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tommym65

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Everything posted by tommym65

  1. tommym65
    There are 3 remaining non-LTE sites in CL and 1 in downtown Cary (the water tower near Rt. 14). The Cold Spring Road site is LTE. I think Kelsey Road is LTE. I don't know if the downtown Cary site has NV hardware yet, but I would guess that it does. The CL sites at 14/31 (Portillo's) and 14/176 are NV-hardware upgraded, have active 800 SMR, have microwave antennas installed, and seem to be waiting for some backhaul issue to be resolved. The last CL site was on a water tower near Bard Rd. that is supposedly being repainted (no work yet), and was temporarily moved to a wooden pole about 3 or 4 weeks ago, so who knows when it will be upgraded. It has neither LTE nor 800 SMR. According to a contractor that I talked to on-site, it has fiber already, and it does have really fast ping for a 3G site. (It is co-located with at least 2 other carriers.)
  2. tommym65
    And, as if by magic, the upgrade shows up in lovely green on today's updated Sites Accepted map!
  3. tommym65
    A Miracle has apparently happened!!!!! Site CH[censored] at Routes 31 and 176 in Crystal Lake, IL, has gone live with Band 25 LTE only 14 months after the NV hardware was installed! This morning, I clocked data speeds up to 34.4 Mbps down and 10.4 Mbps up, with pings between 53 and 85 ms. Why is this important? Because several sites in the far Chicago exurbs (Crystal Lake, Dekalb, others) have been stalled for months, for no visible reason. The upgraded Network vision hardware was visibly installed (new antennas, RRUs) in the summer of 2012, and in a number of cases, 800 SMR for voice and text was activated in the late spring and early summer of this year, and that has been a good thing. But LTE has been completely missing. 3 NV-upgraded sites remain without LTE in Crystal Lake and Cary, and now one can only hope that they get their LTE soonest. Now what will I rant about? Hmmm. Well, I was actually chasing Band 41 on a co-located Clear site when I found the new Band 25. No Band 41 evident. And I have been chasing an elusive Band 41 site in Algonquin, IL, for weeks. I KNOW where it is, and I get Band 41 signal from it on my Zing only in really odd places, but never near the site itself (so I can't get good speed numbers). And, oh, yeah, where's that pesky new Band 26? I guess I'm not out of topics yet. But I am so irrationally happy over today's discovery, I am almost tempted to forgive Sprint for all of its past indiscretions. Almost. ( )
  4. tommym65
    Unfortunately, you are in a Samsung market (so am I), and the "169" offset for LTE sector ID's doesn't work. Wirhout a phone or hotspot that gives you the LTE cell ID, it is very difficukt to identify LTE sites.
  5. tommym65
    According to his signature, David has: Phones/Devices:HTC ONE, Samsung Galaxy SIII, HTC EVO 4G LTE, EVO 3D Which leads me to a question: I have had the GS3 for about a year. Has anyone else noticed that their GS3 battery isn't holding a charge as well as it did when new, or am I imagining that mine discharges faster now?
  6. tommym65
    The best of success and good fortune in your new home and your new job.
  7. tommym65
    It will be interesting to see if they somehow magically slipped 800 LTE into the silly thing. That would just about fit the timing in Robert's map.
  8. tommym65
    Milwaukee/Madison Sprint sites do not report their actual locations. Rather, each site reports a different location for each sector (usually 3 sectors per site). These locations are offset in the direction that the sector's antenna points, and viewed together, form a triangle with the actual location somewhere in the middle. So, with Signal Check, if you look at all the base station IDs (BIDs) for any given site, you will find 3 sequential BIDs per antenna site, sequentially numbered, each with a different location. This is true in Milwaukee/Madison and most other Sprint markets, but in northern Illinois and northern Indiana, BSLs are dead on. Other threads have reported that after NV upgrades, the BSLs are correct, but no one has reported that for Wisconsin. Other threads have speculated that this offset is somehow related to the old (pre-GPS) 911 emergency location system, but that is speculation. BTW, the sponsor maps report the exact latitude and longitude of each mapped site.
  9. tommym65
    I am reluctant to get into this, as I think you and I may have had words before. However, many of your facts are simply wrong. 1. Sprint's corporate office is in Overland Park, KS. 2. It is very unlikely that you talked to one of Hesse's "tech assistants" - even if they said you did, they almost certainly passed you off to another customer service rep. 3. Sprint never said that Madison/Milwaukee would be completed this summer. If store reps did, they were giving you incorrect information. 4. Over 35% of Sprint sites in SE Wisconsin have received some form of NV upgrade. 5. Approximately 20% of Sprint sites in SE Wisconsin have received LTE upgrades. That includes dozens and dozens of sites. 6. The current rate of progress suggests that Sprint NV will be substantially complete in SE Wisconsin by early 2014. 7. Sprint has a very detailed "game plan" for upgrading over 50,000 sites in the US, including upgrades to 800 MHz voice and data, 1900 MHz voice and data, and 2500/2600 MHz data: Almost every Sprint and Clear site currently in existence and many new ones. There have been many delays, due to parts and labor shortages, failure of backhaul vendors to meet contractual commitments, NIMBYs, building permit delays and refusals, etc., etc. But there has been, and is, a clear cut plan. There is a huge amount of data in the Sponsor and Premier sections of this site backing up what I just stated. I expect flames in response to this post, but I could not let the misinformation stand.
  10. tommym65
    Frankly, the 3G improvement with Network Vision has been small, at least in the Chicago area. Voice is about the same, and data is somewhat faster, but one of Sprint's issues has been backhaul speed, and once the backhaul is improved, 4G LTE becomes available, so 3G data becomes almost irrelevant. The real payoffs so far in Chicagoland have been 800 voice and 1900 LTE, both of which are imminent in SE Wisconsin. I am holding my breath for 800 LTE, which should dramatically improve coverage and in-building reception. Don't know the specs of the Nexus 5, so I am not sure what bands it covers. That's why I mentioned the new iPhones (that, and the fact that you have an old iPhone), because I know that they will cover both 800 and 1900 voice and data. My recommendation somewhat pains me, because I am an Android bigot, but we are still several weeks away from any Android that will cover 800/1900.
  11. tommym65
    A suggestion: Hold on just a few more weeks before you make your decision. As a sponsor, and with Sensorly, you can see the actual LTE progress being made, and it has been substantial in SE Wisconsin. What you haven't yet seen is the new 800 voice/text capability that is on the near horizon (= much better in-building penetration), because Robert isn't getting those reports as frequently. By the end of the year -- probably by the end of October -- you should see a significant improvement in voice in Madison. If you move up to either the iPhone 5s or 5c, you will get that and you will get LTE on 1900 within that time frame, and 800 LTE soon thereafter, if not at the same time. Of course, if you changed now, you would have the 2 year commitment, so wait just a little. Consider waiting at least a couple or four weeks, and if people in your area haven't seen the promised improvements, then think about changing.
  12. tommym65
    Wall.e and Eva Hurricane Isaac orphans that we adopted.
  13. tommym65
    Most underground cable is now installed using "trenchless" technology. Basically, this is a drill, not an excavator, and can easily run the cable under the frost line in all but the coldest situations. It can also drill through inches/feet of frost in order to get under the frozen layer. One of the major benefits of trenchless underground is that you don't need to displace concrete or asphalt, you just go under it. So, highways, frost, other underground stuff, etc., are not always a barrier, and cable installations can be done year-round in almost all of the continental US. Edit: Of course, as kg4icg rightly points out, a heavy snow.ice layer on top of the ground may prevent the operator from being able to track the device properly.
  14. tommym65

    9/11

    tommym65 replied to centermedic's topic in General Topics

    Amen.
  15. tommym65
    FWIW, driving down I-39/I-55 from Rockford to St. Louis today, Signal Check Pro reported continuous 1x800 (SMR) coverage all the way down 39 to the Hudson, IL, tower, whose coverage carried to within a cat's whisker of Normal. Then coverage dropped back to 1xRTT (1900 PCS) around Normal and Bloomington, after which I did a forced PRL update near McLean and got 1x800 back. So B-N remains a black hole for all NV upgrades, but it is oh-so-close. I stopped looking for 800 south of Lincoln, because I would have needed to fiddle with the phone, and there was this annoying distraction called traffic. I just wish those inconsiderate, non-Sprint-obsessed drivers would stay out of my way!!! I realize that several sites along this route have been shown as 1x800 accepted on the sponsor maps, but the sites in Wenona, Minonk, El Paso (IL), and Hudson have not, nor has the site in McLean (800 SMR acceptance reports -- or lack of them -- are a topic in another thread), and I thought it was interesting that many, many sites in Central Illinois (like in Northern Illinois) have 1x800. The real numbers, nationwide, for 1x800 are far, far higher than the acceptance reports indicate.
  16. tommym65
    Masayoshi-san has stated that he wants/plans to own the number 1 mobile telephony company in the world. Canadian mobile service is expensive and technologically lagging, so might represent a good opportunity. We don't really know what other financial resources are available to Softbank, but Mr. Son seems rather adept at raising money. Finally, and a non sequitur to the above, what advantage would the Sprint name offer in Canada? It would have poor recognition, and quite frankly, those who do recognize it would probably see it as a fractured brand. Just my $0.02.
  17. tommym65
    Why not keep it in parens, as it is now, and put an explanation/definition in the help. Better not to clutter the screen too much, especially as you are likely to add more stuff as you go along.
  18. tommym65
    That is a really good question. There are literally hundreds of Sponsor threads. My best suggestion would be to go to the Forums page ( http://s4gru.com/index.php?/index ), then scroll down to " Interactive S4GRU Maps " and " S4GRU Sponsors Forum ", and then just scroll through the topics. These contain sponsor-only content on more subjects than I can absorb. The one everybody looks at is the "NV Sites Complete" thread in Interactive Maps, which shows every single NV-accepted Sprint site in the US, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, and thus shows exactly how much progress there has been in Wisconsin (there has been a lot!). Other people please feel free to chime in with specific suggestions. And please feel free to PM me if I can answer any questions at all.
  19. tommym65
    Why is the sun yellow? Why is the grass green? For some inscrutable reason, the engineers who designed the Android PRL process decided to rescan the 1X network every time a PRL update is successful (even if it doesn't actually UPDATE the PRL). For equally inscrutable reasons, neither jumping into and out of Airplane Mode nor re-booting the phone has the same effect, although either of those actions forces an LTE scan. Possibly the Great Spectrum God AJ or his PRL Acolyte Digiblur know the the real reasons, but they will now ban me for not giving them equal rank, so I personally will never know.
  20. tommym65
    No one is soliciting, as no one makes a dime from this forum. There are significant hosting costs, which as I understand it, is what donations support. Yes, lots of people suggest becoming a Sponsor or Premiere Sponsor, simply because there is a ton of information available at those levels. I am frequently one of those people, and one to whom I believe you referred in your post. I am not a staff member of this forum. I am a donor, because this site is absolutely unique in the amount of information that it provides. If you don't want to donate, then . . . don't. No one will hold it against you, and you will continue to have free access to those parts of the forum which are free (provided you abide by the clearly stated rules and are not a troll). And for the record,at this moment in time, according to Sensorly maps (which we all know, have their limitations), Verizon has the best LTE coverage in Milwaukee/Madison (like they do just about everywhere). However, Sprint appears to be firmly in second place and rapidly catching up. AT&T appears to have significantly poorer LTE coverage in this market, and TMo simply has no presence at all.
  21. tommym65
    Don't need $100 (that's Premier Sponsor), $10 or $20 would work for Sponsor. Robert will take less. Sensorly (don't forget the "l") is very useful, but only shows part of the picture, because it only shows 4G LTE that people have actually mapped. The Sponsor maps and discussions show much, much more. Having said that, you are correct, LTE is currently fragmentary in southeast Wisconsin, depending on where you are: For example, good coverage in Shorewood and near Lake Park, but virtually nothing at UWM, right between the 2. This is changing almost daily, and has progressed very fast over the last few weeks.
  22. tommym65
    Milwaukee is being upgraded like crazy as you ask: There is no specific "go" date, but sites are being updated frequently, one piece at a time, as has been documented in many posts on this thread. You can see this on sensorly.com's Sprint 4G LTE map, and also on the S4GRU Sponsor Maps. Consider a few dollar donation to become a sponsor ( http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1195-information-about-s4gru-sponsorship-levels-and-how-to-become-a-sponsor/ ) and you will have access to more information than you probably want!
  23. tommym65
    But, at least in PRL 25015, 800 appears first in the list in most geographies, so a re-scan will find and lock onto 800 if it is present and usable, and fall to 1900 if 800 is absent or is of insufficient strength. It will then stay locked onto 1900 until 1900 is no longer present or is too weak, or until you force a re-scan by attempting to update the PRL: On a stock GS3 or GS4 (and on some others, but I don't know which), if you have a usable data signal, a re-scan will check your current PRL, update it if needed, and then force a network re-scan whether or not it updates the PRL. This behavior is also true of other phones and other PRL's, PRL Master Digi would know which.
  24. tommym65
    Potentially starting this month; and, yes.
  25. tommym65
    It is awesome! My thanks, too. Since the Crystal Lake Rd. site has fiber and is broadcasting LTE, and the sites at 14/31 and 14/176 have NV equipment and appear to have the MW dishes and links to CL Rd., is there a logical reason why the latter 2 are not broadcasting LTE? And, there is a site at 31 and 176 which appears to be NV upgraded and shows 3G and 800 SMR updates which also appears to be linked to the CL Rd site: Is there . . . okay, I'll stop repeating myself. Just my frustration showing.
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