shmget

Picked up LTE in East Longmeadow, MA tonight. I live in northern CT close to the border, and I had a dentist appointment. When I saw I picked up LTE, I turned on Sensorly. Hope the signal report is helpful.

Thanks for all the info. I'm suspicious as everyone else. But more than one rep explicitly said it was a network vision update. However, it probably is just the updates on network.sprint.com, as there are towers in Enfield that are scheduled for data upgrades. I'm getting excited, and might just do an early upgrade one of these days. I'm trying to decide between the Photon LTE and the Galaxy SIII. I like the keyboard on the Photon, since I do some SSH to servers, and it is easier for me to type with a real keyboard.

Of course, I can't be sure what tower I was connected to this morning, but... the one on the water tower by exit 47E on I-91 might be getting upgraded. My speedtest results from one minute to the next varied by a great deal. Sometimes it was 100kbps/50kbps (with a very strong signal), and re-running a test got me 1500kbps/900kbps. I kept re-running, and it went back and forth between slow and fast. You might notice after the 15th some significant improvements. At least, that is what the CS reps have been telling me.

Thanks for the update. I kind of figured that we wouldn't have LTE yet, as that has been mentioned already. I'm not sure if the rep was confused, or what. I'm probably holding off unless there is a really nice sale on LTE phones around Thanksgiving/Christmas, as my Epic 4G at least gets WiMAX on my way down to Hartford everyday.

Sprint is on the same tower I mentioned that has Nextel. I know because we had an outage yesterday, and that tower was totally out, leaving us with basically no service at our house. The reps tell me the tower will be fixed today, and they also said in my zip code there is a network vision upgrade happening. I don't have an LTE phone to test, but I figure one of the towers by I-91 might be getting the upgrade.

I've been having some dropped calls and bad coverage in an area of East Hartford CT. After seeing some threads on this board that encouraged posters to report things to tech support, I decided I should do so. I found out a couple of things I didn't know. The Sprint rep said that they can see quite a bit of information about what is going on with each tower in the area. She mentioned that the ones near where I was driving had issues where they "were not running at capacity". She opened up a network ticket for me, so we will see how that goes. The other thing I found out, which I didn't know (but should have connected the dots) is that if I want to upgrade now, I can "buy out" my contract by paying the ETF, and then paying the promo price for the phone. Because I got a smartphone before Sep 2011, and I'm at 6 months before the end of my contract, I can actually upgrade for $50. Not sure I want to do this, but maybe there will be some nice sales around Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'm strongly considering the Galaxy S III, based on all the favorable reviews here. Does anyone have a recommendation for a soft case? I'm not sure I want an Otterbox defender case. The rep also told me that Network Vision is supposed to be complete by the end of the year, but I find that hard to believe.

That's too bad. Will the old Nextel antennas just stay in place? I guess that has a precendent, if you Google "AT&T long lines" and look at the history of microwave links that AT&T used, there are still microwave towers that have been decommissioned that they haven't torn down yet.

There is a cell site about 2 miles from my house, that I believe has Nextel at the top position on the tower, and possibly Sprint right below it. I also think T-mobile and/or MetroPCS are on it as well on the bottom positions. I was wondering how a site like this might be upgraded. Would they remove the Nextel antennas, and move the Sprint NV antennas up to the top? I ask because I have a decent (2-4 bars) Sprint signal in my house, but I usually had a almost all bars signal on Nextel in my house (I think debug modes measured it around -78dbm. When NV comes to my area next year, I'm hoping that if they are able to move things up on the tower, I'm going to have some really awesome coverage. They added capacity around June last year, and that got speeds up from 200-300Kbits/sec to about 800-1200Kbits/sec, but now it has dropped again to around 400Kbits/sec. I'm really trying to be patient and hold out with Sprint. I have an upgrade due on Jan. 1st, and I think after reading the comments on the board, I may just spring for a device right away. I figure that when LTE hits my area, even if I only get 3-4Mbps/sec, it is more than adequate for me. I don't think I'd want to wait for 800 LTE, as when I'm indoors, I wouldn't be using it anyway (at home I use Wifi, and at work I have to work )

I just read this post today. We were in the area the OP mentioned last year. Some family let us stay in the Lake Wallenpaupack area. I was not thrilled that after we crossed into PA on I-84, my Sprint coverage went to 1X, but as was mentioned, my wife's AT&T phone dropped to EDGE. Is one reason the towers are still 1X in rural areas also because the company figures there aren't that many subscribers? I also figured it is because of backhaul, as has been mentioned in the thread. The terrain on I-84 from NY into PA has quite a few hills, and I would imagine they don't really run fiber up mountains very often :-) Where I live, we have cells every few miles. In suburban/urban areas, there are usually a combination of micro cells with a macro cell for an area, right? When in a rural area, is it mostly a macro cell in between mountains? I live in New England, and radio-wise (I'm saying this as an amateur radio operator) it is quite challenging, due to the terrain.

I've been following this board for some time now. I've always had an interest in cellular technology (such as understanding modulation schemes (GSM, CDMA, etc.), PRLs, and debug screen info. I switched to Sprint last year because of their 4G network here in this area. It was helpful during a period of time I did telecommuting. I live in the suburban area of Hartford, CT. I noticed that man towers in my area have received upgrades, and will be getting upgrades in the next 6 months on the network.sprint.com website. I'm wondering if that is Network Vision, or another upgrade. I'm eligible for a phone upgrade in January. I'm also wondering: does it make sense to get an LTE phone right away, or stick with my EPIC 4G until I'm sure I have LTE? Most of the time, I'm at home and using Wifi. When I am at work, I'm deep inside a building, and barely get a Sprint signal. Sometimes I roam on Verizon. I'm thinking if I upgrade to a phone capable of 800mhz 1X, then when the towers get upgraded, I'm hoping to get a better voice signal. I was glad when Sprint mentioned reusing Nextel frequencies. I used to have Nextel, and the signal strength at my house is pretty strong. Sprint is just ok. I think Nextel has the highest spot on a tower near my house. I'm hoping when they upgrade that site that I get a big boost in coverage. So my questions are: 1. Are there any timetables for Network Vision in Hartford, and is it the same schedule as LTE (since Northern CT has not been announced to my knowledge). 2. Would it be worthwhile to upgrade as soon as possible?