chamb

When you have good site density and do not go the "skimping" route, you do the upgrades on time and correctly, you do get some good results. I see quite a few Sprint phones around the Shentel area. The phones work well. While the 1900 LTE is not totally perfect, it works very well. The 800 CDMA1X works extremely well and they got that working on time too. When they get the 800 LTE operational, they will have the best network around the area. Actually, they probably already have the best network right now. Over time, they should be able to continue to increase the postpaid subscribers even more. Having the best network surely will pay off. The residents are starting to figure out the quality of the network. You do not hear the negative comments here in Shentel territory. I still have a Galaxy S3 and may hold onto it for awhile. Sure, I would like to use 800 LTE, but my S3 has no problems, I do not have a subsidized upgrade available now and maybe never will. Why lay out cash for a Tri-Band when the service works very very good with the S-3 and 800 voice/1900 LTE. Shentel does rock for sure.

In most areas, some of the major stations do have a good secondary channel or two. But I also see some channels that are occupied with worthless crap on the primary HD channel and more worthless crap on the secondary channels. It is way past time for some consolidation and put the bandwidth into use for something worthwhile.

http://www.slashgear.com/two-tv-stations-will-try-sharing-one-channel-so-your-lte-can-get-faster-28314825/? Two LA TV stations will simultaneously share a single channel for broadcasts, as a pilot program to demonstrate not only that the technology works with no downside for viewers, but that it can be a valuable source of cash too. The scheme will see KLCS "hosting" KJLA's---- This has been something I have thought of for some time. I sometimes see a station have one HD broadcast with 3 low quality worthless secondary channels. Why not have only TWO feeds(even competitors) both with decent quality. There is no reason why two competitors can not share the transmitter equipment and the cost. Then a channel becomes free to sell for cash.

You did surely have Sprint 1X 800 and a weak 1900 LTE signal. You did not get a street address for the site because your 1900 LTE was so weak that your phone could not communicate with Google over the LTE to get an address. You were not very close to the site(s) involved. The 800 probably was able to go "under the tunnel" and the signal was stronger than any 1900 signal. Anytime the 1900 signal drops, the phone will search for 800.

Yes, you have figured out something. If you are running data over the 3G connection and it is running fine, you will not easily switch to 4G LTE. I have had LTE for a year, and I ran into this many times. Especially if you are in a weak 4G area, there is good reason to keep you on 3G because it can be actually better. It a weak signal area, if you were switched to 4G, your performance may suffer. It is not good to have a system that continuously would be switching you back and forth between 3G & 4G in a weak area. If a site has been upgraded to 4g, you will normally have good 3G too. When signal conditions are somewhat poor, the 3G connection can be the better connection sometimes. 4G can be much much faster with a good connection, but not with a poor signal.

Jossman, AJ is correct. 3 - 6 DB is the normal improvement for a 1900 signal when converted to NV. He did miss one other possibility. The old Legacy equipment could have been defective in some way. Your -93 signal level at 3/4 of a mile looks bad for the old legacy system. Also, the old legacy system may have had excessive downtilt and been aimed low. Since you are on a hill it may not have been aimed at you and maybe rightly so. You were still getting a -93 which is better than really needed. If they can see that you are getting a -93 when on a hill while they aim the antenna elsewhere, they will favor a bad area and allow you to work fine with the -93.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/686699043 I am in the Shentel area and get something quite different. The Ping is not as good as I see sometimes, but this test was 3 miles from the nearest Shentel site. 1900 LTE receive level was -107. I was physically close to the Harrisburg Speedtest server but that may be not a good thing. I may have had an even better experience with using a Virginia speedtest server that is closer to the Shentel Core switch. I would not ever expect to see the same results near every site. Some are better than others. Ahhh, I was even inside a home when I ran the test.

Article from Sept 2013 which is still vague on the LTE issue in NTELOS territory -- http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprint-ntelos-settle-disputes-over-billing/2013-09-25

Your signal booster is probably boosting the G Block although not as efficiently as the A thru F block. You probably have a new LTE site somewhere closer to you than you did previously. Most of the old signal boosters do boost things near the A-F bands just slightly even though they were not designed to do that.

I do not have any real "inside information" on this, but since Shentel is ahead of everybody else in the NV project, I would expect to see them activate 800 LTE fairly soon. I would suspect that the equipment is in place and they may turn it on very soon if Sprint tells them it is ok to do so.

800 Mhz VOICE CDMA 1X is very active around Harrisburg. You might find a few sites that do not have it, but almost all do. If you are talking about 800 mhz LTE, I do not know of any sites that have it activated yet.

Quite often, a site will be accepted and go live WITHOUT the downtilt being verified. Sometimes it can go months until somebody optimizes the site. Also, it actually could even be correct now. They may be aiming for some far off point that is higher. I have seen quite a few sites that had poor speeds close to the tower and get much better at some point further away. If you have a somewhat tall tower sitting on high ground, it is possible to have slow speeds if you are fairly close but on much lower ground.

About two weeks ago, my local site was off the air all day. It gives me a -85 to -86 signal on 800. When I noticed this site was dead, I looked at what I was then connected too. Surprisingly I found that two other sites were dropping a good 800 signal in my area. Both were giving me a -87 to -88 signal. Eventually my normal site was back on the air. I have absolutely no trouble with the 800 signal normally or when the preferred site happened to be off the air. Having 3 signals coming at me from different directions all with almost the same level is working well. I actually am fairly sure I even have a fourth site available to me too. On the old legacy system, only one site was really usable and it was not reliable. Normally had a -103 to -105 signal. Activating 800 on all the sites near me gave me a signal from all of them. I was lucky, I was in the middle of several sites. Great improvement in service for me. Not everybody will have this experience.

Sounds like your 800 signal is coming from a cell site that is further away than your 1900 site. If both signals are coming from the same site. normally you will see quite a bit more signal on 800. I have 800 everywhere and I normally see more than 10db better signal and quite often much more. Compared to the old legacy 1900 signal, I see around 20 db better level on 800. Everybody will not see the same exact thing, but when the NV upgrades are done, the 800 should make a very big difference on levels. I see an -86 level at several spots that were on the fringe of the old Legacy network and dropped calls because of the old -105 receive level.

Agreed. Well thought out and well written.

The Shentel market is one that totally surprises me. They are probably the leader in getting their upgrades done. They are probably well over 90% competed with the upgrading of sites. Almost all markers on the map are GREEN indicating 3G, 4G, & 800 is complete. They have a few tough sites yet, like ones on top of high voltage transmission line towers. So, if they are almost 100% complete, why do I see reports that the N5 is not working. Is this a simple software update that they need to install in the core switch?? It is totally surprising to me that they are so far advanced in all areas except maybe this issue.

I was just in Hershey Sunday and Monday. 800 voice was there everywhere. Worked perfect. However, I was using a Galaxy S3. I have no idea what your Note 2 will do with the 800. There have been people that reported a Note 2 has trouble with the 800, but others use the 800 fine with a Note 2. So, it may or may not work for you. The 800 did penetrate the tough Hershey Medical center building fine while the 1900 LTE was ok in some spots but not others.

Yeh, I get it. Leave me word it differently. Sprint will not spend any money in your area to give you 800 LTE without fixing the 1X problem too. Roaming on 1X is not a good thing for Sprint or you. Sprint is using the same configuration almost everywhere and is not likely to change how they do things for some small area. You will either see the complete NV upgrade in your area and it will fix all your issues or if you are still too far away from what they upgrade, you will need to find another carrier that serves you well. Every current cell site and any future ones will see the same upgrades.

In a previously roaming area, if sprint activates LTE, that would be a major expense to acquire a site and get back-haul established. If they feel that they need to spend big bucks to establish any LTE presence, they surely will add the CDMA 1X voice & EVDO too.

No, not likely at all. Sprint owns adequate spectrum everywhere. They just have chosen to not provide coverage in some areas. If they activate any coverage at all in a previously unserved area, you will see a complete NV cell site setup. (with the exception of areas near the Canadian or Mexican border areas.)

I still have Shentel 800 running on channel 476. No issues yet. Works fine. If you lost 800 in Sprint territory in Washington, DC, but then move into Shentel territory, you probably have to do a PRL update to make the phone scan in Shentel territory.

YES. From Personal experience and from extensive technical training ---- About 10 years ago, I had a Sanyo 8300 with pullout antenna. I lived 3 miles from the nearest cell site. Service at my home was terrible. The phone would not work at all inside my home unless the antenna was extended and sitting at a special place. If it rang, Sometimes I could answer the call inside and hold it, but most of the time I went outside. If the antenna was not extended, it would not stay in sync with the network longer than a few seconds. Receive level when not extended was -105 to-106. With the antenna extended, my level was -103 to-105 and it worked most of the time compared to a complete failure with no extended antenna. This Sanyo 8300 phone was the only phone I ever got hold of that would work for me in my home. I treated it very gently as no other available phone was going to work. The extendable antenna was the difference. Now, since Shentel has totally upgraded the CDMA 1X voice here, I have about a -96 in my home on a Galaxy S3. Even better, the 800 SMR 1X gets into my home at about a -86. I no longer need the extendable antenna, but somebody else may. Yes, the pull out antenna did help and it was proved over and over. I am not sure if the newer technology would be the same. The antenna in the new phones may be much better than they were 10 years ago.

Still connecting to 800 SMR on 476 in Shentel area. Using Galaxy S3 with 25016 PRL

Cspire -Sure looks like they are roaming on Shentel's great 4g coverage in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.