Trip

Well, in Appomattox with my phones and spectrum analyzer. Survey says... http://i.imgur.com/fBWHeK4.png Not yet. - Trip

The roaming indicator appears over the signal level indicator, not over the 3G/4G icons. There are plenty of images in the nTelos thread from before the past week showing the nTelos LTE service as LTE roaming. EDIT: Guess it depends on whether you have the spinning spark or not, but here's a picture: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/4897-lte-ntelos-west-virginia-nw-virginia-shentel-network-vision-soon%E2%84%A2/page-74?p=443043&do=findComment&comment=443043 - Trip

If they were to do no LTE roaming on Verizon, then couldn't they say there's a lower cap on 3G roaming (where Verizon is available) and a higher cap on LTE roaming where Verizon is not available? Or would that be too confusing? - Trip

So, did anyone ever dump 55030? I'm glad to analyze it but I need the file with which to do so. - Trip

Yes. They have LTE where my parents live (they have an LTE hotspot, and I had LTE there before I switched to Sprint) and own no spectrum there besides CLR. See here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6741-us-cellular-roaming-and-technical-thoughts/?p=393641 - Trip

I'm hoping they use MFBI on their Band 5 LTE so that Band 26 devices can access it, but we'll see. - Trip

It looks exactly like Sprint's map. I know the rural Virginia cell towers very well and if it was T-Mobile, there would be LTE coverage in eastern Fluvanna County near Kents Store (which shows as no coverage). If it was Verizon or AT&T, there would be coverage between Orange and Culpeper. And it's missing LTE coverage in Culpeper itself, which is also missing from the official Sprint map even though B25 and B26 are both present there. - Trip

Please do B26 MFBI... - Trip

On Saturday I'll be returning from my parents' house via the normal route up US-15 and I'll be trying to see if any of the 6 nTelos sites I pass have LTE. I've updated my PRL and profile; is there anything else I should do to prepare for it? I will bring my spectrum analyzer so that I can look and see if G-block or SMR LTE is active so at least if I don't see it and it's not on my analyzer I don't sit there for a long time wondering. - Trip

If you have some coordinates or an address or something, it might be possible to dig up some FCC or FAA records on it. - Trip

As Ryan said, LTE doesn't support BSL information like CDMA does. But with your logs (plus the logs of others!) we could put together a database file that puts the current site information in the Site Note field. - Trip

Would you mind logging the trip with SCP, or can you do both at once? Flompholph and I would love to have your logs for both the nTelos and Richmond parts. - Trip

Under Preferences, enter Location Settings and check the "Enable Location Service" checkbox. I usually set the priority to high accuracy but that makes battery drain a concern, so I don't recommend most people do that. Under Logger Settings, check the Enable Site Logger checkbox, and if the "log sites with missing GCI" is checked, uncheck that. Then after a few days, do some log exports and we'll take a good look! Thanks! - Trip

Yes, SCP users, please turn on logging and be sure the "Enable Location Services" checkbox is checked. - Trip

When Shentel is done with it, it will be amazing. We just have to get that far. - Trip

By the way, are the Sprint NV antennas vertically polarized or is it elliptical or circular? - Trip

Well, yes, of course it needs a directional antenna. But if the amp is going to fail to pass (or only partially pass) the bands I need, then it won't help. I'm already planning to go big or go home with this. - Trip

Not to go wildly off subject, but... really? I didn't think anyone actually believed T-Mobile's numbers. I know I don't. Way too many holes in the coverage (when you think about how wildly overstated the maps are) to actually reach that many people in a serious way. By contrast, at least Sprint roams in places where it has no coverage. True, I see T-Mobile native in more places than I see Sprint, but I have nTelos (which will soon be Sprint) and US Cellular and the RRPP members to fall back on (albeit in 3G--beats "No Service"). T-Mobile may be moving in that direction, but nothing is announced yet. I have that on Sprint today. - Trip

Thanks, that would be amazing. If I'm going to spend several hundred dollars on such equipment, I want to make sure I'm not wasting my money. - Trip

I said "buy or bring." Buy would be the headline, what goes in the TV commercial, but you could bring your own if you wanted and it was compatible. - Trip

All of that may be true, but it seems to me (don't have the numbers to do a financial analysis or anything) that they could have come out ahead by waiving the line/activation fees if you buy or bring your own tablet. Most will buy the tablet from Sprint, so they make a profit selling the hardware instead of losing money giving it away. The waived line/activation fees results in the same losses either way, but it winds up being cheap enough that customers jump on with their existing plans (I would consider it, and I don't even own a tablet right now!), some of whom will wind up needing to pay for more data as a result of using more data on their new tablets, so Sprint could come out ahead on that front. Plus, the customer feels good about it, people like us and people who aren't the niche customers. I could be wrong, of course. But it seems like there are ways to do this that make Sprint money and make the existing customers, niche or not, feel good at the same time. - Trip

I've got an interesting problem. I'm hoping someone here might have an opinion. I'm thinking about a Christmas gift for my wife's parents. The background is that my wife and I are on Sprint (as is her sister) and when we visit, and there is no Sprint service where they live. But unlike where my parents live, which is close to a US Cellular tower and roams comfortably, her parents' location means the phones tend to bounce between the nearest US Cellular tower, a more distant one, and two Verizon towers, depending on what it feels like. The result, as you can guess, is terrible battery drain and calls that don't connect or drop quickly after establishing. In addition, her parents' Internet comes from a US Cellular hotspot with a grandfathered 5GB data plan. As a school teacher, her father can't really do too much with that, and worse, because of the aforementioned poor service there, it's generally on 3G and not B5 LTE anyway. So I started to think about the problem. I know that boosters are now given the full blessing of my employer as long as they're registered with the carrier. So the first thought I had was to get a cheapie booster that would fix the US Cellular signal from the nearest tower. That seems pretty straight-forward, just boosting so that the roaming is stable and the hotspot stays on LTE. But then I had another idea. I did a terrain path profile from their house to the nearest Sprint tower, which is 10.4 miles away, give or take. It looks like if the antenna is on the roof, there should be line of sight, not counting trees. That tower is upgraded with B25 and B26 LTE, and there's even a US Cellular facility near it, though it's not on the same structure. Doing this would have two main benefits: 1) The various Sprint phones would not roam there, and would retain their battery life much better. 2) Her parents could switch to a Karma hotspot for Internet access once the contract expires. Still faster than the 3G they usually see from US Cellular, but unlimited instead of capped at 5GB. The question is, what booster would I want? I was looking very closely at the WeBoost 3G because the frequencies seemed right, but I read a very detailed technical review on Amazon which indicated the filter cuts right through the middle of PCS G-block and it may not include SMR at all. The frequencies I'm looking for are SMR, CLR A-block for US Cellular, and PCS (including G-block). Does this sound feasible to anyone else? Has anyone else used one? Any recommendations, thoughts, or opinions? - Trip

I would rather buy a tablet at full price and get the device connection fee waived for the remainder of my contract. - Trip

I can't find any info on this besides that, can you or anyone else? The link in the tweet is to the cut your rate in half video. - Trip

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like Philadelphia and not DC. Agreed the last one looks like Richmond. - Trip