Zachthelizard

I know most of 81 from about the Sweet Briar area to 66 in Virginia has LTE coverage and decent speeds (~15 Mbps down). I'm sure based on Sensorly that it extends further north, but I've never been that far so I can't comment. Very few patches based on my mapping now, and getting better each time I drive on 81.

On 66, it's much more patchy and disappears entirely by the Fauquier county line. I've not noticed much if any improvement beyond the initial launch.

On 211 in Virginia it's also very patchy, with LTE entirely gone (and service in general) past Luray moving into the national park. I'd hate to wreck in there! Service doesn't come back till about Sperryville, as I recall. The area is pretty much the middle of nowhere, I can't blame anyone for not servicing it properly.

I'm getting LTE at the intersection of Route 15 and 29 in the Gainesville area. It extends more or less from there south on 29 to New Baltimore (very weak and unusable signal though at that point) to almost where I-66 and Rt. 15 intersect. Going north on 29 it extends a bit into Gainesville but the signal doesn't make it to 66 from that direction, nor is it present in the shopping center off Linton Hall road (at least where I was, anyways). Don't worry, I ran Sensorly.

At the intersection of 15 and 29 I've gotten ~20 Mbps down, which is pretty good. I think it is a site very close to this intersection that's giving off this signal.

Also I've noticed a patch of LTE somewhere between Manassas and Centreville on 66. I also ran Sensorly here. By Centreville the signal was very weak and Pandora stuttered for a bit before it switched to 3G. I think it dies near Manassas on the west.

In Reston, the signal in our office hasn't been improved at all, and I don't get LTE even in all of our parking lot. I wonder if our building itself is going to be an NV cell site, as I can see a bunch of panels. I'd love to know if any are Sprint panels. Unfortunately I only have my phone as a camera, and it just doesn't get much detail.

Days pass and nothing no new LTE suburbs 3G slow as hell lets see when they start here

They've already started, and have been for months. In fact, if you look at Sensorly, you can even see fleeting glimpses of LTE in Rockville, MD.You probably also have a bunch of 3G upgrades in your own neck of the woods. Rockville is probably a lot easier to get backhaul in than out there (but still DC market) places like Purcellville.

Crickets......

I'm hoping the pace picks back up again soon. It was nice painting the map purple.

I was mapping it while is was running hopefully it went thru. Otherwise i, i would map it next time i go for a run.

Looks like your mapping did show up a bit on Sensorly. I'd be very curious to see how close this signal gets to Manassas. It doesn't look like it will get to Woodbridge based on the little bit that's showed up on Sensorly.

 

 

Well, I either have a bad device or the improvements are being misstated. I have been 100 yards away from an active LTE tower and still had to do the airplane mode dance. And this is a tower that has been up and running for months.

To my knowledge there is a timer before the LTE radio cuts on, so of that timer doesn't trigger in range of a tower you may have to do the airplane mode dance.

Looks like a blip in Norfolk appeared on Sensorly.

I wasn't on 28, but I was on 7100 and had LTE for most of the way from 66 to Sunrise Valley Drive. Previously I was able to connect to LTE on 28, just didn't go that way today. Peak speaks were ~25 Mbps in a section with a strong signal.

Since some are talking about the rollout's area: I believe the DC market stretches from Frederick, MD to Leesburg, VA to Culpeper, VA to Fredericksburg, VA to some point in MD to Frederick, MD. It's a wide geographic area. In some areas (such as Culpeper) there isn't even eHRPD yet. I still think most of the market will have some level of LTE though before Sprint decides the market is launched or not though.

Turns out I am able to get an LTE signal in the Reston International Center. By a window I can get 10 Mbps. Further internal to the building I get ~2.7-3.3 Mbps and occassional drops to 3G. CDMA Field Test puts the cell site on the Toll Road (267 for those outside of the region) between Monroe St and 7100.

I was at the Reston Parkway / Sunrise Valley Dr intersection in Reston and acquired a very weak LTE signal on SVD. I work at the Reston International Center and had a terribly weak signal in the parking lot to this intersection. It evaporated as I got on the Reston Parkway. In the parking lot I had a -114 dBm LTE signal and only got 3.3 mbps down due to the weak signal. I'm not sure if it's coming from the Sprint building as it got weaker as I approached it, but who knows.

I was able to connect at the new dark purple blip in Reston today. Very low signal though, only 2 bars on my iPhone 5.

Directly on top of it or near it? I'd be interested in seeing how far it goes. My office is in the Reston International Center nearby so I'm curious as to if it will penetrate the glass / have the range to reach there.

Also, there is now a blip on 66 near Route 50.

That deep purple in Reston is right on the Sprint Nextel building, IIRC. The other smaller blip was by Alcatel IIRC.

Looks as though there is some LTE on 495 in VA on Sensorly.

I think our launch is coming real soon!

I'm going to guess late December / January for an official launch at the earliest. Coverage is expanding, but Sprint seems to have a coverage threshold before they have their marketing team spring into action. I'd expect DC to be mostly blanketed and coverage showing up in NoVA and probably Frederick, MD before they push the "launch" button. Note that this is not 100% coverage, as they tend to launch with holes everywhere.

I drove from Radford, VA up to 66 and beyond and found the LTE coverage more spotty than Sensorly would have you believe. I had an excellent signal in and around Harrisonburg but lost it and picked it up repeatedly on 81 before getting a more solid stretch of LTE before 66. I ran Sensorly the entire way. 2200 points of LTE.

As soon as I got on 66, however, my signal went away except for a tiny blip.

The highest speed achieve was 34 mbps around Harrisonburg, 8 mbps up.

While driving through Charlotte for the holidays, I was able to get an LTE signal on 85 south past Gastonia. It wasn't a terribly strong signal, but I did get ~11mbps down and 3 mbps up. I didn't get any LTE in or before Charlotte itself, however. I think the LTE radio timer is the factor there.

No LTE in Reston again. I toggled airplane mode in a couple places hoping to get a whiff of the completed site there. No dice. I did get to experience LTE in the Shentel markets and can say it will be awesome when it comes to NOVA.

Shenandoah Telecom (Shentel) launched their markets, and they wholesale to Sprint. Sprint itself didn't launch anything as they don't own the towers on I–81.

Reston had an LTE blip on Sensorly before DC did, but that tower has not broadcasted LTE for some time, unless things have very recently changed. I'm curious as to why no completed sites in Virginia are broadcasting, even ones completed for a long time.

How !!!

 

 

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Sprint has limited resources, and the cost / customer reaches absurb levels in certain regions of the country. Plot a new tower down in downtown Manhattan and you've reached a ton of new customers. In the middle of Nowheresville County, Deserted Western State, there are only a handful of new customers, even if the effort is in the same order of magnitude. Think in terms of ROI for Sprint, a company currently losing money every quarter.

Good, it looks like the completed towers in DC have finally been unblocked! Or turned on, whichever it was.

Only in DC proper, it seems. None of the ones in VA are broadcasting. I'm curious as to why that is.

SO I guess you haven't noticed those 2 DC sites have gone from a couple of points at each expanded since yesterday, because I certainly have.

Two towers does not a launch make. Especially when other completed sites are not live, even when those sites were completed long before those sites in DC. When other completed sites are unblocked then we can call it launched.

Well I guess you better look at the Sensorly map because it went live.

What about Sensorly? There are some signals from probably two towers in DC and none from any completed Virginia sites in the DC market. The DC market has not gone live yet.

I doubt that Sprint will launch today unless they made truly amazing progress in getting LTE sites ready. I am guessing end of the month or December at this point. They don't even have all of their sites unblocked.

I would love to be proven wrong, though.

Went to the sprint store the other day and spoke with one of the representatives about how bad the service is getting, and he said it's happening to everyone but it's probably only due to maintenance they're performing. He also said that they plan on DC LTE being live in early November, not sure how true that is or whether his boss was just blowing smoke... It would be nice though!

There is a blip on Sensorly in what looks like PG county near the Capital Heights metro stop. Hopefully it's not a fleeting test LTE signal and stays on more permanently. It could be a sign of a soft launch. Hopefully they unblock any sites in VA (Sensorly shows one in Reston) and DC and not just those in MD as they seem to have done so far.