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T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2


lilotimz

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Thanks, I'll admit I was not up to speed on what actually happened. Scratch my SNR theory.

 

Now, do you know if they modified that across the board (not so good for high-band like B41) or is there any individuality? Oh, and now I'm bring it back off topic :wacko:

Signal bars don't discriminate by frequency band.

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Signal bars don't discriminate by frequency band.

Uhhh okay, the threshold is the same for all bands (maybe I'm crazy for thinking there'd possibly be a difference in the threshold for low vs high band, I don't know).

 

I'm sorry for presuming discrimination.

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TMO is making fast progress doing the GMO lte. It's not ideal but better than 2g-only.

 

Toggle between these two to see progress

 

2g/3g/4g

https://maps.eng.t-mobile.com/pcc.html?map=brightspot

 

2g/3g/4g/lte

https://maps.eng.t-mobile.com/pcc.html?map=mvno-noroam-34l

Lou, while I know T-Mobile isn't doing any 700mhz work here in Chicago seeing as they don't have it here, is T-Mobile going to at least densify their network here to supplement their launch of 15x15?

 

Also, I'm going back to Sprint later on a really great plan, and am not going to have Android Lollipop for a while, thankfully!

I figured out that it likely was causing the few network connection issues I had with Sprint on the Nexus 6. I decided I'm going to get the Kyocera Hydro with its KitKat, seeing as KitKat works fine on my ZTE Zmax. Then I'll switch to the Samsung Note 5 when it becomes available for purchase, hopefully with a stable, working Lollipop.

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Lou, while I know T-Mobile isn't doing any 700mhz work here in Chicago seeing as they don't have it here, is T-Mobile going to at least densify their network here to supplement their launch of 15x15?

 

Also, I'm going back to Sprint later on a really great plan, and am not going to have Android Lollipop for a while, thankfully!

I figured out that it likely was causing the few network connection issues I had with Sprint on the Nexus 6. I decided I'm going to get the Kyocera Hydro with its KitKat, seeing as KitKat works fine on my ZTE Zmax. Then I'll switch to the Samsung Note 5 when it becomes available for purchase, hopefully with a stable, working Lollipop.

Their network is already the densest out of the 4 carriers here. At least everywhere I've been it sure is.

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Also, I'm going back to Sprint later on a really great plan, and am not going to have Android Lollipop for a while, thankfully!

I figured out that it likely was causing the few network connection issues I had with Sprint on the Nexus 6. I decided I'm going to get the Kyocera Hydro with its KitKat, seeing as KitKat works fine on my ZTE Zmax. Then I'll switch to the Samsung Note 5 when it becomes available for purchase, hopefully with a stable, working Lollipop.

 

Huh? I've been using a Nexus 6 on Sprint since December and haven't had any connection issues. I don't recall reading about anyone else having problems either.

 

Lollipop itself was a bit rough out of the gate but the updates have helped tremendously, notably, 5.1 which plugged up most (all?) of the annoying memory leak. No complaints from me.

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Huh? I've been using a Nexus 6 on Sprint since December and haven't had any connection issues. I don't recall reading about anyone else having problems either.

 

Lollipop itself was a bit rough out of the gate but the updates have helped tremendously, notably, 5.1 which plugged up most (all?) of the annoying memory leak. No complaints from me.

From what I've been reading online about Lollipop, the issues and severity or lack thereof, vary by different factors. Some people haven't had any problems whereas others have.

 

My Nexus 6 worked most of the time, though the times it did not were pretty frustrating. I had the signal go completely off on me a few times which I initially thought was a Sprint issue, I even posted about it here. Then after a few resets of the device, it came back on. Then there were the abnormal 4g drops to 3g on a stretch of road others on S4GRU said shouldn't happen, as the road is covered with 4g LTE. The issue happened late at night with very little congestion. The next day in the early evening in heavier congestion, 4G LTE worked fine on the same road.

 

Also, I had a mysterious problem with Tidal skipping tracks that doesn't happen on my ZTE Zmax. So, I had a conversation with someone here about it, who told me the issue happened to them while using Tidal on other carriers with Android Lollipop, so it definitely isn't a carrier issue, and I doubt something wrong with Tidal, as it works on my ZTE Zmax, as mentioned.

 

I could post some links to articles relating to the Lollipop issues, if requested.

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Then there were the abnormal 4g drops to 3g on a stretch of road others on S4GRU said shouldn't happen, as the road is covered with 4g LTE. The issue happened late at night with very little congestion.

That's not the device, and it's not the operating system--it's Sprint. Honestly, you're going to encounter a lot of LTE drops on Sprint in the Chicago market. Either from being in your pocket, or stepping indoors. It's some kind of issue that has never been resolved. I don't know how it is in other markets, but it stinks here, and honestly, it's their only downfall. Everything else works great.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6+

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That's not the device, and it's not the operating system--it's Sprint. Honestly, you're going to encounter a lot of LTE drops on Sprint in the Chicago market. Either from being in your pocket, or stepping indoors. It's some kind of issue that has never been resolved. I don't know how it is in other markets, but it stinks here, and honestly, it's their only downfall. Everything else works great.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6+

I thought it was Sprint the evening it happened, but then it was fine the next day, all the way down the road. There were a few other brief areas that only lasted a minute or two, but went right back to 4g.

Anyways, Sprint is densifying their network, so whatever holes there are ought to be resolved soon.

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Their network is already the densest out of the 4 carriers here. At least everywhere I've been it sure is.

You can't really evaluate density on anecdotal evidence.

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You can't really evaluate density on anecdotal evidence.

I've done the research and have the data to back it up for Northwest Indiana. It goes: VZW, AT&T, Sprint, then T-Mobile from least dense to most dense here.

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I've done the research and have the data to back it up for Northwest Indiana. It goes: VZW, AT&T, Sprint, then T-Mobile from least dense to most dense here.

I'm curious to why Verizon is the least dense around here, as that has me worried for the future if I ever have to go with them for wireless service, in case Softbank sells Sprint off. BTW, I'm going to be back on Sprint officially when the pre-ordered LG G4 I decided to choose arrives, instead of getting a temporary device while waiting for the Samsung Note 5, a nice sounding device, but too costly for my mother right now. The LG G4 looks to be a great all-around device.

 

Anyways, could someone give a number for how many towers each carrier has in the U.S., or at least here in Chicago. That ought to help give an idea of site density.

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I'm curious to why Verizon is the least dense around here

It's like that everywhere. They're site spacing is setup based on their low-frequency spectrum holdings. Less sites to cover more area. That's why network vision is quite successful, because their towers are in a closer/denser PCS setup, and they're running low frequency voice and data.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6+

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BTW, the voice quality on Sprint is so much better than on T-Mobile. It isn't even a minor difference where T-Mobile is acceptable, it sounds just so bad to me now that I've used Sprint.

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I'm curious to why Verizon is the least dense around here, as that has me worried for the future if I ever have to go with them for wireless service

 

 

It's like that everywhere. They're site spacing is setup based on their low-frequency spectrum holdings.

 

That used to be true a few years ago. But it's not like that *everywhere* anymore.

 

Verizon's thrown a lot of money at increased density in some urban/suburban markets, since they've deployed mid-band (AWS) LTE. I suspect that trend will hit Chicago, if it hasn't already.

 

And Verizon's was awarded #1 in the last two Chicago RootMetrics reports (including a win for data speed/performance on the most recent one) - http://www.rootmetrics.com/us/rsr/chicago-il/2014/2H. I wouldn't be worried about them or anything.

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BTW, the voice quality on Sprint is so much better than on T-Mobile. It isn't even a minor difference where T-Mobile is acceptable, it sounds just so bad to me now that I've used Sprint.

Why does T-Mobile sound bad to you? I've been using them lately and have never been happier with call quality on a cellphone in my life. AMR-NB 12.2, AMR-WB 12.6, and 23.8 sound phenomenal to me. And no random artifacts in any of my calls either (something that I always had a problem with on Sprint)

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Why does T-Mobile sound bad to you? I've been using them lately and have never been happier with call quality on a cellphone in my life. AMR-NB 12.2, AMR-WB 12.6, and 23.8 sound phenomenal to me. And no random artifacts in any of my calls either (something that I always had a problem with on Sprint)

I should note that I haven't experienced HD Voice on T-Mobile, though the regular sound is bad in contrast to what Sprint sounded like with the Nexus 6.

 

I have a temporary usage deal going on with T-Mobile currently, as I mentioned was the choice my mother wanted to go with after we left Sprint because of not being able to switch to Framily from an already established account. We only had a couple of days left before being locked into a contract, so we had to switch to something while figuring out what options there were available.

 

However, the T-Mobile store made a mess of things with my MetroPCS ZTE Zmax device pinning us with a very stressful ordeal over unlocking it. I wanted to go to Verizon instead of T-Mobile in the first place and was ready to talk with my mother about it again, when suddenly I received a very kind offer from someone to have a line on their Sprint plan, which is very generous and helpful to my mother and I.

 

While on T-Mobile, the experience has actually been worse in some ways than when I was on MetroPCS, speeds on LTE down to less than 1mbps on 4G LTE while in Schaumburg the other day. I've experienced faster 3G speeds on Sprint than that! Again, the voice quality is noticeably better on Sprint, which adds more anticipation I have while I wait to get the LG G4.

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I should note that I haven't experienced HD Voice on T-Mobile, though the regular sound is bad in contrast to what Sprint sounded like with the Nexus 6.

I have a temporary usage deal going on with T-Mobile currently, as I mentioned was the choice my mother wanted to go with after we left Sprint because of not being able to switch to Framily from an already established account. We only had a couple of days left before being locked into a contract, so we had to switch to something while figuring out what options there were available.

However, the T-Mobile store made a mess of things with my MetroPCS ZTE Zmax device pinning us with a very stressful ordeal over unlocking it. I wanted to go to Verizon instead of T-Mobile in the first place and was ready to talk with my mother about it again, when suddenly I received a very kind offer from someone to have a line on their Sprint plan, which is very generous and helpful to my mother and I.

While on T-Mobile, the experience has actually been worse in some ways than when I was on MetroPCS, speeds on LTE down to less than 1mbps on 4G LTE while in Schaumburg the other day. I've experienced faster 3G speeds on Sprint than that! Again, the voice quality is noticeably better on Sprint, which adds more anticipation I have while I wait to get the LG G4.

Being that you're using two different devices on the two different networks does make it harder to have an objective opinion about the networks call quality so keep that in mind.

 

I've used all four carriers with my iPhone 6 in the last month and my experience from worst to best has been: VZW (not counting VoLTE because prepaid doesn't allow it), AT&T (UMTS and VoLTE combined), Sprint, and T-Mobile.

 

From the sounds of things It seems like T-Mobile is gonna have to refarm PCS for LTE before long if speeds keep swirling down the crapper around here as I don't think the upgrade to 15x15 AWS when they get that live is gonna cut it. OTOH I'm with them for the month and must be lucky as personally my experience has been great. No problem with speeds in NWI (probably because it's a dense network here with relatively light population density). Only had a problem out towards Southlake Mall on rt 30 yesterday with sub 1 Mbps speeds and that was it. (Trouble spot for all the carriers).

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Being that you're using two different devices on the two different networks does make it harder to have an objective opinion about the networks call quality so keep that in mind.

 

I've used all four carriers with my iPhone 6 in the last month and my experience from worst to best has been: VZW (not counting VoLTE because prepaid doesn't allow it), AT&T (UMTS and VoLTE combined), Sprint, and T-Mobile.

 

From the sounds of things It seems like T-Mobile is gonna have to refarm PCS for LTE before long if speeds keep swirling down the crapper around here as I don't think the upgrade to 15x15 AWS when they get that live is gonna cut it. OTOH I'm with them for the month and must be lucky as personally my experience has been great. No problem with speeds in NWI (probably because it's a dense network here with relatively light population density). Only had a problem out towards Southlake Mall on rt 30 yesterday with sub 1 Mbps speeds and that was it. (Trouble spot for all the carriers).

What is the non-HD Voice like on VZW? I've heard from some reports its bad, but it has been several years since I last used Verizon back in the early 2000s.

 

I definitely agree with you that T-Mobile needs to refarm their PCS for LTE around here. I thought the 15x15 would help, but when I had a pm conversation with someone here on S4GRU about it, the relief difference in that from what I was experiencing wouldn't be that much.

 

Once Sprint gets the carrier aggregation going strong on 2.5 here in Chicago, that kind of issue I was experiencing on T-Mobile won't even be a bit of possibility on Sprint. If T-Mobile hopes to compete with Sprint around here at that point, not only will they need 15x15 and the PCS LTE, but they ought to consider buying the 700mhz spectrum from the AT&T/Cricket-Leap deal.

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What is the non-HD Voice like on VZW? I've heard from some reports its bad, but it has been several years since I last used Verizon back in the early 2000s.

 

I definitely agree with you that T-Mobile needs to refarm their PCS for LTE around here. I thought the 15x15 would help, but when I had a pm conversation with someone here on S4GRU about it, the relief difference in that from what I was experiencing wouldn't be that much.

 

Once Sprint gets the carrier aggregation going strong on 2.5 here in Chicago, that kind of issue I was experiencing on T-Mobile won't even be a bit of possibility on Sprint. If T-Mobile hopes to compete with Sprint around here at that point, not only will they need 15x15 and the PCS LTE, but they ought to consider buying the 700mhz spectrum from the AT&T/Cricket-Leap deal.

TMO on pcs has

5x5 gsm

10x10 Hspa

 

For those of you in deep urban Chicago and dense suburban, id be curious to see a few speedtests on Hspa before and after the AWS Hspa is shutdown on 7/5/2015

 

Depending on the load on Hspa, TMO may shrink pcs Hspa to 5x5 BEFORE they shut down gsm.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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What is the non-HD Voice like on VZW? I've heard from some reports its bad, but it has been several years since I last used Verizon back in the early 2000s.

 

I used VZW from flip phones to smartphones and still talk to mostly VZW users. 

 

The call quality used to be mediocre to horrible. It still is if a VZW user is using a feature phone with no/poor noise cancelling and there's any background noise involved. Now, I'd say below-average to average depending on the smartphone and how it handles noise cancellation. Still the residual robo garble and tinniness. Usable, but still Verizon. 

 

can-you-hear-me-now.jpg

Edited by cortney
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Why does T-Mobile sound bad to you? I've been using them lately and have never been happier with call quality on a cellphone in my life. AMR-NB 12.2, AMR-WB 12.6, and 23.8 sound phenomenal to me. And no random artifacts in any of my calls either (something that I always had a problem with on Sprint)

I didn't answer your question specifically earlier, as I wanted to think of the best way to describe the differences between Sprint's voice quality sound, in contrast to T-Mobile's voice quality sound. Now that I've thought about it for a bit, I think I've figured out an analogy I'm going to use, which I believe is at least fairly accurate.

 

Sprint's voice quality sounds like someone is speaking through a microphone connected to a good speaker system in an auditorium setting. It is crisp and clear, as long as the person is not speaking too loudly, as it would create an issue for the microphone's sensitivity, which causes artifacts.

 

T-Mobile's voice quality sounds like someone is speaking through a toned-down megaphone, which despite the volume not being as high, still produces a bass-less amplified sound. Opposite of Sprint, T-Mobile seems to do better when someone is speaking louder, as it has difficulty picking up softer voices and causes a lot of skipping and static, at least from my experiences with it.

 

Anyways, that is my assessment of the two, again from my experiences with them. Personally, I vastly prefer Sprint's sound with the occasional artifacts, rather than T-Mobile's tinny loudspeaker-like sound.

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I didn't answer your question specifically earlier, as I wanted to think of the best way to describe the differences between Sprint's voice quality sound, in contrast to T-Mobile's voice quality sound. Now that I've thought about it for a bit, I think I've figured out an analogy I'm going to use, which I believe is at least fairly accurate.

 

Sprint's voice quality sounds like someone is speaking through a microphone connected to a good speaker system in an auditorium setting. It is crisp and clear, as long as the person is not speaking too loudly, as it would create an issue for the microphone's sensitivity, which causes artifacts.

 

T-Mobile's voice quality sounds like someone is speaking through a toned-down megaphone, which despite the volume not being as high, still produces a bass-less amplified sound. Opposite of Sprint, T-Mobile seems to do better when someone is speaking louder, as it has difficulty picking up softer voices and causes a lot of skipping and static, at least from my experiences with it.

 

Anyways, that is my assessment of the two, again from my experiences with them. Personally, I vastly prefer Sprint's sound with the occasional artifacts, rather than T-Mobile's tinny loudspeaker-like sound.

That actually sounds like the earpiece speakers your describing and not so much the network. My iPhone 6 on Sprint had a nice punchy lower-mid range as does it on T-Mobile. But on lesser codecs like what VZW uses and AT&T's AMR 5.9 that's missing.

 

CDMA codecs are usually noted for their bright, sometimes described as tinny sound and AMR-NB and AMR-WB have a warmer often said to be more natural sound to them.

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Anyone else notice more T-Mobile hosted speedtest servers? I just noticed a new one in Elgin, IL.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

I did a search on speedtest for servers within 400 miles of Chicago, which the only servers hosted by T-Mobile listed are Elgin and Detroit.

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