mhammett

How common are DAS, in-building, micro-cell, etc. installations for Sprint? Would they be excluded from your listings across the board or just more likely to be missing than standard towers?

Here is the location of a Sprint site not on S4GRU. The suspected location is a tall off-campus dorm-type apartment with other cellular carriers on it. The possibly, but not likely location is a clock tower that Verizon had constructed to replace a COW they had permanently stationed at the university. Sprint isn't likely to be here because it is likely a VZ exclusive tower. If I can get that way, I'll try to grab some photos or other indicators of which site they're actually at.

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. 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 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 poor, but I think we're talking about different things. 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. Maybe for Sprint, but at least one other carrier is deploying it. MetroPCS, maybe? 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? Not a secret at all, just have to have friends that know where to look. ;-) What about sites that are on network.sprint.com, but not on your maps? 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. 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.

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. LTE will likely require a much higher signal to noise ratio, requiring more signal to achieve a given percentage of the protocol's capability. 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. 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 is the predominate method of connecting to the Internet now. Carriers have been implementing Ethernet based circuits for internal use for about 10 years. 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.

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

Nice friend you have! ;-) 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. 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. 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. 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?