Loticdescant77

I'm out in the far far west of MA and noticed a new LTE signal today at the High School in Great Barrington, MA. Just thought I'd give a heads up in case anyone was interested.

Still "patiently" waiting in Pittsfield, MA.

I'll see if I can map it tomorrow with sensorly.

For phase1 right?

I would assume so. I'm not sure...it just says "completion" in September.

Boston

Status:  LTE Launched/NV Upgrades Completing

NV Sites Accepted = 97%

LTE Sites Accepted = 81%

LTE Launched = January 28, 2013 (Cape Cod launched 9/24/2012, New Bedford/Fall River 10/22/2012, Peabody 11/26/2012)

Original Scheduled Completion = February 2013

Current Production Rate Completion = September 2014

I wonder how long its going to take to catch up with the boys out east.. Starting to really second guess myself now that everyone else has again jumped ahead...

Our "new" network will just be "catching up"  once again  smh....

Supposedly all of MA is going to be completed in September? Do you think it will really include Berkshire County?

My coverage in western mass seems to have gotten worse again. I am using a n5 and LTE is sparse. In downtown Springfield area its spotty. Actually spotty best describes it everywhere here in western mass. The network must be under a heavy load as speeds are all over the place. I know back haul issues are a concern but how long does it take? Anyone else experiencing the same or better here in western mass?

I'm still getting horrible speeds here in Western Ma - just did another round of speed tests and my numbers range from:

26.8 kB/s - 78.6 kB/s download

and

15.9 kB/s - 66.2 kB/s upload

Slower than a 56K dial up modem...

But it's an improvement over how it was back in January when I was getting from 1.7 kB/s - 63.2 kB/s down.

I'm going to take a ride tomorrow and see how the towers are near the pike.

In most instances, 3G speeds go up when LTE goes live too.  The primary reason why Sprint 3G speeds are so slow is that they are connected to antiquated and overburdened T1's for backhaul.  When new high speed backhaul is brought to a site for LTE, they also will connect the 3G services to that new, much faster backhaul.  If there is another 3G problem, like the airlink is over saturated, then it may not shoot up to normal speeds.  But it will allow them to diagnose that problem and add more capacity.

 

As for a good suggestion of where to read up, I can't think of any resource than S4GRU.  I'm probably too close to what's going on that I cannot even begin to think of how to wrap my mind from the outside looking in.

 

Robert

Thanks so much for the explaination! That makes a lot of sense, and although I didn't understand exactly how it worked that was my guess...that the towers were somehow overburdened. I'd bet that's exactly the case.

I have a general idea of what a backhaul is let me see if I've got this right - backhaul connects to the wired infrastructure. Does that mean that Sprint (and other carriers) has a wired network that they use somehow to help with routing of calls? They connect that to the internet. Right? So if they are connecting via a T1 connection...well that's not very fast at all even for home use, so it would be especially burdened with a large volume of traffic caused by multiple calls/data transmitting?

I don't quite understand what the "airlink" is however...I'll try to look it up, but if you could just give me a high level overview?

Pittsfield's sites were upgraded over 12 months ago with LTE capable equipment. For some reason, either Sprint has not been able to get new high speed backhaul to their sites, or decided Pittsfield is a lower priority. According to the Sprint update database, all the sites in the Pittsfield/Lanesborough area are supposed to have Band 25 LTE active in less than 90 days. The only exception being the site on top of the hill by the ski area/airport. Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

That's very hopeful news...do you think this will have any impact on the 3G speeds I've been getting?

When I've tested the speed in a small town that is just about 5 miles from where I am now I pull speeds over 3G in the 150 kB/s range and that would be wonderful. I think they are getting service from the towers that serve the MassPike (I-90) highway and those are already upgraded to LTE from what I understand.

Also, is there anything you suggest I read to get me up to speed on this technology so I can understand it better. I'm always curious and like to understand things in greater depth.

Thanks!!

Hi there. Anyone have information on Pittsfield MA? It was on the list but service here has only gotten worse over time...

I was on Sprint here 2 years back and it was bad, but at least it was 3G.

Now I'm back on the network and I'm getting horrible speeds - It claims it's 3G but I'm getting anywhere from 1.7 kB/s - 30 kB/s. It also keeps dropping. The last few days it kept saying I was roaming over and over while I was right here in my house. I connected twice to wimax even though we supposedly don't even have wimax here, and the speed was amazing! 600+ kB/s at one point, and typically around 300-400 kB/s.

It's sad that those speeds are exciting...but compared to the average speed I'm getting of about 11 kB/s that's lightning fast. LOL

Please tell me there's hope...