SteveInPhilly

It seemed like there was a lot of tower activity today in the Bensalem area. LTE was off & on several times and my BSL for 1xRTT was bouncing all over the place while I sat in my office. At one point my voice service was practically non-existent while I was connected to a tower in Willingboro, NJ (almost 5 miles away). This went on throughout the day for several hours...it was extremely frustrating trying to get business done, but hopefully it will result in some more LTE accepted sites over the next few days/weeks.

Similar things going on in Center City. All day at 18th & Market (normally 5 bars of [slow] 3G service), it's been flipping between one bar of 3G, one bar of LTE, and a few bars of 1xRTT. I'm assuming they're doing something with our closest tower (1701 JFK). Maybe it'll go live with LTE soon! Even just being 3G NV complete would be nice; it's been "in progress" for a very long time

Crazy enough, I actually picked up an LTE signal right as I pulled up to my house tonight. Based on how I'm sitting on the west side of a decent sized hill, that probably means another tower is active in the Willow Grove area. You know I'll be out & about later doing a search!

Haha - not to one-up you, but when I'm in my office, there's a certain part of my desk where if I sit my phone down I get a single bar of LTE...when I pick it up, it reverts to 3G

Steve

LTE in my office (18th and market) has been coming and going all morning! Again, no LTE speeds, but the indicator will flip to LTE for a bit, then revert to 3G. Glad progress is being made!

LTE has been in and out at 16th & Catherine all morning. The best signal I've gotten is -111dBm. At first I though it was the 17th & JFK site but I haven't gotten a signal from that tower since the LTE outage on Friday. Makes me think a new site has gone up in CC.

BTW, I had a type in there - it was 17th and Chestnut, much closer to where you describe

Under Interactive Maps

 

http://s4gru.com/ind...sites-complete/

Thanks, Jerry!!

BTW, I was just able to grab an LTE signal at 11th and Chestnut...never saw one there before! The signal disappeared as I headed toward Market, so I'm thinking it was testing on the tower at 1826 Chestnut and I lost it when I got handed off to 1701 JFK. It was only a single bar and there were no LTE speeds, but it's progress!!

I keep forgetting where the completed NV tower map is...can someone remind me? Thanks

So this just happened downstairs from my work (18th & Market). Can't map on Sensorly because the iPhone app doesn't support it :-/

5MBbs down with a single bar of signal is pretty good! Oh, and for everyone who states that "Center City has good Sprint coverage", please look at the scores below the top one to see the reality... :-P

At a glance, I didn't see any LV city names. All looked like Philly and suburbs from my recollection. I'm currently away from my computer. There were many more than I was expecting.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

Man I'm dying for 1700 JFK Blvd to be accepted...that's the one that covers me at work and home*!

*Yes, you never know what tower you're connecting to...but this one would at least be in the mix very frequently!

I think I was finally able to connect to one of the recently accepted 3G towers in center city! Yesterday I was eating at a restaurant on 15th between Walnut & Locust and noticed that my iMessages (which are sent as data) were sending MUCH more quickly than usual. So I fired up Speed Test and got 2.3Mb down/1.05 up! I was praying I'd see a 4G indicator show up, but hey I'll take these improved 3G speeds in the meantime

For sure. I toggled that on and off, as well as cellular data entirely on and off. I also power cycled the phone, and did airplane mode a few times. In short, I did everything I could think of.

 

Today, I also reset network settings and did the ##UPDATE# thing, and while I'm not in manhattan, I am next to a tower in the Phila area that supposedly has LTE enabled already, though it does not show up in Sensorly. However, that could just be that it's not been tracked.

Hmmm...that was my only thought...I know a lot of people with Sprint iPhones (and other LTE phones, I'm sure) turned off LTE to save on battery until the network was ready.

Steve

So, I was in manhattan on Wednesday, in an area that clearly showed up as LTE on Sensorly, and no matter what I did, I could not get my iPhone to switch to LTE! I tried at various times during the day, all over midtown, but nothing.

 

I powered the phone on and off, toggled airplane mode, toggled cellular data, toggled LTE...

 

Am I missing something? Now I'm wondering if the tower outside my office (which shows up on the s4gru maps as having had LTE enabled) is actually enabled and it's me. Should I be trying something else?

 

Any suggestions from the gallery? Thanks!

Which tower you connect to is a complicated affair (I'm sure Robert will chime in on this topic)...but are you sure your phone has LTE enabled? I see you're on an iPhone 5...go to "Settings" -> "General" -> "Cellular" and make sure that "Enable LTE" is toggled to "ON".

Steve

They deserve a little bit of bashing, just for letting the network devolve as it has in Philly. That being said, their prices are really good and when I had a coverage issue in my house, they sent me an Airave free of charge! :-)

So, on an unrelated topic, any new towers accepted?

So many people in Philly so the network cannot handle the usages. Sprint is actually adding more sites in Philly so it can handle the need of mobile data.

I've always been curious if this is tied to the heavy adoption of the MVNOs (MetroPCS, Virgin, Boost, Cricket) in the area. They piggyback on Sprint's network so it seems like that's potentially where the unanticipated volume comes from. I'm actually hoping that with SoftBank's big investment in Sprint (assuming it's approved) they won't have to over-leverage their network to bolster cash-flow. And I'm really hoping they don't lease out their LTE network the way they did 3G.

Is it possible for you to say anything that isn't negative? Pretty sure it's not.

To be fair, Boosted, you're sitting in Harrisburg BATHED in LTE while we're struggling to get 0.1Mbit speeds here in Philly. It is seriously not fun.

I would say they are pretty bad at fixing things. It has been 3 months since November there must be some progress on a single tower.

I called in August about a tower by my house in the Art Museum Area and they said there was an existing ticket from July with an estimated resolution of October 19.

From what I've seen, 3G can be accepted as complete without backhaul upgrades. Also, Nolan said backhaul still wasn't hooked up.

Yeah, the way it's unwritten is just a little unclear...it makes it sound as thought he sites that have between 150 and 500 MBit connections are "ready" and that CC, UC, and other high traffic areas already have 1GBit.

Steve

I'm actually working with one of the contractors for Alcatel-Lucent doing Fiber Optic Backhaul around Philadelphia Area. The towers and the MMBTS are set up and ready for the backhaul (Center City, University City, and other high traffic areas have 1GBit connections while everything else is between 150 and 500 MBit). Still looking at another month before the next round of Alcatel-Lucent contractors comes through and hooks up the fiber before handing the tower off to Sprint to light it up.

Hi, Nolan! When you say that Center City has 1GBit of backhaul, I'm really hoping you mean WILL have...because near the towers marked as "completed" in the Sponsor section, I'm still getting <.1MBit down. I know connections to towers aren't consistent, etc. but I've been testing every day for more than a month and have never seen speeds exceed .3MBit down and even that is rare. I was assuming it was a backhaul issue...

Thanks for the info!

Steve

Yeah, that "just turning it on" seems to be the sticky bit. It's great they've been accepted, but until they turn the things on they might as well be 1xRTT lol

Just had yet another experience of someone asking me for directions saying her phone wasn't working. My phone was showing 5 bars and a 3G indicator but wouldn't pull back data no matter which app I tried. I asked the girl to pull out her phone; it was a brand new looking EVO 4G, on Sprint, full bars, 3G indicator. Wouldn't pull back data no matter what app we tried. Eventually she went to ask a doorperson in the lobby of a nearby building.

This is not really acceptable for being downtown in the 5th largest metropolitan area in the US...so I wish they'd "just turn it on".

Not trying to rant, but seriously Sprint service is nearly unusable in Center City...if I were Sprint I'd be giving such a poorly served large market a disproportionate amount of attention.

Steve

So I take it nothing's cookin in Philly? I was hoping we'd see something now that a few sites had been accepted...a pre-launch status with occasional LTE or something...

Where do you live? Which part?

 

i suggest get Samsung Galaxy s3 or HTC ONE X. They get pretty good signals.

Art Museum Area/Fairmount. My buddy has an S3 and ususally gets 2 bars in my house, which is better but not good enough for the cost of switching my phones over! haha

Airave is pretty much using your DSL or Broadband connection instead of their network.

 

It boosts, but at times it interferes with certain signals.

 

I suggest, unplug airave and see how the connection is.

Ah, I've done the whole dance...opened up tickets for outages, etc...would only get 1 bar in my house max. It would sometimes roam onto Verizon, but drop my call when it switched. Same behavior with my old phone (HTC Evo) and my current two phones (iPhone 5's) :-/

But to be honest, I am happy if I can get web pages to load on my phone.

Yeah, I hear ya...my service is just one step above non-functioning. I did get Sprint to send me an Airave for my house where I got absolutely no voice coverage so that's something. And I'm really hoping LTE at least helps on the data side (obviously wifi works for data at home...). I'd be happy with "normal" 3G speeds once the conversion to LTE happens, using my phone is somewhat painful at this point.

Speed is down to 0.1MB or less. Hahha. Man, it is just a brief moment of joy.

I'm right there with you...I was up to a BLAZING .29 Mbps right after 3G became available...now we're back below .1 Mbps. At least the ping times aren't >500ms anymore!

Keep in mind it can take month to get LTE tho. Just don't be overjoyed...Hahaha......

I, for one, thank our Sprint overlords for teaching us the value of patience