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

Can anyone confirm whether the S22 supports band locking? - Trip

Plenty of Sprint sites are still active around here, I just very rarely connect to most of them on my primary devices. My Sprint-SIM phone locked on Band 26 confirms they're still there. - Trip

That implies you're connected via the 311490 PLMN which treats T-Mobile and Sprint as equivalent. (In theory, anyway. In practice, I almost never see Sprint, except in the Shentel region.) - Trip

In the upload window, the number of items to upload seems to have vanished. I thought something was off, and finally figured out what it was today. It's missing from both the current beta and the previous one, but I think it was in the one before it (which some of my phones are still on). - Trip

Yep. Lack of work in rural areas like the college cities of Lynchburg and Charlottesville. Meanwhile, large urban areas like the unnamed tree-populated area off US-17 in Stafford have n41. - Trip

A handful of conversion permits for Shentel sites but not a landslide as of yet. A handful of upgrades to existing T-Mobile sites but not widespread yet. Way, way behind the rest of the network. Had Shentel been left in charge, I'm sure half the network would be upgraded by now. - Trip

That's interesting, since it's the first time I've ever seen this issue on any of my devices. EDIT: Thinking about it, my G8X might be my only Android 10 device. But it's been on Android 10 for a long time and I've never had this issue before. - Trip

Mike, Just in case you didn't see my e-mail, I wanted to flag to you that I sent you diagnostics this morning for two crashes I had within a four minute period but have otherwise been unable to reproduce. If you need more from me, let me know. - Trip

Not to mention B41, which my phone practically lives on these days. Very, very strange listing. - Trip

Wanted to post feedback on these points in particular, which I've rearranged to be grouped together. 1) I think it's telling that a significant minority, myself included, has more or less ignored T-Mobile's pleas to move to T-Mobile SIMs and new devices, and are waiting until the last possible moment. In my mind, it's a sign that there's some combination of crummy service and insufficient discounts leading to people just riding the ship down. For me, it's both. I'm very happy with my LG G8X and don't want to give it up--other phones don't have the same key features, and LG doesn't make devices anymore. If you want me to replace it, you're going to have to do better than a bunch of bill credits for a budget phone. In addition, the service definitely leaves something to be desired, and I still have been unable to determine if T-Mobile roaming will continue to work for me, something which is not encouraging when it comes to statements like "roaming partners will be few and far between." Way to scare off the people who are already skeptical; if US Cellular roaming stops working, I literally cannot remain their customer, and end up forced to AT&T by default, I believe, as they do have a US Cellular roaming agreement. 2) Either they'll have to impress even more with site conversions and expansion this year, or a step down in capex with an insufficient build-out is going to lead to problems. As fast as they've been moving, there's a ton of work still to do, especially in the Shentel region. I looked at Albemarle County's permits a few days ago and only found two or three for conversions, and Shentel has dozens of sites that don't overlap with T-Mobile. And that's almost a month into the new year. It's entirely possible they could get it all done by December 31, but there will certainly be a gap after July 1 when the Sprint network (tentatively) shuts down and whenever T-Mobile gets their act entirely together. Beyond the Shentel region, they've also not touched any of the power line sites around here, and many of the building-mount sites with shrouds are untouched as well, all of which includes apparent Sprint keep sites. One with shrouds was touched, but the B41 antennas were installed without shrouds. I can drive less than five minutes from my home near Alexandria, VA to a different residential area and my B71-locked phone will go to "No Service" because all the surrounding power line sites are untouched even with respect to 600. Some of them don't even have 700. 3) Well of course the wireless industry is right. The FAA, in three weeks, managed to certify 90% of aircraft altimeters. It was all the FAA refusing to do their job and hoping to screech their way out of ever doing it. You know, while pretending that 40 other countries hadn't already made it work just fine. 4) They say they want to go after small markets and rural areas, but the service in those areas is lackluster at best. I don't see them fixing all of that this year. I've explicitly been told that the county where I grew up has one site in planning, which is on hold due to the merger, and any further improvement won't happen before 2024. ("The pain will continue for the foreseeable future.") I've concluded that at least five more sites are needed to make T-Mobile viable over US Cellular in the county. And, of course, these are areas where the home Internet service would actually provide people with a first option beyond a cellular hotspot, but their service is so bad in these places that it won't work. Instead, they're going after customers in urban areas where the service is nice, but not necessary. - Trip

I sometimes have a similar problem, you may recall. Some of my unactivated phones occasionally go to "Connecting..." and then stop logging, particularly after I do an in-app connection reset, or the phone goes to no service and comes back out. (Trails keep recording, though.) This seems to have fixed that issue, at least as far as I can tell; it now goes to "LTE" but keeps on logging. Can't really tell if data passes or not without service on the device. But yes, I can try to prepare a diagnostic to send when I get back on wifi. To the notification, I haven't seen the issue since that initial attempt. The device I saw it on is on Android 8, so it shouldn't be impacted by the more recent changes. If I see it again, I'll prepare a diagnostic for you. - Trip

Went out for a drive today around parts of Fairfax County west of Springfield that I don't often get to, and was shocked to find a Dish site, still rigged but apparently almost complete. https://imgur.com/a/OAjo87A QR code is a dead give-away. What's odd is that there are no permits, whatsoever, for Dish anywhere in the county. I expected to see some electrical permits, given that antenna structures like this one don't require antenna permits. If they never file for electrical permits, then tracking this build-out is going to be a lot tougher than I had hoped. - Trip

Or, more simply, have a physical SIM that I can just move from one device to another. Problem [already] solved. Carrier doesn't have to be involved at any point in the process. I'll be among many (I'm sure) who will be glad to know if you see it. Here in the DC area, Dish hasn't really done much yet. I think I've seen some Dish gear around Richmond, but nothing here. - Trip

Bleh, hope not. The eSIM is a huge step backwards to the bad old days and I have no desire to encourage their use. But in any event, maybe I should get Boost service, then, if people are already seeing it. I can use it for AT&T until Dish native gear goes live in this area. Have to ponder that a bit. - Trip

Is this what "Connecting..." looks like now? https://imgur.com/a/wBxnZpt One of my phones this morning went from "Connected to LTE" to just "LTE" and I can definitely live with that. It also logged a new sector while showing that. Thanks! EDIT: Immediately after upgrade, one of my other E5 Plays opened with "LTE" in the corner but the notification icon was just showing "--", even though the rest of the data has populated. Toggling Airplane Mode resolved it. - Trip

This one's pretty insightful too. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/airline-ceos-make-u-turn-now-say-5g-isnt-a-big-problem-for-altimeters/ - Trip

I'm anxious for it to go live except that I don't have a 5G-capable phone that actually reports data to SignalCheck... - Trip

Much as I'm loath to recommend VICE News, this is actually the best article I've seen on the subject. https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb3m3/the-5g-airport-apocalypse-is-incredibly-dumb-experts-say - Trip

In the DC area, my phone has been preferring B41 for a while now. Several months, at least. - Trip

Just spotted a T-Mobile small cell this morning; B4/2 only, as best I could tell. Looked just like the many AT&T ones floating around. - Trip