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

[rmorrisonva]

B26 LTE is a boon the west side of the Blue Ridge. And avid hiker, I've noticed it a lot in the wayward hollers in Shenandoah NP. I even had 4G while camping in the backcountry! Nothing like Netflix after a long hike. FWIW my Nexus 7 (2013) on T-Mob (marginal EDGE signal) and ATT GoPhone (no signal) failed me.

[Galaxyguy]

Has anyone experienced HD voice in the Shentel region yet? I just experienced it for the first time in the Philadelphia market and it's very noticeable. I'm certain I've never experienced it in Shentel's market.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note 10.0 2014 edition

[bakedc4]

Has anyone experienced HD voice in the Shentel region yet? I just experienced it for the first time in the Philadelphia market and it's very noticeable. I'm certain I've never experienced it in Shentel's market.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note 10.0 2014 edition

I know that if I call someone outside the Shentel market it sounds like crap but calling both people are inside the Shentel market sounds pretty good. It's the same if I'm outside calling in.

[The_Chemist]

I know that if I call someone outside the Shentel market it sounds like crap but calling both people are inside the Shentel market sounds pretty good. It's the same if I'm outside calling in.

My GF has a Samsung Galaxy S4T and I'm currently using my Samsung Galaxy Note 3,(both HD voice compatible), but I haven't really noticed outstanding voice quality when talking to her on Sprint. The earpiece sound on my GN3, is absolutely outstanding, so I would think that I should have noticed a difference if HD voice was active in the Harrisburg area. My GF's S4T isn't the best at outgoing sound quality though...

[Galaxyguy]

I have an S4t and the call I was on was unmistakable. You will know when it happens. My wife has the original S4 and I've never noticed it while talking with her in the Shentel area. I was in Allentown, PA when I received a call from another Sprint customer in the Allentown area when I noticed it.

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

[Boosted20V]

I have an S4t and the call I was on was unmistakable. You will know when it happens. My wife has the original S4 and I've never noticed it while talking with her in the Shentel area. I was in Allentown, PA when I received a call from another Sprint customer in the Allentown area when I noticed it.

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

 

I've never experienced an HD call in Shentel areas either.

[jonathanlc2005]

Mount Greta, PA

 

 

 

 

This was along route 72 exit off turnpike

Edited July 15, 2014 by jonathanlc2005

[jonathanlc2005]

i forgot to screenshot it, but lebanon has 800 lte according to signal check

[jonathanlc2005]

i forgot to screenshot it, but lebanon has 800 lte according to signal check

[The_Chemist]

Band 26 in Hershey PA.

 

My GF and I were out to dinner at "What If Cafe". We were in the basement level. She had LTE on her S4T while my GN3 fell back to 3G. I checked her LTE engineering screen and sure enough her S4T was connected to LTE on band 26.

 

Looks like Shentel now has the Harrisburg area blanketed in 800 LTE!

 

Way to go Shentel! Yea Sprint!

[Galaxyguy]

I've never experienced an HD call in Shentel areas either.

I had my first HD call in the Shentel market yesterday. I was in the sticks so I actually dropped the call after a minute or so but it was definitely HD. I then called my wife back a little later and it was a regular call. So I'm guessing it's starting to roll out in my area.

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

[leozno1]

Yeah yesterday I downloaded the 4.4.3 update on my M8 and I noticed that now at the beginning of every single phone call yesterday there is a small icon in the phone app that says "Attempting HD". Now I wonder if they worked out the situation with making an HD voice call between me being in a Shentel Area(Alcatel Lucent) and calling someone in a Samsung or Ericsson region.

 

[jonathanlc2005]

Yeah yesterday I downloaded the 4.4.3 update on my M8 and I noticed that now at the beginning of every single phone call yesterday there is a small icon in the phone app that says "Attempting HD". Now I wonder if they worked out the situation with making an HD voice call between me being in a Shentel Area(Alcatel Lucent) and calling someone in a Samsung or Ericsson region.

Too bad my nexus doesn't tell me HD calling but damn this phone is amazing

[jonathanlc2005]

Just one thing I noticed. My phone jumps between 800LTE and my airrave. I'm guessing that is good.

[Galaxyguy]

Just one thing I noticed. My phone jumps between 800LTE and my airrave. I'm guessing that is good.

 

If you are getting service where you live, you don't need an airrave. You can just use cellular. Single radio devices (aka triband devices) such as yours, sometimes have trouble with the airrave anyway. The airrave is really only designed for people who have no service at their house or very weak service which causes them to consistently drop calls. As long as you can get voice service at your house, you can use wifi for data if need be.

[jonathanlc2005]

If you are getting service where you live, you don't need an airrave. You can just use cellular. Single radio devices (aka triband devices) such as yours, sometimes have trouble with the airrave anyway. The airrave is really only designed for people who have no service at their house or very weak service which causes them to consistently drop calls. As long as you can get voice service at your house, you can use wifi for data if need be.

The tower we are located next wasn't giving us service under 1900mhz. The towers are either located up the hill and can't get good service or too far. That's why we have the airave. It wasn't till recently where B26 LTE was taking over more than the airave

[eljayyy91]

If you have b26 in your house I can tell you, you prolly have awesome reception on 1x 800 too. Lol

[A2CKilla]

well I want to know if anyone else has noticed, but at least for york, are they doing more updates? because it seems like they just turned off LTE for some reason.

 

and side note, actually tried out the wifi calling, ewwwww, i prefer network calling (don't know if network speed has much to do with anything, but if so, we have a 105Mbps package)

[Dkoellerwx]

well I want to know if anyone else has noticed, but at least for york, are they doing more updates? because it seems like they just turned off LTE for some reason.

 

and side note, actually tried out the wifi calling, ewwwww, i prefer network calling (don't know if network speed has much to do with anything, but if so, we have a 105Mbps package)

They may be doing some maintenance. Is it one spot you're not getting LTE or everywhere?

 

I find Wi-Fi calling to be superior to network calls (I haven't had an HD call yet, so I can't compare to that). What is the issue that you're having?

[A2CKilla]

They may be doing some maintenance. Is it one spot you're not getting LTE or everywhere?

 

I find Wi-Fi calling to be superior to network calls (I haven't had an HD call yet, so I can't compare to that). What is the issue that you're having?

Well compared to HD voice, it was, well, very low and can like, at least in my expereince (HTC One Max) but I will say for the texting portion of WIFI calling, it's amazing,  and a majority of spots, York, Red Lion, Marietta, and I passed multiple towers, I would do constant network resets, I would get full signal, but only 3g and I noticed it a day or two ago when my phone switched back to 3g, where as I usually always had had LTE (b26)

Edited July 23, 2014 by A2CKilla

[Dkoellerwx]

Well compared to HD voice, it was, well, very low and can like, at least in my expereince (HTC One Max) but I will say for the texting portion of WIFI calling, it's amazing,  and a majority of spots, York, Red Lion, Marietta, and I passed multiple towers, I would do constant network resets, I would get full signal, but only 3g and I noticed it a day or two ago when my phone switched back to 3g, where as I usually always had had LTE (b26)

Can I get come punctuation? Thanks.

[A2CKilla]

Can I get come punctuation? Thanks.

       Well compared to HD voice, it was, well, very low and "can" like, at least in my expereince (HTC One Max). But I will say for the texting portion of WIFI calling, it's amazing.

 

And a majority of spots, York, Red Lion, Marietta, and I passed multiple towers. I would do constant network resets, I would get full signal, but only 3g.

 

And I noticed it a day or two ago when my phone switched back to 3g, where as I usually always had had LTE (b26). This will be the 3rd day of all 3g with no LTE

 

 

Is that more legable for you? and don't I'm being a pain, I wrote this on the fly on my phone and it doesn't space too well

[A2CKilla]

Well at least in West York, it looks like LTE is back on, will confirm the rest of the areas

[The_Chemist]

I was out with my girlfriend today doing some signal sniffing.  We went to her place of employment on Hale avenue in Harrisburg and could barely get an LTE signal.  Looking at the engineering screen we were on band 25 with a signal level of -116 dBm to - 123 dBm at which point we fell back to 1x800 - no eHRPD at all.  I would have thought that band 26 would have kicked in at the low level reception of band 25 but it did not.  This makes me think that band 26 is not active or being broadcast at all yet in this part of Harrisburg.  I'm kind of surprised at this.  Shentel has a NV tower right up behind the old Bishop McDevitt High School.  Less than 0.5 miles form Hale Ave. 

 

We then drove over to Derry Street right behind WalMart and Sam's Club.  We switched over to Band 26 in this area.  I do believe another S4GRU member posted in this thread of receiving band 26 on Grayson Road which runs parallel to Derry St. in this same area.  We held band 26 the entire way over to PenHar drive, at which point returned to band 25. 

 

I was under the impression that Shentel had blanketed Harrisburg in 800 MHz LTE, but this is not so after our sniffing expedition.  Only certain areas are covered.  I'll be able to check further once I receive my new Samsung Galaxy Mega (an ebay purchase at a very good price). 

 

In our expedition, we encountered a nice phenomenon though.  In the area of Rudy Road and 28th street we picked up a band 41 carrier.  It was unusable, but nonetheless, my Lg G2 engineering screen showed my device connected to band 41.  I didn't think that Shentel had any Band 41 running in the Harrisburg area yet, but they must be testing. 

 

Well, for now that's all I have to report on Shentel adding 800 MHz LTE to the Harrisburg area. 

[Galaxyguy]

Last night, I made a new topic in the Premier Sponsor section for discussion of B26 and B41 sightings and information specifically for the Shentel Market. The link included below will only work for Premier Sponsors. 

 

If you're a Premier Sponsor, head over to check it out. If you aren't, consider a donation to get to Premier level. The information on B26 and B41 is worth the donation. 

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6216-shentel-market-b26b41-info/