AcctDeleted_Merlin

Didn't realize i posted the mall one, Yes I realize that place sucks. It's not any better from my house, here is one from like 10 minutes ago.

 

Only reason I'm ever at the mall is for Cabelas and Sears, past that it's a suck hole.

Again, the tower is overloaded with connections. High ping + Slow DL + much higher UL = overloaded.

Keep in mind that until that site gets fiber the entire site us most likely sharing 3 T1s. 3xT1 = ~ 4.5 Mbps to share with everyone else. It might be a bigger site and have a T3, but that is still sharing 45 Mbps with everyone. A site that size and location can easily have a few hundred connections rolling. Throw in some people playing pandora, spotify, iheartradio... and it's gone. The old equipment was never designed to prioritize traffic and thus it can't. 

In the morning my 3g service looks like the first picture, but give it a couple hours and it will look like the second picture. Really can't wait for 4g, that and a new phone HTC has really let updates slip on some of their phones.

Follow up.

1) Your "good" test is literally in the morning shadow of a site. No competition there.

2) The Mesa mall is a deathzone and is very hard to work with. It is directly in between sites and there is (most likely) a sprint store/kiosk repeater inside. Those things are fantastic and hellish at the same time particularly due to signal noise that they generate just outside of their usable range. I have been in that mall several times with multiple carriers and there really isn't much that can be done for any of them. FYI, when I was in there with Verizon I couldn't even send texts in some places.

My advice would be to move to a part of the state with running water and indoor toilets.

In the morning my 3g service looks like the first picture, but give it a couple hours and it will look like the second picture. Really can't wait for 4g, that and a new phone HTC has really let updates slip on some of their phones.

Not to be a dick about this, but...

1) Your speed tests were taken 5 days apart

2) Based on your locations you are connected to two different towers.

3) The "bad" speedtest is inside a damn mall on a SUNDAY during Christmas shopping season.

4) That upload speed and ping tells me that you are on an overloaded tower (ie, mall)

Your test is bad, and you should feel bad.

That in mind, I'm still going to look into the issue for you. 

Has anyone noticed bad connectivity today for 3g throughout the metro area? I remember someone saying that happens when they light up a new tower, but can't recall if that was accurate or not. This is me being hopeful.

 

Alternatively, maybe my phone is just boning out, which would suck.

Nope, that's not really how it works.

Nope. I was having serious issues yesterday.

 

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Just part of the process, especially with weather moving in. 

Does mounting antennas to buildings have some of the same issues as stealth towers?

 

 

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 Buildings are preferable. Usually taller, in more populated areas, and easier to work on. They can sometimes be a hassle for antenna direction adjustments. Cabinets have to be put on the roof most times which isn't as fun for the techs.

Yeah, I haven't had a chance to stop by any of the stealth towers recently (which, as you mentioned would not be that useful unless you can see the cabinets).  The couple that I saw aren't technically in Highlands Ranch.  One is on the south-west corner of County Line and University Blvd.  It is a building mounted antenna on the south side of the plastic surgery building.

 

 

 

Here is a picture of a stealth tower.

I believe I have been to that exact site.

Thank you for that information, why in the world would they not want to do stuff towers? You would think they want to at least to help out the eyesore of cell towers.

 

 

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Stealth towers cost more, are usually single carrier (resulting in more "stealth" towers), aren't as good for signal clarity, lower to the ground, cause more heat related issues, and just are a pain to work with. The only ones I don't mind are the fake trees.

Highlands ranch also severely limits mounting antennas to buildings.

What is exactly a stealth tower?

 

 

 

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Antenna and RRU equipment can't be visible. 

Think giant ugly tubes instead of cell towers.

Or hiding one inside a building roof.

Awkwardly thick church cross, anyone?

Someone posted this link a while ago in this thread: http://www.zayo.com/interactive-map.  It seems to indicate that there is a lot of fiber to be run (or that has been run) so it is possible that it could be Sprint though you (Merlin) would know more than I would.  If there is doubt about whether this is related to Sprint, look at the end of the lines of fiber and you will find Sprint towers.

 

On another note, I've seen a few towers near my parents' house in Highlands Ranch with new antennas.  Once they go live, hopefully the horrible coverage at my parents' house will improve (they are literally in the center of a ring of towers). They have an airave which helps.

1)

Yes, Zayo is handling a bit of the fiber. Most of their connections are from existing network connections to sites. Century Link is also handling quite a bit more connections. It's hard to explain exactly the relationship between the two. Basically, whichever network of fiber is closer gets connected up. Zayo is a bit ahead of CL in this game.

2)

Highlands Ranch is tricky because they don't allow non-stealth towers. Good luck telling which sites are which.

I saw lots of cable laying activity around highlands ranch I saw guys laying cable on santa fe just before town center drive. I just wonder if this has anything to do with sprint .

Unlikely. The fiber to the sites are usually a small operation from the local company node to the site.

It's been whispered through the lines from sources. It's a Samsung thing, mainly because they can't bring any LTE online without also have the 3G cluster online, so they are pushing to get as much done as possible as quickly as possible. It's been well known for some time that Samsung want's to be the first OEM finished with NV.

*Whisper*Whisper*

I've recruited some upper lever engineering side help to get this figured out. There have been a lot of migration and adjustments going on in the area. Hopefully Barns can get me some useful debug info to track it down.

Confirmed. 15KB/s Down, 70KB/s up. You do get one bar of clearwire out there. I was parked outside the two addresses you gave me to test. I'll check in on what's going on. The signal is decent out there but the throughput sucks. 

It's a older phone but I get 3-4 bars. I've never seen it drop below 3. I would switch but I have 5 lines on Sprint and it would be more of a pain. I Just got a airwave from Sprint and that has helped. No longer getting voice mail from people who called and my phone never received a call. One day they will flip the magic switch and services Will be back to manageable levels.

PM you exact location, or even your neighbors address. I need to see this for myself. 

SprintFreeMsg: Lafayette, we're building you an all-new network! See how this affects your service at http://sprint.us/rnr

 

I got that yesterday...

 

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That really should read "all of Colorado"... But it is nice to see an announcement coming out. 

Given variance, can you elucidate as to the size range of a cluster of sites?

Depends on if we're talking a "switch" cluster, or a maintenance cluster. From my understanding there are roughly 5 clusters for Denver.

As a former Wimax user I'll tell you that Wimax was very spotty in Denver and had horrible building penetration. It might not be that much on an improvement, especially with LTE very close now.

2500MHz can't pass through objects very well but is super fast. Same with 1900. But that 800LTE is gonna be sexy indoors. 

Dkoellerwx is correct.
To add on...
The "switches" were moved up in schedule to be completed by the end of December (originally March).
 

False alarm/hopes speeds are back to their usual garbage all across town. 20-50Kbps up and down, sad face.

What I meant was that you are running on the VN equipment. If you experienced the speeds like you did it means either 1) you were the only person connected and pulling data on that site but the site is still running garbage T1s, or 2) the site has its fiber connection and was either being tested or wasn't being used very much by anyone else but you. Also, the switch side speeds are being throttled down until the full network is ready, this id to prevent some serious issues with the network as they move from the old switches to the new ones. 

Have no fear, Grand Junction is going live very soon. But know that you really only have one tech out on the entire western slope taking care of business, so they try not to kill him by bringing all the sites up to speed at the same damn time. 

As I look at the secret sponsor only maps it shows one quadrant of the Denver metro area that is virtually untouched by any work in progress. So I hope that the equipment is not nearly done.

That map is almost beyond repair. Very outdated. You will be fine. Equipment rollout is very much nearing completion in Denver.

It probably won't be all at once, they will focus on getting 3G up first to help mitigate the Tri-Band issue. It will be in waves, but still move pretty quickly. If 4G is ready as well, that will come along for the ride. 

 

So yes, acceptances have come to a standstill, but the installation of equipment continues. This should result in a better end user experience once acceptances start.

This.

And the equipment roll out is nearly done. Acceptance phase is fast approaching and will move slow-ish. The acceptance of a site takes a bit of work. Vendor, Sprint, installer, and Ericsson all have to be on site at the same time to sign off on a rather large checklist. Takes about 2-3 hours per site if everything goes smoothly. At most 3-4 sites could go live per day. Acceptance is on hold until back-haul catches up.

Not sure if this is a good sign, or just lucky early morning tests.  But I did a couple speed tests this morning, and 3g was getting me 2.2Mbps down and 2.6Mbps up.

The GJ area does not have any legacy sites remaining. You are full NV 3g.

Some whispers from the higher ups...
This is intentionally being slowed down to avoid the very rough start that other Samsung markets have "enjoyed". 
Early 2014. Keep hope, friends.

Remember site ids are sponsor side info.

Because the placard on the site facing out to the public is guarded knowledge?

Speeds in/near downtown have gotten slower again.  I pulled a speedtest a few minutes ago that had 8,400ms latency.

Shoot me some specific towers.

I keep getting " Data Connection Error" in the area of 120th and Sheridan. Anyone else getting this issue?

I'll check on the sites in that area tomorrow.

Here's the skinny, or at least what I was told. 
The devices need a firmware update to access the TD-LTE side. Most of the clearwire sites are up and running but no new sites are being upgraded/installed. Rumor is that once the NV cabinets are complete and running sprint will begin to shutdown the CW cabinets and move them to the NV cabinets. This would be a bit of a process and will probably coincide with the 800LTE rollout. 

If that makes sense, yay, if not, blame the guy I got the info from.