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

[bakedc4]

Sorry it took me so long but I the link has been updated. UL channels 26158 and 26665, DL channels 8158 and 8665. SCP showed same frequency when it was on both channels. I believe the poor speeds on the speedtest was just an issue with the server but I didn't get a chance to change it.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/94wwed4zv7twt1u/nwYxhOJ5_j?lst

[Galaxyguy]

I saw a crane located next to a shentel sprint site in Strasburg, VA today. It was around 6pm so nobody was around but it makes me wonder what was going up. This is a sprint site and one other provider but I'm not exactly sure who. It's also on a water tower so it's possible it has nothing to do with cell phone equipment at all. I'm hoping it may be some band 41 activity but I guess we'll see at some point later on. 

[chamb]

I saw a crane located next to a shentel sprint site in Strasburg, VA today. It was around 6pm so nobody was around but it makes me wonder what was going up. This is a sprint site and one other provider but I'm not exactly sure who. It's also on a water tower so it's possible it has nothing to do with cell phone equipment at all. I'm hoping it may be some band 41 activity but I guess we'll see at some point later on. 

From what I know or what I THINK I know about this, I would doubt that Shentel is installing any band 41 at that location. They spent a whole bunch of money last year and need to take a breather for awhile.  Plus, you are not in a high usage area where band 41 is really needed yet. Next year, I would expect to see Shentel start installing band 41, but even then, they most likely would start in their bigger cities where the demand is greatest.  Maybe I am wrong and you can surprise us all, but that is doubtful.

[Galaxyguy]

From what I know or what I THINK I know about this, I would doubt that Shentel is installing any band 41 at that location. They spent a whole bunch of money last year and need to take a breather for awhile.  Plus, you are not in a high usage area where band 41 is really needed yet. Next year, I would expect to see Shentel start installing band 41, but even then, they most likely would start in their bigger cities where the demand is greatest.  Maybe I am wrong and you can surprise us all, but that is doubtful.

You don't have a location listed so I'll just say that Strasburg is a decent sized town for this area. It has about 6,000 residents and it's the largest town (by population) in Shentel's home county (Shenandoah). So, with that said, those are my arguments. I know other cities would be more likely, such as Harrisburg, Harrisonburg, Winchester, Martinsburg, etc, but we'll see what happens. You are probably right but dreams sometimes do come true, right?  

[Galaxyguy]

I just got a deal on a Galaxy S4t (tri-band). Hopefully I can now do some band 26 and 41 hunting once they start work on them in the southern area of the market. My new phone comes in tomorrow.

 

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[Galaxyguy]

I just went by Shentel's headquarters in Edinburg and saw a sprint truck pulling a trailer with some sort of small tower structure on it and an Alcatel-Lucent truck and van parked with it. I snapped a picture. I'll try to post it up later when I get home. Hopefully that's a good sign of activity coming.

 

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[Galaxyguy]

I just went by Shentel's headquarters in Edinburg and saw a sprint truck pulling a trailer with some sort of small tower structure on it and an Alcatel-Lucent truck and van parked with it. I snapped a picture. I'll try to post it up later when I get home. Hopefully that's a good sign of activity coming.

 

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I'm thinking it may be a COW but I've never seen one in person. Maybe someone can chime in with an answer. Also, in the first pic, there is the smallest antenna I've ever seen on top of the Shentel building. I'm guessing they didn't want a huge antenna in historic "downtown" Edinburg. 

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d2gxak3bekdpo0d/2014-04-08%2016.54.13.jpg

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fvrdxijwgjgc47i/2014-04-08%2017.13.50.jpg

 

Also, the "Sprint" truck in the picture is actually a Shentel truck. That's what they use for their wireless technicians to drive around in. I referenced it in another thread a while back. I see them every day around here. 

 

 

 

[Paynefanbro]

Looks like a new site or a site replacement.

[Galaxyguy]

Looks like a new site or a site replacement.

 

I wish I could've stopped to ask but I was working and didn't have a whole lot of time. It was also right around 5pm so I'm sure they were in a rush to get out of there. 

[leozno1]

I just got a deal on a Galaxy S4t (tri-band). Hopefully I can now do some band 26 and 41 hunting once they start work on them in the southern area of the market. My new phone comes in tomorrow.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

Just got my HTC One M8 last night too, so I'll be keeping an eye out in York.

[bakedc4]

It's a COW. They are probably getting it ready for the Apple Blossom Festival here in Winchester at the end of April. For the past two years they have brought two of them in. Took them forever to realize that you couldn't make a call during The Bloom.

 

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[Galaxyguy]

That makes sense. Just curious, how do they get back haul to the COWs? Microwave?

 

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[cdk]

That makes sense. Just curious, how do they get back haul to the COWs? Microwave?

 

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I have no actual information, but I would assume the COWs are probably capable of being hooked up to a variety of potential sources for backhaul. Microwave or fiber would be the most likely, but I wouldn't be suprised if they could do bundled copper (T1/T3) or possibly satellite as well... 

[bakedc4]

The two that they bring for The Bloom are hooked up with fiber. I was working in a building right beside one of the COWs as they were setting it up the first year.

 

Sent from my HTC ONE M8

 

 

[Galaxyguy]

Anybody else have any issues with voice connectivity today? I kept getting a fast busy signal today on both my phone (S4T) and my work phone (Sanyo Taho). After several tries, the call would normally go through but it was annoying. I called Sprint and they said they had no other reports of problems in the area but there obviously was something going on. This was happening mainly in the Woodstock area. 

[The_Chemist]

Anybody else have any issues with voice connectivity today? I kept getting a fast busy signal today on both my phone (S4T) and my work phone (Sanyo Taho). After several tries, the call would normally go through but it was annoying. I called Sprint and they said they had no other reports of problems in the area but there obviously was something going on. This was happening mainly in the Woodstock area.

 

Yes, I tried to make multiple calls after 4 PM today and kept getting a fast busy signal. After I would disconnect and call the number again, I had success. yesterday I had a few dropped calls as well. I'm in the Harrisburg PA area. Most annoying. I was using my single band Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

[bakedc4]

I had a issue yesterday where I was getting stuck on ntelos in the middle of Winchester. It only lasted a couple hours but everything else worked fine. No problems today though.

 

Sent from my HTC ONE M8

 

 

[Galaxyguy]

I had a issue yesterday where I was getting stuck on ntelos in the middle of Winchester. It only lasted a couple hours but everything else worked fine. No problems today though.

 

Sent from my HTC ONE M8

Everything today seems to be fine. It would be nice to know what the issue was but I'm glad it's fixed.

 

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[A2CKilla]

have the upgrades just stopped for the york area, and or PA as a whole??? the service has just been going downhill for the past 2 years, en yet, whenever I pass towers (me being located in between 3 by the way) they HAVE the new spark equipment on them, but nothing is happening

[Galaxyguy]

have the upgrades just stopped for the york area, and or PA as a whole??? the service has just been going downhill for the past 2 years, en yet, whenever I pass towers (me being located in between 3 by the way) they HAVE the new spark equipment on them, but nothing is happening

Not sure what you mean by the service "going downhill" but Shentel has one of the best built areas of the entire Sprint network. Band 25 LTE is on about 95+% of their towers and Band 26 and 41 LTE is coming, just no definitive time frame. If you want to see the network maps, you need to become a sponsor or premier sponsor.

 

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[A2CKilla]

Not sure what you mean by the service "going downhill" but Shentel has one of the best built areas of the entire Sprint network. Band 25 LTE is on about 95+% of their towers and Band 26 and 41 LTE is coming, just no definitive time frame. If you want to see the network maps, you need to become a sponsor or premier sponsor.

 

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mmmm, I'd hold your tounge on that one, at least in the york area anyway, it's not the best per say (went from 30Mbps in November of a year or two ago, to a lackluster 5-10Mbps now even on non-peak hours (like now), and I see the network maps as I drive around and spot just about every sprint tower myself when going to work or traveling (like i stated, I live in between 3 towers, work next to two, and have a good knowledge to pinpoint each sprint tower in the area), yes band 25 is great (heck I've been back to my hometown of Baltimore solely to test out band 26 and 41) but it's insanly overloaded, once again, in the york area from what I see, unless I'm right next to the tower, then and only then do I see the speeds I was getting a year or 2 ago and even then I'm lucky if it pushes over or near 20Mbps, but from what I've been seeing, it's like all progress has stopped as I feel like if shentel wanted to (from the way they talked about their way of doing things when I worked for sprint out here) spark would be ready to go here just like it is in philidelphia and baltimore. I applaud them for rolling eveything out so fast (as I first said when I got my note 2, two years ago) but now it's like...well, what's happening

[Galaxyguy]

Once the other 2 bands come online, it'll help offload the stress off of B25. Also, in my area, Shentel has added a 2nd carrier on B25, which has greatly helped speeds here. My speeds jumped from about 8-10 down to almost 20 down since that happened. Not sure if they enabled the 2nd B25 carrier in your area though.

 

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[A2CKilla]

Once the other 2 bands come online, it'll help offload the stress off of B25. Also, in my area, Shentel has added a 2nd carrier on B25, which has greatly helped speeds here. My speeds jumped from about 8-10 down to almost 20 down since that happened. Not sure if they enabled the 2nd B25 carrier in your area though.

 

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they haven't, it's the same equipment that they first had up 2 years ago as it's overloaded now from what I can tell, and from the looks of it (only because a lot of the pictures match and I saw a lot of the same equipment in baltimore) the spark antennas

are up, but not active, and I really wonder why they won't turn them on as it would mean great things for this area (though for whatever reason, they seem to turn SMR800 on and off all the time) as I had that all last month and was happy that it finally got pushed out, (amazing call quality and full signal indoors) then they turned it off again and now it's back to the same old

[lilotimz]

mmmm, I'd hold your tounge on that one, at least in the york area anyway, it's not the best per say (went from 30Mbps in November of a year or two ago, to a lackluster 5-10Mbps now even on non-peak hours (like now), and I see the network maps as I drive around and spot just about every sprint tower myself when going to work or traveling (like i stated, I live in between 3 towers, work next to two, and have a good knowledge to pinpoint each sprint tower in the area), yes band 25 is great (heck I've been back to my hometown of Baltimore solely to test out band 26 and 41) but it's insanly overloaded, once again, in the york area from what I see, unless I'm right next to the tower, then and only then do I see the speeds I was getting a year or 2 ago and even then I'm lucky if it pushes over or near 20Mbps, but from what I've been seeing, it's like all progress has stopped as I feel like if shentel wanted to (from the way they talked about their way of doing things when I worked for sprint out here) spark would be ready to go here just like it is in philidelphia and baltimore. I applaud them for rolling eveything out so fast (as I first said when I got my note 2, two years ago) but now it's like...well, what's happening

5-10 Mbps is not lackluster. It is exactly within the advertised speeds and where the network should operate under expected load conditions. Lackluster would be collapsed speeds at a few hundred kbps or less which can be found in very mature markets where data usage has overwhelmed the single 5mhz lte carrier.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5

[Vince]

Not to be rude, but what is wrong with 10mbps? Or even the 5mbps that you get? That's about all to be expected on a 5x5 carrier in a civilized area with users.