Network Vision/LTE - Shentel Market (Shenandoah Valley/Hagerstown/Harrisburg)

[DCC233]

Wow, good to know. I live right next to a WiMAX site. I'm surprised a company as small as Shentel can afford the cash outlays of these modernizations. I know it was a big topic in their earnings calls regarding their large amount of capital investments. Glad to see it though. However, I'm curious what will occur here since Sprint owns the old WiMAX sites post Clear merger and Shentel rents their own space on towers or owns their own towers.... will the old WiMAX sites be turned over to Shentel? Or will many be decommissioned and simply co-located on Shentel racks?

Look at shentels earnings closely and you will see how important Sprint is to their bottom line and why those cash outlays have a much shorter ROI than there cable or wireline operations. I think Shentel is one of those companies that has a longer term outlook and is not as short sighted as other companies.

 

My big question, amongst the others everyone has noted about there B41 deployment, is there potential to overbuild ntelos's footprint given their slow deployment.

[Galaxyguy]

So who else lost service tonight? Looks like everything is back working again. I heard from a source at Shentel that a fiber line went down which caused the outage. Not really sure how accurate that is though. Weird thing was I couldn't make any calls on my work phone which is a 1900mhz only phone but my personal phone was able to make calls on 800. Not sure why. All data was down though for everyone.

 

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[Boosted20V]

Anyone else try to get on a Framily Plan? Shentel won't let you and says they're not participating. I understand their hesitance to cut their margins but this looks awful for customers who see the commercials and are told they can't get on a plan.

[Galaxyguy]

I haven't heard that but since just anybody can't join accounts together who already have service, I doubt it would hurt them too much. Also, you would think they would want to get rid of phone subsidies. That has to cost them a good bit up front when starting a new line of service.

 

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[chamb]

Anyone else try to get on a Framily Plan? Shentel won't let you and says they're not participating. I understand their hesitance to cut their margins but this looks awful for customers who see the commercials and are told they can't get on a plan.

I wonder what might happen if a Shentel customer would drive out of Shentel territory to a Sprint corporate store in Frederick or Baltimore and try to change their plan to the Framily.

[Boosted20V]

If you call, you can switch to the plans and yes, you can visit a corporate store outside their areas from what I was told. So odd that if they can't stop you from getting on the plans they don't just accept marketing them.

[liner81]

Can anyone in the York area confirm problems with the circuit switched fallback on a Nexus 5? Is anyone able to stay on LTE? (While actually making / receiving phone calls!)

 

My Nexus 5 was staying on the LTE connection, therefore I was missing calls and unable to dial out. By trying different towers around the local area, I see the phone keeps getting pushed back to 3G as if the towers recognize that csfb won't work. I'm trying to figure out if my home tower is failing to downgrade me to 3G (which it should do because it can't handle csfb) or if there is something else going on...

 

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[S4GRU]

I received word today that Shentel is starting to rollout a second PCS LTE carrier now on busy sites in the Woodstock to Hagerstown corridor.  Possibly also in additional areas.  Keep an eye on your LTE Engineering screen for different channel assignments and make sure to post them here if you do.

 

Also, I heard that Shentel will be adding a Band 41 LTE overlay to sites in three Shentel cities in 2014.  With more to follow in 2015.  I don't have any more details than this.  This is all I know at this time.

 

It would be nice if the additional B25 LTE carriers is part of a Sprint network wide push to add them where needed and spectrum available.  And Shentel is just a part of that big grand plan.  But this may just be Shentel being aggressive in their network management.  Shentel is awesome.  

 

Robert

[The_Chemist]

I received word today that Shentel is starting to rollout a second PCS LTE carrier now on busy sites in the Woodstock to Hagerstown corridor.  Possibly also in additional areas.  Keep an eye on your LTE Engineering screen for different channel assignments and make sure to post them here if you do.

 

Also, I heard that Shentel will be adding a Band 41 LTE overlay to sites in three Shentel cities in 2014.  With more to follow in 2015.  I don't have any more details than this.  This is all I know at this time.

 

It would be nice if the additional B25 LTE carriers is part of a Sprint network wide push to add them where needed and spectrum available.  And Shentel is just a part of that big grand plan.  But this may just be Shentel being aggressive in their network management.  Shentel is awesome.  

 

Robert

Great news!  Hopefully they'll make their way north to Harrisburg soon...

[marioc21]

I received word today that Shentel is starting to rollout a second PCS LTE carrier now on busy sites in the Woodstock to Hagerstown corridor.  Possibly also in additional areas.  Keep an eye on your LTE Engineering screen for different channel assignments and make sure to post them here if you do.

 

Also, I heard that Shentel will be adding a Band 41 LTE overlay to sites in three Shentel cities in 2014.  With more to follow in 2015.  I don't have any more details than this.  This is all I know at this time.

 

It would be nice if the additional B25 LTE carriers is part of a Sprint network wide push to add them where needed and spectrum available.  And Shentel is just a part of that big grand plan.  But this may just be Shentel being aggressive in their network management.  Shentel is awesome.  

 

Robert

Shentel's earnings call is tomorrow morning at 8 ET. Maybe we'll get some further clarity.

[JosefTor]

I received word today that Shentel is starting to rollout a second PCS LTE carrier now on busy sites

Robert

Newbie question: my understanding is that adding a second LTE carrier on B25 means using another block of spectrum (E.g.: 5mhz).

 

What I don't understand is how this affects the equipment installed on a tower. Would this require additional antennas be installed or is this simply a software configuration of those currently existing antennas?

[cdk]

Newbie question: my understanding is that adding a second LTE carrier on B25 means using another block of spectrum (E.g.: 5mhz).

 

What I don't understand is how this affects the equipment installed on a tower. Would this require additional antennas be installed or is this simply a software configuration of those currently existing antennas?

 

I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it just requires another carrier card installed in the cabinet.

[S4GRU]

Newbie question: my understanding is that adding a second LTE carrier on B25 means using another block of spectrum (E.g.: 5mhz).

 

What I don't understand is how this affects the equipment installed on a tower. Would this require additional antennas be installed or is this simply a software configuration of those currently existing antennas?

 

It involves having a 5x5 chunk of spectrum available, and installing an LTE carrier card on the LTE module in the base cabinet.  Only after the B25 LTE RRU is full of carriers (typically 4) would you have to install another RRU on the tower structure.  Additional antenna panels would only be required if all the PCS antennas are full capacity.  Then another panel would be required.

 

For most sites and most deployment scenarios, adding a second or third B25 LTE carrier is a matter of installing the card, a few hours of provisioning/integration, and most importantly, available spectrum to use it.  Not a difficult process at all, really.

 

Robert

[Galaxyguy]

I just received a new PRL update today. Went from 25017 to 25018 on my GS3. Seems this new version scans for 1900 first. I'm curious why they changed it. The old PRL scanned 800 first.

 

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[bbspot]

I just received a new PRL update today. Went from 25017 to 25018 on my GS3. Seems this new version scans for 1900 first. I'm curious why they changed it. The old PRL scanned 800 first.

 

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I see this behavior on my gs3 as well.

[JosefTor]

I just received a new PRL update today. Went from 25017 to 25018 on my GS3. Seems this new version scans for 1900 first. I'm curious why they changed it. The old PRL scanned 800 first.

 

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Makes sense though as they would prefer people be on their work horse band and only kick people to 800 when they need it (E.g. : indoors).

[chamb]

Makes sense though as they would prefer people be on their work horse band and only kick people to 800 when they need it (E.g. : indoors).

Yes, this does seem the way to set it up.  Keep 800 1X sort of idle for the people that happen to be someplace on the fringe of service. Sprint does need to have the threshold set up correctly that controls what band is going to be used for your call.

If Sprint requires a cell phone to connect to 1900 at a level from -100 to -105, they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

When the level is that bad, they need to allow that phone to connect via 800.  Put the call on 800 so it stays connected and leave it there for the duration.  After that call is done, that phone can go back to 1900 for a future call if the level is -99 or better.

[Galaxyguy]

My phone stayed on 1900 until I went into my office at work which is in the basement of a brick building. Once inside it switched to 800 and has stayed there ever since. I guess this is just opposite of the way it was before the new PRL update came out.

 

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[chamb]

My phone stayed on 1900 until I went into my office at work which is in the basement of a brick building. Once inside it switched to 800 and has stayed there ever since. I guess this is just opposite of the way it was before the new PRL update came out.

 

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This is exactly how it should work.  I would suspect that a call might drop when it does the transfer if you happen to have a call established on 1900 as you walk toward your office.   You should be able to establish a call on 800 in your office and walk out just fine.   In your travels, you may find some strange situation that will cause you to go back to 1900.  It can happen.  If it does, you will stay there until you go back into your office or some similar place.

[bakedc4]

Found the second carrier

 

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[cdk]

Found the second carrier uploadfromtaptalk1394028070674.jpg

 

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Off the top of my head it looks like that the second carrier is in the A block. How are the speeds in that area?

[bakedc4]

Off the top of my head it looks like that the second carrier is in the A block. How are the speeds in that area?

I was driving on I81 when I saw it connected. Didn't get a chance to check the speed. It did connect on its own.

 

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[bakedc4]

So I've found three sites in my journey today with the second carrier. Martinsburg, Clear Brook at the state line (12 miles from Martinsburg) and Winchester at the route 50 and I81 intersection. I went back by the Winchester one and only got the G block but I do have screenshots of it.

 

AJ, sorry I didn't resize that screenshot.

 

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[S4GRU]

I'd love to see some speed tests and LTE Engineering screen shots of the second carrier some time.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

[bakedc4]

I'd love to see some speed tests and LTE Engineering screen shots of the second carrier some time.

 

Robert via Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/94wwed4zv7twt1u/nwYxhOJ5_j?lst  Screen shots mostly from SignalCheckPro. There is one LTE Engineering shot from the site in Martinsburg and a speed test from SH00VA731 that was done right after taking 2014-03-07 20.24.39.png.

 

SCP kept freezing and having to force close it so a good bit was missed, not sure if it was my phone or the app.

 

All this was done on company time so I couldn't focus on it too much. I'll go out today and get some better info.