G2, until early 2014. Some people have been able to intermittently connect anyway, but typically only if they cannot pick up a band 25 signal.

 

-Mike

[BrynSuwerer]

I created an account just to say the Raleigh/Durham area went LTE for me on my Nexus 5 a few days after Christmas.  At least in Cary/Morrisville/RTP.  I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for a friend at lunchtime and pulled out my phone and noticed LTE above my bars.  Checked the network fields at work and home (I'm usually on wifi there) and confirmed I had LTE network.

[The Dave]

I created an account just to say the Raleigh/Durham area went LTE for me on my Nexus 5 a few days after Christmas.  At least in Cary/Morrisville/RTP.  I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for a friend at lunchtime and pulled out my phone and noticed LTE above my bars.  Checked the network fields at work and home (I'm usually on wifi there) and confirmed I had LTE network.

That's awesome. I remember the first time I saw "4G LTE" in my notification bar and did my first speed test (27mbps!). I had that feeling much like when you are walking down the sidewalk and notice a folded up $20 just lying on the ground.

[Terrell352]

Why would a site that i know is broadcasting new 3G/4G showing up as lte only not in the acceptance reports? I know they both are on because I was there when they flipped the switch for both. Does ericsson sometimes skip out on reporting completed towers or something?

[mikejeep]

Why would a site that i know is broadcasting new 3G/4G showing up as lte only not in the acceptance reports? I know they both are on because I was there when they flipped the switch for both. Does ericsson sometimes skip out on reporting completed towers or something?

I don't think anyone is "skipping out" on anything.. sites are marked as accepted after they have been inspected and approved on behalf of Sprint. You have been around here long enough to know that it is very common for sites to be live but not accepted, or accepted but not live. Not to mention that I imagine keeping these maps updated is a ridiculous amount of work for Robert, or perhaps Robert hasn't received the information for that site yet.

 

If the site appears to be live, just enjoy it and don't worry about the map!

 

-Mike

[Terrell352]

Yeah but 9 months of being active and not accepted? Come on now. Why would they do that? Its really hard to judge if not impossible to know if a site has been accepted if its done like this.

I don't think anyone is "skipping out" on anything.. sites are marked as accepted after they have been inspected and approved on behalf of Sprint. You have been around here long enough to know that it is very common for sites to be live but not accepted, or accepted but not live. Not to mention that I imagine keeping these maps updated is a ridiculous amount of work for Robert, or perhaps Robert hasn't received the information for that site yet.

 

If the site appears to be live, just enjoy it and don't worry about the map!

 

-Mike

[cornelious2]

Yeah but 9 months of being active and not accepted? Come on now. Why would they do that? Its really hard to judge if not impossible to know if a site has been accepted if its done like this.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[S4GRU]

Why would a site that i know is broadcasting new 3G/4G showing up as lte only not in the acceptance reports? I know they both are on because I was there when they flipped the switch for both. Does ericsson sometimes skip out on reporting completed towers or something?

Ericsson wasn't really getting any sites 3G accepted nine months ago. They started doing 3G really late, I'm sure you remember. Please provide details of what they were doing exactly and what you saw when the 3G was being flipped on in front of you. We have had workers tell our members in the past that both sides were being integrated before and them be dead wrong.

 

Also, please provide me the Site ID # and I will have a source specifically double check the Sprint databases to see if the site has indeed been signed off complete and accepted. Since we are human beings handling data for 75,000 sites (incl. Clearwire and Nextel databases), we are certainly not above making mistakes.

 

There are no systematic issues of Ericsson not reporting 3G sites, though. But there are also reasons why a site can be broadcasting legitimately and not accepted. We receive acceptance reports, not on air reports. They generally are about the same time...acceptance and on-air.

 

Acceptance means everything has been signed off as acceptable and the Contractor can be paid for his work. Sometimes a site can be done enough to be fully functional and allowed to go on-air, but something on the site is not good enough to be accepted complete. And if that item or items does not hinder the customer experience, the site could be in the condition where it can be live but not accepted. And if it is a cluster launch, then they really will not hold up turning on a whole cluster because of some minor things holding up acceptance of one site.

 

A site can sit there languishing for months waiting for something minor to be corrected. It would likely stay that way until the Contractor finally wants to get paid for that site and makes an effort to double back and finish up some stragglers.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

[iolaus]

I just wanted to chime in with our issue that I believe must be CSFB related.  For the last month or two we have been unable to receive incoming calls on our LG G2s at home unless we set Network mode to "CMDA" (as apposed to the default "Global").  Before I discovered this setting we were simply unable to receive phone calls at all.  Two calls to Sprint support have been unhelpful thus far.  The first call was before I had self-diagnosed the issue and they were unable to provide any assistance other than to tell me they would look at the tower and things should be better within 48 hours.  The second call, made today (several weeks after the first call) with the knowledge of the work-around and CSFB relation, was no more helpful.  I was unable to get anyone on the phone that was technical enough to understand the issue and I was told (again) that they would look at the tower and things should get better within 48 hours.

 

Does anyone know how I can get this information to someone who will understand and possibly be able to do something about it?

 

Thanks!

[anthony.spina97]

I just wanted to chime in with our issue that I believe must be CSFB related.  For the last month or two we have been unable to receive incoming calls on our LG G2s at home unless we set Network mode to "CMDA" (as apposed to the default "Global").  Before I discovered this setting we were simply unable to receive phone calls at all.  Two calls to Sprint support have been unhelpful thus far.  The first call was before I had self-diagnosed the issue and they were unable to provide any assistance other than to tell me they would look at the tower and things should be better within 48 hours.  The second call, made today (several weeks after the first call) with the knowledge of the work-around and CSFB relation, was no more helpful.  I was unable to get anyone on the phone that was technical enough to understand the issue and I was told (again) that they would look at the tower and things should get better within 48 hours.

 

Does anyone know how I can get this information to someone who will understand and possibly be able to do something about it?

 

Thanks!

Is your device connected to LTE when you are at home? If so, how strong is the LTE signal? If you have a very weak/unusable LTE signal, then the phone probably isn't able to communicate with the CSFB on the cell site, so the network won't be able to tell your phone to switch to 1x/3G.

 

-Anthony  

[iolaus]

Is your device connected to LTE when you are at home? If so, how strong is the LTE signal? If you have a very weak/unusable LTE signal, then the phone probably isn't able to communicate with the CSFB on the cell site, so the network won't be able to tell your phone to switch to 1x/3G.

 

-Anthony  

 

Thanks for the reply Anthony.  The phone does connect to LTE at home when the Network Mode is set to "Global".  According to the Network screen under system settings the Signal Strength is: -110 dBm 29 asu.  While the LTE signal doesn't seem to be great it is usable, I can browse the web or download apps without any issue.

[shamrock 505]

I hope someone can point me in the right direction-live in 18503-lte is spotty-always on 3g at home-currently have galaxy s4-if I upgrade to galaxy s4 triband, will I have more data problems until my area has full lte? Thanks

 

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[shamrock 505]

Or I can move closer to my senator's or congressmen's offices-on sensorly they're so purple they would make the Vikings jealous-power to the lobbyists!

 

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[jthawks]

ok so i pretty much know the answer but going to ask anyways.  So I drove by two towers today that are 4g on the map and couldnt connect at all. I did everything. I thought once a tower went live that it had ecsfb and csfb was working. Does this mean that those towers do not have that working cause my g2 doesnt connect to them?

[mozamcrew]

ok so i pretty much know the answer but going to ask anyways.  So I drove by two towers today that are 4g on the map and couldnt connect at all. I did everything. I thought once a tower went live that it had ecsfb and csfb was working. Does this mean that those towers do not have that working cause my g2 doesnt connect to them?

Are they 3G complete as well?

[jthawks]

Yes. They are actually 4g sites as indicated on the maps. Also there are 800 too. I can tell you the sites if you like

[EvanA]

Yes. They are actually 4g sites as indicated on the maps. Also there are 800 too. I can tell you the sites if you like

Specific sites would be great.

 

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