drock2750

Standing at Clark and Addison... The stadium is full and I'm getting 9 megabits still. Nice!

Look man we're all sharing our experiences with sprints new network in and around Chicago... We know you have lte everywhere you go but other people who aren't as familiar with your posts or people new to s4gru might be confused by claims of lte in places where towers haven't even been upgraded. We don't all have the same equipment so our experiences vary, but willful misinformation damages the quality of the site. Ok now I can get off my soapbox lol

OMG don't get me started on the loop. Im glad someone else has noticed too. Again, the NV sites complete map still shows the same two towers (from Jan) in the Loop as the only two to receive their LTE NV upgrades. LTE is almost non existent if you make a box from Congress east to LSD, North on LSD to Wacker, and then Wacker all the way along the river back to Congress. The 3G is the same old slow, bogged down, and likely 1X speeds at best. Most of the time I can't even get my device to update my email in this area, let alone emails with pictures or attachments, forget about it. It's just that the speed at which Chicago saw its towers upgraded and light up from the burbs inwards towards the city was great, and almost predictably stable, then as we approach the Loop something changed, upgrades occur at a snails pace. Im not complaining, I just didn't expect this or see this coming give then pace we saw in the past.

When I was in Paris and totally without a cell network I became an expert wifi hopper! I find myself doing the same thing in and around the loop. GrooveIP and Target or McDonalds' wifi is a more reliable call than cellular. I ate lunch yesterday at McDonalds and their Wifi was on the fritz so I was totally without functional data sitting there on State Street. Fortunately the Evo has an FM radio so I could get my NPR without data. I was jealous though of everybody else reading huffpost and checking facebook on their phones while I watched from my little Sprint Chicago Loop bubble where it's still 2004.

I know Sprint was having cash burn issues before Softbank, but it seems like they didn't invest in the network at all until NV. VZW didn't let the 3g network fall to pieces before starting their LTE rollout. The only explanation I can think of is they didn't have the financing or the cash to do anything...there's no way they would have planned to let things fall apart. I'm very pleased with my new LTE access where it is available though. When it's all done it will be marvelous.

I just hope the phone will give up on an unusable EVDO signal and use the 800smr for data.

 

Sent from my little Note2

When I'm in/near the loop 100kbps would be amazing! Lately 1x has been all that's available for me around there, but 1x data on the old equipment isn't useable either. Everything just times out :-(

Has anybody else shared my experience of ehrpd not working properly anymore in many parts of the city? The NPR app does not take kindly to interrupted data sessions. My phone reports EVDO revA much of the time when on 3g now.

Could it be that your PRL was recently updated that allowed your phone to access the 800mhz band of LTE?

As far as I know, there aren't any devices available that can use Sprint's new LTE band....even the new HTC One can't and its not even out yet.

Oh yes I know the tower now. It is at 3900 N Lake Shore, but this tower received its NV upgrades months ago, when the whole wave of NV upgrades starting come through the area last last year. It was already marked as 3G/800/4G, along with the other towers nearby along LSD, in the NV Sites Complete Map. And its been marked that way since probably December. Was the map icon wrong, was the LTE not turned on.

 

CH13XC050

 

41.95327475758518, -87.64550136425845,

3900 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60613, USA

As far as I can see, there is no way the tower was broadcasting 4G until very recently. I def would have noticed such a strong signal on LSD not to mention that 4G wasn't available inside my apartment until this happened.

Wait for real, I dont see anything new on the NV Sites complete map for the area. I dont even see a site in this area on the Chicago NV tower map that shows there is or was another tower in this area slated for NV. Could this be this rumored Sprint site that's on Addison just east of Wrigley at the Police Station tower. That's not even a cell site according to the Chicago NV map.

Supposedly I'm connected to bsid 35681 at 41.953263888888884, -87.64548611111111 just north of Sheridan and LSD...I know that it's the CDMA tower I'm connected to, but the LTE is so strong near there that it stands to reason it is broadcasting LTE also. I even have LTE in my apartment now that this site is active. The site seems to be on the roof of the parking garage for 3900 N LSD, and in Bing Maps birds eye view the antennas are visible (legacy of course I know the images aren't updated frequently). The site even appears at network.sprint.com.

New LTE has lit up near Waveland and Lake Shore...had -79db standing in front of the New York building, but when i went underground to the parking garage and lost LTE, I was back to EVDO revA not eHRPD and the data session was interrupted. I wonder why ehrpd isn't working properly in this area. Curiouser and curiouser.

In the areas near Addison and LSD over to Wrigley, my phone is reporting EVDO not eHRPD when not on LTE (which has subsequently disappeared in much of this area), and has been for several days. When I was in the loop this evening I was on eHRPD as I normally would be though I was unable to load a webpage, but that's the same old story down there.

I was under the impression that when a tower was upgraded, that it was pretty much a done deal aside from downtilt, but today on Michigan near the Water Tower, I had very strong LTE (-90ish) and only 50kbps of throughput.

For a while it was apparent that steady improvements were being made, but lately things have been a mess where I live and work. As somebody who (like most people) has never hired a contractor to do a network build out, it makes me wonder...is Samsung even doing a good job? Has anybody in other markets with other contractors seen steps backward on the way to a fully upgraded market?

So you think this Tower on Addison near the Police Station is going to be a new Sprint tower? Hmmmmm. Well Sprint just finished their NV upgrades to the tower on Clark & Addison, but its 3G/800, not LTE. Also, I know for a fact that this tower only supplies service to the South (the stadium is across the street to the North), so really it helps the Clark St and Wrigleyville bar crowd, but not the Wrigley Field patrons at all. Sprint told me this, they said the tower that is designed to cover Wrigley Field (with LTE) is up on Irving Park and Clark, pretty far away from the density of the Wrigley crowd on game days.

 

So to me, it would totally make sense if Sprint were planning to add capacity and LTE service to Wrigley via the tower you took a picture from on Addison, lord knows the density of that area, especially during ball games and nights out could really high, and could def use some capacity help. The only other thing I know is that there is a tower on School & Ashland, a bit to the west of Wrigley that is the only one in the area not to receive its NV upgrades yet. So I'm sure with the completion of that tower (fingers crossed) and perhaps this new tower on Addison, service and capacity has no where to go but up for the whole LakeView area.

I generally have LTE when standing in front of Wrigley, but it must be from another tower. Do we know why the decision would be made to upgrade a site to 3g/800 but not LTE? What would the holdup be in that scenario?

The tower on the police station is so tall they'd need some serious downtilt! Very unusual to have a suburban/nowheresville style tower in the middle of the city.

The new police station in Lakeview by Wrigley has had a massive tower (by city standards) on it with no antennas since construction. A few days ago, the sidewalk was marked with orange spray paint reading "Sprint" all the way around the building to the telephone pole in the alley. Coincidence? I hope not.

I have also noticed that I am frequently without data connectivity while in motion and moving from tower to tower. Even with strong 1x signal, when 4G disappears I will be left completely without data rather than the graceful transition back to 3G that I used to have. The phone engineering screen will say "GPRS service disconnected" or "connecting" during this time. I have never had functional 1X data with this phone...when I am underground on the red line and roaming on USC, I can talk and SMS, but absolutely no data for me. For certain apps like NPR News, this interrupts the session and is very frustrating, not to mention I am a google voice user and for me no data means no texting. Sometimes it will fall back to 3g as it should, but this is not the rule anymore in my experience, though the problem certainly seems to occur more in the city vs the burbs. On the bus ride up Michigan ave at very low speed, this is very apparent and my phone will be without data for a minute or two MANY times before getting to Lake Shore. I realize that the Evo Lte has not sold as well as the GSIII, but surely somebody at Sprint must use this phone...I thought this would resolve itself in a month or so... it baffles me that it is not getting any better. It really started with the second and most recent jelly bean update. As a reader of this forum, I'm interested to know what the problem is, but the paying customer in me just wants it fixed regardless of whether it is HTC or Sprint.

Lots of LTE to be had up where I live in lakeview, but yea, the loop is like stepping into the bad old days! As I mentioned in a previous post, some LTE sites just north of the loop are very slow too, when the engineering screen indicates strong signal. Hopefully Sprint will keep chugging along...and who knows, maybe they will light up the whole loop on the same day (I'm staying positive.) And yes, I know some people are saying that they have great LTE underwater, upside down, and ten sub basements down in the loop, but I can corroborate the experiences of most everybody else on here. I have become an expert wifi hopper while down here at school!

Are you actually checking your LTE signal in the LTE Engineering screens? Or are you going off of bars?

In my case I'm going off the engineering screen...on my phone the bars are only 1x. Sprint wouldn't upgrade equipment and enable LTE before the backhaul for that site could be upgraded would they? A NV tower with LTE served by a few old T-1s would kind of be a lateral move interms of data speed.

Around 180 N Michigan yesterday I didn't have any 3g or 1x service, but I did have LTE with a relatively strong signal that only gave me 500kbps. Also, in my friend's apartment at Dearborn and Grand, I get tremendous LTE signal strength, but only about 50 kbps max in throughput. It just doesn't seem possible that these sites have been instantly overwhelmed by Sprint LTE users. Has anybody else noticed slow LTE with strong signal?

Does anybody know why Sprint's coarse (network based) location is commonly accurate to only within 2000-3000+ feet? Friends on other networks are able to do significantly better than this. I was hoping that maybe this was something that would improve with network vision, and maybe it will when it's complete, but no such luck so far. I'm aware that turning on GPS is always more accurate but if somebody could shed some light on this I would appreciate it. This really only applies to Chicago, as I have no idea what it's like in other markets, and it is inaccurate even in the city where tower density is pretty high and you'd think it would have increased accuracy.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/19/sprint-lte-chicago/

Does anybody know if this is just an official announcement of things that have already happened, or are they announcing new equipment coming online today?

Noise. Quality of signal. Signal strength is only one factor. I experienced this in Wichita Falls at one site. One sector had a lot of noise and speeds were maxing out around 18-20Mbps with a really strong signal. I went a half mile away on the other side of the tower, the signal quality improved and speeds increased to 35Mbps. Same site, but different sector and out of the noise.

 

Robert via Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

I find that even when in weak signal, latency on LTE is sooooooo much better than EVDO was, and that is a huge part of what makes an internet connection seem fast. Latency certainly gets worse with less signal, but it's still remarkably consistent. If netflix HD streams need less than 5 mbps, there's not much to be done with all these megabits...such high speed wireless connections are only useful from a capacity perspective. Phones can't render webpages super quickly anyway vs desktops. Seeing such crazy numbers in speed test sure is fun though! I always felt my WiMax speeds were more than adequate...building penetration issues aside lol

More than one LTE site lit up today in Lakeview. I'm indoors at Clark and diversey getting strong LTE signal, and netmonitor is reporting to a 1x tower calling itself 744 w Barry that I've never seen before.

Jelly Bean is out for Evo LTE...lets see how this affects LTE scanning performance vs GSIII. Finally!

Details of Sprint's internal QoS is not known at this time by any of us. However, text messages are sent via Sprint's 1x network and not affected by Yahoos watching YouTube on the EVDO, WiMax or LTE networks.

 

Robert

 

EDIT: Nevermind my comment. I just saw you said Google Voice and I missed that initially. Google Voice obviously uses data sources beyond 1x.

Thanks Robert...speaking of 1x, I had another question for you...

My old Sanyo flip had 1xrtt data only, no evdo...it was slow but functional. Why is it that on my Evo LTE, the phone will report "no data connection available" when 3g isn't connected but 1x has good signal. Are new phones able to use 1x for anything but voice and texting? I'd rather have 50 kbps in a pinch than nothing at all! My understanding is that ehrpd only deals with evdo lte handoff...maybe throwing 1x data into the mix was something Sprint wanted to avoid? is anybody out there able to use 1x data? Is 1x data part of NV at all?

How much do we know about Sprint's QOS setup in the NV rollout? Obviously someday voice over LTE will require some form of QOS, but I am hoping that they are doing something more sophisticated than port based QOS since lots of things use port 80 for purposes other than HTTP. I believe google voice uses port 80, and it's frustrating when I have trouble sending or receiving a 1 KB text message because some goofballs are using up all available capacity watching youtube or listening to pandora. Even some voip apps use port 80 since it is almost never blocked by IT on wifi networks. I also always wondered how they could differentiate at the network level between data used by the phone and data used by a computer tethered to the phone to kick people off that haven't paid for tethering.

As a Wrigley resident, my Airave keeps me chuggin along! I highly recommend it. I find that when I'm inside a bar, signal strength is a problem, not just sprint's capacity. If I operated a bar, I would install a radio repeater for all major bands with an antenna on the roof...they're like 300 bucks. That would keep people in the bar and their batteries juiced up longer. I realize this doesn't solve a capacity issue, but when you're deep inside some of these buildings, and google voice is failing to send out the tiniest snippet of text, signal is often the problem.

On another note, my ride from Howard down to Addison on the Red Line yesterday had netmonitor reporting cell towers either with no name at all or names/addresses that aren't even in Illinois and no carrier ID. Even though I'm sure the names don't affect operation, it seems to be a clear indication that work is being done so I'm happy about that!

Since Sprint is buying US Cellular's customers, and they've vowed to upgrade all towers, I wonder if that means LTE eventually in State and Dearborn St subways. Netmonitor used to report US Cellular as the operator when roaming down there, but now it reports SprintCom...obv the equipment is still the same, so it seems like software changes are already happening. I've connected to some 3G towers near my apartment lately that are totally unfamiliar also. I know the deal isn't completed, but maybe they're integrating networks already? I have no way to prove this, just my wild speculation!

The fact that US Cellular didn't deploy a lick of LTE in Chicago makes my cynical mind think that this sale was a long time in the making...maybe they didn't have a buyer, but they were probably evaluating options. Chicago is their home market after all...I doubt they'd neglect it without a reason like that. Too bad their LTE freq isn't useful to Sprint's current handsets!

And if u don't base the success of of % complete WHAT DO U BASE IT OFF OFF??? Lol

 

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus Rockin 4.2.1 using Tapatalk 2

This is my lowest score outside out and about with sprint lte. How is this slow? Sure it isn't vzw speed but that's not what sprint was aiming at

 

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus Rockin 4.2.1 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

I never said Sprint LTE was slow...it's screamin' fast in my experience. Are you sure you replied to the correct post?

I've noticed that in the past few days in Uptown, my phone loses 4G even while standing still, but the strange thing is that it won't fall back to 3G...instead I'll have no data connection at all until 4G reappears. I assume that it's related to work going on in the area...has anybody else seen anything similar elsewhere? I can reproduce this on Broadway from Wilson down to Irving.

And no, I'm not in LTE only mode!