jasonacg

I got within 3-4 miles of that area (54 and Little). Nothing carrying that far, yet. Went home via Little, DeCubellis, Moon Lake, and SR52. Not a trace of LTE along that route so far.

If I'm watching the screen, I'll disable it when I see that I'm in 4G territory, and restart when I lose it. But if I'm unable to watch what's happening, I figure it's better to mark at least some of the coverage, instead of none at all. If I blaze a broken trail, someone else will know where to go, to fill in the holes.

I'll pass through the Waters/Dale Mabry area around 5:30. If nobody else has reported anything by then, I'll let you know what I find. Thanks to (another) crash on the Howard Frankland this afternoon, I diverted to the Gandy Bridge. Picked up 4G on the Tampa side of Gandy, and up Dale Mabry, past Britton Plaza (to about El Prado). According to the LTE Discovery app, I was getting an occasional "blip" of LTE, as I continued north, via Himes. Nothing north of Kennedy. Sensorly was also running the whole time, except for the airplane mode cycles prompted by LTE Discovery. Oh, and regarding LTE Discovery: This morning's update seems to have fixed the GPS reporting. The coordinates list looks MUCH better now.

GPS is always enabled on my phone. It correctly reported the first point, but no updates after that. I had the app set to automatically cycle after discovering LTE, so there may have been a delay in getting a GPS fix, after coming out of airplane mode. Could the app be faster than the GPS?

For the second time today, I got that mystery 4G on SR52, near the Suncoast Parkway. Looking at the LTE Discovery app, it is reporting some data, although the GPS coordinates aren't changing. I recognize 5116 as the SID, but the number immediately before that is unfamiliar to me. Those numbers are (at different times in a 15-minute period, heading south) 5105, 3522, 3523, 13106, 4017, 4003, 5106 Again, GPS coordinates were all the same, even though I was moving. So, that's little help to me. Can someone identify the various tower sites, from this info? I think 3522 and 3523 are most likely the ones I picked up on 52. Thanks!

Maybe something new in central Pasco? I was able to run Sensorly with no problem, on the drive home from work. Passing through the new site near Dale Mabry and Veterans, I collected 279 points in 4G. To get home, I take Lutz Lake Fern, to the Suncoast Parkway north. Glanced at my phone when I was north of SR54, still 279 points. When I arrive at home, a few miles west of the parkway, near SR52, I notice that I've gone up to 286 points. So somewhere near 52 and Suncoast, there just might be another tower that went live. I'm still waiting to see if any new points appear on Sensorly. Nothing has come up yet, but it's been less than an hour. I seriously doubt this is from the Shady Hills tower. I think I'm too far south to pick that one up.

Has anyone else had problems with the Sensorly mapping function, since the update on January 25? I'm not always able to start mapping, and if I do, it will stop without warning.

I'll be out there tomorrow night, mostly Linebaugh, Anderson and Nixon. I'll be sure to put some tracks on Sensorly for you.

I leave Sensorly open as a tab in my broswer, so I saw the coverage before you drove around, then I refreshed the page, and saw the new tracks. You did a a ton of driving, and that tower seems to have a big footprint. I'm surprised to see it carry up Old Pasco Rd, as far as SR52. Is that all off the same tower, or could there possibly be another one up there?

Came over to Orlando from the Tampa area today, by way of SR50. Found a new tower (that is, one not reported on Sensorly), west of Clermont. Got brief LTE on the west side of "the summit" on SR50, presumably from a site a little further down US27. But once I entered Groveland, I had strong LTE, and kept it all the way through Groveland, and into the eastern half of Mascotte, before getting demoted to 3G for the rest of my trip back home. It seems like the signal was coming from the tower on the south side of 50, just west of 565A--or at least that's where my reception peaked. Speeds were upwards of 20 down, 9 up. If it's not on Sensorly yet, it should appear soon.

Does Sprint transmit from any of the flagpole-style towers (54@Suncoast, I-75 near Apollo Beach, for just two examples) that are scattered around the area? If so, is there enough room to cram LTE hardware into those sites?

Must be near Wilsky and Veterans. Went south on expressway from Gunn, and got full scale signal at Wilsky exit. Carried it to about the Waters toll plaza, then sporadic. Check Sensorly soon.

I'll pass through there on my way home from work in a few hours.

On that Lakeland Highlands site, Sensorly speedtest was 9 down 7 up.

There's life in Lakeland! My friend is now running Sensorly, and is reporting LTE in the Lakeland Highlands area. It's south of the Polk Parkway, and east of SR 37. It's not an all map layers yet, so you may need to zoom in/out a couple of times.

Just heard from someone I know in Polk County. He picked up a 4G signal in Highland City, near Winter Haven. I've asked him to start using Sensorly in that area.

Picked up a marginal LTE signal on Dale Mabry, from north of Hillsborough, to south of Waters (near Hamilton). I wasn't able to run a speedtest at the time, but Sensorly should have picked it up, unless someone already got there before me. Signal was about half-scale in the area.

Passed by the Bearss site yesterday, along 275. It seems like the 4G coverage drops off rather quickly, on the northeast side of the tower. Within a mile or so of passing that tower (entering the long stretch between Bearss and I-75/SR56), I was demoted to 3G service again. Has anyone else noticed this, and is there another tower nearby, that's more suited to cover this section?

I'm happy to see that Hillsborough County is starting to come to life, but I'm still not seeing much (any) in the center of town, particularly downtown and Westshore. Is anything officially in progress in these areas? I work near 275 and Dale Mabry, and I'd love to get LTE at my desk.

Update: I just power-cycled my phone, and it doesn't seem to be happening now.

Then it happened on my entire drive today. I live near SR52 and Moon Lake Rd, in Pasco. From the time I left the driveway, until I arrived at the office in Tampa, it happened on every cycle. So either it is a false positive, or there's about to be a ton of LTE coming online very soon.

I ran LTE Discovery on the drive this morning, on the same route I mentioned in my earlier message. Came up with nothing. I don't know if it's the way my phone works, or the behavior of the app...but the app reports LTE, for the split second immediately after coming out of airplane mode. It then progresses through unknown (<1sec), then 1x (<1sec), before settling on eHRPD (until next airplane mode cycle). To keep the app from stopping the scan on each false positive, I enabled the option to keep running, even after discovering LTE.

I'll be driving to work via Suncoast/Lutz-Lake Fern/Dale Mabry tomorrow AM. Will end near Dale Mabry and Cypress. I'll keep Sensorly running on the commute.

Rapidsys (Rapid Systems) is a fixed wireless Internet (802.11) service in the area. They may have been working on their own equipment on that tower. But, I guess there's a slight chance that they could be providing backhaul to Sprint for that tower? It would be unusual, but I think they would have the bandwidth to support it.

I haven't tried it myself, but LTE would still be 1900 only, right? I was under the impression that voice (and maybe EVDO) would be available down at 800 for now.