mhammett

For me, latency is part of the overall results of the speed test, so while my IP can place me in Kansas, I have the feeling that if I test through Chicago, I will get a better ping because I can't beat physics. However, I have no doubt that the download/upload speed shouldn't suffer (much) due to the increased distance assuming that the server's capacity and bandwidth are sufficient.

Due to how TCP functions, latency plays a big role. Latency, jitter (worse on mobile networks), packet loss, etc. all affect what you can get.

Just because you are physically located in say Bozeman, Montana doesn't mean the Bozeman server would offer the best performance. Your provider may haul you all the way back to Westin in Seattle before interconnecting with other carriers and thus to the speedtest site. To bring a bit more localness to it, if he is in Arlington Heights, his signal will travel to the MSC (or LTE core) responsible for that site (LTE cores do make it more interesting because they're dynamic). From there it travels over Sprint's network (this part I'm fuzzy on) to wherever Sprint interfaces with the rest of the world. In Chicago, these locations are likely 600 S. Federal and 350 E. Cermak. If a speedtest server sitting on a network that BGP currently prefers is in Joliet, that is where you're likely to get the best performance. It is a lot further away than an Arlington Heights server, but how the Internet is connected is a much bigger factor than physical location. My credentials for this are that I have my own ISP with microwave backhaul and I have equipment in the major Internet exchange points in Chicago.

Did you report the site you found on Sprint.com and not s4gru here? http://s4gru.com/ind...to-this-thread/

Sorry, I am new to the site (as of Monday?) and haven't learned all of the ropes yet. I will do just that.

There aren't many. Not more than a handful. Our database is from October 2011 and came straight from Sprint. We started receiving new site updates in Spring 2012. We are only missing a dozen or so sites added in the time in between. And we add them when we find them. The sites shown at network.sprint.com is only a fraction. Are you trying to make a point?

 

Robert via Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

There is such a site in my town (on Sprint's page, but not yours). I'm not in that area as much as I used to be, but I do remember that building getting cell equipment (unknown provider, but I think T-Mobile) in about 2007. I'll have to drive by in the daylight to see if I recognize there being more gear up there. I suppose it is possible that it is a brand new site. That part of town is dreadful. Forget any data usage during any college event.

Tongue in cheek, but I wonder if I put in my own backhaul, Sprint will turn on the darn LTE on the towers out here. ;-) I'd honestly consider it if they would accept it.

Downtown Aurora is especially poor, and Winfield / Warrenville are complete dead zones for me.

Downtown Aurora is poor, but I think we're talking about different things.

I picked LTE up in Maple Park on RT 38 on my way home from work today. I saw they installed a new line of radios on the tower at the corner of County Line Rd and RT 38.

 

EDIT: tower isn't on the map must not be Sprint.

I sent you photos of the tower nearest to there yesterday. Well, now two days ago, Crap, it's midnight already. I did know whose tower that was, but I forgot.

Voice will not really be affected by the 4G network until VoLTE (voice over LTE) comes into play (which is years off still).

Maybe for Sprint, but at least one other carrier is deploying it. MetroPCS, maybe?

800MHz will help all voice performance (distance from the site, building penetration and quality of signal). The reason for the dropped calls is discussed in this article: http://s4gru.com/ind...the-windy-city/

 

The issue of dropped calls in Chicago will not go away totally until Network Vision is 100% complete in the market. But it should get better week after week as more and more sites switch over to Network Vision and the legacy network is dismantled. The dropped calls occur when transferring a call while mobile from a NV site to a legacy site on the same channel. When there is no legacy network remaining, the issue will go away. But may still happen for some time when driving across the border into Wisconsin.

 

800MHz is just starting to be deployed in the Chicago market. So it is not surpising that she is on 1x on 1900 at this time. CDMA 800 will get more and more prevalent over the next month or two.

 

The dropped calls issue is temporary. And it is already much better than two months ago.

 

Robert

I see the maps for the new gear. Is there information for how far out the old Motorola gear goes? As you know, they'll have to upgrade all of the Moto gear to Samsung, else there will be drops at the edges.

Any resource for where the MSCs are located? I know of where one is in Aurora.

Are the LTE cores in the same facilities?

I'm guessing you're keeping this a secret to us peons, eh? lol

Not a secret at all, just have to have friends that know where to look. ;-)

network.sprint.com does not show Network Vision upgrades. It only shows network maintenance work. Also, network.sprint.com does not show every Sprint site. Only the sites with network maintenance work scheduled in a six month rolling window. We have maps in our Sponsor section that show locations of all Sprint sites in the country.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

What about sites that are on network.sprint.com, but not on your maps?

I think that he's referring to test servers for the Speed Test app. You can choose the server closest to you for (theoretically) better results. The closest servers to him are probably in Arlington Heights, Chicago and Vernon Hills.

Physical location has almost ZERO bearing on the test servers. It is based on ping from you to the server. For example, the Aurora server with Blast Communications (there's also one up north on AirLogic) are sitting on InterNAP bandwidth, so they will test very well across the board. There will be exceptions, for example on a Comcast connection, the Comcast server *SHOULD* be better.

Also I saw some brave individual at tower CH03XC518 putzing around in the high winds yesterday afternoon at the top....after I drove by this morning I saw a small dish was installed. Yay backhaul! And the tower has eHRPD AND its the tower I connect while Im at work! :-D

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Forum Runner

I've been up in some pretty windy situations before. I've also been up in extreme heat. One day I was up and it snowed, rained and drizzled. My friend helping me out forgot his gloves and had to hold one of the tower lights in his hand on occasion because his hands were cold. I bought him gloves before we went to the next site. I'm really looking forward to installing 13 or so backhauls in Jan\Feb. That'll be lovely weather.

It's not nonsense. Its a complete and total network rebuild. But if Sprint cannot meet your needs now, that is understandable. You have to do what you have to do.

 

You could get a tracphone as a temporary backup when you cannot make a call. That's another option over leaving.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

Well, it is nonsense that they didn't discover this in pre-deployment testing, but there isn't much they can do about it now.

That make me optimistic for LTE 800 in your area when it arrives in the future. LTE 800 should roughly be the same dBm signal strength as CDMA 800. However, it will start petering out between -90dBm and -95dBm RSSI. So anything in the 80's should be quite good.

 

So when LTE 1900 is deployed on your tower, it will not likely reach your house. But LTE 800 should. The only wild card are the devices.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

LTE will likely require a much higher signal to noise ratio, requiring more signal to achieve a given percentage of the protocol's capability.

I can say that the statement of a lot of microwave back haul in Chicago is an exaggeration

It depends on how you define a lot. The information is there for all to see on the FCC's web site. Note: I will not teach you how to use ULS.

I have noticed almost all of the towers along 294 north of 88 are microwave and there are microwave gateway towers at big tolls. I can physically see the microwave antennas that have been installed over the last few months I cant say the same for 94 because i dont use it as much but it seems like its easier when there are huge microwave gateway towers (i dont know if taht what you call them) already in place along the tollway and 94. The sites that are complete that i have seen and are not near the highway dont seem to use microwave as much

Microwave is really popular among many networks (my own included). The towers that the tollway itself owns have had microwave on them likely since they started collecting tolls. You may or may not be looking at a Sprint site.

Ethernet, wtf. Are you guys trying to run Ethernet cable to your 2002 HP PC from your Telocity DSL box in your home office or something. #Retro

 

No Way Sprint uses Ethernet. We know the knew backhaul is Fiber right? Im sure the old backhaul is some sort of outdated copper line, T1, T3, OC3 that link to their distribution centers.

Ethernet is the predominate method of connecting to the Internet now. Carriers have been implementing Ethernet based circuits for internal use for about 10 years.

They're talking metro ethernet or MPLS which can be based on copper or fiber cables. Pretty much NV comes down to either having some sort of cable based (copper or fiber) internet connection or microwave, both of which provide an substantial improvement over the T1s in place now.

Well, the underlying carrier may very well be using MPLS, but very doubtful that Sprint is deploying MPLS all the way to their sites. Possible, but doubtful.

Its not the 'waste of time' problem, its the fact that many of the fiber backhaul is actually contracted or rented from the local communications companies. If those companies do not already have service extending toward that area, the COSTS are very large, and therefore not cost effective especially when you consider that those areas are less populated and not going to generate as much money. Therefore where microwave can be more cost effective, they will use it instead of fiber. Other than slightly higher pings, speeds will be comparable and it will still be a much better experience than the current.

Not just local, but often national fiber companies like Windstream, Zayo and others. I don't know if it was lack of information or a decision they made, but I've noticed fiber routes from companies that do cellular backhaul going right past sites that have microwave backhauls and don't have a fiber drop.

Microwave gear, if configured correctly, adds a negligible amount of latency to a network. Like, less than a millisecond per hop.

 

Sent from my Galaxy SIII-32GB using Forum Runner

Microwave gear can be less latent than fiber. The financial industry has spent big money building out several new Chicago - New York microwave routes because they have lower latency.

There are two types of microwave chains. There are redundant loops, which can have up to 7 or 8 sites. But these have MW links set up both directions and each end ends up back at the source site (In a loop). These are more reliable with redundancy. These are very common in DFW.

 

The second type is terminal end. Sometimes these are as few as one site that is connected another site, or it can be several. The only time you would relay more than 2-3 sites out on a terminal end is out to remote rural sites. And if you are 50 miles out in the plains on a low usage site, it doesn't much matter if the site is on a terminal end MW relay that has been beamed from 5 sites.

 

Also, I keep seeing this 80% fiber number, and I don't know where it came from. This is not accurate. I would estimate, based on what I've seen, Sprint has less than 20% of sites as direct fiber backhaul. Most backhaul is via AAV. However, often AAV is fiber backed in a very short distance from the service demark at the site. Sometimes only 20'-30'.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

There's more than two, but those are the two basic ones.

TMobile will also be offering Unlimited Data very soon. The two giants ATT and Verizon can't offer unlimited data b/c there networks suck and they ran out of spectrum. They sold so many iPhones and Android Phones over the last few years there networks are completely saturated by data usage. They both have double if not triple the amount of subscribers than Sprint or TMobile in most markets, thus no spectrum left. Only Sprint and TMobile, with less saturated networks (spectrum owned/users), can even offer unlimited data from a technical point of view. I was at a focus group for TMobile, they will be offering unlimited data as selling point to try and gain subscribers now that they will not be exiting the US Market after the failed merger with ATT. Its just that TMobile's network sucks cuz its not 4G LTE, its not really 4G, its HSPA+, which by technical standard is like 3.5G, they just market it as 4G b/c its faster than native 3G, but it doesn't compare to the speeds u can get with a real 4G LTE network, its just a PR stunt. That being said we are back at square one. If you are a consumer and you want the newest, most advanced, least saturated, 4G LTE network, and you want unlimited data on your plan...you have one option, waiting for and choosing Sprint (post NV that is).

Originally, neither WiMAX nor LTE were 4G either as 100 megabits to the end user was the entry point for 4G. Really only WiMAX2 and LTE-Advanced would qualify as 4G. The ITU gave in to the marketing guys. I kinda wish they hadn't.

I have no problem calling TMo DC-H+ 4G, from what I've seen of it. Sure, LTE is faster (in 5x5 or wider channels). WiMAX is slower and it's still 4G.

 

AT&T on the other hand...I'll just stop there. I could rant for awhile abiut their intentional obfuscation of what 4G means...ahem iPhone.

 

Sent from my Galaxy SIII-32GB using Forum Runner

WiMAX isn't necessarily slower. Channel sizes, TDD\FDD, protocol revisions, advanced antennas and manufacturer enhancements all come into play as to what a given platform can deliver.

Friend of mine showed me some documents were Sprint has submitted request for licences to use microwave backhaul in some rural towns....mine being one if those towns. How reliable is microwave???

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Forum Runner

Nice friend you have! ;-)

Very reliable. There are naysayers who complain that Sprint should have an all fiber LTE network. But that is not realistic. Microwave technologies have improved tremendously in the past 5 years as well. It is less reliable than fiber, of course. But if you ever get a fiber line cut, the repair time is much longer than if you lose a microwave link.

 

Robert

It all depends on the engineering. It's not difficult to have engineered a microwave path to be greater than 5x 9s. Just ask the guys in NY\NJ how reliable their fiber has been the past month.

Soon, most of us will be saying you are lucky too. The Western exurbs were really bad at one point, but most of their problems have been worked through. It is a painful process, but it will be worked out over the next weeks/months and you will then be on of the most state of the art networks ever. You will have 18 months of a great network in Chicago before they even start my market.

 

Robert

It says they're largely done out my way (DeKalb) with NV (sans LTE), but voice and 3G are still having a hell of a time. During a football game, you can forget using data. Also, I've noticed that your maps are missing at least one tower that is on Sprint's own map. Not sure how widespread that lack is.

Clearwire has it's own backhaul. I believe it's normally Microwave. Even when Clearwire and Sprint are co-located on the same tower, I think they use separate backhaul.

In some areas Clear has done the work themselves, while in others they have farmed it out to backhaul companies like FiberTower. In some areas it is directly on fiber, while in others it is via microwave.

That Rensselaer tower has already had NV upgrades. So the improvements in 1900 signal have already been realized. The next improvements will be on voice when CDMA 800 gets added to that site later this year and LTE 800 gets added in the 2nd Half of 2013 or 1st half of 2014.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

I don't feel like looking up a bunch of FCC IDs to see what has been certified for what. Are there any phones out there with non-iDen services in 800?