Small cell

[jthawks]

This has been up for a couple months. Finally walked by it and no power on yet. Sorry I have seemed to lost my password to login for premiere. That's why I put this here. Also this is in northglen colorado.

 

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[Dkoellerwx]

There is no password for Premiere. That's a Tapatalk issue. Just use the regular website.

[Joski1624]

Closing in on 50 B41 small cells found for Cleveland.  On average it's been about a month between when the site is built and when it finally gets fired up.  Posting of cascade IDs at sites seems to be very market dependent.  Cleveland has a lot of theirs physically posted, but there are some markets that hardly have any physically posted.  I can't tell if the picture has a Sprint cascade, or some other identifier.  All small cells I've found have 90XS within the ID.  The same seems to hold true in other markets from what I'm told.

[Joski1624]

I'll also mention that it sometimes can be extremely difficult to connect to a small cell.  At one site in Ravenna, OH, only one of three of my phones successfully found the signal.  And that was after several airplane mode cycles.

[dkyeager]

Some small cells are for extended coverage while others are for rf shadows including building interiors. Look for hospitals, big box stores, and resturants.  One of ours is for an extremely popular candy factory store.  Also try to get out of the path of the host b41 signal.  We have also had small cells not turned on for many months even after the electric meter is installed, so check the meter to see that it is drawing power between visits (the amount of power used is very small so it is unlikely you will notice a change while standing there). It can take 15 minutes for your phone to notice a small cell.  Once found, your phone will then find it quicker in the future.

[Sprke]

On 8/4/2018 at 3:38 AM, Joski1624 said:

I'll also mention that it sometimes can be extremely difficult to connect to a small cell.  At one site in Ravenna, OH, only one of three of my phones successfully found the signal.  And that was after several airplane mode cycles.

What’s the point of these cells if they’re that hard to connect to? The regular customer isn’t going to know the cell is there let alone power cycle their phone to connect to it. If they’re there to help take the load off the macro network why aren’t th phones connecting to them normally?

[RAvirani]

9 minutes ago, Sprke said:

What’s the point of these cells if they’re that hard to connect to? The regular customer isn’t going to know the cell is there let alone power cycle their phone to connect to it. If they’re there to help take the load off the macro network why aren’t th phones connecting to them normally?

The network needs a few weeks to optimize the macro-to-small-cell handoff.

When small cells first come up, they are usually quite difficult to connect to, but the problem shouldn’t persist for very long. 

[JonnygATL]

I dunno. My magic box is extremely annoying (being a form of small cell). Other sprint phones instantly latch onto it but not my gs9+. Weird. My roomie (ex) has a GS9 that instantly connects to mb. I can't be me more frustrated because without it, I'm on a mostly useless signal on bands 25 and 26. I have gotten no good answers so far as to why the gs9 seems to struggle with connecting to at least this type of small cell. 

[shaferz]

7 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

I dunno. My magic box is extremely annoying (being a form of small cell). Other sprint phones instantly latch onto it but not my gs9+. Weird. My roomie (ex) has a GS9 that instantly connects to mb. I can't be me more frustrated because without it, I'm on a mostly useless signal on bands 25 and 26. I have gotten no good answers so far as to why the gs9 seems to struggle with connecting to at least this type of small cell. 

Its not just the GS9.  I have had a bear of a time with my iPhoneX as well.  Sometimes it latches on just fine to the MB, othertimes it completely ignores it (actually dropping to 3G) all the while, my wives iPhoneX happily chugs along on the MB.  Its infuriating.

One thing I did notice was that when I do a ##UPDATE# on the iPhone (which updates the PRL and 'data profile'), it sometimes takes up to a few weeks before my phone consistently grabs the MB again.  For folks who are home often, I assume the phone adapts to the environment more quickly, but I am usually out of state for work during the week and then we camp on the weekends - so my phone will only be at home near the MB for short periods of time.  Point being... everyone always focuses on the fact that the MB/small cells need time to optimize, but I believe the same is true for some phones as well.

[ingenium]

Its not just the GS9.  I have had a bear of a time with my iPhoneX as well.  Sometimes it latches on just fine to the MB, othertimes it completely ignores it (actually dropping to 3G) all the while, my wives iPhoneX happily chugs along on the MB.  Its infuriating. One thing I did notice was that when I do a ##UPDATE# on the iPhone (which updates the PRL and 'data profile'), it sometimes takes up to a few weeks before my phone consistently grabs the MB again.  For folks who are home often, I assume the phone adapts to the environment more quickly, but I am usually out of state for work during the week and then we camp on the weekends - so my phone will only be at home near the MB for short periods of time.  Point being... everyone always focuses on the fact that the MB/small cells need time to optimize, but I believe the same is true for some phones as well.

 

Yes that's true. And the modem only has a memory for a certain number of sites. If you're always traveling to new areas and not home that often, it will eventually learn your home network, but then when you leave for a week to a new area and travel around, it gets overwritten with new data and has to learn it again when you get back. 

The local network won't learn that the magic box is there necessarily (meaning it won't actively move you to it, or suggest you move to it). But every time a cell event happens (changing bands, changing carriers), and sometimes just randomly, the network sends a "system information block" message. This contains a lot of things, but one of them is a list of earfcns that the phone should look on for a signal. The magic box and small cell earfcns are always in this list. The others are the active earfcns in the area.

 

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[JonnygATL]

Having so much difficulty with connecting to it kinda defeats the purpose of of having one at all. It also begs the question of how useful is it as a means of enhancing/expanding the network when the majority of passersby are likely not connecting to it (just as I am most times not). 

[jthawks]

On 8/3/2018 at 11:36 AM, jthawks said:

 

This has been up for a couple months. Finally walked by it and no power on yet. Sorry I have seemed to lost my password to login for premiere. That's why I put this here. Also this is in northglen colorado. 

 

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