Oedipus

GMR's not the worst thing in the world, at least B25 and B26 are still a possibility. GMOs on the other hand, limited B25 (most don't have it) and no B26.

Except that now, they can't do b41 without re-engineering all of the sites. It's been a while since I checked, but I've never seen a gmr b41 setup.

I'm still wondering what Sprint was thinking when they did all of the GMR builds in Fresno.

I rarely travel to Fresno nowadays. How widespread is band 41 throughout Fresno?

It's not. Very few sites have it.

Is this sprint equipment

No, TMob on the bottom and ATT on top. The single tier of 3 sectors might be Verizon, but normally they have three or more per sector.

That flag is pretty important; removing it (even temporarily) would result in one hell of a stink. The problem with that tower is that it is tapered; normally they are the same diameter all the way up. Before they added the NV gear (and added a slightly wider sheath at the top) I'll bet very few people knew it was more than a flagpole.

That was frequently the case for me. There's not enough bandwidth (b41 will greatly help, but it's going to be a while) and there's not enough sites.

Any news on full spark capability in Fresno?

I'm only aware of one site with B41 gear in Fresno, and that one is a roof top setup. The others are going to be hard because they weren't able to keep the old rackspace from the old, pre-NV gear, so now they have to re-engineer everything all over again. I'd give it another 6 months at least.

Close; I'm on Verizon.

Finally spotted b41 gear in clovis

B41 isn't going to help with coverage unless they add more sites.

Verizon has been consistently great here in Fresno.

Band 41 is coming. It might take a while, but it'll be here. I saw Band 41 in Fresno about half a mile east of Whole Foods too.

 

 

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I suspect the rooftop site at Shaw/Blackstone has B41 gear, but there's so much up there and visibility is so poor that it's hard to tell.

The sprint coverage map shows Spark in absolutely all of Fresno and Clovis.....including the areas we know not to have any LTE at all.

I saw today that the bellaire site is still a GMO, btw.

I haven't seen a single set of B41 antennas in Fresno/Clovis, so that map is even more wrong than usual. It actually shows Spark coverage in areas that don't have LTE coverage.

 

At the risk of sounding like the boy who cried wolf, I think Sprint has finally lit up the tower at Akers and 198 in Visalia with LTE. I thought they were working on them last January, but as Oedipus pointed out, Sprint's towers were second from the bottom. 

 

I've seen a sky trak there the last couple weeks, and I can confirm that there are new panels on that rack, and today I am on 4G. I took some Sensorly tracks and speed tests. It's certainly not Spark but still better than 3G. 

 

Weirdly enough, I have been in Visalia every day this week and I noticed that that tower is indeed upgraded. Took them long enough, jeez.

For anyone wondering why the main downtown/Costco flag pole tower in Merced hasn't been touched, it seems Sprint has been working with the city to change the design (to a T bar monopole) to avoid a GMO. 

 

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Special thanks to mj1108 at HoFo for finding these cool documents (he was checking to see why T-Mobile hadn't upgraded this tower from 4G to LTE). He's also seen T-Mobile install and test 700MHz LTE in Merced, so hopefully Sprint is soon next with 800MHz LTE.

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First attempt in Jan 2014 was to keep it as a flag pole but with a fat top cover. I believe AT&T uses this design in Fresno?

https://www.cityofmerced.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=13382

 

Second attempt in Oct 2014 was to change it to a regular T bar monopole.

https://www.cityofmerced.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=14142

 

It seems like they approved the last option with conditions (odd, I think it looks worse than the first option). Hopefully that means it'll be upgraded to LTE soon... that tower could really use it. Also, you can see the "real" indoor / car / street coverage map of Merced in those documents, for anyone interested. 

Yes, almost every AT&T site in fresno looks like that. It makes them very easy to spot.

I really hope that VoLTE is on its way.  Also just got done talking to a Sprint rep on Twitter after asking about WiFi calling with the Nexus 6, since TMobile should be getting the update to activate it shortly, and they said they are looking into adding WiFi Calling to the Nexus, I think it's smart of the carriers to offput some of the load to WiFi, this would mean a more reliable mobile network for those who are out of WiFi coverage, and it would eliminate the need for an AirRave.  Hopefully Sprint adds more phones to WiFi Calling.  (if this does not belong on this thread please let me know)

In this area at least, VoLTE is a nonstarter until we at least have 800 LTE. It works great on Verizon!

I've heard that AT&T has poopy coverage in the Big Sur area as well.

Adding to that, I haven't yet seen any B41 work in Fresno. There's a couple of towers in Clovis that have permits pending, only a couple.

No. I'm amazed Bakersfield even has access to electricity.

Are the Visalia B41 sites converted Wimax or native Sprint? Or both? I haven't been down there in forever.

Any clue what type of equipment they use on that site? Can this site be integrated into B41?

Pretty sure the Wimax stuff is Huawei. That site has (Samsung) B41 gear, as pictured above.

This is what to look for; B41 on the left:

South of McFarland

Guess no one cares about that Spark is Starting here? with my latest post?

I saw B41 gear north of Bakersfield off the 99 a few weeks ago.