pyroscott

pardon my ignorance but who's Robert?

The guy with the big brain...

Just curious' date=' doesn't anyone listen to the radio anymore? I mean the real radio. I've never understood the need to stream music in the car....

 

but anyway.[/quote']

 

I use satellite radio...

so making it a lot faster

Another analogy would be:

The cell site is like your home wireless router. You can power it up and connect to it with devices, but without the internet cord hooked up to it, the router is mostly useless.

Without backhaul, the cell site will not allow calls, texts, internet etc...

It also is defined in the FAQ. A link is in my signature.

My 3G is horrible too. Half the time SpeedTest and RootMetrics wont register. 1 month ago I was averaging 500-700 Kb/s. Not fast but manageable. Now I'm lucky if I get over 100 kb/s. I stream music at work just to feel like I'm utilizing unlmtd data. I'VE USED 2 GB so far this month.

Been a while since we had this kind of troll around here...

The optimus over the note ii? Interesting...

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

Apparently they are not fans of phones that don't fit in their skinny jeans

 

MIMO and beamforming are two different techs' date=' strictly speaking. Now base stations with 4x4 MIMO probably have beamforming built in, and beamforming does increase signal levels by multiple dB (translating directly into better LTE throughput), but it's not a direct side effect of just throwing more antennas/spatial streams at the problem.[/quote']

 

Hence the "for lack of a better term." I know it isn't beamforming, but it uses the antenna array to combine the signals, filter out "noise" and improve the signal to noise ratio, allowing a higher quality signal allowing more layers of signal (QAM) resulting in a higher transfer rate.

Ok so when 4G LTE is done at a tower it implies the new backhaul must be in.

 

What explains download speeds of less than 1 mbps when connected to 4G LTE to a tower deemed 4G complete on the weekly update and with a RSRP signal of -97 dBm (so not a weak signal issue) ?

 

Thanks.

The site is probably still in testing and tweaking. If it is in Miami, the market hasn't launched, so they are still trying to get all the sites properly set up. There has been many reports of major differences in speeds coming off a site that are vastly different days or weeks apart. One day a member sees 27Mbps and the next it has dropped to 1Mbps from the same spot. Luckily, Sprint is allowing connections in the interim instead of the way Verizon does it. Don't tell anyone you are working in an area and block access until it is done, tested and complete. If that was the case, there would likely be zero reports of LTE.

4x4 MIMO in a smartphone is impractical to build and also, and speeds faster than what 2x2 MIMO produce are not needed in a smartphone. Those speeds will be for larger devices like tablets and maybe hotspots.

 

And as AJ points out, 4x4 MIMO will not really increase speeds in already slow parts of the LTE network. It won't improve speeds at the edge of cell or in buildings. It will only improve speeds in places already blazing fast.

 

For instance, in the Sprint network, 4x4 MIMO only would improve speeds in areas that are already 20-37Mbps (now up to 74Mbps max). So faster areas would get faster, but slow areas remain unchanged.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

I thought MIMO 4x4 had, for lack of a better term, a beamforming effect and was more effective in increading speeds at the edge of coverage. I seem to remember something about it increasing speeds 100% at areas of lower signal strength while areas of strong signal might see a 50% increase in speeds.

If someone maps today' date=' and the signal is 1 bar because the closest LTE tower is off....

 

And then next week they map again, a new tower is on, giving them 5 bars, will the map change to reflect this?

 

Or are early mapper creating bad data?[/quote']

 

In the sensorly thread, they said something about that. I think it was to the effect of it overwrites the data

Thread closed.

Edit: thread reopened

 

I get what you mean. In many cases it will be overkill to have so much bandwidth to 1 cell site when the tower is only capable of transmitting only a fraction of the total backhaul capacity. But in the instances where a cell site is connected via microwave link' date=' would it make sense at that point to scale up the bandwidth of the fiber line to that specific tower since it will probably be serving the backhaul to multiple sites?[/quote']

 

Yes. That is precisely what they would do.

If this thread continues to fill with complaints, it will be closed. S4GRU.com does not host Sprint's complaints.

It also seems to show the much more sensible (in my opinion) strategy of deploying from the loop outward. Covering the area with the densest subscriber base first means a maximum number of happy users. Those users also happen to be closest to any kind of backhaul infrastructure anybody could need. It is frustrating that LTE coverage improvements seem to have ground to a halt in the city as evidenced by sensorly and my own experience. Rather than racing to cover the maximum number of square miles, you'd think they'd want to cover the maximum number of paying subscribers...

 

I posted over a month ago that I noticed a slowdown in active LTE coming online, and weeks and weeks later, no noticeable progress has been made and the NV complete % is essentially frozen. Does anybody have any knowledge of why the pace of the buildout has changed so much? While the nerd in me likes to know which sites have been NVed, the distinction between sites with NV but no active LTE doesn't really matter in any kind of useful way. There is no way that their contractor doesn't have a project schedule...if it's gonna be done in, say, 6 months, just tell us! We'd be ok with it!

If it's any consolation, LTE deployment in the far 'Burbs has recently been even slower than it has been Downtown. There has been little improvement in coverage in the far northwest in weeks, based both on Robert's maps and on Sensorly. I'm sure there is some valid reason for this, but being too impoverished to pay up to the Premier Sponsor level, I am rather puzzled. It is especially frustrating because LTE is SO CLOSE. (I can sometimes get coverage by holding my GS3 at just the right angle in my south-facing, 2nd floor guest bedroom, but it doesn't stay connected very long. Or, I can drive to a park 2 miles south of my house and get blazing speeds. I guess I should just live in my car.) I'm fairly sure that ISN'T any consolation, but it feels so good to get it off my chest!!!!

There is nothing slow about the pace the Chicago market has been deployed. Chicago currently stands with 72% of the cell sites in the market complete and accepted by Sprint. The next highest is Baltimore at 51%. Chicago will likely be the first market complete.

If there is a problem with the strategy Sprint employed with the rollout, I suggest you try an official channel for complaints.

At 100Mbps, you could burn through a 2GB AT&T tier of data in 2 minutes and 40 seconds. You could also burn through a fully charged battery in a couple hours.

LTE advanced is not ready for prime time, and AT&T will not have it next year.

http://www.fiercebro...onth/2012-12-02

 

Does this mean the Sprint is trying to use the 1900mhz frequency for AWS spectrum deploying future LTE Advance in this spectrum. If so how much stronger would this be over current LTE signal strenth

What? 1900MHz is PCS. Sprint hopes to win the auction and license the PCS H block. Once a new band class is approved including PCS H block, Sprint would likely deploy LTE in it if they won the auction. LTE Advanced is currently in development, with no plans on deploying it until power consumption drops for handsets using LTE-A. PCS H Block would be about equal to, but slightly weaker than PCS G Block propigation.

This topic has several existing threads debating the H Block and Dish's AWS spectrum. Please utilize one of those for further discussion.

This thread is closed.

Southern Co and it's companies still tout one of the lowest electricity rates across the US compared to other providers. Though the percentages have gone down since the economic crisis, they still range 5% to 8% cheaper than any other..

 

I'd much rather have no choice to purchase their power, which is costing me an average of $115/month with a central air unit in a 4 bedroom brick home...than to pay what folks out west pay, especially in places like Cali, where they regularly run out of power and have random brown-outs.

Good for you. Can we get back on topic?

i know i'll need to get a new phone first, and i will. That just makes paying an extra $10 a month for a 4G phone more annoying (@pyroscott thats $10 a month for having a 4G phone, not for data, at least as it was explained to me when i bought it. They told me i wouldnt have to pay it if i got a 3G capable only smart phone) I pay extra for a 4G phone that i cant even use 4G with in covered areas. But i have no reason to buy a new phone till 4G is available in my area. i figure i might as well wait and then i can get the newest and best of the future, instead of having it now and it being only mediocre when i actually get 4G and can utilize it properly.

Initially, yes, the $10 was for 4G smartphones, so if you purchased your phone before the change, they would have been right in saying that you would not have paid the $10 fee for a 3G phone. In January 2011, Sprint decided to change that fee to ALL smartphones, (except those who were grandfathered on a 3G smartphone prior to 30 January 2011). If I was to dig up a HTC Hero (or any other 3G smartphone) and activate it, it would require the $10 premium data fee, but if I was still using a HTC Hero, purchased and activated prior to 30 January 2011, I would not be paying the fee.

I also remember seeing some recycled, environmentally friendly, smartphone advertised as being exempt from the $10 premium data fee. Edit: it was the Samsung Replenish http://www.engadget....rge-on-froyo-b/

Sprint's reasoning behind the change... Smartphones use 10 times the data of a feature phone.

A decent description which includes Sprint's press release is here http://bgr.com/2011/...g-january-30th/

My take, Sprint expected the 3G network would hold up fine. With Clearwire providing 4G, the power users and bulk of smartphone users would be on 4G, leaving the 3G network underutilized. Then, in late 2010-early 2011, upon realizing that there was no way Clearwire was going to be able to roll out 4G nationwide, they backtracked, added the charge to all smartphones, put plans into motion to beef up the 3G network and pulled the trigger on Network Vision. We are seeing the network upgrades all over (we used to refer to them as band-aid upgrades) in areas that have not been upgraded to network vision. Ericcson is adding T1s and extra carriers, but it is already too late in many areas as data speeds are crawling. Whether you choose to blame Sprint, Clearwire, or whomever you choose for the current state of the network, it is what it is. Network Vision is going to give the proper upgrade to the entire Sprint footprint, and there are already plans to keep up with increasing demand for data. This website is focused on the upgrade of the network, and not on complaining about the "mistakes" of the past.

So, tonight as of 6:30 p.m. it will be approximately one week with LTE operations in certain areas of the Twin Cities. My question is: will more sites turn on? Is it going to be a "several sites per week" operation or is it "they're ready when they're ready?" I'm curious but the sensorly maps for this area shows a pretty good picture of the coverage for this area now.

 

http://www.sensorly....St.%20Paul%20MN

There will be more sites coming online every week. How many depends on how aggressive Samsung is going to be in this market. They were really aggressive in the Chicago market, but they were battling handoff issues between new equipment and legacy towers, so they had to go fast to avoid a poor end user experience. Weather could play a big part in the Minnesota market, and could push the techs off the "towers" and onto rooftop sites. We will have to wait and see, but I would think that a good portion of the backhaul has already been installed as once the frost sets in, it gets a whole lot more expensive to lay cable... If the backhaul is in, and Samsung has ample equipment, the contractors should be able to aggressively upgrade the market.

Also, if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, there is a weekly update of all the accepted sites and maps showing where they are. How to become a Sponsor

Has anyone checked on pricing of southern Linc service before assuming they pass the buck? Line of service, no minute restriction: $27.95/month, data add-on = $10, text add-on = $5. Insurance and other extras available at comparable prices of other carriers. I don't really see where in the past two years they've passed the buck on to external customers.

 

Oh, and they foot the bill for their 26,000 employees that they give phones to.

Someone said that they had around 32,000 subs but it says in the article they have 150,000. add to that the employees that they don't collect money from and you have a pretty reasonable amount for a small carrier.

 

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(edit)

 

And you would think, since they have to cover their employees phones, that they would pass that cost onto paying customers that are stuck in two year/one year agreements...but it doesn't appear that they do...their pricing doesn't reflect that, rather.

I know for what SoLinc costs per line..and what I pay for Sprint, per line...and I don't understand how they do it so cheap. Where a phone with data and text on Solinc costs about $42/$45 a month...it costs me on average, $70/month. I have 3 lines, and the Airvana...bill runs right at $192...and we divide by 3 and my sis-in-law pays $70/month for her line (after taxes/insurance blah blah, it comes to $212 a month total).

I wasn't saying the costs are passed on to the other southernlinc subs. I said it is written off as an operating expense for the southern company as a whole and passed off to the millions of "customers" that have no choice but to purchase their power from southern (short of building their own power generator)

It automatically capitalized Joe. Lol and AJ' date=' that'd be entertaining reading your posts from that alias.

 

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[/quote']

 

I'll go out on a limb and say it's entertaining to read AJ's posts from any alias... ;-)

 

I am very tempted to create another account with the username TheAverageJoe' date=' then post, "Hey, I resent those remarks."

 

AJ[/quote']

 

I was going to post a disclaimer that I have nothing against someone with the name "Joe" but decided not to.

 

We use the term "Joe Sh--bag" sometimes at work. Then, during a meeting, a guy who is named Joe said something like "I resent that"...... he now has a new nickname

 

"Asshat" is not a label. It is a title that can be earned only through much concerted effort.

 

 

AJ

I'm still trying.

 

The average Joe doesn't know that.

 

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Very true... it is quite concerning what the average Joe doesn't know.

 

But political discussion on S4GRU should avoid labels.

 

Does that mean the label "asshat" is being retired.

Sprint needs to just roll out a single LTE cell in every POP' date=' just to keep the people from revolting.[/quote']

 

I'll revolt if sprint tries to roll out a LTE cell IN me...