Different speeds at different towers is there a reason?

[dnicekid]

I know the topic is vague.

I am in springfield, mass I hardly have seen lte speeds above 10 most are 3-7.. Thos is no matter how great my signal is, I can be next to a tower and the same thing. Recently while driving through the Enfield, Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield parts of connecticut I can get 12-16 down within a reasonable distance.. My question is .. If they are still early in building out northern conn.. Why are their speeds so much faster than mine locally? Its literally a few miles apart from Springfield mass line to the connecticut line. Lte in conn is some much better than western mass.. Why? We have been offically launched and several towers have 800 voice active but the data is still hit or miss?!?!?!

What is the difference between towers?

[jamisonshaw125]

More people connected to your home tower than the towers you drove by? That could be one of the reasons out of many

[shannonbrian]

The biggest thing nobody knows how many sprint devices are lte active on that tower at time . Test it 3 in morning see to see the real speed not loaded.

[Dkoellerwx]

I know the topic is vague.

I am in springfield, mass I hardly have seen lte speeds above 10 most are 3-7.. Thos is no matter how great my signal is, I can be next to a tower and the same thing. Recently while driving through the Enfield, Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield parts of connecticut I can get 12-16 down within a reasonable distance.. My question is .. If they are still early in building out northern conn.. Why are their speeds so much faster than mine locally? Its literally a few miles apart from Springfield mass line to the connecticut line. Lte in conn is some much better than western mass.. Why? We have been offically launched and several towers have 800 voice active but the data is still hit or miss?!?!?!

What is the difference between towers?

 

Different loads will produce different results. You have access to the maps, check out and see how many sites in your area are 4G complete. If not all of them are 4G complete, that will produce slower results, as the completed sites are carrying a higher load than they will once everything is complete. 

[dnicekid]

That was my first thought. However here in my little town sitting next to the tower I get the same thing... 3-4 maybe 5 or 6

I should be getting better speeds here than in springfield.. I wonder if its backhaul.. the 3g speeds are still terrible

[Dkoellerwx]

That was my first thought. However here in my little town sitting next to the tower I get the same thing... 3-4 maybe 5 or 6

I should be getting better speeds here than in springfield.. I wonder if its backhaul.. the 3g speeds are still terrible

 

It's the load on the tower. Sites do not have LTE go live without having adequate backhaul in place. 

[dnicekid]

If that is true, about backhaul we are in a lot of trouble. Springfield is 100,000 pops most are vzw/att then sprint tmo #4 but coming up quickly. I never see the speeds that many get on this site.. I hope sprint can somehow remedy it.

[Dkoellerwx]

If that is true, about backhaul we are in a lot of trouble. Springfield is 100,000 pops most are vzw/att then sprint tmo #4 but coming up quickly. I never see the speeds that many get on this site.. I hope sprint can somehow remedy it.

 

There are still 8 sites in the general area that need to be upgraded. Once that happens, I'm sure average speeds come up a bit. There's a reason Sprint only advertises speeds of 6-8Mbps. 

[shannonbrian]

I found best way get good fast signal with great speed is climb the tower and duck tape your phone to the panel and bame perfect connection . I dont even need 800 mhz for penatration .

[JossMan]

I know the topic is vague.

I am in springfield, mass I hardly have seen lte speeds above 10 most are 3-7.. Thos is no matter how great my signal is, I can be next to a tower and the same thing. Recently while driving through the Enfield, Windsor, South Windsor, Bloomfield parts of connecticut I can get 12-16 down within a reasonable distance.. My question is .. If they are still early in building out northern conn.. Why are their speeds so much faster than mine locally? Its literally a few miles apart from Springfield mass line to the connecticut line. Lte in conn is some much better than western mass.. Why? We have been offically launched and several towers have 800 voice active but the data is still hit or miss?!?!?!

What is the difference between towers?

One, the bandwidth is shared, so your speeds are going to vary throughout the day.  Second, Sprint is targeting LTE to be in the 5-8Mbps range which is more than enough for a smartphone.  Have your tried the Signalcheck app on your phone to see what your signal levels are when you are testing the LTE speed? You seeing 3-7Mbps means you could *long shot* have LTE signal levels in the -102 to -110dB range.  You are seeing 12-16Mbps because a site doesn't have much data traffic on it and you were closer to a Sprint site.  There was a few Sprint sites that I was pulling 30Mbps off of when LTE was first rolled out back in the summer, now those sites are hovering in the 9-15Mbps range. You being a premier sponsor, have you looked at the maps to compare towers that have been completed with LTE to the ones that are still lacking?  Just because Sprint has officially launched LTE doesn't mean your area is 100% complete.  Where I live they officially launched LTE back in the summer here, but there are a few sites that have yet to be lit up with LTE.  

[AJC1973]

every body has said it, load on tower... i mean i have a finite amount of data going through a single pipe... if i have 30 people hooked up to it its going to dribble at the end.  i mean we have all had bandwidth issues in the past whether at home or using a single wifi connection with multiple people, this is expected everywhere and easiest to explain

 

also your location in reference the available sectors you can be  the same distance from a tower.. but if your location is offset from the panels at a right angle your going to get significant signal degradation they try to elieviate this by having multiple sectors but still you are going to get an uneven power distribution 

 

also keep in mind the angle the panels are pointed uptilt is something thats hard to measure or anticipate you may have lousy signal the same distance from once site than another but be able to go a few miles further and get great signal, not knowing those numbers makes it impossible for anyone to say why your home tower is slower than other towers... but you have to keep these variables in mind when you go to compare one tower or another.

 

you cant just say im x miles from tower a and i get this signal so if im x miles from tower b i should get this signal without knowing the other variables like sector direction, and tower uptilt. if you are going to test a site do it from different locations in relation to the towers to see if there is a problem with the site or just that its set up with different variables.