tommym65

Do you mean east of Silver Lake Rd. just north of Crystal Lake Rd? If so, I mapped it on Sensorly in late April or early May, just after it showed up in one of Robert's maps, so it's been live for 3-4 months. The site south of McHenry (31 at Bull Valley Rd.) has shown as LTE accepted since at least May, and obviously has a full set of NV gear mounted, but has never shown up at all on Sensorly. I rode about 1/2 mile west of it on my bicycle (and I ride slow) about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and never saw a blip. This was just after the site in McHenry north of 120 was accepted, and that site lit up my phone like a Christmas tree (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little). The site at 14 & 31 has at least 2 MW antennas installed. I wonder if the local delay is somehow related to the work being done at Bard Rd in CL, where they are replacing everything due to the water tower painting. From observation, that site has a very fast ping for 3G (90 msec, sometimes better), and according to one of the tower guys has fiber. Could it be some sort of missing link in the MW chain/ring?

When was LTE accepted on the Island Lake tower? I have been watching the CL sites, but not Island Lake. Also, in your license scour, did you happen to notice anything about the 2 hopelessly delayed CL sites (14@31, 14@176)? If you keep giving us interesting information, I'll have to take back all the bad things I've said about LITH! ( )

They may have announced a launch, but Sensorly shows exactly zero coverage anywhere near Whitewater, and no real coverage in any of the area around Lake Geneva: The Evil Empire seems to have some coverage in Delavan, but the very pale purple on the roads (like on US-12 and -14) does not indicate usable coverage. [/Disclaimer: Sensorly, of course, only maps where mobile users tell it to, so in theory there may be coverage in places where no one has bothered to map. Of course, if Sprint were to announce a market before there was any visible coverage in that market, the trolls and naysayers would have a howling field day! AT&T, on the other hand, gets away with lies and distortion constantly. (Oh, come on, TM65, say what you really think!) /EndDisclaimer]

I might have expected "telephone pole" towers in the back hills of [place name deleted to protect from flames], where some of my ancestors were born, but Springfield?!?! There is actual civilization there! Do all the carriers engage in the same insanity?

This is the wood monopole mentioned in the post above: According to the mechanical contractor on the site, the wood pole hosts Sprint. The worker on the right clinging to the water tower is supposedly removing VZW equipment. Sprint's original location was at the top of the water tower, at least 60 or 70 feet higher. The mechanical guy says Sprint will be restored to that location when the water tower paint job is completed. A closer zoom shows more detail. Note the sophisticated down-tilt mechanism. And, finally, the new TMo installation. They seem to have crammed a lot of stuff into a very small space:

False alarm in Crystal Lake today. 3 crews working furiously on the Bard Rd water tower site. I had my hopes up that this was the long-awaited NV upgrade, as this particular site has had no visible NV equipment, even though it was supposedly upgraded to 3G NV almost a year ago. Unlike most sites in the area it also has not been broadcasting 800 SMR, and like all 5 local Sprint sites,a not a hint of LTE. As I talked to a couple of the crews, i was told that this is a co-located Sprint/TMo/VZW site. Unfortunately, all the hubbub was removal and relocation of everybody's antennas because the city is about to paint the #%?$ water tower. TMo put up a new steel monopole and has 6 antennas very tightly mounted in 2 levels directly on the pole, and were taking down their antennas from the water tower as I watched. Couldn't figure out where VZW is going, but a crew was also taking down their antennas. Sprint had already removed theirs, and had placed them (are you sitting down?) on a wooden utility pole about 60 or 70 feet shorter than their previous location at the top of the tower. (This, of course, is my home tower, and may help explain why my 3G coverage has totally gone to hell lately.) As I was watching and taking pictures, the crew chief for one of the contractors walked over and began asking me questions (do you think he might have been suspicious?), and as we talked , I found out that he is bringing in a crane tomorrow to pull the top tier of supports, and said he plans to replace it with a corral (his term) on top of the tower after it has been painted. Maybe then, the long-postponed full NV upgrade will happen. 2 other tidbits: First, he said that USCC had already been pulled from the site (which I thought was interesting because the Sprint purchase of USCC spectrum in Chicago isn't supposed to be final until January 2014). And second, he said the there was already fiber pulled to the site and that Sprint was on it, Which could make sense as I was getting sub-90 ms pings and DL speeds up to 2 Mbps, far better than I have gotten on the local "microwave-ready" sites like the one at Rts 14 & 31 (where, for example, I got over 250 msec pings and worse than 100 Kbps DL tonight from across 14 in plain view of the tower). I have pix of Sprint's wooden "monopole" which I will post when I am not on my iPad.

Oops, my mistake.

I think there is some confusion here: 800 voice (SMR 800) is shown with the green and blue pushpins on the "NV Sites Complete Map": Green indicates 3G/800/4G (i.e., NV is complete for that site), blue indicates 3G/800. There are apparently no "800 voice-only" sites, as the SMR 800 upgrade seems to be tied into the PCS 1900 upgrade, so there is no pushpin. Similarly, there are no "800/4G" sites, for the same reason. Robert has said that he is not receiving complete acceptance lists for 800 SMR, which explains why there are only about x,xxx SMR 800 sites reported, versus about xx,xxx PCS 1900 and xx,xxx LTE 1900 sites. In the real world, there are many, many wild SMR 800 sites that have so far eluded detection and capture, sneaky little things that they are! When 800 LTE comes out, he will have to come up with yet another mapping color or scheme. (Then I realized that this isn't a Sponsor thread, so I redacted all the actual numbers.)

That's what happens when you force new technology on the aged. Thanks for the hints. maps.google.com still has the +- and the slider bar, at least so far . . .

Dear Sensorly, Have I gone blind (or totally senile), or has the the scaling capability (+ or -) just disappeared from the Sensorly maps when displaying on a PC? I have tried multiple browsers, can't find it. It works fine on a touch screen, because (obviously!) you don't need the + or -. But with a mouse . . . zilch!! (signed) Frustrated

You left out: Troll - Hundreds and hundreds of posts just to cause contention and p*** people off.

Does the upgrade always require permits? I thought that existing antennas and backhaul could often be used, and all the needed work would be inside the cabinets. If true, wouldn't permits be unnecessary on many of their sites?

What is further down on the list? What? What? What!!!!???? . . . Whoever you are, thanks for the information. And, if there is some way you can show the rest of the list without having to flee to Russia, some Chicago ex-urbanites would be forever grateful!

While Robert's acceptance reports show very limited 1x800 deployment, in the real world, there is much, much more: He has mentioned that his sources simply don't have access to 1x800 information. In the Chicago market, for example, nearly 100% of NV sites have been upgraded to 1x800, yet only a small fraction show up on the map. If memory serves, that may be more than 1,000 SMR 800 sites just in Chicagoland. (And if memory doesn't serve, someone will crush me like a bug.) Some other markets, while not as completely upgraded, also have quite a bit of 800.

Is that because of carpal tunnel syndrome, or because it's really hard to type while wearing your straitjacket? And then from a slightly different thread, there's the question of whether 2500 LTE is actually usable inside a room with rubber walls? (Sorry, I just couldn't resist!)

Except that all those raging radio waves have driven you into an outrageous obsession with mobile telephony and data!

The Ft Wayne market, like Chicago, broadcasts exact tower locations, the same for all 3 sectors. Others, Milwaukee for instance, broadcast offset locations per sector.

In the "Samsung Galaxy Note 2" thread, several people point out that the Note 2 has significant voice and text issues in areas where SMR 800 is turned on. That would include almost all of the Chicago market, and could explain at least some of niuzeus' problems. (See, for example: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1271-samsung-galaxy-note-2/page-52) Personally, like tongboy, my voice/text have been nearly flawless for months, and I drive all over the market.

Unfortunately, where I live I am mostly served by the Bard Road Water Tower site, which purports to have a 3G upgrade, but which has seen only slight connectivity/throughput improvement since last year. I now have an Airave. Bard Rd. also has no 800 MHz nor does it have LTE. When I drive near Rt 14/176, or Rt 14/31, my 3G speeds are mediocre. In LITH, you should be getting service from Hanson Rd. in Algonquin, from Pyott Road, from Algonquin Road, or from one of the Cary towers, so hopefully you have seen improvements. Have you?

Is it worth it? That is a very personal decision. I myself have been a Sprint subscriber for about 15 years, and overall have been fairly satisfied. I travel nationally, and only rarely has Sprint been unavailable or of unusable quality. But much of my Sprint experience thus pre-dates the smart phone era. Frankly, Chicagoland, especially the City itself and the ex-urbs, have kind of taken it in the shorts over the past several years, with bad coverage due to aging equipment and too little spectrum. However, voice and text service have improved markedly in the past few months as 800 MHz voice has been deployed, and the 1900 MHz LTE works very well where it is available. And just this week, 2500 MHz LTE has crept into the area: Today's Sprint results call apparently said that Sprint will deploy it everywhere, and quickly. Of course, that's only with a hot spot right now, as no phones are yet available that will pick it up. With current technology and spectrum in the 800, 1900, and 2500 frequencies, with deployment of 800 MHz LTE on the old Nextel spectrum within the next few months, and with the addition of new spectrum when the US Cellular sites in Chicagoland are shut down (next year?), Sprint's future is rosy. But what about now? Parts of Chicagoland continue to have no usable LTE (I live in one), and Loop and near-Loop Sprint service is spotty and frequently awful. Certainly Verizon has better overall coverage in the area. AT&T says they do, but their coverage maps are no better than Sprint's, overall. (They have the advantage of deploying LTE on 800 or 850 MHz [i don't remember which], so at this moment, their building penetration is better than Sprint's. That will change very soon.) So if "right now" is your concern, you may want to consider moving to one of the other carriers - Verizon seems to have the best coverage, but they are expen$$$ive. T-Mobile is relatively inexpensive, but their coverage is not as good as VZW. I have recently divorced myself from all contact with AT&T, so I am not an objective reporter. But before you make any decision, consider spending $15 or $20 (or more, or even less, it's up to you) to become an S4GRU Sponsor ( http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1195-information-about-s4gru-sponsorship-levels-and-how-to-become-a-sponsor/?hl=membership ). You will be able to see exactly where Sprint has installed upgrades, and will have access to much deeper discussions of the whole picture. Personally, unless Sprint does something very stupid or expensive, I ain't leavin', but that's only my personal opinion.

My shiny new Zing hotspot is connected to LTE Band 41 (2500 MHz) as I type this. I have attached a screenshot of the Zing Manager "4G Details" page. I am getting ~100 ms pings, ~8.0 Mbps downloads, but rather poor ~1.0 Mbps uploads. That's all wonderful, because I live on the fringes of the Chicago market, so I really didn't expect to get any Band 41 coverage at all, at least this early in the deployment. But . . . I cannot figure out where the signal is coming from. According to the Clear coverage map, there is a WiMax site about 1.5 miles southwest of me, and no others within ~5 miles. Logically, then, one would think that my coverage would be coming from that closest tower, and the speeds seem to agree with that scenario. Except that I have driven to within 500 feet of the tower (I could clearly see the 2500 MHz antennas and the MW backhaul dishes), AND I DIDN'T GET ANY LTE CONNECTION. I have done this twice. I was parked. With the car window open. I have also driven to within 500 feet of 2 other Clear sites north of my closest site: No LTE there, either. I am puzzled: Is Band 41 coverage only being turned on at certain times of the day (I have gotten it at night), maybe for testing? Did Clear install Band 41 on some sites that aren't co-located with WiMax, and thus don't show up on their map? Am I going crazy, and will I be forced to share A J's padded cell (Ugh, not a pleasant thought!)? If anyone knows more about this than I do (and that won't take much knowledge), please chime in. EDIT: Also, I thought this thread was about 2500/2600 MHz LTE, not about name-calling and insults wrapped around what bands Apple would be putting on future iPhones. Maybe the Mods need to take a close look at some of the posts and posters.

Just got 2500 LTE again, this time held the signal long enough to get speed tests. RSRP about -114 to -120. I haven't figured out how to get the hotspot to seek only band 41, but I will do so later today. Now bouncing back and forth between bands 41 & 25. I am fringe for both, so it is hard to get a solid connection. Added: Some representative speeds & feeds, same indoors location: Band 41 @ 11:21 am: 6684 kbps down, 357 kbps up, 108 ms ping Band 41 @ 11:42 am: 7005 kbps down, 1098 kbps up, 88 ms ping Band 25 @ 11:51 am: 962 kbps down, 413 kbps up, 100 ms ping The Band 25 location is likely Pyott Road, Lake in the Hills, IL, about 3 miles distant. I have gotten 35-36 Mbps from that site on my GS3 when standing about 400 feet from it. Even with a VERY sketchy connection, the Band 41 numbers are amazing.

The south side of Crystal Lake. The suspect Clear site is just north of Ackman Road and about 200' west of Huntley Road. I am somewhat northeast. My house has aluminum siding, which significantly limits 2500 MHz penetration. BTW, thanks for your cogent replies and expansions in the lenghty post that I quoted from. It is very helpful to get information from someone who actually has the knowlege that the rest of us are looking for!

I just got an ephemeral LTE Band 41 connection in far exurban Chicagoland. RSRP between -109 & -120 dBm, unable to get data to transfer. Then the Netgear dropped back to Band 25, from a different site about 2 miles away. I believe the Band 41 site is a Clear-only tower with WiMAX, about 1 mile distant. Was this real? Was it a test? Am I hallucinating? I drove within 300 feet of the suspect site yesterday, and got not even a hint of LTE signal. I can pick up a WiMAX signal of about the same strength, likely from the same tower, on my decommisioned HTC EVO, but I was never able to get reliable data from it at this location, either.

1. A single optical fiber can theoretically carry in excess of 10 Gbps. Fiber optic providers typically run fibers in bundles. Thus, once the fiber optic cable (bundle) has been run to any given site, there is an enormous amount of bandwidth available to that site, dependent on the electronic interfaces installed at each end of the fiber. Thus, ramping up backhaul to very large numbers is easy, once the fiber is in place (remembering that the fiber providers' monthly charges are based on capacity connected, not just on a per-fiber basis). 2. In a number of places (for example, the Chicago exurbs), Sprint has planned to bring fiber to a hub site, and then use microwave links to tie other sites into the fiber at the hub, thus saving time and money. Where the fiber has been run in a timely fashion (I think much of Rockford, Illinois, is an example), this tactic has worked well. However, the fiber backhaul providers have not always installed the backhaul in a timely fashion (for example, Dekalb and McHenry counties in Illinois), which has left large clusters of NV-ready sites with only old backhaul, and thus with no LTE. Also, with fiber to a hub and MW to the spokes, you have possibilities for "common mode" failures affecting large clusters of sites. I believe people in other threads have suggested that Sprint is revisiting the "fiber-to-microwave" tactic since the SoftBank consummation.