aackmann

Well actually, for the last couple weeks, any of the "Milwaukee" sites that have been accepted have mostly been in the Racine/Kenosha area. We haven't had a new LTE site in the general Milwaukee area since August 8th when the one in South Milwaukee went live with LTE. We got a nice burst of LTE like 6 weeks ago, but since then we've had 2 LTE sites in the Milwaukee area. It has to be picking up soon.... I really hope there are a bunch ready to go and they're just waiting to push them live. But I hope they don't wait too much longer! I've been taking a screen shot of the sites completed map (just covering the general milwaukee area) and naming the files by date, so I can see when sites were added and what-not. Then down the road I can make a cool time-lapse video or something. And don't worry, I'm not sharing the screen shots with anyone. And if I do make a little video out of them, I'll keep it in the sponsors area

I drove past the Cleveland & Calhoun water tower this morning, and from what I can tell, it does look like NV equipment on the top of the water tower. I'm not 100% sure, but I saw RRU's mounted behind what looked like Sprint's NV panels... I've seen this alot over the past few weeks. There must be a boatload of sites that are almost ready, but waiting for one piece or another to be finished... :/

I frequently drive by the tower at Cleveland & Calhoun, but I'm not really sure if Sprint's equipment is on the water tower itself or the cell tower right next to it.... In the sponsor maps, I've found 1 or 2 cell sites that weren't plotted exactly on the cell tower, but were within 30-40 yards of it. So when it comes to a site where there is more than 1 cell tower right next to each other, I'm not 100% certain which one is Sprint's. I'll drive past it again on my way home today and I'll pay extra attention. Last time I looked, I didn't think that I saw Sprint NV panels up there, but I'll look again.

I had a real good experience with 1x800 as well. I was in the Dells a couple weeks ago at the Kalahari, and the only signal I got inside the building was the 1x800 voice, I had no eHRPD or EV-DO data connection. And if you look at the completed maps, the closest 1x800 site is a pretty good distance away. Of course, there is the possibility that another 1x800 site is broadcasting and just not market complete yet though.

I live right on 92nd and Layton pretty much. My phone has been working fine this morning so far... Got voice and data. I wonder which tower you are connecting to... The 124th & Beloit one or the one in Hales Corners. I know I've seen NV panels on the Hales Corners Tower, and maybe a month ago, I was at the Beloit tower and there was an AT&T guy running the fiber backhaul to the site. So it could be one of those. I'm guessing at 92nd and Layton, I'm probably running off the 76th St. tower.

Oh, nice. I worked in the Woodland Prime office park. Wells Fargo's server team, project managers, and some other tech nerds worked in that building, but the rest of the investment people work over in the old Strong Funds building. I was an intern on the windows server team.

Do you work for Wells Fargo?? They've got a big building over there, the old Strong Funds building. I used to work there a few years back. As for your other questions. I'm far from an expert on this stuff, so I'm sure someone else will chime in. But yes, the closer the number is to 0, the better the signal is. The different technologies don't measure signal strength the same though. So eHRPD, 1XRTT, and WiFi will have different thresholds for a "good" signal. I don't think you'll ever see 1XRTT or eHRPD at -29 like your WiFi is. EVDO-A and eHRPD are similar, but eHRPD is the newer protocol that enables phones to switch from LTE to 3G smoothly without dropping connections real bad. So the whole Milwaukee market switched to eHRPD a few months ago. Alot of people report that their phones switch from eHRPD to EVDO. It happens to me every once in a while too. Then usually if you restart your phone or cycle airplane mode, it'll switch back to eHRPD. We all hope that means there is work going on near you, but I don't think anyone really knows exactly why it happens. FInally, just to make sure, 1XRTT is your "voice" signal, and the EVDO or eHRPD is your data connection. However, when you pick up 4g, it'll say LTE instead of eHRPD or EVDO. I explained the stuff the best I can. Did I miss anything people?

Man, it's been pretty quiet in the Milwaukee market the past 2-3 weeks. I'm really hoping to see an update with like 6-7 accepted LTE sites in the Milwaukee area. I think we're about due!

I don't think they're really following a set pattern. I believe they are just going from tower to tower depending on which ones are ready to be worked on. (permits approved, fiber backhaul ready and so on). So really, they could start work on any tower at any time. I got to talk to a crew that was at the cell site by UW Waukesha, and it seemed like they were scheduled to work on a few different cell sites in the area. So it could happen any day!

Well before you go and hate on everyone and Sprint, get your facts straight. Sprint didn't choose WIMAX AFTER Verizon and AT&T chose LTE, Sprint started rolling out WIMAX with Clearwire before AT&T or Verizon even had a plan for LTE. WHY? Because the LTE standard wasn't finalized, so Clearwire couldn't use LTE. Also, Clearwire had licenses for all its spectrum where they were required to use that spectrum within a certain amount of time or they would lose it. So really, they HAD to go with WIMAX or lose a bunch of it's valuable spectrum. Sprint isn't struggling because of its current management, what really killed them was their purchase of Nextel back in 2005. Sprint basically wrote that whole purchase off as a loss, and that's the reason for most of their customer losses as well. The Nextel network was just shut down as of June 30th, so as they've been winding it down and turning off Nextel cell sites, people have been leaving the network. The true test will be to see how Sprint performs NOW, after Nextel is completely gone. I believe Sprint actually gained customers on its core network (excluding Nextel) this last quarter. And yes, Sprint's network was very bad, but that's why they are overhauling the entire network.

^ What putterizer said. This site has all the existing Sprint cell sites plotted on a map, as well as all of the 4g and 3g upgraded sites plotted on a map. The upgraded sites map gets updated 1-3 times per week usually. It's really fun to see the progress. Also check out sensorly.com where you can actually see the signal strength that people have mapped out in our area. On a side-note, I think the Milwaukee area is going to be really picking up the pace very soon. I've seen ALOT of network vision panels on many different Sprint cell sites that haven't been marked complete yet... Here's a list of some places where I've seen the panels already mounted... (these are approximate locations) 22nd & Pierce (Milwaukee) 84th & Bluemound (West Allis?) 76th & Layton (Greenfield) Forest Home & Hwy 100 (Hales Corners) the water tower at UW Waukesha Brookfield Square Mall (Saw work being done, not 100% sure if it's for Sprint) I think there were a couple more, but these are the ones I remember for sure. So I'm hoping these will come online over the next week or 2.

I was heading to the DMV on Grange on Thursday and I got real excited because all of the sudden my phone popped into LTE when I was at the stop lights of Loomis and Grange. You can see two little purple dots on sensorly from me at that spot. The signal dropped right as I crossed the intersection. I thought it was coming from Loomis & 894 tower, so after the DMV I headed over in that direction and did some airplane mode and PRL updates at the Loomis & Layton intersection. Sadly, nothing... But that little blip of LTE I got on Loomis and Grange is in no-man's-land. It's pretty far from any of the nearest completed LTE sites.

It looks like the water tower next to UW Waukesha is done... That's where I saw the crew at a few weeks ago. As of last week, there were no new panels, and their enclosed trailer was sitting next to the water tower. I stopped by there today and saw new panels with RRU's next to them on the water tower, and the trailer was gone. That one's gotta be coming soon. Then, on my way home, I stopped at the site at Brookfield Square mall and I saw that same kind of enclosed trailer parked there along with a Midwestern Contractors truck. It looked like they installed a new rack, because there was an old, disassembled rack leaning against the side of the little structure. I couldn't tell if it was Sprint's NV equipment up on the tower though. There is a cluster of like 5 different towers in that little area. If it's Sprint's, then I'd say it's gotta be about ready to go. I remember a week or two ago, people driving around the Brookfield Square area were having issues not being able to make calls or send texts. I had the same problem around that area too, so maybe they were replacing the rack and had to move the legacy panels down a little.

I would think that Sprint's LTE signal should be slightly stronger than their (non-network visioned) 3G since the LTE is coming from new panels with the RRU's mounted right next to them. Theoretically it's supposed to be up to 20% better signal strength. What's probably happening in your case is, you're connecting 1xRTT Voice from a tower that's closest to you, but maybe that tower doesn't have LTE yet, so the LTE signal you're getting is from another tower slightly farther away, but close enough to have a usable LTE connection. For obvious reasons, your phone will grab an LTE signal over a 3G data signal (EV-DO) as long as the LTE signal is strong enough to be reliable. So to summarize, you're probably getting your 3g voice (1XRTT) and LTE signal from two different towers which is why you see different signal strength for each.

Hey, good to hear! I was at Greendale's Village Days last night and I swear I saw LTE on signal check pro, but when I actually unlocked my phone and started to open sensorly, it was gone. I did, of course, have a few (many) drinks while I was there, so I wasn't sure if I could trust my experience.

Where in Waukesha are you? Not an exact address, obviously, but what nearby street intersections? I have driven by that UW Waukesha tower multiple times over the past few weeks and I haven't been able to spot NV panels. I'm far from an expert though.

I don't think so. If you look on sensorly, it looks like all that purple is coming from the 2 known LTE sites so far. I think that the central part of the city of Waukesha is kind of in a little valley, so the signal reaches it pretty good from the 2 existing LTE towers. It shouldn't be too long before we see more Waukesha sites though. I stopped by the water tower at UW Waukesha and the crew that I saw a couple weeks ago still has their enclosed trailer parked there. I don't see any new panels on the water tower, but I know they have their gear there (and hopefully NV equipment) in their trailer.

Aww snap. I love it. Now I get to enjoy sweet sweet LTE for a brief few minutes on my way to and from work. I mapped a little around that site on sensorly yesterday. I'll probably hit up a little more on my way to work today too. I'm expecting the water tower at UW Waukesha to light up soon too. I saw a crew there like 2 weeks ago, so they have to be close to being done by now...

Haha, no kidding. That has not been said yet. That building should have been upgraded a long time ago then!

That HAS to be coming from that goerke's corners site then. Maybe they were doing testing last night. I'm going to stop by there after work today and do all the airplane mode, prl update, and profile updates I can and see if I can connect too!

Yea, I saw that too. I believe there is a Sprint tower right near that spot of dark purple as well. Hopefully we will see those 2, and a couple more, go live this week!

I'm sure the cell towers around state fair were overloaded. I was there yesterday and I could barely send a text, I kept losing my data connection, and went to roaming and back. It was barely usable. On a lighter note... I see on sensorly what appears to be much darker purple right around goerke's corners (i94 and Barker Rd). I drove right past there on 94 this morning but didn't pick up any LTE. But that purple is a little too dark for being as far away as it is from the other Waukesha tower that's live....

I have no idea... I didn't think those short stubby panels in the middle were Sprint's, the top ones also don't look like the Samsung panels I've been seeing everywhere. And the bottom ones don't have any RRU's. I was very confused when this tower went live, because I didn't recognize any of it as Sprint's NV or legacy panels.

I posted a picture early last week I think... I saw guys working on cell panels on a water tower that's on 84th St, right on the other side of i94 from where state fair park is. So I know that site is in progress. That would be really cool if that site went live the first day of state fair!

Did you delete your temporary internet files? Enable cookies? Sensorly is working fine for me today. I notice that sometimes there is a difference in the amount of new purple you see between the mobile app and the website, but the website is working for me with Google Chrome