aliensporebomb

And LTE is live off highway 94 from Woodbury, Minnesota all the way into Hudson, Wisconsin. So did any sites go live yesterday?

tbs123456: I was just over near Eden Prairie/Chanhassen and I didn't get a peep. Is LTE up for anyone else? I didn't see any LTE at all despite voyaging all the way to Loretto (long story) and back.

In addition to the Rochester report I see a blip of LTE as far east as Byron on highway 14 west of Rochester nearly all the way to Kasson. Interesting developments for sure.

Sensorly shows that we have LTE in Northwest Rochester, Minnesota.

This is about eighty miles to the Southeast of Minneapolis if you're unfamiliar.

It's just to the west of Highway 52 and 55th Street NW - so it you are heading south on 52 and pass Bandel Road NW then point your cellphone antennas to the west and flip the airplane mode off/on and hope for the best.

I haven't been down to the office in that area for my company recently but I know that area very well. Nice to see!

Latest: I visited the Taft Park tower and found that it was just a plain old Sprint Tower pumping out very strong 3G. No footprints since the snowfall so I don't see any way this was the source of the LTE signals caught near the airport.

Then I looked to the Southeast a bit (walking distance) and saw another tower with a odd sight: a two person lift up against the tower and two guys working hard on the bottom antenna array which looked only partially assembled.

Anecdotally the signal strength from where I was about 80 feet away in my car was very strong, 3g only, and right across from the MSP airport on the west side near a Home Depot.

I suspect this is the source of the LTE signals near the airport - it's not quite ready to go and the two guys were fighting the loss of daylight (it's nearing twilight as I type this).

Update: the closest spot Google Earth shows cellular transmitters to the point closest to that onramp (where Sensorly shows strong signals) seems to be the roof of the VA Medical Center. Interesting.

The other candidate which looks more "modern" and possibly "LTE Like" is the tower in Taft Park which http://network.sprint.com/ says is a Sprint tower.

Then if that's not the tower that was transmitting it might actually be located on the roof of the federal building across the street.

Pretty heavy security and I'm not going to delve into it too much farther then. I'll wait until something turns on then I'll go look.

Interestingly, Sensorly shows the strongest signals from whatever tower was near there near the highway onramp - so I wonder if it's a little further down the road nearer the airport. Time to get out Google Earth and take a look at the area from above.

I don't actually know the area at all, so I'm not sure if it's in hilltop... its right behind the Country Inn, just off 694.

That's Brooklyn Park/Brooklyn Center. I know that area well since my wife used t work very near there.

Hilltop is actually to the South of Fridley. Such as south of 694 and Central down south of 49th Avenue NE.

My years of driving all over the twin cities for my IT job finally comes in handy extracurricurally!

I found the one over by the MSP Airport - it's right by the light rail station near all the Government buildings and it's directly next door to a tennis facility:

It's in a strange place - the whole get-up looks brand new and there is still a yellow vault-like structure on site for the contractor I suspect, it's in a space that will soon be a Metro Transit park and ride but no asphalt has been poured so I couldn't get any closer.

Oddly, it's not transmitting LTE at the moment - it's just transmitting 3g (very strong).

It's no more than 50 feet off the ground though - not sure what the range on this place would be.

There's no other cellular anything anywhere nearby this particular structure.

I received this too. Also, isn't there a way to dial a number that forces the phone to grab the latest carrier information? Does anyone have that information on hand?

I've heard all kinds of odd reports about a plethora of phones from a variety of manufacturers needing to be briefly put into airplane mode and then back to regular mode again or even updating their carrier information to be able to flip over to LTE at a moments notice.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any threads about how to "force" a given phone to go over to LTE mode.

A friend of mine and I ate dinner tonight at the Culvers at 7801 Nicollet Avenue in Bloomington tonight and his Galaxy SIII read 4G (not sure if it does that all of the time but it sure seemed like his phone was responding quicker than usual).

My own iPhone5 did not pick up LTE although it may be a stretch at that distance from one little tower.

He's not into LTE geekery and doesn't have any speedtest or sensorly apps on his phone otherwise I'd have done some testing. Shrug.

Confirmed on the blips by the airport on the PC version - right off Highway 55 and Federal Drive right next to the Fort Snelling memorial chapel foundation. I need to go near there after work today anyway so I'll check it out.

I don't know about the Android version of Sensorly but on the iPhone version airports show up purple. It's maddening since the blips for 4G are purple on that version so it blends together.

Looks like that blip is right near the Landmark Center and another over closer to the river - near Kellogg Boulevard & Shepard Road. Very interesting indeed.

The Linwood Township signal is interesting - it appears to curve around Martin Lake directly to the east of St. Francis. Strongest signals are right near the Linwood Fire Department and Township Building and Lutheran Church.

So far nothing new (meaning yesterday's power-up of towers) south of 494 this go round that I can see.

I don't see any blips near Plymouth but it could just as well be a bleedover from the Corcoran signal as it's showing farther south on the map than it did last week - be interesting to have someone head south on County Road 101 and checking as far as south as Hamel. I bet there is some signal there.

Maybe more will show as the day goes on. I've seen no changes in sensorly over the last few days. I suppose it's possible if there's a tower in Linwood Township we might have users who don't even know about Sensorly or other towers in outstate Minnesota etc.

Plymouth and Downtown St. Paul? Anything else?

So this explains why I can do voice/data simultaneously when I'm on my iPhone5 - I was on the wifi at work and it's definetely using both the cellular data and the wifi connection to do it. Weird.

Thanks for the tip on sponsoring. I'll look into it.

So far it's been unseasonably mild in Minnesota of late - it was literally 50 degrees fahrenheit the day before yesterday (I put the Christmas lights on the house in a t-shirt and jeans and no jacket!) and almost strangely warmer than usual although in the last 24 hours the temps have been dropping to in the 30s and 40s so it could be properly heading into winter - I heard someone talking about snow falling tomorrow too. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Bad enough the poor installer guys have to climb hundreds of feet into the air but it's cold up there too? They definetely work hard for the $.

So, tonight as of 6:30 p.m. it will be approximately one week since they turned on LTE operations in certain areas of the Twin Cities. My question is: will more sites turn on tonight?

Is it going to be a "several sites per week" operation or is it "they're ready when they're ready?"

I'm curious but the sensorly maps for this area shows a pretty good picture of the coverage for this area now:

http://www.sensorly....St.%20Paul%20MN

A pattern is starting to emerge - sensorly's map now shows Hugo as definitely active. So in the northern 'burbs we have several blips on the map showing Andover/Anoka, Corcoran, Brooklyn Center and Hugo all evenly distributed from west to east.

In the South it is thus far weighted to the Southwest with Eden Prairie and Chanhassen although Jordan is not really a suburb, it's pretty far out. So far, nothing in the south or southeast but I do not think we will have to wait for long.

Anecdotally it seems like 3G speeds are edging upwards in recent weeks. I never got speeds on 3G that high last October.

And we have more - looks like a large swath going west to east from 694 and Brooklyn Boulevard all the way east to 694 and 100. Then there is more farther to the east; near 694 and Central. Then the previously mentioned Bunker Hills Park blip is now a long north/south swath from just north of Blaine High School to south as far as 116th and some additional spots at 113th and 111th.

C'mon Bloomington!

Did anyone see the new one pop up between last night late and this morning near Andover/Anoka? It looks just south of Bunker Hills Park off 242. If you take 242 and exit at University and head to Adler you should be getting LTE there.

Jordan's coverage is a bit odd - it's all near Sunset Drive and Creek Lane near the Spirit Hill cemetery.in one little section on the west side of town.

It also looks like the Eden Prarie/Chanhassen coverage has extended further east and west although it could be more people running sensory to get a bigger picture of the actual coverage.

I was out there last night and if you were near Audobon Road and highway 5 (right near Prince's Paisley Park studio) my phone practically glowed red in my hands and I was getting about 22 Mbps down and about 9 Mbps up. Very strong signal but not 100%.

Speedtest gave the location of the server as Minnetonka with GPS co-ords of 44.9800 latitude and -93.2638 longitude.

Great report! However, it may be in vain :-/

iPhones don't report to the Sensorly maps. But great info anyway! Keep us up to date!

I was unware that Sensorly tests on the iPhone doesn't report the conditions - maybe they'll improve it.

That being said does anyone know why they opted for turning on Chanhassen/Eden Prairie and Jordan first?

My friend had a weird idea that they'd turn it on at the MSP Airport first so that visitors would know that Sprint had LTE.

Latest:

Over lunch I decided to drive up Dell Road between 212 and highway 5 in Eden Prairie as it is close to my workplace and also smack dab in the middle of the mapped area yet there are no sensorly readings in that area yet.

Dell road seems to be recessed down into the land a little bit as if any radio signal present from a cell towers might go over it but rises to the top of a hill near highway 5 at the north.

I saw only 3g readings in that area and had to head to the west on 5 to start seeing LTE on my phone... I thought perhaps it could be that my phone won't easily switch to LTE while in sensorly or the like. I'm not sure. iPhone5 if anyone cares.

I drove west a few miles in LTE territory, then swung back along Lake Drive which parallels 5. Waste of time really.

I should have stayed on the freeway - cover more territory that way.

I then headed back towards Edina as I didn't have much time to play today.

On the way as I headed east towards the Eden Prairie center I saw LTE signals hanging on even with 1 bar of signal strength (-112 to -116 db) as far as approximately two and a half miles west of Eden Prairie Center.

My guess is having my phone on my passenger seat wasn't the greatest spot for it - I should have a passenger running the sensorly scans with the phone well above the level of the window.