AcctDeleted_Merlin

~I'm dreaming a fast Christmas

Sadly, not this year. 

On a side note, it looks like I may be on-call for Christmas fixes. You guys keep the complaints to a minimum, m'kay?

The primary network that controls the throughput for the sites is now complete. 

Hold on to your butts. It's coming.

To elaborate on what this means...

Basically, the network that the NV sites connect to is complete and is being beefed up with bandwidth. This will allow for the Denver area clusters to start coming online as they are connected/tested/BS. 

Now we wait for news on the NV switches. The network ring connects to the various switches and the switches send it out from there to the other switches in other states.

Lets start an analogy. The sites are your fingers. The network ring is your torso. The switch is your brain.

What's missing?

Your arm, aka the backhaul. The last mile of fiber to a site. 

Some fingers already have arms. Some torsos are connected to brains. But as of right now, everyone has a torso and that torso is being built up until it has a damn six-pack of abs ( 10GB/Second at a time :-] ).

BTW, Chicago is live with this same system and they are getting 45-60Mbps down.

Hold on to your butts. 

Sorry, Albuquerque.

No, your network is not connected to the Denver area network.

You have that information?  Maybe this is what has been happening in ABQ recently, leading to severe service disruption.

ABQ?

The primary network that controls the throughput for the sites is now complete. 
Hold on to your butts. It's coming.

Sensorly shows LTE activity at Parker and 225, plus a hit at Arapahoe and Parker road in the past two days. I'm sitting underneath the hit at Arapahoe and Parker and can't connect, even if I force my HTC one to use LTE only.

 

Merlin, are these just being activated for a split second or something? Clearly not on at the moment.

They could have been on for testing and are now off until the full network goes live.

Merlin, I was wondering if you show any activity going on from around Campion colorado down hwy 287 to north Longmont (17th and Pace). I know in the last few days I've seen a lot of 1x and dropped calls. Just curious if this is from upgrades going on, or if there is a problem.

The NV towers cant talk to the legacy site in the area. Thus you will run into hard disconnects and low signal because your phone can only connect to one of the two networks (NV or Legacy) at a time. 

Another strong hit at Park Meadows and Lincoln just north of the Sky Ridge entrance. Sensorly is all kinds of fun this past week or so.

I want to tell you the answer... I really do. 

Patience, young grasshopper.

 Why would they want these towers deactivated once completed?  Seems to me, Sprint would want to fire these things up as soon as possible as people have been very patiently waiting. 

The tower is not deactivated and is running 1900LTE. But there is no point in firing up one 800LTE card when there wont be a network to back it up. It may also be in the testing phase.

Where was this at?

85 miles outside of denver, and is currently deactivated but powered up on a full 4g-fiber site. 

First one I have seen.

800 LTE card spotted in the wild. ;-]

Hey guys and gals, im new to this site so work with me. I live in Pueblo West Colo, and wanted to gain some info on lte. I have been waiting patiently for years now and would like to get anyone's input on if we can be expecting it down here, I call sprint and they give me conflicting info. Please help

Welcome, the short answer is "I don't know". But I have personally seen some of the sites in that area and most have been upgraded to NV equipment. So, my guess is 3-6 months.

Oh wow! Tower network bandwidth is something I had not ever though of heard about. Another reason I love this site. Always learning something new!

Like I said earlier. Sprint is the ONLY network that chose not to retrofit their network for LTE. Hench why they are late to the game. 

Sprint chose to build a whole NEW network, while also keeping the old one alive. This has huge implications for the future as we eventually move to "5g" (remember that 2500 spectrum, wink). All the other guys will have to do this same process or they will probably be severely limited. 

Absolutely it can use an upgrade, just as many sites can.

The point being is . As light as traffic and congestion was in the area, I was shocked to see the data so slow.

There was no flood of any traffic I. The area, Santa fe was very light. Different story on a week day... Or later in the day on a Saturday.

All that will change once the NV is complete.

8am is when the network is slammed. Keep in mind that you are not just competing for tower-phone bandwidth, you are competing with tower-network bandwidth. In a way you are competing with the entire metro area for bandwidth. 8am is when everyone wakes up on the weekend and checks the internet. This is the REAL upgrade of NetVision. LTE is handy for Tower-Phone bandwidth, but the real upgrade is in the network ring that connects them all. Which is just about done :-)

Actually in context if you would have noticed it was 8 in the morning, and the parking lot wasn't full at all, considering most of the shops were still closed. Also, traffic was light as well... Considering it was ... 8am. Haha! The point being.. This site is dire need of an upgrade.

Is this the 8am that usually has a flood of cars on the highway all using voice lines? 

Every site could use an upgrade. I believe that is the plan? right?

Most likely that was our tower location. (Willow St and county line road) Yesterday we had an Ericsson

truck and a guy in the cabinet "room" and some major drops in signal (normally I get 64-84dbm) and for awhile I was getting -125dbm or so. 

 

So during that time someone might of got a hit off the tower.

Unlikely, the switch over is not done on site. But the site may have been down for some other reason. 

This is for Merlin. I have been trying to get information on Sprint's 4GLte rollout in Denver for 6 months. Online I found the Sensorly site, and am cranked to see the LTE network moving into the Denver area. Sprint needs to take your article below and publish it for all of Denver to see. You are the first person with the Company I have heard that speaks clearly, answers all of the questions I have, and offer insight on tearing down one infrastructure and replacing it with another, while trying to maintain the current 4G Wimax system. Needless to say, I am cranked. One question, will this new network require the new tri band phones (Samsung Mega,Mini, Htc Mega etc.) to work, or will the 4GLTE Sprint phones on the market work with these new towers? Thanks Santa

Thank you for your kind words. The only way I am even comfortable sharing what I know is because it is unofficial. The people on here are some of the best eyes/ears Sprint could ask for. They are actively seeking and sharing information about a behind schedule project. (BTW blame Samsung).

As for your question, see Craig's response below.

Hey all.  It's been fun following this thread for the past few months.  I'm getting cautiously optimistic that we are getting close to the rollout here in Denver.  Got a quick question though, can someone expain what lte "network" we are getting here in Denver?   Are all the lte networks the same or are there more advance versions?  I've been hearing alot about 800/1900/2500Mhz, but not really sure what differences are or they they are implemented.  Thanks (and a particular thanks to Merlin for keeping us updated)

see Craig's response below

The 8/19/25 you've heard about are all the "same" LTE network. Each band has its own advantages. The 800 band will have better in-building coverage and longer outside coverage, but a lower theoretical peak speed. The 1900 band is a decent compromise between coverage distance and speeds. This is the LTE that single band LTE phones currently utilize. The 2500 band is for short range/high density high speed coverage. If you get a tri-band LTE device, you will be able to utilize all of the bands in the Denver area. We have a very large number of the 2500 sites already active, and the 800 LTE should start going live soon. Maybe someone else has better info about timeframe on that, as well as what the upgrade to LTE Advanced entails and what those benefits will be. 

I'm hearing more concrete rumors of a lot of LTE going active in 3 months, with the rest going active in 6.

This is due to the communication barrier between the ALU and Samsung cabs. It has to come up almost all at once or it will be a damn nightmare.

At the Aspen Grove shopping center now, and this place really could benefit from the NV upgrade.

 

Yikes!

Ohh, you mean a shopping mall next to an interstate highway 10 days before christmas, running off 3 T1 lines, isn't as fast as your home internet because all the channels were packed with voice calls? I bet parking was just as fast. :-)

Speaking of sprints network being managed by contractors. Do any of the carriers actually manage their own networks themselves, is this a standard in the industry?

 

I assume if att is laying there own back haul they have more leverage and ability to manage there own network than sprint would, seeing the back haul is being provided by century link and att ?

 

 

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Most carriers use contract work at points. The extent to which the other carries use it is a mystery to me.

I would love nothing more than to jump into this conversation with my opinion about how the poor training or communications from sprint is a systemic leadership issue but that would require a ton more effort than I am willing to put forth at this very moment. That and, this is a forum for us to share information about the LTE rollout, not bash sprint. I'm as frustrated as anybody but I'll digress for now.

 

What I do have effort for is, has anybody been watching sensorly this week? I posted a question over the weekend in this tread regarding a new LTE hit showing up south of Park Meadows mall on C-470 between I-25 and Yosemite. I looked again today and now there are LTE hits reporting along Santa Fe in the south part of town starting from C-470 and stretching up to the Littleton Blvd intersection. They seem to be faint, but not as terribly so. Does anybody have insight as to what this is being caused by?

I do have insight into what is happening but systemic leadership issues prevent me from expressing it properly. ;]

Merlin...Look, I appreciate all the information you have provided above and in this forum.  Your corporate enthusiasm is admirable. Good Lord Man you are the voice of Sprint for all of us!  Thank YOU!  The bottom line...it is sad when the only LTE information we get is from an unofficial Sprint Tech source.  Please realize my frustrations lay far from you.  

 

Where I do find my frustration is from the sales person telling me on release morning at a Sprint Store here in fantasyland, after securing a reservation and waiting outside for two hours for my EVO LTE 4G, to be sold on the fact this new phone will be just a bit slower than my EVO because Denver's LTE network was just two short months away!  He didn't even offer up that little tidbit until I inquired if the speeds on this phone were going to be faster.  Then only to be told again the same damn thing again 10 months later when I bought my wife's Galaxy and re-upped for another two years.  All of this only to add it had been years not being able to make a full cell phone call without a drop from my home in a north west suburb.   An Airave finally put a band-aid on that.

 

Merlin, I pay Sprint $3500 a year, and have been a loyal customer for what I believe is over 11 years now.  I cant tell you how many people I have referred to Sprint.  I even have a great relationships with the repair guys at my local store.   Hell, I even told them about you and this forum because they had heard MAY 2014 and you were a wealth of knowledge.  I just want what I was sold.  I think you would have to agree I and many, many others have been more than patient.  If Sprint Corporate knew what sales was saying to long term customers they should have at least provided better information and better PR.

 

So I'm sorry that this is hard and at the end of the day I really don't care.  Get out some lights and work at night.  Hire more crews. Pay overtime. Offer incentives...whatever....just meet the expectations you sold me $6000 ago.  

 

Your Company had better flip the damn switch (horribly sorry for my lack of your tech-speak here) soon or sadly I'm going to be forced to fire them.  Too bad they probably wouldn't miss me nor care but now I hope you can sympathize with my frustrations.

I wish I had a better answer for you. But at the end of the day it's your money and phone lines. Sprint is last to the LTE game and that is a bit unfortunate.

You are certainly not alone in being frustrated by what the retail side employees have said. I hear people all the time with almost the exact same story about promises not kept. Sprint never has, and still has not set a date as to when LTE goes live. With so many contracts downwind and different contractors it would be impossible until the reports come back that the work is complete. Hell, Sprint doesn't even manage their own network, that's all a contract. I try to hit up the larger sprint stores and pick their brains about it but they are all clueless.

If only it were a problem of "boots on the ground". It's not. There are only so many crews trained, there are only so many supply distributors, and only so many capped budget-hours to work with. That's the unfortunate fact of contract work, you can't control it after the contract is issued. Sprint contracts out to the vendor, the vendor contracts out to the distributor and to the crews. The crews say work is completed, Sprint contracts out to Ericsson to verify, Ericsson says BS, Sprint sends out corrections to the vendor. The damn chain keeps going and going. There is nothing that any one person, or even one company can do.

I'm sorry that an underpaid, commission salesperson at a retail store sold you on a bad promise that was never in writing. Just like a used car salesmen, they will do and say what the have to say to get a sale because their rent payment depends on it. And $6000 is nothing sort of a cars worth of money. I wish people would start seeing it that way. 

I guess what I was meaning was the official finish the nv upgrades.

The thing is, it wont work correctly everywhere. There will be tough length of time as all the coverage gaps are located, as equipment experiences it's first real load test, and as the techs get used to the equipment. 

This is a huge jump in tech. The legacy equipment was pretty simple and most of the time a quick reset or hardware swap was able to fix problems. The new stuff is all IP fixes. Very little on site. There is a damn steep learning curve for it. 

Hey Merlin, this might be a long shot and we won't hold you to it (RIGHT GUYS? -_-), but can you give us a rough hint when the next cluster will go live?

 

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I really wish I (or anyone else) knew this info. We really are at the mercy of the backhaul on this one. But once it's all wired up they flip the switch within days. I honestly think all the Denver area will come online within a couple weeks of each other but they may be waiting until all the clusters are ready to start that wave.

I wish I had better news.

As long as it works correctly when they are finished with the job I will be happy!

 

Merlin, I will try to get you a debug screen shot today.

"Finished with the job" is kind of bad way to think of it. The job never gets fully finished. There are always sites down, improvements to be made, tickets to track down. The maintenance will be more software and networking side (hopefully) and less hardware related (as it is with the legacy equipment).

Maybe someday I will share the story of the site that had a literal meltdown in the heat.

It never stops. The only difference between sprint and verizon, once the NV is full live, is only the resources that get put into troubleshooting the network.  

Good Lord.....turn it on already.  Man, this is so damn frustrating.  

 

Sprint should say, "Hey...thanks for hanging around and putting up with all our crap for so many years.... so our next flagship phone that comes out is yours...On us!  We just want to say thank you and We hope we can regain your trust enough for you to stay around for many more years to come.... Enjoy!"

 

The towers here in fantasyland are all 5G BTW.

You obviously have no idea how difficult this project is. Let me put this into one simple sentence that might help you figure it out.

Every single piece of equipment Sprint was using for their network 6 months ago is being replaced and will be operational in about 3 months.

Think about that for a second. Every antenna, every cabinet, every cable, 95+% of their switch tech, ... everything.

All of this while attempting to keep the existing maintenance nightmare of a network running at the same time.

I know in some fantasyland of yours it only involves a switch, but you're wrong. Plain wrong.

They don't owe you a phone, they owe you a network, and over the course of a furious paced 9 months they built you a ground-up top-tier network on top of an already operational network.

I want to caution everyone here about what will be happening in the next few months. These transitions are tough. Antennas will be misaligned, sites will go down, speeds will flux. This will not be the christmas morning that some think it will be when they finally do "turn it on already".

Everyone I know is busting ass to get this thing online. And once it is up were are going to need people like those in the forum to help us tune it. People that know what they are talking about. People that can tell us where the dark spots are, and be patient while the chain of command confirms>assesses>plans>initiates>contracts>permits>adjusts the network.

I don't know, was strange to me. I distinctly remember there being 2 towers close to Hotchkiss on the upgrade map a couple months ago. 

 Could have been a misprint on the map. There is only one record of a location near Hotchkiss. It's a strong one too. Stretches half way to Austin, Cedaredge, Crawford, and Paonia. 

Toss me some debug screenshots in PM and I can look into what might be happening

Looking at the map there isn't anything in that area. Not even a decommissioned iDen site. There could have been a change in antenna positioning, but I have no way of looking that up.

I believe it was some time in October. Early if I remember correctly. 

There are three sites that serve that area, none of which are on one single farmers land. It could be a coordinated effort, i guess. but still unlikely as all three sites are showing green to me, but we could have a COW (cell on wheels) out there. All three towers are pretty big locations with almost every carrier sharing a mount. If someone did knock one down then it would be pretty big news. I can't find anything about it.

My BS-meter is pretty high on this story.

Also Merlin did some farmer in the Hotchkiss/Cederedge area really topple a couple towers?

Yes, that is my understanding... Except it wasn't a farmer :-) Service it terrible in the Hotchkiss area.

 

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When?