mitch10102000

Some of the Middleton areas are up and running. Some of the East Madison towers are upgraded, but the backhaul is not. Until the backhaul is complete, the towers will not be "turned on" (it is NOT worth turning on LTE for a backhaul that is already horribly oversubscribed at this point). I've heard differing "rumors" on when the backhaul will be complete...anywhere from back in August through the beginning of next year. It's hard to predict the actual dates when it comes from multiple layers of contractors to do the work (backhaul owned by AT&T or Charter who contracts Bob, who contracts Jimmy, etc., etc.) LTE requires a solid backhaul to work, which is really where Sprint is struggling in certain areas...unfortunately, Madison is one of many of those areas. It's easier to trench holes and pull cables in smaller communities than it is in a developed city.

I have heard from a few sources that some of the towers are ready in Madison proper are ready to go, but they are still waiting on the completion of the backhaul. You can always broadcast LTE, but if you don't have a backend connection, it is pretty useless. I am not sure of exact timing of all this, but I have heard it should be starting to go live "soon". Doesn't AT&T own the backhaul that Sprint will be using in Madison?

It could be the same tower, but what I'm seeing on Sensorly is over by I-94 and Highway 73. I'm seeing -90 db when I walk around outside where Hwy N and I-94 are (that's a pretty good signal from that distance). I did a drive-around in my area with Sensorly's "Map Trip", but I still don't see the data on the map. I've always had problems with Sensorly posting my data (not sure what the problem is).

Last night at my home in Cottage Grove, WI (near Madison), I noticed LTE pop up on my phone. It was off and on (probably doing some testing), but it was definitely there. Signal was between -110 and -116, so I wasn't super close to the tower. I was able to obtain this tower information: MCC - 310 MNC - 120 Cell 191 Band 25 UL Ch: 26665 DL Ch: 8665 My location in Cottage Grove was just off the interstate by the Kwik Trip gas station on Hwy N. My speeds were only around 3 Mbit/sec download and 2 Mbit/sec upload, but I imagine that will change if they have backhaul work to do yet.