drock2750
-
Posts
111 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Blogs
Articles
Media Demo
Gallery
Downloads
Events
Forums
Everything posted by drock2750
-
What do you mean by unlicensed backhaul?
-
I was at Milwaukee and North for the first time in a while recently and was connected to a CDMA800 tower FAR away from me. Data wasn't usable either...just timed out. Even if backhaul is still an issue, what is the legacy equipment doing there? If the remaining legacy equipment is in densely populated areas, that's a lot of unhappy customers, and unhappy customers = churn. I know alcatel has a whitepaper on how to use bonded DSL lines for backhaul in LTE deployments, so youd think that if a site was a year delayed in backhaul they could get temporary backhaul via omnipresent ADSL2+ lines. It would be waaay better than the scenario that exists now, one would think. Even ethernet over copper from Megapath or Ethernet over fiber from RCN or Comcast is available all over the city. RCN will sell you a symmetrical gigabit ethernet over fiber connection if you want one. For a multi unit building I work at they quoted me $1800/month for a 100x100 connection....by far the lowest bid. Temporary backhaul just doesn't seem unreasonable to me when dealing with delays of this magnitude. If this notion has been discussed in other posts, I'd be happy to read up on it.
-
It's actually a little disconcerting to see that 85% of towers are live with LTE 1900 when LTE is only available maybe 40-50% of the time in my experience. Hopefully it's just that most of my time is spent in the remaining 15%, not an indicator that this whole thing isn't ever going to work well. Because many sites near me aren't LTE, you have a much better shot at getting LTE outdoors. The decreased indoor coverage radius from a tower combined with the dearth of LTE sites in the first place makes indoor LTE a rare event for me.
-
It's interesting that a market with so many incomplete sites can go almost a week without any site updates. At Market Days in Lakeview this weekend 300,000 people showed up. Sprint data fell apart, but Verizon data AND voice collapsed. My calls and SMSs were going through without an issue.
-
This was one of the busiest site acceptance updates that I've seen for Chicago...a trend to continue I hope. Does anybody know what it means when the total number of updates for a market is larger than the number of LTE updates, 3G, cdma 800 updates, and iDen conversions combined?
-
I have experienced speeds like that also, the thing that I was trying to get across was that even with strong signal, many of the sites in and around the loop don't seem to be working properly. Also, I have been getting my signal strength info from either the engineering screen or CDMA field test, not just looking at the bars. It's almost like some people don't seem to believe me...I'm not confusing 1x signal strength with LTE signal...you're all just going to have to trust me on that.
-
The cell site outside Wrigley Field is able to deliver 3+ megabits even when the stadium and street are packed....that's why I don't think that capacity is the issue with the problematic sites in the loop...especially the ones that sometimes have no internet connectivity whatsoever. I don't fully understand how traffic is routed and how that relates to the 4G "core", but I'm of the opinion that if 4G isn't working properly in an area that Sprint should shut of the LTE radio on the site to avoid giving their new network a black eye. Even the average subscriber notices the 4G icon, and would attribute slow speeds to being in an area without LTE, but if that 4G icon is lit up and the speeds are still bad, people might think that the new network is no better than before. It also would drive down the non-scientific speed test numbers performed by Cnet and PC Mag et al, which is bad publicity.
-
On my phone the bars only tell you 1x signal strength...the only way to know LTE signal on my phone is to go into the engineering screen, so that's what I do.
-
Has anybody else noticed extreme reductions in LTE throughput around the loop? I'm experiencing less than 100 kbps with strong LTE signal all over the place and sometimes no internet connectivity at all until I disable LTE. What would make a site with upgraded backhaul and NV that previously worked well perform so poorly?
-
If T Mobile was looking further down the road with their decisions way back then, it's still a glaring contrast between the two companies. Sprint must have some estimate of how long it takes to get backhaul to any given site, and even if it took 2 years for att to run backhaul to a site, then they should have placed the order 2 years in advance so that the backhaul upgrades and the NV equipment upgrades would have happened at around the same time. Upgrading the backhaul before legacy equipment was removed probably would have been ok too. I understand that backhaul is the reason things are progressing so slowly, but it isn't a good reason...certainly doesn't let Sprint off the hook.
-
T Mobile just announced that they have LTE service in 73 of the top 100 markets while Sprint has 22 out of the top 100 markets. Their CTO Neville Ray then made fun of Sprint for missing "every possible deadline". The fact that T Mobile has been able to move so much more quickly seems to indicate that there is no good reason that NV is taking so long. Backhaul is not a legitimate excuse when an even smaller carrier is able to make it happen in a fraction of the time. It has to either be mismanagement or cashflow issues. In Chicago, even towers that have 3G 800 or LTE or any other upgrades, these capabilities come and go from day to day on any given tower. I had 3G 800 at home for a few days and then poof...back to PCS. Many towers that have LTE often have no internet connectivity even with strong signal. Hopefully Softbank will do some housecleaning in Sprint's engineering department...they couldn't possibly feel that the rollout is going well or going quickly. http://bgr.com/2013/07/10/t-mobile-us-lte-footprint/
-
I haven't been reporting problems like this during the NV roll out...I chalk it up to ongoing work. I have to imagine that a tower in the loop that has moved a tiny fraction of the data an adjacent tower has transmitted would show up as a problem at wherever these things are remotely administered.
-
There are several sites around the loop that seem to have incredibly slow or completely unusable speeds even with a very strong LTE signal. Once I move around enough to connect to a different tower, the problem disappears. This has gone on for weeks with whatever tower covers State and Jackson for example...you'd think they'd be aware of the problem by now...
-
The tower at Sheridan and Lake Shore must have gone 800, because my phone won't connect to my airave anymore :-(...got a letter in the mail saying that the support for airave 1.0 was ending Aug 1, so I called and apparently they'll send me a current generation airave so not all bad.
-
I have no information as to whether Att is dragging their feet on backhaul, but I can tell you that if Sprint felt that it was happening, they'd instantly be in federal court filing a complaint. On a multibillion dollar project they're not just going to shrug their shoulders and tell Samsung et al to go play solitaire until Att gets it together. Also, let's not forget that Sprint is an ISP too...people forget that sprint.net is a thing.
-
Are all of these sites in the exact same locations as before? Are all of these sites in the same locations that the legacy sites were?
-
CDMA Field Test shows you the coordinates of the 1x tower you are connected to and will even map those coordinates for you. One case in point is that while near Congress and State, rather than connecting to a tower near Plymouth and Van Buren behind the library, I now connect to a tower on the Robert Morris Building at Congress and State. The old one seems inactive, and they likely wouldn't have had two legacy sites that close to each other one would think. There are other instances of connecting to 1x towers that are located in places that seem to be new, although the one i mentioned is the only specific one I made note of. According to an interview with one of their engineers posted on youtube, getting leases in new locations can take 18-24 months.
-
It would appear that some sites in the loop are in different locations than they used to be. Does anybody know if rather than simply upgrading existing equipment, Sprint is completely re-configuring their deployment in the loop, including location? If sites were being moved, and new leases were being negotiated etc. in the loop, that would more than explain the delays down there.
-
He claims to get LTE everywhere. If he gets LTE in the loop even though LTE isn't available, he should have no problem reporting it on sensorly. I sometimes wonder what he gets out of making this stuff up all the time, but I guess there's 1 in every forum.
-
Network Vision Explained
drock2750 replied to S4GRU's topic in Network, Network Vision/LTE Deployment
Forgive me if this has already been asked... Does anybody know if the new HD voice on 1x advanced will work when talking to people on other networks that have deployed whatever the GSM equivalent is? For that matter, if I'm using 1x advanced and HD voice and talking to somebody who is also using a new codec but on voice over LTE, will the quality still be higher than a regular cellular call? QUESTION RETRACTED...FOUND THE THREAD! -
Even though the market is 94% complete, I kind of wondered if it would nonetheless be a huge difference in network quality when the project is completely done and nobody is messing with or changing things anymore. Even in areas where LTE is available, it is inconsistent, and I just chalk it up to ongoing work in the market. Often, eHRPD and/or EvDO are unavailable downtown, but because it's intermittent, it has to be related to the buildout right? The 94% complete stat would lead you to believe that things are 94% fantastic, but in my experience it's still a big mess. The running list estimates May as the completion month, but with the dramatic slowdown in the pace of the buildout, it keeps slip slip slipping into the future. One would imagine that towers that are the lone legacy holdouts in areas that have been upgraded have logistical challenges specific to their location, though the fact that almost the entire loop is a holdout continues to mystify me.
-
Actually Alcatel Lucent has a whitepaper titled "Leveraging VDSL2 for mobile backhaul" that talks about how channel bonding is such a great solution for bringing an LTE site online quickly, and just a quick google search about DSL channel bonding and LTE backhaul turns up TONS of current stuff. The equipment I saw had "clearwire" written on the side, so I'm not stating that the LTE equipment was using DSL backhaul, but the wimax equipment was. Why are you so sure that DSL isn't being used? It seems like an excellent, cost effective solution, and many trade magazines seem to agree. Coincidentally, VDSL2 DSLAMS are installed in COs and VRADs across Chicagoland.
-
I was at my friend's apartment in Oak Park today and there is a Sprint tower on the roof of the building. In the laundry room was an electric meter labeled "Sprint" and some other equipment that appeared to be Clearwire, but don't know if it was shared. There were many phone lines being fed to two boxes with transparent covers over a large cable with numerous pairs. The two boxes had 6+ dsl modems each...each modem was on a card that seemed to share a common backplane. I would imagine that some kind of channel bonding is being used to get one really high capacity logical connection for use by the tower. The box that the phone lines were coming from was labelled "AT&T", but that might only be because it's the local phone company. Covad and others offer service in the area over ATT infrastructure. Is anybody else aware of DSL based backhaul at any other sites? If half a dozen DSL lines can serve as backhaul probably with PPPOE (and I don't see why that wouldn't work just fine), it def makes one wonder why Sprint is so behind schedule. I'll add pictures next time I'm there.
-
I see that Chicago hasn't ticked up even one percent in the Running List. Anybody have any new information on the Loop?
-
I think Wrigley may not have been at capacity yesterday because of the rain. Today I'm getting 2 megabits outside the stadium on game day which is just fine in my opinion. Just had a long phone call while outside the stadium too and it sounded just fine and didn't drop.the real test will be when the weather is warm and the Wrigley rooftops are full as well and there are zillions of people milling around outside on the street.
