bmoses

saw another tower south of blank park zoo that had new fiber run to it also stopped but another GMO site and it had new cabinets installed and nice new samsung boxes sitting out that had all the equipment to be installed in them

thanks! i was assuming it was nextel since they were on the same platform but hadn't really ever looked at nextel panels before so i wasn't sure what they looked like.

just got back from visiting that tower, it was definitely a sprint site and had new fiber run to it! it did look like there were two carriers there though based on the equipment on the ground, the weird thing was that all the antennas were on the same level up top is that normal for two different carriers to be sharing the same level? or maybe this is a shared Sprint/Nextel site? Can anyone tell from the pic? anyway, will be stopping by this one on a regular basis to see if/when tower work starts, hopefully it will be sooner rather then later! PS i really need to start carrying my good camera with me so i can get better pics!

i'm going to run there over lunch and take a look too i forgot to ask, what company was installing the fiber? Data speeds in Des Moines have been hit and miss for me. when i'm at work i have sucky speeds but when i'm out and about like on the weekends sometimes i'll get around 1 meg down and sometimes i'll get crap.

that is one big unknown. it varies from market to market and tower to tower. plus the fact that up until now i was under the impression that non-GMO tower work was not going to start until mid to late summer. So at this point there could be two possibilities; 1) they are starting new backhaul runs to towers ahead of actual tower work being done and the tower work will not start until mid to late summer 2) they are starting new backhaul runs to towers ahead of actual tower work being done and the tower work will start any day now so all we can really do is look for the backhaul being installed like you did and then keep an eye on those towers for the rest of the work starting. and just to make sure you know the terms, GMO (Ground Mount Option) sites are low capacity sites that are not getting new antennas installed off the bat (they will sometime later, probably next year). They are however starting now and are starting ahead of full build sites. Full build sites will get all new equipment and antennas installed. So that's why this is potentially exciting with the tower you saw work at. if full build sites are starting now as well then that's ahead of what we originally thought was going to happen!

sweet! hopefully this won't be a case of fiber getting installed and then sitting there for many months waiting for the rest of the work to start! i'll have to take an extended lunch tomorrow and run by that tower and see if i can see any equipment delivered! thanks again for the report!

very nice! did you ask the guy if it was for sprint? where exactly is the tower you saw? i just want to confirm that its a sprint tower cause if it is that would mean that non-GMO related work was getting underway! as for the pic, you can go to the advanced posting options and there will be an option to attach a pic, otherwise you can upload it to a place like photobucket and then link it from there. PS - you should really consider donating, even if its just a little bit, as it will get you access to the maps that show the locations of every single sprint tower

yeah i have no idea what happened either..... as to the GMO site, i haven't mentioned its exact location since the GMO tower locations are part of the premier section so i don't think i'm allowed to outside of that section. Just confirming that actual work is happening in central iowa

i stopped by the GMO tower mentioned above last friday and it had the new cabinets installed. Also the ground was marked where underground stuff was so they could trench fiber to the new equipment

GMO sites are beginning work now, the locations of all the GMO towers are in the premier sponsor section. I actually stopped by one of the GMO sites last weekend and it had new cabinets delivered. Going to stop by it again tomorrow night and see if anything else has changed. Full build sites, which is most of the sites that will affect us, won't be starting until sometime this summer though.

i had upgrade dates screw me before.... condensed version of the story; used a "premier" line upgrade, then had my phone break so used an upgrade on a different line when i noticed the "premier" upgrade line said it was eligible again in ~1 year (which i was assuming it would be the normal 22 months). then sometime later all the sudden the upgrade date on the "premier" line changed to what it would have been at the 22 month upgrade. so what it says isn't always accurate and can change at any time so be careful what you do.

just throwing this out there as a point to consider. you said you only used 1 gig of data, was that because you don't use data that much? or is your area so slow on data on sprint you don't use data that much? if you switch and have faster speeds you might find yourself using more data because of the faster speeds.

every sprint tower in the central iowa market is getting NV updates, which includes LTE. actual tower work isn't quite underway yet. They are in the preliminary stages of starting on GMO (ground mount option) sites in central iowa now. unfortunately most GMO sites are outside the des moines metro area and are mostly rural/low capacity sites. Once those go live they will have LTE on them. Most likely sometime this summer is when the full build out of all sites will start in our area. GMO sites initially will only be 3G and LTE on 1900MHz, full build sites will have 3G and LTE on 1900MHz and eventually voice and LTE on 800MHz. Also GMO sites will eventually be upgraded to full build sites too. and just an FYI, if you become a normal sponsor you will have access to a map that has the locations of all sprint towers in iowa as well as the sites completed map that shows what sites have what upgrades done to them. then in the premier sections there is also an additional map that lists the GMO sites.

yep it is the wimax protection site, didn't mean to gloss over that, was just pointing out it wasn't a sprint site and the way the news made it sound the other night the tower will have to be torn down/moved so who knows what will happen. I assume clearwire will need to figure something out to setup another protection site to replace it or they won't be meeting their license requirements anymore.

yep i double checked the map, that isn't a sprint tower. So any work you saw was either another carrier or them getting things ready to move that tower or just pulling the equipment off since its being torn down.

If I remember right sprint isn't on that tower. That is the tower that has to be torn down and moved because of the Hy-Vee going in there. Which does bring up the question, what is clearwire going to do about replacing that protection site?

the building i work in has brick walls and a tin roof..... thank goodness for my wilson sleek signal booster

unfortunately if it is only a few years old it will be legacy (non NV) equipment. NV didn't start until the last couple of years and towers that are new are planned for a long time before they are actually installed so it still would have been legacy equipment. The only thing it may have going for it is since its newer is they may have used fiber backhaul instead of T1 lines like most of their other towers have.

thanks so much for sharing that info! and yay for option 2!!!!

i know what you mean! i would say about half of the towers i've seen myself around here are "non-traditional" towers. From what i have been reading on here i'm guessing there are 2 scenarios that will play out for our market. 1) all sites are GMO installs and then sometime later they will come back and do a full build with new panels on as many towers as they can, regardless of what kind of tower. 2) all non-traditional sites are GMO installs and all traditional sites are full builds and then they come back later and convert all of the GMO sites they can to full builds. while option 1 would obviously give us improved 3G and 4G everywhere i'm hoping for option 2 as the full builds with RRUs will help increase signal and will also give us the option for 800 on voice to help fill in gaps initially until they come back and finish out the upgrades.

are you saying you are getting multiple texts or yours are failing and you have to resend multiple times? I see you have listed that you have an iphone5, my wife, brother, and his wife all have this phone and they have a random problem where texts will say they failed to send on their iphone but the person they sent it to did receive the text, then if they resend it the person will get it again. I've never had that problem on my EVO 4G LTE nor has any of my other family with non-iphones complained about it. So if that's the problem you are talking about i would say its an iphone/sprint issue and not related to any tower work being done yet.

it sounds like preliminary work is starting now. I'm guessing that means lining up permits (if needed) and getting the backhaul vendors lined up to start installing backhaul. Then tower work can commence. My best guess is we would start seeing a live LTE signal in 2+ months.

i've been watching towers that i frequent by for weeks now and haven't seen any work yet. I have a feeling though that a lot of the towers around here will initially be ground mount units as there are a lot of monopole and water tower towers that i'm not sure will support RRUs without further engineering. not only that but most of the towers around here the base cabinets are hidden from view if you are just driving by so it makes it hard to see if new cabinets have been installed. i'm thinking also that backhaul will be a major component in this area as a lot of sprint towers are on their own and not co-located with other carriers so they won't have fiber already there they can utilize. and one last thought hopefully when sprint gets done with NV they come back and do some re-engineering of their network in the des moines market, looking at tower locations (found in the sponsor section) there are quite a few areas that have expanded and are not covered by very many towers at all. so there are quite a few areas i've driven around where signal is lost because there are too many gaps between towers to properly hand off to. anyway, i'll be posting here and in the iowa thread in the sponsor section when i start to see work being done

Welcome!!! I'm in the des Moines area too and am keeping my eye out for work on all of the towers I pass by daily!!!! :-)

Ehrpd sighted in central Iowa!!!! Thinking it happened Friday night as I noticed it during the day Saturday.