Hatstrow

On 4/19/2022 at 10:01 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

Yep those are B/n41 antennas!

Oh, nice! I didn't realize that. I do know they have designated this tower and the other one in Athens as an Ultra Capacity site. The one in Union City, it doesn't appear that they have turned on n41 frequency yet as I have yet to see that band show up on the Field Test app on my iPhone. I do believe they are working on adding more capacity to this site or they don't have the needed backhaul going to this site as the highest I ever see from this tower is around 70 Mbps download and 30-40 Mbps upload. Which is still really good from what we did have before. Would be awesome to see speeds towards 200 Mbps or higher, like most of the other Ultra Capacity sites around this area. 

Not sure if this is the right place to post this since this is under the old Sprint Network Vision deployment, but here it is anyways. Let me know if I should post this elsewhere. 

Received some sweet T-Mobile upgrades to a tower in Union City, MI. These upgrades were done on the same week the iPhone 12 was launched and finalized the day after the launch. This tower upgrade added completely new antennas with 5G support. LTE signal has greatly improved around this area, thanks to 600 and 700 MHz support on this tower. 

The only thing lacking on this tower right now is the capacity to it. Right now, I have only seen peak speeds of 35 Mbps download and 15 Mbps upload on 5G. This tower is most likely still being worked on, but so far, I’m impressed with the improvements. 

This tower now supports all of these frequencies.

LTE 600
LTE700A
LTE 1900
LTE 2100
4G/3G U1900
4G/3G U2100
2G
5G N600 SA
5G N600 NSA
5G N2500 NSA

I just started picking up band class 10 800mhz on Wednesday south of Battle Creek near Union City on tower - - - - - - - - - . I have picked up band class 10 on other sites around my area, but I"m not sure which tower its from. I have been getting much better voice coverage, but now I hardly connect to LTE. Hopefully that means they will start to turn on band 26 LTE soon.

I was able to reach 70 Mbps download south of Battle Creek on Beckley Road. About a month ago or so band 41 was added there and it was slow at first and eventually reached 50 Mbps download max and now its reaching up to this. 

I can't say I have the issue with my iPhone 6. It hands off and latches onto LTE at every opportunity, even when I am streaming music on Spotify.

 

Of course I am in an super mature market with just about every site with B25/26 LTE, and about 1/3 with B41.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Maybe when my area gets populated with b25/26/41 my iPhone will hand off better. 

Has anyone else with the iPhone 6 been experiencing this issue? I've talked to Sprint and apparently they are aware of the issue and Apple is working on it, but that's been in that state for several months and this issue has been with me since I had the iPhone 5s. Like you guys are saying its probably just how iOS is and there may never be a fix because it wants to connect to the strongest signal, which is always 3G.

I was thinking that this may be because 800 Mhz LTE isn't deployed in my area and the site spacing is horrible in areas that I go to, but I have went to areas with known 800 Mhz LTE deployed and it still doesn't hand off from 3G to LTE correctly. I normally have to toggle the data on and off to get it to connect to LTE. This is especially annoying when I do any traveling. 

Found some band 41 south of Battle Creek, MI! I was only able to connect to it on the north side of the tower. 

You aren't streaming or actively using data are you? I was getting frustrated not picking up AT&T LTE when I was in range in my car, and then I remembered I use TuneIn Radio in the car. And I know better. Turn off the streaming, and DING, the LTE indicator on Signal Check Pro chimed.

 

During active data sessions, your phone won't scan for LTE. It just happily stays connected to what its doing. And it doesn't have to be streaming audio/video. It could be something an app is doing.

 

I don't necessarily think this is your problem. I'm just throwing it out there so you can rule it out.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

Sorry about not replying to your post. It must have got lost in the notifications. Sometimes I am, but almost all of the time I don't have any data in the background going. I even turned the Background App Refresh off and that didn't help. 

There isn't any way to change the LTE scan timer on the iPhone. It's really something that Apple needs to change on their own. This problem will probably go away for you when you have ubiquitous LTE coverage, which will most likely be when you get Band 26.

 

-Anthony

That's what I thought. Luckily Band 26 is showing up in a few areas around where I live and there are plans for more to be active later this year. 

Thats odd. Sounds like CSFB issues...but the iPhone does not use CSFB. I am pretty sure that the scanner timer on the iPhone is much higher than most phones...Could this be your issue? When I am in an area where I know I should have LTE, I just do an airplane cycle and it shunts me onto LTE. 

I too was thinking it was the scanner timer, but I'm not familiar with changing the LTE scanner timer on the iPhones. Normally when I do an airplane cycle it won't stay on LTE while my brothers will latch onto it. 

I am having the same issue here in Albuquerque.  My wife's iphone 5 will pick up signal before and keep it longer than the 5s.

 

Through my testing in other markets, i find the 5s has a longer timer and the addition to Band 26 in the phone. 

 

You have performed my detailed fixes but to correct right away, I do a airplane mode and I get connected right away. Annoying I know.

So it sounds like it is just the timers causing the issue. I wonder if Apple will fix this soon. I was thinking of contacting an Apple Senior Advisor to see if they can do anything further. 

I've been having issues with my iPhone 5s not handing off from 3G to LTE correctly. I will be driving up to known LTE towers and my phone won't switch to LTE until I get right up by the tower. I first thought this may only just be my area, but I have this issue in other areas as well. My brother has a Samsung Galaxy S3 and it connects to LTE a lot sooner than my iPhone does and it stays connected to the LTE in fully launched markets.

I talked to Sprint over the phone and they said that the iPhone is provisioned correctly and I followed all of their troubleshooting steps including updating the PRL, reactivating the phone and getting a replacement SIM card. Thinking that there was a hardware issue with my phone I got a replacement one through Apple, which had the same issue. I contacted Apple again and they wanted me send in the iPhone again. This time they thoroughly checked my iPhone for any issues. They still deemed the device fully functional.  

This is what Apple support sent me: 

MSC is the switch that the traffic routes through.  Click on a site in the sponsor maps and it will list the MSC

Ah. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. I took a second look at the site and it looks like there are two RRUs.

If you see only 1 RRU then it is a Band 25 site only. I'm not sure where Athens is at, but you could be within the 100 mile boundry of Canada and IBEZ or on an MSC boundry. I know of a site in Portland and Muliken that are on the Lansing/Grand Rapids MSC boundry, they are Band 25 only. That is the only odd thing about them.

I know that site doesn't fall within the IBEZ boundary. What's the MSC boundary?

So I went and looked at the tower in Athens, MI  and it only looks like there is only 1 RRU per antenna, unless I can't see the second one. Does this mean this site won't be getting 800MHz LTE? The tower climbers said they were installing 2.5GHz equipment, but I don't seem to see those up there either. I wasn't able to get the best pictures since I was taking photos with my phone. 

Same thing is happening to the tower by Exit 3 (Copeland Rd/Kinderhook) off of I-69 south of Coldwater.

 

No 800 1x or LTE yet, but Band 41 equipment is installed. Low population density area, other than providing signal to the freeway.  Nothing has been switched on yet though.

Hopefully that is a sign that 1x 800 and 800 LTE will be turned on soon if they are for some reason installing band 41 equipment. 

Check out the pics I took for these posts:

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/3369-report-in-progress-sites-here/page-67&do=findComment&comment=185326

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/3369-report-in-progress-sites-here/page-68&do=findComment&comment=185327

 

Some members have far better equipment than I and can get closer shots but you should be able to get the idea. You should see a box (RRU) near the top and bottom on the backside of the wider antenna. That is what you are looking for when you're out spotting. Note: these photos were taken some time ago and the legacy equipment (the narrower antennas on both sides of the wider antenna) has been deactivated and most likely removed since leaving only one antenna (and accompanying RRUS) per sector.

 

I couldn't say as for when the Athens site might see 800LTE since that falls under Premier Sponsor status and I couldn't divulge that. However, my speculation is that if Sprint is putting up Band 41 (2500 MHz) then 800MHz couldn't be too far behind if it already hasn't went live.

Thanks for your help. I'll keep this in mind when I'm out spotting. 

There is no "800MHz antenna" per se at least in our state. Samsung is installing one antenna per sector (sometimes two if it is a high-capacity site). However, depending where you are in Michigan, those antennas may have 1 or more RRUs attached to the backside of each single antenna. So my question to you is how many of these square-ish RRUs are on each antenna on the site you are referring to? If it's one then that site will not be getting 800MHz.

 

If there are two+ then you will be seeing 800MHz sometime in the near future if you haven't already.

Thanks for the replies! I wasn't aware that there isn't a separate antenna for 800MHz. Thanks for clarifying. I live west of I-69 in Union City, MI. The tower I am referring to is located in Athens, MI. When I was out there I didn't look that closely at the antennas so I couldn't tell you, but I'll have to make a point and look now. 

So if it has one, the site won't be getting 800MHz at all or just not anytime soon? I haven't picked up any 1x800 or 800 LTE around my area. 

Are you saying that they were adding 2.5 GHz equipment to a legacy site, or that they were creating a new site with 2.5 GHz equipment only? Because you may see the latter frequently since 2.5 GHz requires denser site spacing.

They were adding 2.5 GHz equipment to an existing site that has been 3G upgraded and has added 1900 MHz equipment to it.

I new to this thread. I have a question about 800MHz LTE and Sprints 2.5GHz band 41. I live in Southern Michigan and about a week ago I talked to some Sprint tower climbers that were installing 2.5 equipment on a water tower in my rural area. The first thing I was wondering is why they would be installing 2.5GHz equipment before 800MHz LTE antennas? Seems like that would be installed in bigger cities this early in the upgrade process.