grumpwagon

What are people using to see which band they're on? CellMapper seems decent, but I haven't tried anything else.

Oh, yeah, I didn't mean coverage compared to what I have now, I mean T-Mobile 4g coverage vs T-Mobile 5g coverage. Is T-Mobile's 4g everywhere there is T-Mobile 5g?

Hi, I'm considering moving a 5 line family plan over to T-Mobile, and I had a question about 5g coverage (not any future mmWave stuff, but the current nationwide deployment). If I have a phone that is compatible with all bands, including 600mhz, but isn't 5g capable, am I giving up any coverage? I know I'm giving up some theoretical speed, but I don't care, I just want to know if every tower that has 5g, also has 4g on similar wireless bands (so similar range and such). Thanks!

mmark27 or other Madisonians, have you noticed the new tower going up by Culvers at Fish Hatch and the Beltline? I believe it is Sprint equipment (I'll take pictures later to confirm), but I'm not sure what the purpose of putting up a whole new tower would be, considering it is within a couple hundred yards of an existing tower with a Sprint presence. Any ideas?

If you still have a G2, there's a setting in the G2 thread that has helped people regain LTE more quickly after it drops that some people think was inadvertently changed in the last patch. I applied it, and I think it has helped me, but it might just be tinfoil hat-ery.

There's a village in southern WI called just Eagle. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eagle,+WI+53119/@42.8826269,-88.4685425,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x8805bf8e44d338b1:0x950a7ee20defc769

I have Signalcheck Pro, it definitely was 3g and not 1x/1x800

Anyone around Madison (specifically the Fish Hatch/beltline and mckee rd towers) noticing absolute terrible 3g data performance lately? I'm frequently on LTE from those towers, which is very fast, but if it drops down to 3g, data is extremely slow, or completely non-existent for me. I don't remember the exact signal measurements at the time, but it was very good. I was hoping the increased backhaul to support LTE would also carry over to better 3g performance, but at least in this case, that doesn't seem to be happening.

I have connected B26 in the area of the Fish Hatch tower. Wasn't a strong signal, so not sure if it was from that tower or another.

Anyone noticed Madison speeds being significantly worse over the last week or two? Latency more than bandwidth, but both have been worse for me. Specifically the Beltline/Fish Hatch tower, but all over.

I had to send my phone in for repairs, but I'll be getting it back tomorrow. I'll double confirm the West Wash tower, and check the South Madison towers then.

I just got 5/6 with 2 bars sitting at home (West Wash tower), and speeds seem good at work, but I done a speed test lately. I'm fine with that. If it gets slower (like your picture), I'd start to have problems, but so far it's still snappy enough.

With pretty poor signal (~120), I was getting 5 up 5 down from the West Wash tower.

I'll check tonight. I was pretty busy yesterday and didn't notice it light up. EDIT: I can verify that it's broadcasting 4g. I'll do a speed test in a few hours.

I'm connected at 1x800 for the West Wash tower too (not LTE though), so there's probably some/all of them on 800 as well.

Nothing from the W. Wash tower

I don't have a N5, but according to the map, LTE should work just fine. We don't have any 4G only towers, so you shouldn't get the tri-band phone issue. Milwaukee still has quite a few purple pins last I checked though (although sounds like they will be turning green shortly).

Sounds like your big day is coming soon Milwaukee! smalltimehack: Is that the default G2 font, or did you switch it to that?

Wow, another big update for us. Did anyone notice where they lit up?

Yeah, now we just have downtown and a few stragglers left. Great to see all this progress! I'm curious about this too. I've narrowed down my next phone choice to one of those two now (waiting for Anandtech's N5 review to finalize my decision). I've heard they both do pretty well, reception wise, but it would be interesting to hear local impressions. They both seem really nice. Seems like the choice will come down to Battery & Camera Vs. Stock Android/fast updates & better materials.

Minor disappointment that of the 3 towers in the Madison area that aren't on yet, one of them is my home tower, but given the pace of the last few weeks, hard to stay disappointed for long. Not surprised to hear launch day is coming soon for us. Stay strong Milwaukee people! Your day will come!

Can we refrain from talking about your private life here? On a serious note though, which towers are people seeing 1x800 on in Madison (or maybe, which towers AREN'T people seeing it on)? I've seen a few posts here and there. Are any towers on 1x800 that aren't accepted for 3g or 4g?

West Wash is still off.

Anecdotally, my signal seems a lot better at work, where, despite being able to see the tower from the window, my bunker of a building still makes my connection pretty weak. The last week or so it has seemed better. It's probably just placebo, but here's hoping. I'm doubly excited seeing LTE go live around here, because active LTE all over Madison means I can finally justify buying a new phone. So active LTE means fast data AND a new phone for me. Keep up the reporting!

Yeah, my concerns, in order, are: 1) Stock Android, with frequent updates or a very solid CM port. I keep my phones for a long time, and I'd like to stay current. This pretty much mandates a Qualcomm chipset, since they have far and away the best record for maintaining their kernel source. 2) Battery life. I want a big battery. I use my phone to stream music/podcasts, record my bike mileage (so lots of GPS), navigate, manage calendars, etc etc. Screw swapping batteries, I bike everywhere, so I don't want to carry a charger or spare battery. Both the battery and the SoC's efficiency matter to me. Again, this points towards the S800, since it has that new power enveloping, so very power efficient. 3) Tri-Band. I waited this long to get an LTE phone, may as well get a Sprint Spark phone. 4) SIM slot. I am satisfied with Sprint, but I want the ability to swap carriers if that changes. The G2 gets 2, 3, and 4. The CM port will probably be good, since it's a S800, and I think all of this round of flagships will use some version of the S800, but I don't want to count on it. The N5 gets 1, 3 and 4. Battery life is still up in the air, but I'm loathe to give up the extra 700 mah. If there were a G2 GPE, I think that would be my best bet, but there isn't. I'm waiting on Anandtech's review of the N5 before doing anything. The Verge says the N5's battery life isn't very good, but they don't have a good battery testing methodology at all. Now, to stay (somewhat) on topic, I went by the capital today, but couldn't get a good look at the towers there. I'll keep trying if I go down that way. It gets dark so early though, it's hard for me to get down there.