drock2750

There is nothing slow about the pace the Chicago market has been deployed. Chicago currently stands with 72% of the cell sites in the market complete and accepted by Sprint. The next highest is Baltimore at 51%. Chicago will likely be the first market complete.

 

If there is a problem with the strategy Sprint employed with the rollout, I suggest you try an official channel for complaints.

I would agree that the buildout pace is not slow overall...what I wanted insight on was why there was a flurry of activity a couple months ago, rapidly getting to 70%, followed by this past month with very little happening. I know that there is a reason for everything in a project of this size but does anybody have any additional information? If a container ship full of equipment sinks, or there's a software problem, or if Sprint ran out of cash to keep moving at the same pace since the Softbank deal isn't done yet, or any of a million other potential hiccups in a complex process like deploying LTE occured, it could serve to slow things down. I'm not simply stating that it has slowed down (aka complaining), I'm asking if anybody knows why.

Based on line colors, these maps probably show the effects of Sprint users' "Sensorly Addiction". Note that the map of The Dark Side shows coverage almost exclusively along expressways and tollways, where the Sprint map shows much neighborhood coverage, This suggests that Sprint Sensorly-addicited nutcakes (like me) spend w-a-a-y too much time using our smart phones as signal monitors and mappers, where Dark Side users spend their time performing more practical activities (like driving). (You can see my contributions to the insanity on the Sensorly mapping of the far Northwest Suburbs.)

It also seems to show the much more sensible (in my opinion) strategy of deploying from the loop outward. Covering the area with the densest subscriber base first means a maximum number of happy users. Those users also happen to be closest to any kind of backhaul infrastructure anybody could need. It is frustrating that LTE coverage improvements seem to have ground to a halt in the city as evidenced by sensorly and my own experience. Rather than racing to cover the maximum number of square miles, you'd think they'd want to cover the maximum number of paying subscribers...

I posted over a month ago that I noticed a slowdown in active LTE coming online, and weeks and weeks later, no noticeable progress has been made and the NV complete % is essentially frozen. Does anybody have any knowledge of why the pace of the buildout has changed so much? While the nerd in me likes to know which sites have been NVed, the distinction between sites with NV but no active LTE doesn't really matter in any kind of useful way. There is no way that their contractor doesn't have a project schedule...if it's gonna be done in, say, 6 months, just tell us! We'd be ok with it!

Am I crazy or has LTE deployment seriously slowed down? It seemed like it was lighting up all over the place a month ago. I know they're 70% complete in Chicagoland, but I should think the vast majority or remaining sites is in the city...between all the dead zones and having an EVO Lte, I'm on 4G pretty much never. Does anybody know what's going on? I'm hoping their plan wasn't to get to 70% in a given market and then send resources elsewhere only to fill in holes later...it's all holes!

AT&T covers a much wider area per cell. That's why their signal seems to be stronger further away from the tower. Because of the signal type, Sprint has to place their towers closer together, and in densely populated areas, they put a severe downtilt on the cells so that they can maximize capacity, but it limits coverage. Some cells only cover a couple of blocks.

 

However, this will work in Sprint's favor, as it will help to keep them from getting overloaded as quickly at AT&T or Verizon will/have already since Sprint has denser coverage.

Very interesting I never knew that. Is downtilt a physical characteristic of the installation or is the signal digitally "steerable"? ( I'm an audio guy and steerable line arrays are all the rage to let you control directivity of an array without physically moving it.) You'd think that they'd adjust tilt to cover large areas initially and then tilt them down as more sites are added...even if that caused the capacity to be spread thinner in the meantime, most customers would be happier if that 4G light stayed on more.

Has anybody else noticed that on Sensorly, ATT coverage indicates very strong signal across large distances while Sprint seems to have strong signal only in very close proximity to the towers with signal dropping off rapidly beyond that? I'd attribute it to a quirk with Sensorly, but it does kind of seem like the Sprint LTE towers don't cover much ground in my experience. I can be right by a tower at Montrose and Broadway and walk up to Wilson and Racine, and LTE will disappear.

I live in Lakeview and have noticed SIGNIFICANTLY improved 3g in many areas on the north side. I almost wonder why they didn't start in the city...closer to the ISPs for backhaul upgrades (fiber in many alleys in Chicago) and no tower climbing...just take the stairs to the roof of whatever building the antenna is on. If they never launch LTE I'd be happy with consistent 1.5mbps 3G...the phone is usable at that point...I'm very happy about the progress though!

Just wanted to report ehrpd near the Wilson Red Line! 3g symbol and data transfer arrows no longer light up when moving data. Data speeds are still horrendous, but I feel like progress is being made! This area has had sub dial up speeds and data time outs for a looong time. Forgive the terseness of the post...I'm writing this on my phone.