Craig

Clarification question - The tri-band handsets coming out this fall will support LTE on 800/1900/and 2500, correct? Will they also be able to utilize the TD-LTE 2600 as well?

I've noted several towers along my drive from Arvada to DIA that are sporting NV equipment, I just don't have the time to stop or when I do have time to stop, I don't have the equipment with me to take photos so I can submit them to the "In Progress" thread. 

I'm anticipating a slew of acceptance in the Denver metro area over the remainder of the year. I'm going to guess we'll be at about 30--40% of towers in the Denver area streaming sweet LTE love by Jan 1st.

 

Wife had a brief blip of LTE on I-70 near Sheridan this evening. She doesn't have the signal check app on her phone, nor sensorly so I don't know how strong or how long she had it. I'd imagine it was very weak and very brief, but it appears there is a tower near the Arvada/Wheatridge area that should appear on some acceptance report soon.

I wouldn't worry too much about his comment. It was his first post, we don't know where in the US he is actually located and he hasn't followed up on that cryptic comment since. Probably just another bitter old salt in the world. 

I usually get full signal in SOMA. Sitting here right now in the financial district and have 2-3 bars. My fiancé has a Verizon galaxy and the speeds are not earth shattering but consistent. During peak hours it does get much slower (I have seen as low as 2 mb) but still very usable. Rarely is it faster than 12 even late at night. I sometimes bring my AT&T iPad to work and will deliberately stream video on their HSPA (4g?) to see if their high end 3G is really fast. It is and i never have issues but obviously more expensive. The LTE is obviously very fast as well. If TM gives me anything that is remotely usable I will unfortunately switch.

 

 

You understand that the signal strength indicator on your status bar does not indicate LTE signal strength, correct? There are no "bars" of LTE displayed. Those bars are for the 1x (voice) connection and they can be set to whatever value the manufacturer chooses. so a Motorola that displays four bars could have a weaker signal than an HTC displaying three bars. If you want to know your LTE signal strength, you'll have to dig into the dialer menus (S3 is ##data# - not sure on the iphone), or download "signalcheck" from the play store (actually, not sure there is an equivalent app for iOS). Then report what your LTE signal strength is and we can help diagnose the root problem.

^^^ That. Plus, it's not on topic.

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Edit- ^^^ referring to koiulpoi's post.

Ya wifi isn't an issue.

 

I live in Parker, Douglas Country (80134). I work all around Denver, primarily Englewood, Aurora, and occasionally around Colorado Blvd.

 

Usual night outs and dinner are around Parker or the Park Meadows area. Rarely anything downtown Denver or north.

 

Sent from me phone

From my travels around the country, LTE is going to be more than sufficient in the Denver area, especially once the tri-band handsets come out this fall. The only place I have issues with LTE are in very, very large markets, or in very marginal signal areas (either strength or quality of signal). What I've seen from the LTE in the Denver area is very impressive. When they first turned on the tower near 88th and Pena, I got 38 up/22 down - while mobile about a mile from the tower. You'll be sorry if you leave Sprint. Like most consumers these days, I really don't have much brand loyalty. I've been with Sprint for 14 years, mostly because they were cheaper than the other national players and I never had the service issues others had over the years. Now, though, I am starting to become a huge champion of Sprint. They have the spectrum assets and financial backing to make themselves extremely competitive with VZ, AT&T and T-Mo in the coming years. And they will continue to offer unlimited data at a nice discount to the big two. 

My take on it, anyway.

 

I live in San Francisco (South of Market) and work a few blocks away in the financial district.  During work hours data speeds are pretty abysmal.  Better in SOMA than the financial district.  I can stream music 80% of the time and cannot stream video at all.  I ran speed tests and many times I get a "null?" error message or something like that.  On good days during the day I'll get 300k.  At night in SOMA when I don't need it, I get easily 20mb down.  I could care less about top speed (although I have an ATT ipad and am sometimes blown away by the network).  I just want to be able to stream my MLB tv when I'm working late hours, even if it were to be choppy and fuzzy.  

 

I don't know if someone mentioned it, but what is your signal strength on LTE? Also, any of your friends have VZ phones that try to use data at the same times that you are getting very slow speeds? People seem to think that simply jumping carriers will fix a problem whose root cause is more than likely the very large number of users in a very small geographical area connecting to a limited number of towers with a limited amount of backhaul. In areas like that, it's going to the be the same experience on what ever carrier you go with. Despite what they may want you to believe, Verizon CAN'T alter the basic laws of physics. Tri-band phones paired with spectrum assets and back haul that be scaled up as demand grows are your best best. All of which Sprint has in its tool belt. 

For the record, LTE seems to be very finicky. Some places I will have a marginal at best signal and I will still pull over 2+. Other times, with practically the same signal strength and quality, I will barely pull .25. I've also had areas (DFW and out to the NW specifically) where I'll have a strong LTE signal, yet it is utterly unusable. Not sure if that is due to the ongoing process of the build out, or if there is a bigger problem with the Dallas area network. I have to get outside of town quite a bit to be able to use LTE and while in the metro area I have to only use 3G if I want to actually move 1's and 0's 

What's the signal strength? 

It's the strength of the signal, but that's not important now.

Sorry, I had to. 

That's amazing. Lol. I think it's entertaining.

 

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It really is not entertaining. At all. And I think he's not a troll in the traditional sense. He's just too type-A about this whole LTE/NV thing that he doesn't actually read responses to his questions, or hopes that if he asks the same question multiple times, someone will tell him what he wants to hear instead of what is reality. Whatever the case, you will tire of it very, very quickly. Most of us just ignore him anymore. 

but I recall calling late multiple times recently.  Odd..

They blocked your number for repeatedly calling them after 8PM?

Yea, they have LTE 2600 all around the metro, but they also have WiMax all over too. I'll take Denver's position with WiMax/LTE 2600 and actively receiving LTE 1900 deployment. And when you consider it is a Samsung market, they'll get CDMA 800 earlier than most, and probably LTE 800 too!

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 using Tapatalk

No, No, NO! Robert. It's horrible out here, right?? <wink wink> Why leave the glory of SoCal <gag> with all it's LTE and fast NV, and come out here to cow-town Colorado, with its <supposedly> God-awful slow NV progress?

I think I need to explain some things to you about Californians and Coloradans and how the former shall not inhabit the latter's state. We need them to think that this is the crazy Wild Wild West out here, not NV nirvana. Ya pickin' up what I'm throwin' up??   

My god is Denver slow.  There are like no NV sites in the main metro areas of Denver.  I hope Sprint really picks up the pace soon.  While they might have LTE 2600 in Denver, the majority of LTE customers cannot take advantage of that right now since triband LTE phones have not been released.

Not really sure what the point of this post is. Yes, we're a third round market and just got our first LTE tower two months ago. Welcome to Colorado. Now go back to SoCal and tell all your friends that it's absolutely horrible out here and they sure as hell don't want to move out here. I mean, it's SOOO SLOW with "like no NV sites". LA is where it's at. 

You're good.

Mostly, at least with Sprint, the coordinates shown are different than the actual tower. Depending on what sector you are connected to, the coordinates will display at some point in the general direction of coverage, anywhere from a few hundred feet to a few miles, perhaps, from the physical tower. Maybe NV is changing this and all sectors will report the physical tower location now?

It'll be hard to tell what NV 3G will perform like until a given city has their full NV build out completed. Until then, there will still be traffic that would normally be passed through on LTE that will be going over 3G. So, I would guess that there would theoretically a small increase in 3G performance , while LTE will slow from the really fast 30-40M to the expected 4-6M, which is more than enough for pretty much anything you would need to do on a mobile device. 

800 is much more prone to skip/ducting than 1900 or 2600. Could be a case of a localized perfect storm for propagation perfection. 

Or, Sprint could just be screwing with you.

Unfortunately, there is no Sprint tower located at Paulino Gardens, so if the one you saw them working on was on the grounds of Paulino, then it must have been someone else's tower. 

Had a quick stop over in CID yesterday. Got an 800 signal at about -90 to -100 dBm. I'd expect to see some 800 acceptance for the Cedar Rapids area on the report in the next few days. 

For the record I got LTE today in the Thornton area, so ether it was a phone issue (rebooted since) or the tower(s) are back up from the lack of LTE the other day north of Denver.

Took a drive up I-25 from north Denver to Longmont, then over to Estes Park. Got ZERO LTE, even abeam the tower at Dacono. Cycled airplane mode multiple times, rebooted. Nada. Yes, I am set to CDMA/LTE network in the settings. Kinda surprised at that result. Anyone else tried in the area lately?

I'm gonna take a stab and say no NV on that tower yet.

That very well could be it.

Sensorly shows some hits on I-25 just south of Monument. Surely these are not from the Castle Rock site. That would be 15-20 miles of range and it shows as moderately strong hits. Bet we'll actually see our first live LTE tower in or very near El Paso county soon. No joke this time. :-)

I JUST GOT LTE IN COLORADO SPRINGS!!!

I see your Sensorly contributions. Looks like a very weak signal. Did you get the Signal Check Pro app or check your signal strength in your dialer menus? I added some weak signal data on the way to work this morning around I-70 and Vasquez.

Oh wait, I'm in LA, not COS. Sorry for the confusion. I just got LTE in LAX! <Insert evil laugh>