Jump to content

Sprint to expand to Montana using shut down CellularOne sites


Recommended Posts

It does look like a 5x5 chunk of PCS-B Block in all the critical parts of Montana are leased to AT&T from Sprint.  Until June 2015.  That only leaves Sprint a 10x10 in the interim.  And strangely, that 5x5 lease is right in the middle of the block, leaving only 5MHz on each side.

 

However, my guess is that Sprint wouldn't fire up new NV sites in Montana until next summer anyway.  So probably no loss.  And if they only started out with one B25 and one B26 LTE carrier, and one 1x/EVDO carrier in PCS and one 1x carrier in SMR, then the lease doesn't impede anything.  And they could fire them up as they complete, even before the lease expiration.

 

Robert

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We know that Sprint also conducted their B26 FIT in Montana.  So there may be additional sites already ready in Montana that will add to this new pickup.  Or, part of me wonders, if Sprint already had this worked out long in advance and Cellular One hosted the FIT.  Interesting stuff.  

 

I wish we had folks in Montana that could have been monitoring sites and found the B26 FIT.  Maybe we can pick up some Montanans now?

 

Robert

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find this very exciting even though I will prolly never use it.

I must be crazy living in Massachusetts and excited for towers in Montana! Smh..

 

You are probably not the only one that fits that definition...

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We know that Sprint also conducted their B26 FIT in Montana.  So there may be additional sites already ready in Montana that will add to this new pickup.  Or, part of me wonders, if Sprint already had this worked out long in advance and Cellular One hosted the FIT.  Interesting stuff.  

 

I wish we had folks in Montana that could have been monitoring sites and found the B26 FIT.  Maybe we can pick up some Montanans now?

 

Robert

 

Road trip? :lol:

 

 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I'm heading to Montana right now but I don't have a Sprint phone with me. I find this Cellular One stuff very interesting as I was a subscriber of their's right after they switched over from CDMA to GSM. I know most of their tower locations in the Billings Hardin area

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I'm heading to Montana right now but I don't have a Sprint phone with me. I find this Cellular One stuff very interesting as I was a subscriber of there's right after they switched over from CDMA to GSM. I know most of their tower locations in the Billings Hardin area

 

Take pics of any Cellular One towers you come across.  Would love to see some.  See if anything interesting appears.

 

Robert

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Take pics of any Cellular One towers you come across. Would love to see some. See if anything interesting appears.

 

Robert

Will do.. My parents live about a mile from one of their towers I'll try and get close and take some pics
  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is many, many hours I don't have.  That doesn't even include tower spotting and fried chicken breaks!   :hah:

 

Robert

 Having driven from Missoula to Fargo a few years ago (stopping only for gas and fast food), I completely understand!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks like it's the network too.  Probably can fire up the existing network right away for Sprint customers and will just need to schedule the Network Vision conversions thereafter.

 

Chinook PCS aka sham Cellular One has a 3GPP only network.  It used to be cdmaOne, but that was scrapped after a flash cut to GSM.  So, the existing network -- other than maybe backhaul -- is not of much use to Sprint right away.  

 

AJ

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really hope they AT LEAST achive complete complete coverage of the interestates in MT, ND, and SD. Ideally they'd cover some of the US highways too, starting with US2.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

C'mon, baby!

 

Seriously though, this stokes my fire.

 

Come on, Robert, just combine those two statements...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MifWlrkEBD4

 

AJ

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, they have 15x15 PCS locally.  Also, they have 7x7 SMR.  And B41 EBS too, but no BRS.

 

Robert

 

Really? Interesting, so Sprint could/already does offer service there?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could see some of these sites bring protection like sites. Ground mount the RRUs , reuse the panels, upgrade backhaul where needed,(in time). But basically put the ground equipment needed and broadcast LTE/1x and keep the license.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I'm heading to Montana right now but I don't have a Sprint phone with me. I find this Cellular One stuff very interesting as I was a subscriber of their's right after they switched over from CDMA to GSM. I know most of their tower locations in the Billings Hardin area

I didn't even realize they were still around! Here in Eastern PA Cellular One became Cingular and then AT&T
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chinook PCS aka sham Cellular One has a 3GPP only network. It used to be cdmaOne, but that was scrapped after a flash cut to GSM. So, the existing network -- other than maybe backhaul -- is not of much use to Sprint right away.

 

AJ

I thought they still had their CDMA network. Neal disabused me of that notion earlier today.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought they still had their CDMA network. Neal disabused me of that notion earlier today.

 

I have never done a full spectrum inventory on MTPCS aka Chinook PCS aka sham Cellular One.  It was too small an operator to warrant my attention, and as you can tell, I do not like the company.  It licensed the Cellular One name not that long after Alltel acquired Western Wireless, which had operated as Cellular One in Montana and much of the West.  You just know that MTPCS did so because many people who were displeased at being absorbed into Alltel would think that their Cellular One had returned to the market.  SBC and Cingular did much the same thing with AT&T and AT&TWS.  It is a shamelessly deceptive practice.  But I digress.

 

MTPCS, as I recall, operated in relatively little spectrum:  10-20 MHz per market.  So, a flash cut away from cdmaOne was basically necessary.

 

AJ

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If they are going in this big in Montana...much bigger than just the build out requirements would necessitate...then can I start to get hopeful about Western South Dakota?  They don't have any CCA/RRPP members here.  And they do also have G Block Build Out Requirements here, and EBS Protection Sites.

 

C'mon, baby!  No Whammies!  No Whammies!  STOP!!!

 

Seriously though, this stokes my fire.  This is much bigger than I ever thought Sprint would do in Montana.  I was expecting just a site or two each in Billings, Great Falls, Missoula and Kalispell.  The old Sprint never would have done this.

 

Robert

I'd absolutely love to see coverage in western SD. My family takes a road trip to the black hills just about every summer, and 3g coverage would be really nice.

 

I agree that the old Sprint wouldn't have been this aggressive, although I think it was eventually part of Hesse's plan to expand the footprint at some point down the road. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't even realize they were still around! Here in Eastern PA Cellular One became Cingular and then AT&T

Cellular One was always a "brand" that the various A side* wireless operators used rather than a single company. For example, when I lived in Oxford MS I had "Cellular One" service from a company called Rural Cellular Corporation (until they had an outage at their core and I switched to Sprint in disgust); eventually they stopped bothering licensing the Cellular One name and renamed their service Unicel but kept using the same font. An incomplete version of the sordid history of Cellular One is here at Wikipedia.

 

* The original cellular A block was reserved for non-incumbent wireline operators, while cellular B was designated for the incumbent wireline operator (usually a Bell System company, i.e. the precursors to today's Verizon and AT&T wireless divisions).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, they have 15x15 PCS locally.  Also, they have 7x7 SMR.  And B41 EBS too, but no BRS.

 

Robert

 

I guess there are huge chunk of MT covered by IBEZ so that they cannot use SMR

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few iDen conversions in Idaho along with this purchase should just about give Sprint complete coverage for the entire length of I-15...

Ok. Covered another Interstate by interstate carrier

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess there are huge chunk of MT covered by IBEZ so that they cannot use SMR

They did the B26 FIT in Montana somewhere. They may be clear on the Canadian side of the border in that region. And if not, it would just impact Kalispell and Great Falls.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They did the B26 FIT in Montana somewhere. They may be clear on the Canadian side of the border in that region. And if not, it would just impact Kalispell and Great Falls.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

There is not much on the Canadian side of the border...Of course there is not much on the US side of the border there either...

  • Like 6
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

    • Since this is kind of the general chat thread, I have to share this humorous story (at least it is to me): Since around February/March of this year, my S22U has been an absolute pain to charge. USB-C cables would immediately fall out and it progressively got worse and worse until it often took me a number of minutes to get the angle of the cable juuuussst right to get charging to occur at all (not exaggerating). The connection was so weak that even walking heavily could cause the cable to disconnect. I tried cleaning out the port with a stable, a paperclip, etc. Some dust/lint/dirt came out but the connection didn't improve one bit. Needless to say, this was a MONSTER headache and had me hating this phone. I just didn't have the finances right now for a replacement.  Which brings us to the night before last. I am angry as hell because I had spent five minutes trying to get this phone to charge and failed. I am looking in the port and I notice it doesn't look right. The walls look rough and, using a staple, the back and walls feel REALLY rough and very hard. I get some lint/dust out with the staple and it improves charging in the sense I can get it to charge but it doesn't remove any of the hard stuff. It's late and it's charging, so that's enough for now. I decide it's time to see if that hard stuff is part of the connector or not. More aggressive methods are needed! I work in a biochem lab and we have a lot of different sizes of disposable needles available. So, yesterday morning, while in the lab I grab a few different sizes of needles between 26AWG and 31 AWG. When I got home, I got to work and start probing the connector with the 26 AWG and 31 AWG needle. The stuff feels extremely hard, almost like it was part of the connector, but a bit does break off. Under examination of the bit, it's almost sandy with dust/lint embedded in it. It's not part of the connector but instead some sort of rock-hard crap! That's when I remember that I had done some rock hounding at the end of last year and in January. This involved lots of digging in very sandy/dusty soils; soils which bare more than a passing resemblance to the crap in the connector. We have our answer, this debris is basically compacted/cemented rock dust. Over time, moisture in the area combined with the compression from inserting the USB-C connector had turned it into cement. I start going nuts chiseling away at it with the 26 AWG needle. After about 5-10 minutes of constant chiseling and scraping with the 26AWG and 31AWG needles, I see the first signs of metal at the back of the connector. So it is metal around the outsides! Another 5 minutes of work and I have scraped away pretty much all of the crap in the connector. A few finishing passes with the 31AWG needle, a blast of compressed air, and it is time to see if this helped any. I plug my regular USB-C cable and holy crap it clicks into place; it hasn't done that since February! I pick up the phone and the cable has actually latched! The connector works pretty much like it did over a year ago, it's almost like having a brand new phone!
    • That's odd, they are usually almost lock step with TMO. I forgot to mention this also includes the September Security Update.
    • 417.55 MB September security update just downloaded here for S24+ unlocked   Edit:  after Sept security update install, checked and found a 13MB GP System update as well.  Still showing August 1st there however. 
    • T-Mobile is selling the rest of the 3.45GHz spectrum to Columbia Capital.  
    • Still nothing for my AT&T and Visible phones.
  • Recently Browsing

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