Trip

I don't anticipate returning for a long time. I made that trip specifically because there was otherwise no reason for me to ever go there. I can clearly see some bad points on a number of sites. I've located some (not all) of them, particularly in/near Luray, Front Royal, and Strasburg. Up to you what you want to do with them. I can make edits which I'm capable of making, or you can make changes as you see fit. Whichever. I'm fine either way. - Trip

Should it be rolled back, or should I just locate the sites properly with the bad sectors in place or something? - Trip

So this is bizarre, and I'm not really sure what to say about it or how it could have even happened. My AT&T phone (FreedomPop) is a rooted Pixel 3a. Somehow, it appears that in both the trail log and the site log, the GPS somehow lagged the cells yesterday. I noticed it because we went through Detrick, VA. On my new S21FE, the logs are correct. I see Shentel's 0FE18Fxx at Detrick, as expected. Meanwhile, AT&T is on that same tower. It got recorded with correct TA numbers, but coordinates that were probably 20-30 minutes out of date. They clearly follow the route that we took, and are even spaced correctly from what I can tell, but they're just clearly mismatched. I salvaged the data by using the timestamps to match with my S21FE logs, and used those coordinates to locate anything I had issues with, so I didn't lose anything personally, but you can see the incorrect locations on the SignalCheck Map site. Look at AT&T LTE, 09FB11, and you'll see that the 0x10 and 0x11 sectors are placed very wrongly, while the 0x0F sector as a few points that are right only because one of my other phones managed to connect to it by accident along the way. It looks like others were impacted too; that's just the one that's most obvious. I didn't notice it along the way because I had my dashboard phone holders dedicated to various T-Mobile devices, and my AT&T phone was out of my line of sight. Later in the log, things appear to be correct again. Utterly bizarre. Any thoughts? - Trip

So I just, uh, sidegraded? I guess? to a Samsung S21 FE. Certainly not an upgrade, but it's fine, I suppose. Biggest winning feature: I can now band lock my primary phone. Biggest losing feature? Can't decide. No SD card slot, no headphone jack, can't double-tap the notification bar to sleep, volume and power on the same side... Anyway, right after waking, several times over the past few days that I've had it, it's told me that SCP has stopped responding and asked me to close or wait. If I say close, it automatically restarts, which is good. I need to try to get you a report from right after it happens; haven't thought of it when it was happening yet. EDIT: Just happened. It offered "Close", "Wait", and "Send Feedback". Send Feedback then took me to a message indicating that the feedback app had crashed, so close or wait. Sigh. So I sent you diagnostics after it started back up again. Not sure there'll be anything helpful. - Trip

I have still been unable to figure out why I can't seem to get this deal, even though your phones were older than mine. Yesterday the Sprint site popped up a big warning when I logged in telling me to upgrade, and when I went to the phone page, it said $0/mo, right up until I got to checkout, at which point the number increased back to the $16.67/mo I had seen previously. Chat was clueless--first person suddenly disconnected when I asked after they initially ignored my question and went into a spiel, and the second basically talked in circles. - Trip

Around me, there appear to be sites in small groups where n41 SA is available. For example, it appears the sites in and immediately surrounding Tysons Corner have n41 SA, but get outside of that group and it drops right back to n71 SA. - Trip

I was just about to ask what 1x800 features were removed, since I still see 1x800. Actually, I've had to reboot my phone twice in the past week or two due to it dropping VoLTE and falling back on very weak 1x800 from who knows where. - Trip

Thank you so much for this one. I'll be giving this a try--this is something that has caused me a ton of grief in the past. When you're running 9 or 10 phones like I am, it's hard to make sure they're all getting updated locations. This should be massively helpful. Let me know what information I can prove to help you optimize this. - Trip

Yes, I applied. I assume I'll be weeded out. - Trip

I would already have a compatible Boost Mobile SIM if they'd sell me one. From what I've heard, none of the existing SIMs will work on Dish. So, yes, another transition awaits, especially if they've moved their customers onto non-5G devices. - Trip

Mike, I saw a video taken last night of someone drive testing the Dish Wireless network and at one point they pulled up SCP. When they did, the accent line appeared to be in the magenta color of T-Mobile. Not sure what color to suggest but if it's native Dish and my vision caught it correctly, it seems like it should have its own color. https://imgur.com/a/kOZmBuL EDIT: Found another frame where it appears there was no accent. Huh. https://imgur.com/a/USbB4Zq - Trip

Could "an affiliate" in #2 be Swiftel? Trying to puzzle out who it could be and that's all that really makes sense to me. As far as #1 goes, I'm finding it hard to believe that there were so few. Or is that only customers who are already cut off from service entirely via the CDMA retirement on 3/31? Like, I still have service that works fine since I have a VoLTE through Sprint, and I have to imagine there are a lot more like me. - Trip

We're like a month and a half from the deadline. I was really hoping to see some availability by now. I'm itching to get a device (possibly the Moto G 5G 2022, which should have n70 support, though that doesn't come out until next month and may be too pricey for now, so maybe the Celero if that can be band locked) and the $100/year plan to track the network. Lots of deployment around Richmond, which tracks with their announcements, but I've also seen permits appear around here and at least one deployment. - Trip

Well, the map isn't lying. B41 LTE now running from the CHO site. https://imgur.com/a/tC9P6u3 - Trip

Quoting because your whole post is relevant. I just got back from a miserable drive (it poured the whole way) through Lynchburg and Charlottesville. I found that several Shentel sites which are co-located with T-Mobile are now flagged 312250, new since the last time I was there, presumably because they desperately need the spectrum to be in use until they can get the associated T-Mobile gear upgraded. - Trip

So which one of you is this? https://imgur.com/a/KDrbEng - Trip

They've been turning off sites around here for some time now. My home site was one of the first decommissioned--gear is long gone. After initially having blocked ROAMAHOME on my account, which also blocked MOCN when that came along, around the time I realized the gear was gone, I had them add MOCN back to my account so I could use T-Mobile sites without dropping to roaming. I'm still on a Sprint SIM but mostly live on T-Mobile towers in this area. Sites running 312250 are still going strong. And very little has happened in the Shentel region where the T-Mobile network is the inferior partner. I spend a lot of time on 312250 from Shentel in those areas. - Trip

Was just poking at the Montgomery County, MD tower list and observed that T-Mobile is installing strand-mount gear. See, for example: https://montgomerycountytfcg.s3.amazonaws.com/Applications/MC2022031709.pdf - Trip

I'll be passing through Charlottesville on 4/18, and I'll have a phone locked on B41. I'll report if I see anything. - Trip

Happy birthday! Hope you'll make a reappearance here at some point. - Trip

Interesting. That's the tower by the airport. Wondering if it's this permit from October. B202102892ATWR: "ADDING 3 RADIOS WITH BUILT IN ANTENNAS TO EXISTING CELL TOWER" Implies AWS wasn't added. Also, the permit is "Under Review" rather than "Issued." Hmm... - Trip

Not sure what is needed in terms of permits for such upgrades per local government, but I don't see much at this point. Looked through Charlottesville first and there's a permit requested for 192 Carlton, but no carrier listed. 1515 6th St has one for Dish and another unlabeled. That's all I see that's new in the past six months. I spot-checked a few in Albemarle and didn't see anything particularly new. - Trip

This is just a cosmetic thing, but I noticed that when there's no note present, the text says "Click here to add," but on a phone, you don't click, you tap. - Trip

I got a new OnePlus N10 5G a month ago or so, rooted and ready for collection. Until yesterday, I'd only seen n71. I connected to n41 via several sites in Tysons, and then again on two sites along I-270, one near Germantown and one just across the county line into Frederick County. I wonder why the n41 SA deployment is so... selective. - Trip

I was mostly settled on the A52 as the replacement for all the phones on my account (LG G7/G8/G8X/G8X), but if the S22 is actually so much better with weak signal than other devices before it, per press reports, then that might be a deciding factor in its favor, despite the lack of headphone jack and SD card slot. And, of course, band locking would be another big help for those situations. - Trip