Trip

21 minutes ago, greenbastard said:

There will be more, especially now that the merger looks like it's going to happen.

If Verizon is contiguous now, having conducted several previous spectrum swaps to its satisfaction, I'm not sure how the merger would make them less contiguous and thus more likely to help their now-stronger competitor.

- Trip

1 minute ago, greenbastard said:

Somewhere else in another part of the country, Verizon may need Sprint's help. Helping another carrier isn't uncommon if the favor is returned in another market.

I was under the impression that most of the spectrum swaps necessary had already happened--many of which happened without Sprint in the mix.

- Trip

2 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

They can definitely exchange their 10x10 with Verizon's 10x10 thereby creating a 15x15 block. Are you sure it has not been done? How old is this bandplan?

What incentive does Verizon have to assist their competitor?

- Trip

http://imgur.com/a/eQkS7g1

In Sheetz in Farmville. Looks like they're prioritizing TMo over US Cellular on the same tower.

http://imgur.com/a/lgTA8G3

Note the clock was shifted to UTC.

- Trip

Following up, my phone also seems much more likely to connect to and hold US Cellular LTE roaming now.  I went by a tower with both Shentel and US Cellular on it, it happened to latch onto US Cellular LTE first (while connected to Shentel 1X) and held it all the way past the tower until I was just going out of range; saw just the LTE 800 briefly before moving onto the next Shentel site.

- Trip

Back from the store.  As a comparison, to show that it's T-Mobile, here's a screenshot of my T-Mobile phone from the parking lot (left it hidden in the car while we were in the store):

https://imgur.com/a/EPJ9wjd

You can see that it's the same other than the PLMN.

On the way home, it connected to a different T-Mobile site on the back roads, but it appears that Band 12 is not currently accessible to it.

- Trip

Just now it tried to drop me to eHRPD then Sprint LTE 1900 and then finally back to T-Mobile.

- Trip

It hasn't tried to kick me off. I don't normally do speed tests but I'm with a... slower person at the store.

http://imgur.com/a/VjWBnhn

Standing in the Wal-Mart in Farmville, VA and the signal is highly variable.

- Trip

I appear to be roaming on T-Mobile. 

http://imgur.com/a/kxLrRqz

Data works and everything. Odd that it's using a Clear PLMN.

- Trip

I was on Facebook and I follow WTOP, who linked to this article:

https://wtop.com/tech/2018/08/data-doctors-dont-believe-smartphone-signal-bars/

I, of course, had to post about how many inaccuracies were in that article.  Who writes this garbage?

- Trip

On 7/28/2018 at 2:13 PM, lilotimz said:

The thing many of you all seem to be missing is that previously any Sprint signal would immediately override any roaming partner signal. 

I'm pretty sure many of you that experienced this also experienced in the past where a crappy Sprint CDMA 1x signal that's basically unusable would constantly kick you off a usable partner network. Sprint changing over to a setup where partner LTE networks would still be in use where Sprint still has a 1x/EVDO signal is in general a good thing for LTE on network time and for sanity checks as devices would not constantly hop between good roaming and terrible native connections .

Funny you should mention that, my mother (on a Sprint BYOD) noticed that it was easier to connect to US Cellular LTE last week than it had been since Shentel lit up too far to get more than weak 1X 800.  Is there any confirmation that they've changed the policy beyond just the evidence of it we're seeing here?

- Trip

T-Mobile's rural deployment leaves something to be desired in many cases.  It's meant to fill the map, not necessarily be competitive with the other carrier in the area.  That's not to say that they can't improve after the merger, but going by the deployment to this point...

- Trip

21 minutes ago, radem said:

It is possible that Magic Boxes with B25 LTE donor cells will be around long term as the 20mhz B41 LTE that a million Magic Box small cells broadcasting inside buildings may be too important to turn off and T-Mobile may just leave the 20mhz frequency that the Magic Boxes broadcast out of their 5G plans for the next several years while they figure out what they are going to do in the future. 
 

I've been thinking about this as well.  Since the B41 licensing, at present, is very... swiss cheese-like, I was pondering whether they could take it one step further than that.  Maybe they use B25 donor cells as you suggest, but then broadcast as little as 5 MHz in some otherwise unusable chunk of B41 with the Magic Box for local access.  You won't see hundreds of Mbps through it, but it should still be fast enough for most purposes, I would imagine.

- Trip

9 hours ago, chamb said:

Hummmn, they are still using the old nTelos SID on 1x.

Yes, that's nothing new.  They moved the LTE over to the Sprint PLMN, but left the SID alone.  Additional downside--no way to ID 1X 800.

- Trip

11 hours ago, bbostwick8 said:

 

Decent speeds?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don't know.  I was barreling down the highway at the time I took the picture, and I don't usually do speed tests anyway.  But considering the available speed used to be zero, I'm going to say it's decent, sure.

On my way home today, I'm going to take a long route to check on some more sites I don't usually go by.  Expect the Premiere map to fill in some after I get home. 

(Also, I'm amused that with yesterday's update to the Sprint coverage map, the Red House tower that's on the air is now missing from the map along with the Hat Creek tower, while the Sugar Hill site that had no antennas two weeks ago is still present.)

- Trip

https://imgur.com/XLbo6lo

This is what happiness looks like.  The last major gap on US-15 in the nTelos expansion area is now filled.

- Trip

It always amazes me how often people say, "I don't have a problem, therefore, the problem does not exist."

- Trip

I would imagine that the 1X 800 carrier will linger for a long time, even if the rest of the 1X/EV-DO in PCS goes away.  There's not much else you can do with that sliver of spectrum.

- Trip

There are clearly some issues with that map, but you're right, western MD does look good and like they're planning to cover it well.  Looking at the current Sprint coverage map in voice view, it looks like two or three new sites might be up and running already along I-68.  (If not, then they might be coming very soon.)

- Trip

2 hours ago, mdob07 said:

So is this the android Earfcn bug? First time I've noticed it.
 

Yes.

- Trip

So the press release lied when it said existing customers could get in on it.  Got it.

- Trip

Just now, dro1984 said:

Be careful of the fine print.    For one line, like myself, it's not $42...it's $70 which is actually $10 more than Unlimited Freedom that expires today.   All these plans look great if your a family with multiple phones, but if you have a single line, you pay out the nose!   

I saw the fine print.  It's what was missing from the fine print that has me concerned.

- Trip

41 minutes ago, nexgencpu said:

As expected. New plans are now official..

http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprints-industry-leading-unlimited-plans-just-got-even-better-new-unlimited-plans-include-features-customers-love-for-best-price.htm

So it says the $22/mo price is for a "limited time."  Does that mean that the price itself goes up, or that it's locked in, but only available for a limited time?  When it says it's available to existing customers, does that mean that I can just change my plan to the new Unlimited Plus as I am, or do I also have to upgrade devices?  Also, do any BYOD devices support Calling Plus/Wifi Calling?

Lots of unanswered questions.

- Trip

16 minutes ago, dro1984 said:

I'm not a fan of the whole Magic box thing.   I always just considered it a band aid on a poorly spaced network with too few of towers and horrible low band availability.

Out west, where houses are made of stucco and signals can't get inside, the Magic Box would allow you to essentially place a relay in a window to get signal through that would otherwise be blocked by the stucco.  Seems pretty useful to me.

- Trip

58 minutes ago, nexgencpu said:

The key word is "compensation" T-mobile has gone the extra mile to speed the process up. Sprint is in no position to spend more for these types scenarios.

4 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

T-Mobile did make extra payments to speed up the process, something more difficult to do with government safety organizations on 800MHz, especially with limited cadh flow. https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/t-mobile-pay-some-lptv-repack-moves-167217


Sent from my LG-LS997 using Tapatalk
 

Yes, but that doesn't constitute "fighting."  Moreover, there was no requirement for them to do so.

- Trip