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Trip

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Everything posted by Trip

  1. Trip
    Updates on MULTOCN. Went to Rennfest this weekend, and can report on it a bit. Contrary to what I had read, it prefers T-Mobile a lot rather than evenly splitting T-Mobile and Sprint, though 312250 sites appear as frequently (when available) as T-Mobile sites. However, when I was actually at Rennfest, where the service was bogged down, it did try to load balance over to Sprint sites. Neither T-Mobile nor Sprint was functioning with more than a trickle of data, so it bounced back and forth draining the battery without much to show for it. On Saturday I'll be in Shentel land again, and we'll see how it does there. - Trip
  2. Trip
    Haven't gone anywhere yet, so I can't speak to benefits. My issue was that I was out on Monday morning and it appears that T-Mobile has turned off several Sprint towers near me. I was sitting in a parking lot near Landmark Mall on -118 dBm Band 25 because two of the sites I used to connect to there were apparently not running, so data would barely move. This is in addition to my home site which has been off for several weeks, but that wasn't an issue because I don't use wireless data at home. But if they're starting to turn off Sprint sites and leave holes, then there's really no alternative. So far, I've only seen T-Mobile, but that makes sense since I've only been home and my home site is gone on Sprint, so the site I had been connecting to was a lot weaker. I'll have to see when I'm out and about, possibly this weekend. When ROAMAHOME came out, I had that removed and blocked from my account since T-Mobile's network is so lousy, so my lines were not automatically pushed to MULTOCN. I had to have the block removed and then MULTOCN manually added. That's probably not typical. - Trip
  3. Trip
    Another hour chat this evening but my lines are finally on MULTOCN. I actually had to argue with the person on the chat who didn't seem to know what it did and thought it would have no benefit for me. That was after she suggested it required a T-Mobile SIM and I had to show her that one of my lines already had it with a Sprint SIM... - Trip
  4. Trip
    T-Mobile? Being terrible? Never! I had ROAMAHOME blocked on my devices because the T-Mobile network was (and still is) so crummy in places I go. I'm now trying to have MULTOCN put on them since they've started turning off Sprint towers leaving gaps in the coverage. After nearly an hour, I finally got an answer trying to upsell me to new phones, then after another half hour I was told the G7 and G8X are somehow not compatible with MULTOCN even though the G8 is. Then I was called and put on hold to talk to "advanced support." After 25 minutes on hold waiting, they told me, oops! I am talking to T-Mobile support, not Sprint support, and they have to transfer me to Sprint support. I was dumped onto the main Sprint phone tree. At that point, I gave up. I'll try again later. That's 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life I won't get back. These people are so incompetent it's not even funny. I really want Sprint back. - Trip
  5. Trip
    What they had reported previously was that EV-DO would go away 1/1/2022, but 1X (presumably 1X 800) would last until 6/30/2022. - Trip
  6. Trip
    I spoke with T-Mobile on Twitter this morning and got yet another answer. Their answer was that my wife's line is eligible for upgrade today, but that my other phones will all need to be replaced, but will become eligible at a later date as they're not replacing equipment that still has payments due at this time. This, of course, is not what I've seen mentioned in other places, or in the e-mails I've gotten. So, go figure. - Trip
  7. Trip
    Both G8X phones were purchased from Sprint at the same time and have the same number of remaining installment payments. - Trip
  8. Trip
    I now have a fourth permutation! I've got an e-mail telling me three of my devices need to be replaced ("IMPACTED DEVICES"), but not mentioning the fourth. Somehow, my G8X requires replacement, according to this e-mail, but my sister-in-law's G8X does not. EDIT: Wow. Just found this page: https://www.sprint.com/en/cdma-retirement Which when logged in, tells me that only my wife's phone needs an upgrade, and says the other three phones are "not affected by these network changes". Again, I wish T-Mobile were competent. - Trip
  9. Trip
    Just two months after the close, I already spotted some T-Mobile B41 in the Shentel region yesterday. https://imgur.com/a/Ml2D12b - Trip
  10. Trip
    I, uh, completely forgot about that. Thanks, I'll have to get a hold of her phone later and try it. - Trip
  11. Trip
    Mike, I'm sure you've been busy, but when will a new update go out to non-Beta members? I tried to put an updated version of my T-Mobile/Sprint database on my wife's phone and because the versions are different, it managed to trash the database completely. I had to drop all the data in SCP to get it to work again. So she currently has no database in her phone. - Trip
  12. Trip
    LG G7, LG G8, and two LG G8X. - Trip
  13. Trip
    What's irritating to me is that they've issued conflicting notices. I've gotten e-mails saying one of the phones on my account needs to be replaced, a paper letter saying all of them do, and then the website says any device that supports VoLTE is fine, which all of the devices do. So which is it? I wish T-Mobile were competent. - Trip
  14. Trip
    Just drove by this site again and it's no longer running Band 26. Just Sprint Bands 25 and 41. - Trip
  15. Trip
    Interesting comment in the T-Mobile Q2 Earnings Report yesterday. https://s24.q4cdn.com/400059132/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/NG_TMUS-06_30_2021-EX-99.1.pdf Specifically, this part: • Approximately 80% of Sprint customer traffic is now carried on the T-Mobile network • One-third of Sprint customers have been moved to the T-Mobile network Not terribly surprising to me that the customers who use the most data were most anxious to move to T-Mobile, while the majority of customers--who don't use much data--are perfectly happy with the Sprint network as it is. I'm definitely in that category and in no rush to give up the superior coverage of the Sprint network for the possibly-superior capacity of the T-Mobile network. (Also, at least in my case, since LG phones are now discontinued, moving to a new T-Mobile phone means extensive phone shopping that I'm not looking forward to, rather than just picking up the latest LG device and being happy.) After all this time, I still have yet to see any Sprint site conversions that are operating. I've seen precisely one that has new gear, but still only seems to have Sprint bands running on it (along with 312250). I don't know what is taking them so long. - Trip
  16. Trip
    Wouldn't surprise me, but I will say that the map looks accurate in terms of sites actually operating B41 gear, based on what I've seen. I was able to use it to add a number of sites I haven't visited yet based on the map. - Trip
  17. Trip
    Drove up US-15 again yesterday, and found that additional sites have been marked as keep sites. Basically, every site along 15 between Farmville and Culpeper that wasn't co-located with T-Mobile (or nearly so) is now running 312250. - Trip
  18. Trip
    They wouldn't need it. If they hold both A- and B-blocks, that's 25x25 total, and they could run Band 26 across 15x15 of that spectrum. Band 26 covers all of Band 5 plus the Sprint spectrum. - Trip
  19. Trip
    If you've rolled your eyes at claims that wireless facilities harm property values like I have, you might find this new study to be interesting: https://www.aglmediagroup.com/study-small-wireless-facilities/ It actually attempts to determine whether there's such harm, and finds no solid evidence. - Trip
  20. Trip
    No idea of the equipment vendor. I'm bad at that sort of thing. But I've seen the 300,000 and 600,000 offsets in certain places. In most of those places, it's now been shifted back to the normal GCI. - Trip
  21. Trip
    Verizon, in my experience, is very consistent, but their sector IDs are decimal. 1/2/3 is 700 12/22/32 AWS 13/23/33 AWS (second carrier) 14/24/34 PCS 15/25/35 PCS (second carrier) 16/26/36 850 17/27/37 850 ===== AT&T has a pattern for some bands, but newer bands don't have one. 01-04 B5 08-0B B2 0F-12 B12 16-19 B66 In between are a bunch of DAS reservations, basically repeats of the above sequence for various DAS or small cell configurations. 95-98 B30 Then anything else like B2 second carrier, B66 second carrier, or B14 are just sort of randomly tossed into the A0-FF range, varying market to market. ===== US Cellular had been using different GCIs for B5 and B12, offset by 0x2000, but has recently been upgrading sites to a single GCI following this pattern: 01-03 B12 0B-0D B5 15-17 B2 1F-21 B4 29-2B B66 - Trip
  22. Trip
    Some of the sector IDs are similar here in the DC/VA/MD/PA region. (All values hex.) B41 is 83-86/8D-90. B2 second carrier is 6F-72. B71 is 3D-40. The other three bands. Newer setups follow that pattern: 01-04 B66/0B-0E B2/15-18 B12 But older sites vary wildly. In some places, it's 01-03 B66/04-06 B12/07-09 B2. In others, where LTE was first deployed on B2, B66 and B2 are flipped. If B66/B2 were deployed long before B12, then B12 might be on 15-18 but B66/B2 on 01-03/07-09. 4-sector sites are more or less unpredictable. In some cases, it's 01-04 B66/05-08 B12/09-0C B2. In some areas, B66 and B2 are flipped, as above. In some places, it's the 3-sector pattern but with 0A, 0B, and 0C used for the fourth sector in no particular order. And then, of course, the site ID part of the GCIs are a trainwreck. Some sites have as many as 7 different GCIs, though most of those are being consolidated into fewer now. Most B41 sites are now on a single, separate GCI, though at first they were split across three. B71/B12 panels have their own GCIs. Band 66 can sometimes also have a separate GCI from Band 2, but that's pretty uncommon. Some 4-sector sites have separate GCIs on the fourth sector, as well. - Trip
  23. Trip
    The Shentel sale closed on 7/1, so they own it now. - Trip
  24. Trip
    When I'm out locating 312250 sites, I lock a T-Mobile phone on Band 26. Then the only thing it can possibly connect to is Sprint. T-Mobile has their Band 2 operations running MFBI as Band 25, so that option isn't great either. I sometimes manually adjust my Band 26 lock to include Band 25 near a site that I suspect is a 312250 site but which is B25-only. I've located a few of those. - Trip
  25. Trip
    As seen on one of my T-Mobile phones: https://imgur.com/a/Ya7dkOL - Trip
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