Daemon42

That seems to be opposite of most people's experiences. Lots of good reports in the sponsor's section from the Denver area.

Have you double checked to make sure there isn't an issue with your device? LTE coverage get's better every day. New LTE sites are coming online regularly across the city, and I know of two recently activated LTE sites in Golden in just the last month.

Turns out there was an issue with my device.  

A setting that I have never directly touched was in a weird state. 

On the Galaxy S4 Triband, in

Settings - Connections - More Networks - Mobile Networks - Network Mode

There are four choices (CDMA,   LTE/CDMA,   GSM/ UTMS,   Automatic) and they are radio button choices

so that one must be selected at all time.   On my phone, none were selected. 

Not sure how it got this way.   My device is not rooted and there's no way to unselect

all the options from the screen. 

Chose the 2nd option, and it's all good now with generally more LTE coverage than not

driving across town (Lakewood -> Denver -> Thornton -> Northglenn -> Westminster),

although mostly Band 25, and average speeds in the 5-8Mbit/s range with

occasional peaks in the 20-30Mbit/s range if I'm close to a tower.

I can of course bang my head with Sprint support, but I'm pretty sure it's not the phone.

Looking back only a couple pages in this thread  http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/2172-network-visionlte-colorado-market-denvercolo-springsfort-collinspueblogrand-jct/page-161

I see that I am not the only one in what appears to be an almost completely LTE-free zone on the west side of the metro area (Colfax, 6th Ave, Alameda, Simms.. generally whole Lakewood area and then some).

Where is one of those new LTE sites in Golden?   I'll drive up to one of the towers and check if I have to.   I used to have great band 25 coverage there all through downtown Golden,  all the way up on Mt. Zion (the one with the "M" on it), and south past the justice center, all the way to the soccer fields at I-70 and C470.      Now it's all gone.  

[edit]I did just see something I've never seen before.   Forced LTE at home, near Green Mtn, and got 1 bar on band 25 (tells me the band 25 radio is working at least, so can't blame the Golden issue on the hardware).   I'm often very close to the tower it claims it's connected to, and it has never chosen LTE on its own there.

For a good Sprint LTE experience in Denver, you really need a Triband LTE phone.  B41 and B26 are the two bands needed for a good experience.  The iPhone 5 only does B25.

Strange thing about that though.    I have a non-rooted Triband Galaxy S4 and 2-3 months ago I regularly

saw LTE  while moving around the metro area although rarely for very long.    Today, I seem to

be stuck on 3G 99% of the time and not solid at that.   There was also really good band 25

coverage in Golden, which appears now be totally gone as of 1-2 months ago,

even if I force my phone to LTE.   

Absent data coverage on Hampden/285 from Sheridan to Kipling and then up Kipling to Morrison this afternoon. I've always had decent coverage there previously.

Hey jay you'r working my stomping grounds! I have been having the same issues from Hamden and Wads to Sheridan and some days further east for the past week. am hoping a lot of work is going on on these sights. Santa 

Same problem last few days a little north of here in Lakewood near Green Mtn. 

Will find that out of the blue there is no data, while the voice signal is strong. 

Sometimes restarting the radios will fix it, sometimes not.  The other day it came

back immediately once I started digging through the ##DEBUG# menus (probably coincidence). 

Couple days before that I was losing voice completely  from my home for most of the day,

where I normally see 5 bars.    I guess I can be optimistic that this

means they're working on my tower, but doesn't change the fact that it's

really annoying.   No hint of LTE signal anywhere south or east of Roony Rd. yet.

Final resolution with my GS4 was to just return what I bought at Best Buy and order the Tri-band model

direct from  Sprint as BB cannot figure out whether they have any  or not.   The model number listed on BB's

website is different than what's on the boxes in the store and none of them have a T in em. 

In the process of re-ordering through Sprint, discovered BB had  also changed  my contract in a subtle

way (lost  my really nice cheap grandfathered plan with unlimited data plus a protection plan), which Sprint said

should not have happened for a regular upgrade, so they pushed through a fix for that.  

My guess is, BB isn't going to put Spark capable GS4s on the shelves in Denver area until the Sprint network

upgrade is done.

Anyway, thanks to those who helped me sort this out in time to return the phone. 

If hadn't seen some form of working LTE in Golden, I'd probably be none the wiser till

much too late.

Unsurprisingly, the folks at Bestbuy are clueless on this issue. "Spark? Oh, that's a Sprint thing, isn't it."

Ya, I'm working on that now.  This is my last day to return at Best Buy.    

From my research, it looks like this is not an uncommon problem.  People

being told by Sprint and Best Buy reps that they were buying a Spark  capable device

but getting the standard SPL-H720 model instead.   

 You posted from a Samsung Galaxy S4. You do not have a Tri-Band device. If you did, it would have the Spark icon at the top, not 4GLTE.

Then Sprint is screwing me over, because they claimed the GS4 I bought

two weeks ago was/is a Spark capable Tri-band device.    That's also how they

had  it listed on sprint.com, then and now.      http://tinyurl.com/mmkuqos

After a 45 minute  chat with 3 different sprint support drones, the best

they can come up with, is that my current phone is Tri-band capable, but there will

be an OTA update to enable Spark, and they're so sorry the

website doesn't mention that anywhere.    We'll see.

Single band phones are able to do both simultaneously. Tri-band phones use a more efficient way of managing the radio and dramatically increasing battery life at the expense of Voice and Data at the same time. People use phones to make calls less and less every day, so this might seem like a downer. But in the end, less expensive more power efficient devices wins.

What I posted above was all done from a Tri-band phone. 

Did a little more testing over in Golden this evening.

I get a very solid 4G/LTE signal at Washingon St. and Highway 58. 

Engineering screen seems to indicate LTE is on band 25 so it indeed not a Spark site. 

Here's my next question.   Sprint is imfamous

for being unable to handle calls and data at the same time,

yet I was able to stay on a voice call while simultaneously performing speed

tests on the web.    Also was able to receive a call while connected as shown below

with eHRPD not active. 

Is that just some quirk of band25 that will go away once the network upgrade is complete?

I seem to recall something to that effect mentioned earlier in the thread. 

So in that context, it isn't considered a "Spark site" unless it includes connectivity to band 41? 

Just trying to get the nomenclature clear.  

They will not launch Spark service in Denver until all the NV 3G upgrades are nearing completion and CSFB operational.  Currently Triband smartphones will not stay connected to Spark sites because there is very little CSFB deployed around Denver.  Only hotspots and Triband phones in LTE Only mode are able to connect to the ~100 Spark sites in the Colorado market.

 

Robert

Am I missing something, or is that assertion inconsistent with what I posted a couple pages ago?

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/2172-network-visionlte-colorado-market-denvercolo-springsfort-collinspueblogrand-jct/page-87&do=findComment&comment=280428

Solid, working 4G LTE with eHRPD from my Triband phone in Golden, CO.  

Is that the only place it's working? 

Long time lurker.   Watching this forum is what finally convinced me to upgrade

to a tri-band phone a couple weeks ago. 

4G LTE in downtown Golden Colorado with EHRPD (received a phone call between speed tests)