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chamb

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Everything posted by chamb

  1. chamb
    Sounds good. I have to wonder how many visitors had Sprint for cell service and then how many of them even noticed the LTE. So many people are just not capable of figuring anything out. If they could make a call or send a text, they probably never even noticed the LTE. They only look at the "number of bars" on the top bar and are not smart enough to dig deeper.
  2. chamb
    Well designed placement of the heat generating equipment in the cabinet and well placed fans to move the heat out. Some of the equipment in the cabinets generate more heat that other pieces of equipment. With the radios out of the cabinets and up with the antennas, much of the heat is generated and dissipated there.
  3. chamb
    When you have done a poor job, you keep a very low profile and hope you can work your way out of the mess. I would not expect to see much info out of nTelos. You will probably just see a few sites slowly start to improve as they finally get into the process.
  4. chamb
    Yep, the entire Shentel market is like that. Been that way for quite awhile. Shentel gets the award for the quickest and best deployment of Sprint LTE. They are amazing. I am positive that somebody will find a spot that is or questionable coverage, but the improvements made were spectacular and they are not done yet.
  5. chamb
    Shentel does cover the Martinsburg, WV Area and do it quite well too. They can only cover the geography that they have an agreement with Sprint to cover. Shentel just did it quickly and correctly. nTelos did not. Big difference.
  6. chamb
    Edinburg -Stop into the HQ of Shentel and tell them how you appreciate their excellent work. You just seen how good the network can be and you also have seen how poor a network can be as you go away from Shentel territory. No doubt about it, Shentel sure did jump on the upgrade process and do it as good as it can be done. Take a trip north on I-81 through Hagerstown, Chambersburg, Harrisburg,York, Gettysburg and you will really see something amazing.
  7. chamb
    Yes, you have a valid complaint. State College is in poor condition right now. I might be tempted to change carriers too if I were in your situation. HOWEVER, I can tell you that once the upgrades are completed, the network is very very good. I do see one issue that might pop up. If they do activate a NEW NV enabled site without upgrading the other older sites, this can cause issues. One new NV site in a sea of old non-upgraded sites can cause issues until they finally get all sites upgraded. If you can stick to the new site or stick to only the old sites you are ok. But if you have to move between the new and old sites, the calls sometimes drop. It causes some pain for awhile, but after they get it all upgraded, the service is about as good as it gets. Somebody has to be last, and you get the award this time.
  8. chamb
    I am not positive, but that is the way I would do it. All the sites were 800 active here when they optimized it. Too much running to visit a neighborhood and only do one at a time. Plus they have a limited amount of people that are qualified and skilled enough to do it. Hanging an antenna on a tower is one thing. Getting it working properly is a completely different animal. I have about 4 different 800 equipped sites in my local area. I see all of them serve me depending on just what valley I am in or what hill/building I am behind. When they get it done correctly, it is a beautiful thing. I am lucky, my area was done first and there has been enough time to tweak it and make it work properly. No band 41 yet as this is a low population area and it really is not needed quickly for capacity.
  9. chamb
    Yes, this is fairly typical. I have had the NV upgrades in service here for over a year. I normally see anywhere from a 10 to 15 DB better signal on 800 over the 1900. Some buildings are very friendly to 800 and others are not. Depends on the construction of the building. I do not think I ever seen anything worse than a 10 db improvement. When you see reports of 800 not penetrating real well right now, I would suspect that the 800 signal is not coming from the same site as the 1900 OR the 800 antennas are still not optimized for best coverage. It can take some time(several months) until they get the antennas set up just exactly correct. The crews that hang the antennas on the towers or other structures are not the people that finally tweak them and make it all work correctly. At my home, I initially had garbled voice service on CDMA 1X-800 for a few months until they hit my area and properly aimed the 800 antennas. It acted to me like I had about 4 800 signals hitting my home all at about a -85 level. Using signal check Pro, I could see I had one site that was primary, but it was moving around to 3 other sites quite often. Then I actually caught the optimizing guys in town doing the adjusting. My 800 voice is no longer garbled and works perfect. My main site did crash one day and the other sites were there to pick up the traffic but they were no longer causing distortion to each other.
  10. chamb
    Very unlikely that they will use copper from Verizon. But any fiber would normally go back to some building or shack owned by Verizon, a cable company, or some other similar alternate provider. You might see fiber get installed to a nearby site and then see a microwave hop be installed to get backhaul to this site. If the fiber you do already have is a local one used for some local purpose, then you may see it get used. A SMART carrier will always install a fiber cable with extra fibers for later use. Running a high capacity fiber data connection to a central cell site and then using microwave to push some of that bandwidth to adjacent sites can be cost effective in rural areas or even high density areas. My own local cell site is fed by a microwave system in another state. It works fine. A brand new digital microwave system was installed to handle the backhaul. They were able to get a high speed fiber connection from the cable company in a neighboring state at a cell site close to the state border. They microwaved some of that capacity across state lines to at least 3 cell sites in my local area.
  11. chamb
    The fiber running by your local tower may not be owned by the right company. It also may be a long haul fiber designed to carry traffic for many many miles between major POPS. That type of fiber is not normally dug up and cut into for one single cell phone site. In many cases, the fiber used for a cell site is local type fiber and really does not go very many miles until it gets to some type of multiplexer and is combined with other cell sites for eventual transport to Sprint.
  12. chamb
    The first one is 1900 CDMA 1x provided by Shentel for Sprint. The second one is 800 CDMA 1x provided by Shentel for Sprint. The 4379 is nTelos for sure. I just looked at the latest PRL to see what the priorities are. All 3 of them are equal priority and that completely shocked me. I was very very surprised to see a nTelos SID that could be accessed in Winchester and be treated as Sprint Native service. I did notice that it appears to be using nTelos Spectrum and not normal Sprint channels. Some time ago, the ntelos SID was a secondary priority and you never got on the nTelos sites unless the Shentel sites were down. And it showed the roaming indicator. This really shocks me, I never dreamed that the nTelos SID was of equal priority in the PRL. I would think that Shentel may not like this and it may even be causing issues if you can access the nTelos network and not be roaming in Winchester. Maybe Shentels agreement does not have exclusivity, but I thought it did.
  13. chamb
    That does not sound right. nTelos should not have native Sprint coverage in Winchester. Are you sure you are not just switching between two sectors on the Shentel site? Does "Signal Check" show you the nTelos carrier info?? If you do not see the ntelos Sid, you probably are not on the nTelos network in Winchester. Go to the site and do a 360 degree run around the site. Identify the 3 sectors and then see what you get at home. you should see SID of 4195 and 3 different BID's. The NID will probably stay on 8 if you stay on Shentel.
  14. chamb
    OK, that answers the question. nTelos probably does have some sites around the area. They have some along i-81 even in Southern Pennsylvania. I have roamed on them when Shentel had some sites go off-line. Only had CDMA 1X 1900 service, but it was on roaming and it was the nTelos SID. nTelos just will not broadcast on Sprint spectrum except in the geography they just signed up for. Basically in southern Va. Shentel is the exclusive provider of Sprint service in Winchester, for sure.
  15. chamb
    If I am understanding and following your thoughts correctly, you found this site in Winchester, Va. Winchester is Shentel territory. They have a contract with Sprint to service Winchester. nTelos can build sites in Winchester but only for nTelos. nTelos has their own spectrum & does build sites for their own use. But in Winchester, they should not be building sites using Sprints Spectrum since Shentel already has done it and is the only one with rights to do it. Am I mis-understanding you in some way.
  16. chamb
    This does not always mean that NTELOS is the only one at the site. Is there more than one power meter from the power company? Is there more than one rack of antennas??
  17. chamb
    Are you positive that your Band 26 LTE is coming from the same site as your band 25 LTE?? It sounds like it may not be.
  18. chamb
    Yep, if I were Softbank and "had the money" for the buyout, I would play hardball to the extreme. The guy with the money can call the shots. It would all be done on my terms or it would not be done.
  19. chamb
    If I were Softbank/Sprint, I would not worry about T-mobile and any problems they might encounter if a merger fails. T-Mobile wants/needs to be bought by somebody. I would NEVER enter into any agreement that provides a break-up fee to T-mobile. Softbank needs to drive the bus and make the rules.
  20. chamb
    If all the players want this to happen, they should be able to come to an agreement that has NO BREAKUP FEE in the event that the merger can not be completed.
  21. chamb
    Probably we have a whole bunch of 1900 only handsets that are limited to Band 25 LTE. They are limited to Band 25, so they are who is loading it. If you have a newer handset capable of band 26 LTE, yes, you may go to band 26 and stay there since you are one of only a few who can access it. Things may change in the future when band 26 starts to have heavier use. I would have one question for you about staying on band 26 all day - are you using any real data or just setting in an idle state??
  22. chamb
    Yep, I would say you nailed it. The signal level is about right for being within 100 feet. Did you have to be running a "data using program" to stay connected to Band 26?
  23. chamb
    Good chance you are right on your thoughts here. That is the way it is supposed to work. Many band 25 sites are starting to slow down due to high usage. I would expect to see York have that situation. I do not live in York, but I do get in the area occasionally. I went through the area about 3 weeks ago and came away with the opinion that Shentel was going to soon have to add another Band 25 LTE carrier or get band 26 LTE operating soon. The LTE was still Ok, but in peak periods, it was probably getting into the poor category.
  24. chamb
    Hard for me to prove anything when I am not in York. But I think you probably proved it is a site in York city and probably not at the extreme north or eastern city boundaries as the signal is stronger toward the center city. Lancaster county is too far away from York Center city to provide the coverage you see, so, I would tend to back up your claim that you have found Shentel B26 LTE in York, Pa. If you think you know where the site is, you probably should see a strong B-26 signal signal as you approach the site from all directions. You may need to have some data using program running to keep the connection on B-26. Other people are saying that an idle phone prefers to park on B-25 so that makes site hunting on B-26 hard to accomplish. If you can get B-26 LTE while very close to the site, post your Signal Check Pro results so we can see the signal level. A band 25 LTE signal is about -72 close to the site but a band 26 signal should be better than that.
  25. chamb
    Leozno1 - about where were you when you latched onto this B26 in York? If you were close to Lancaster county(East of York), it may have came from there. Can you be sure it was a Shentel site in York County?? The signal level looks good, so you were fairly close to the site but B26 does travel fairly well.
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