Trip

I am okay with this if, and only if, Shentel is left in charge of the areas they're currently in charge of. 

- Trip

https://medium.com/@AjitPaiFCC/on-the-road-again-9a759494d85e

Chairman Pai blogs about items on the May agenda for the FCC.  Among them, an item about 2.5 GHz band licensing.

- Trip

1 hour ago, Trip said:

Yes, I agree it would have to be Sprint-only.  I think most of the phones I've had since moving to Sprint would show Clear and Sprint B41 in neighbor cells at the same time.  (LG G6, LG G5, Samsung S5.)  They do/did not, however, show PCI values for US Cellular or other networks.  I'll confirm and let you know for certain.

Mike,

Confirmed via picture.  https://imgur.com/a/ZWewf  I'm connected to a Clear site with two 8T8R sites appearing in the neighbor cells.  Couldn't get diagnostics before it dropped back to B26 on the DAS though.  I'm in too much pain to walk back to the window and try again for diagnostics.

- Trip

On 4/15/2018 at 8:31 PM, mikejeep said:

03/04/05 are coded as third carrier, and your report showed sector 00 which should have showed you regular B41. You are likely getting victimized by the bug that has been driving me insane for a couple of years where things go south when the PLMN changes on the fly. Some devices suffer more than others. Essentially the band stops appearing until the PLMN changes again.. something is getting hung up momentarily on the OS side, and SCP chokes on it. It's related to the glitch that causes the PLMN and GCI to fall out of sync when switching cells, which also wreaks havoc and creates duplicate (bogus) database entries. It's maddening and I have tried all sorts of hacks i in the background to address it -- and I will continue to try, because it's a priority.

 

I'm hoping to keep it simple.. essentially by checking if it's a T-Mobile connection, and if so, checking if it's a band that T-Mobile actually uses. If not, assume it's a glitch and add 65536 to the EARFCN. I've spent the past few weeks trying to bring SignalCheck Lite up to speed and I have to finish that first, but it's not going well since it's been 3 years since that was updated and a lot has changed since then.

 

Hmm, that's an interesting thought. It would only make sense for Sprint, since most other major providers stick with one PLMN.. I'll look into seeing how feasible that is. What device do you see Clear neighbors when connected to Sprint, and vice versa? My Pixel doesn't do that.

-Mike

Mike,

I didn't mean to conflate the first two items.  In the first, when I'm connected to Clear B41 third carrier on sectors 03/04/05, I'm not seeing the "3" next to it.  That's what I was trying to say.  I would love if this could be corrected, since it's hopefully a small change.  I'll try to send you a diagnostic showing it, but here's a picture from my log:  https://imgur.com/a/7zw72

I separately sent you the data on the missing band indicator because you said it was causing you a problem that you were having trouble tracking down, but I had been unable to send you diagnostic data on it previously.  I finally tried and successfully sent you the data without getting an error message.  I was hoping it helped you track down the issue, as it was sitting there for a very long time with no band indicator.  Same thing happened yesterday, actually, on a different site.  In that case, it lasted for a long time, measured in minutes.

Sounds like an interesting fix, though I suspect you'll have some Band 66/Band 2 overlap.  For example, if T-Mobile held AWS-1 A-block, that would be EARFCN 66586, and 66586-65536=1050, a valid Band 2 EARFCN.  Not sure what you would do about that.

Yes, I agree it would have to be Sprint-only.  I think most of the phones I've had since moving to Sprint would show Clear and Sprint B41 in neighbor cells at the same time.  (LG G6, LG G5, Samsung S5.)  They do/did not, however, show PCI values for US Cellular or other networks.  I'll confirm and let you know for certain.

- Trip

4 hours ago, grapkoski said:

Sprint partnering with CVS would be amazing. Near me, the DC Costco could also use a couple of Magic Boxes. One can wish!

Agreed in my neck of the DC market as well.  I spent a while waiting for a prescription at CVS today and wished for a Magic Box.  (The service worked, just not terribly well.)  And at Costco, right outside you can see the tower, but inside it's barely usable.

- Trip

Mike,

1) As indicated previously, in my area (DC) which I believe is a Samsung Clear market, 03/04/05 are third carrier, but SCP currently doesn't note it as anything other than standard B41.

2) Yesterday, I finally managed to send you diagnostics showing "LTE" without a band indicator while connected to a Clear site.  I sent it having watched it not have a band indicator for more than 30 seconds.  Hopefully you got it and maybe it'll tell you something you didn't already know about the issue.

3) I don't yet have a B71 phone, though once a cheap Motorola one comes out, I plan to replace my T-Mobile 700 phone with one.  What kind of work-around are you considering?  Perhaps it could make sense to allow people to select which bands their phone actually supports or which bands they expect to see so you could work around obviously-incorrect data, even if it were in some kind of hidden menu.  (In my ideal world, there would be a hidden menu with lots of advanced functions to tweak the behavior of SCP in ways the average user may find unhelpful or confusing.  Like forcing all LTE to be identified as LTE 700 on my phone that is locked to 700.)

4) Is there any chance you could add a third mode to the neighbor cell notes beyond matching to PLMN and not matching to PLMN?  I'd like to merge my four SCP databases together (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint/USCC) but if I do that, then on my Sprint/USCC phones with the PLMN matching disabled, I'll get a bunch of neighbor cell notes that are clearly not correct since they'll match non-Sprint values.  And, of course, if I enable PLMN matching, then if I'm on Sprint, I'll miss Clear notes, etc.  It would be nice if there were a "Sprint" mode that matched only to PLMNs associated with Sprint when connected to a Sprint-associated network.  For example, if connected to PLMN 310120, have it match also PCI values for 311870 and other Clear PLMNs, but not to other PLMNs.  Or if connected to 311870, match to 310120, etc.

- Trip

I really want a Magic Box for the "new toy" aspect of it, but I know I don't really need one, so I haven't bothered.  I have FiOS available via wifi at both ends of the house, and the moment I step outside, the Clear Band 41 is fine anyway, so I'm not sure it would benefit anyone around me either.

I did send a note to one of my favorite restaurants--in a dead zone--and asked them to consider requesting one.  Here's hoping.

- Trip

4 hours ago, MrZorbatron said:

There are sites around me that look like they should have 6 carriers on them. I don't get it either.

 

What's the best way (other than physically approaching it) to determine what carriers are on what structures?

Some sites may have old equipment/racks on them.  It wasn't that long ago that Nextel, MetroPCS, and Cricket were separate companies with their own gear.  Clear gear is often on its own rack as well.

I have phones for all five major carriers.  (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and US Cellular, in addition to my primary Sprint line.)  That gives me a reasonable idea of who is where.  I replace my Verizon SIM every 90 days to keep LTE active, and the T-Mobile SIM stays active without service.  FreedomPop provides 200MB/mo of AT&T service for free.  I have a $10/mo prepaid plan with US Cellular that I put money on when I am going into US Cellular territory.

Building permits, if they're available online, can also be helpful in that regard.

- Trip

Can you post the address (or coordinates) for one of these sites?

- Trip

Interesting note in here:

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10326217025032/March 26 Sprint Ex Parte.pdf

Sounds like they're trying to get the EBS licensing changed to better utilize the 2.5 GHz band.

- Trip

Mike,

In my region, Clear sites with 03/04/05 for the last two digits in the GCI represent B41 third carrier.  This is a relatively recent development.

- Trip

5 hours ago, speedingcheetah said:

Has anyone measured or had any EMI or RF effects from having the MB in their home?

I have been having frequent headaches and some harder time sleeping the last several weeks.  Thought it was just the on coming of Spring.

But I have had the Mb unplugged the last 2 days and night, no headaches and sleep better.

Maybe I am just over sensitive to such things?

Placebo effect.

- Trip

Did some digging for Columbus permits to see if I could help.  3603 Livingston Ave sound right?  If so:

"DESCRIPTION OF WORK: NEW MONOPOLE CONSTRUCTION FOR CELL SITE OF T-MOBILE." (Emphasis mine.)

- Trip

3 hours ago, JonnygATL said:

I'm more concerned that whoever wrote that note is seriously scaling back on employee break room capex!

Which note, the one about the microwave?  Yeah, that's working in government.

- Trip

That's not all; I note some of the newer Shentel coverage--which was found in a previous version of the map--is now missing.  Not sure how that happened.

There are also individual LTE Plus towers missing in the DC area--some are Clear sites that have been there a very long time.

That said, since the last time I looked at coverage in this area, the map has gotten more accurate.  It now shows holes that I know exist because I travel through them on a regular basis. 

- Trip

8 hours ago, Galaxyguy said:

It's pretty here. My wife and I moved here in 2006 from PA and we haven't ever really wanted to leave. I live in Woodstock and work in Front Royal, both pretty decent towns.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 

Our dream house, should it even happen, would be built on a mountain top near Linden.  We like Spelunker's in Front Royal, and find Woodstock to be a very nice town.

- Trip

Couldn't help myself.  Got to work today and went to put my lunch in the fridge.  I noticed the microwave, did a double-take, then took this picture:



I sent it to my wife with a note, "We must have good reception on the microwave today.  4 bars."

I'll show myself out.

- Trip

6 hours ago, dkyeager said:

Here is a picture of a Shentel small cell going in next to Central High school in Woodstock VA from FCC Commissioner Carr. A S4Gru member should find its exact location lat long, take close-up photos, and confirm its signal (too far for me to do).


Sent from my LG-LS997 using Tapatalk
 

My wife and I like the Shenandoah Valley; I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we find our way out there again.  That is, if nobody else gets there first.

- Trip

2 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

What about the band above it, 3.7-4.2GHz? Well it turns out that Intelsat owns all of it as of right now.

Er, that's not true.  It's allocated to the C-band satellite service.  The licenses are, as I understand it, nationwide, but vary based on which slot in the sky the satellite is in.  So Intelsat has some slots, SES has some, and there are other companies as well that I'm not familiar with. 

- Trip

15 hours ago, RedSpark said:

I agree. I spent some time in Passaic and East Rutherford a few weeks ago and seemed like the network performance reflected either overloaded Band 25 or fast Band 41. That area needs some attention for sure.

My extended family lives in Fair Lawn and I boggle at how spotty the service is there.  While the WiFi in the house makes it a bit of a non-issue, I sit on 1X in my grandmother's house, for example.  T-Mobile built a flagpole tower down the street and even that doesn't do well for some reason.  It's very odd.  Only Verizon is decent, and that's only because they appear have a small cell around there that I can't find.

Good news, of course, is that it's an Altice area, so I assume we'll see strand-mount equipment pop up at some point.  That should help greatly.

- Trip

1 hour ago, SprintNYC said:

Rootmetrics just dropped their 2017 second half report.

http://www.rootmetrics.com/en-US/content/mobile-performance-in-the-us-part-1-performance-across-the-entire-us-2h

http://www.rootmetrics.com/en-US/content/mobile-performance-in-the-us-part-2-performance-across-the-50-states-2h

http://www.rootmetrics.com/en-US/content/mobile-performance-in-the-top-125-us-metro-areas

 

On the state-by-state, their one overall win came in... West Virginia, which is dominated by Shentel.  Surprise!

- Trip

22 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

The Eastern KY/Far Western VA Panhandle don't surprise me.  Natural organic move, taking over a few isolated Sprint sites. However, taking over Sprint corporate markets in Lancaster, PA and the Southern Virginia market we're surprises to me.  Albeit it good surprised. 

Hopefully Shentel will expand service significantly in their new rural Appalachian areas in this agreement.

I was also surprised to see Lancaster and Culpeper included, but the rest seems like a good fit.  Sprint currently has a network in those areas that is either entirely non-existent (see Charlotte, Lunenburg Counties), or is the bare minimum to be able to say there's service in the area. 

Take Farmville as an example; two cell sites to cover Farmville, and neither is particularly well-suited to cover Longwood University, leaving plenty of holes where the students are.  Sprint is the only carrier not on the site near the high school, so while B26 connects outside the Wal-Mart, it's 3G or 1X 800 inside.  The LTE is long gone by the time you get the Hampden-Sydney, too, usually 1X 800 even outdoors.  I will be surprised if Shentel builds fewer than three new sites in Farmville proper; Shentel Cable actually owns one of the towers AT&T is on in Farmville, so I would bet we'll see Shentel cell service appear there sooner rather than later.  The other two being the tower by the high school and the tower overlooking Longwood.  (Hampden-Sydney is not in Farmville, but I expect they'll put one there too.)  I also expect to see them beef up the highways around Farmville, as the network is quite sparse there too.

I cannot wait to see what gets built.  Exciting times await!

- Trip

Yes yes yes YES YES!!!!

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/02/05/1332737/0/en/Shentel-Announces-Expansion-of-its-Affiliate-Relationship-with-Sprint.html

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/SHEN/5964881640x0x969980/03FEA5BA-6059-4DD6-BBB3-A6C1E6F02561/Wireless_Network_Expansion_01-30-2018.pdf

My year has officially been made.

- Trip

13 minutes ago, uecker87 said:

Did not know about this...  Just signed up for a $0.01 SIM card to continue testing AT&T around here (they are actively expanding in my area).  I just can't forget to switch from the free month promo to the free plan before it expires.  Thanks for sharing!

That SIM is how I track AT&T in my area.  It's worked great, and it's helpful to have the 200MB of data through it now and then.

- Trip

That is a fantastic story.  Among the many reasons I love Shentel. 

At some point I'll have to try to make a similar contact.  I want to try to get more information on their deployment down near my parents in the former nTelos region.

- Trip