mikegerard

I gave up on sprint and went over to verizon.  They covered all my etfs and I made a little money selling off some of my sprint phones. I did have to buy new phones but they had a promotion for buy one s7 get one free so they were a really good deal (bought 6 total). 

My monthly bill is lower and the service is much better than I had with sprint.  Before I had one bar at home and relied on an airave. After switching I have only lost signal once (as far as I know) have not dropped a call, and have been able to stream youtube everywhere I've tried.  

I was really holding out hope for this 800mhz transition but that seems to be tied up with government red tape so who knows how long it will be. 

Coverage has improved dramatically in the last year on the east side.  We've gone from lots of dead spots and very poor 3g to very few dead spots and enough data to stream spotify.  I have not dropped a call in a long time...that used to happen at least once a week before the upgrades started.  I'm still looking forward to 800mhz and being able to have fast data in most places.

This is a pretty good place to raise a family.  I grew up in LA, went to college and worked in Boston, and then a few years in Auburn AL, and Ann Arbor MI before moving here.  It does get cold but I've lived in one place that was consistently colder.  Summers are great here...long days and not too hot or too cool. People are friendly and helpful. And there is close to zero traffic.  I tell my LA friends that I what I consider bad traffic is having to use my brakes on the highway before the off ramp.  Our rush hour is their 10pm traffic.  Our 10pm traffic is their 3am traffic. 

While connected to LTE on a Spark device, the phone doesn't use CDMA at all. Period. When a call is incoming, the network relays this info to your phone which then disconnects from the LTE network to the CDMA network to connect the phone call. CDMA also has superior propagation to LTE, so -95 on CDMA gets a LOT further than -105 on LTE.

Ok...thanks.  So now it makes sense why it's LTE OR CDMA...it really is switching signals. 

Does anyone know how to interpret SignalCheck Pro data with LTE?

On SignalCheck Pro, I have an LTE signal. It is showing me a very low signal (around -111 to -120) and the phone shows one bar. If I get a phone call it changes to 1xRTT with the message "telephone call incoming" and the signal jumps up (-81 to -90). The phone also shows a stronger signal (3-4 bars). After the call is over the signal drops down again.  

What is going on here? Does the phone latch onto a weak LTE signal and hold that until it needs to receive a phone call?  Is it switching towers at that point or is this just how SignalCheck Pro shows the data?  

Thanks

Here is a new tower going up on Bay Road.  It is the only tower that shows up as 3g on the east side of town.

This may be a dumb question but why build a new tower right next to an old one?  Why not just use the old one?

There is one tower in west Webster that has not gone to 4g.

Is there anyway to find out when this one will be updated? I've seen town board meeting agenda items about replacing this tower with a taller one or moving it slightly.   

Thanks

Mike

Now that the update is mostly in place I'm noticing better signal.  I can make calls from home without the airave (although I'm keeping it for now since the call quality seems to better through it). And I have a weak signal at Eastway Wegmans (but I'm not roaming for the first time ever).  The other big change I've noticed is that I can stream spotify without it dropping out on me (could not do that last year).

Good work Sprint!  I expect that the backhaul changes will give us faster data but that it will not have a noticeable effect on the two examples I noted above. I also dont think we will get 800mhz because of our proximity to Canada but we'll see.

Mike

Has anybody seen LTE on the East side (Webster/Penfield/Fairport) yet? 

I get a very weak LTE signal from one of the towers near downtown a couple times a day.  The signal is so weak that it is not usable...eventually it latches on a 3g signal that is closer and then I can use data again. 

 

Other developments to increase range include the deployment of LTE on the 800 band, which I don't believe has gained much momentum at all yet, especially not in Rochester, but is definitely planned and will happen. That band has much better propagation characteristics than does the PCS band, and if you own a device or upgrade to one in the future that supports this band, LTE coverage will undoubtedly be one of the best of all carriers for you with Sprint. It's the fact they WILL be deploying LTE 800 on the majority of their sites with tower spacing intended for 1900.

 

The LTE 800 development however is still quite a bit down the road, you will be able to see better LTE coverage for now just as Sprint continues to bring more sites live and calibrates the downtilt to maximise coverage.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

Will we see LTE800?  I thought there was an issue with being close to the border with canada (IBEZ or something like that).

I saw 4g pop up on my phone in Penfield today.  Will have to go back to see if I can figure out where it was coming from and run a speed test.

I had roaming show up in Penfield yesterday... was on Plank Road where I usually get 2 bars or so.  I pulled up Signal Check Pro and it said I was roaming on AT&T.  Has anyone seen that before?  Does not really make sense (GSM vs CDMA). 

My Internet is out so my airave is down. 0 bars and signal pro shows I'm connected to another airave down the street.

800 mhz 3g is really needed to make sprint usable in Webster and penfield.... Kind of lamenting that I signed up for another two years when I bought this s4. Maybe I can roam my way out of contract.