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jazz57

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Everything posted by jazz57

  1. It's coming along, one site at a time! 12down/5up Mbps inside Stater Bros. this afternoon.
  2. LTE at Landau and Vista Chino in Cathedral City is up! Just mapped on Sensorly. Interestingly as I approached the tower at Landau/30th. (not yet LTE enabled) the LTE signal continued though CDMA had already switched over. It appears to not necessarily be the case that LTE and CDMA need to come from the same cell site.
  3. Looks like the tower at Date Palm and I-10 (4971) has finally been LTE activated...Still waiting on the nearby towers at Landau/Vista Chino and Landau/30th.
  4. Good deal. I got my first LTE signal in the Coachella Valley just south of the airport near Gold's Gym yesterday. 17Mbps down, 4 up. Not bad! Also, CDMA voice problems today near my house (30th. and Landau). Maybe they're switching over to NV hardware??
  5. I agree. They haven't officially launched yet and certainly don't have an obligation to keep the LTE service active. One thing I find interesting is the Riverside County area has a relatively large number of NV accepted sites that aren't yet LTE accepted: 59% vs. only 8%. Whereas for OC it's 51% and 24%. So we have more completed NV sites yet less are LTE enabled.
  6. Impressive! I thought my speed test of 18/9 (down/up Mbps) in LA was good. Good point about being next to the wrong tower. I can see how standing near a 3G site would preclude the reception of a farther away 4G signal. So far, I've tried to guess which towers are LTE enabled based on where the blue was the darkest on Sensorly's map but no luck yet. Guess I need to check under the seat cushions for some spare change. ;-)
  7. The problem I'm seeing isn't that Sensorly is missing 4G sites in its maps (which the solution in your response implies), rather that it shows 4G where none exists, on my phone when I visit the cell sites anyway. Maybe my phone isn't the most sensitive, but I've had no problem getting LTE in Los Angeles (in areas with only one or two bars), whereas I've not yet been successful here in the Coachella Valley. And that isn't just driving by with the Sensorly app. running. I've stood next to the tower, cycled airplane mode, rebooted, used the app that cycles Airplane mode, etc. I don't have to do any of these things in LA to get it to work. It just pops up all by itself even with a marginal signal. Call me crazy, but my intuition says, given the above data, that LTE is still in the testing stage in my area and just happened to be on when someone drove by and mapped it. Now it isn't and Sensorily doesn't reflect that. I wish it did. I've tried to explain how this could be improved algorithmically by removing blips when 4G capable phones have mapped a site several times and only succeeded in getting 3G. Instead, they appear to just average the 3G and 4G signals separately. In any case, watching NV evolve is an enjoyable pastime. I hope to continue to do so and might even become a site sponsor if I have some spare cash. Thanks for reading!
  8. That's a very good question. I've been thinking about it for a while. They would have to know whose phone is 4G capable but only getting 3G in a particular location. I think I would filter out those blips that showed 4G in a location weeks (days?) ago and now only shows 3G, especially for those users who have known 4G capability (evidenced by at least one 4G map point for that user anywhere). As it is now, I think one blip is enough to assume 4G exists there forever, which obviously isn't true. There may be other ways to detect the phone's LTE capabilities through the OS, the make and model, etc. Maybe I should start a competing service, but my Android skills aren't quite there yet.
  9. I've seen Sensorly's map showing LTE activity on two of the three towers closest to me but standing right next to them only gives me a strong 3G signal. My take is they once turned it on for a couple of hours for a test, someone mapped it and now it's considered live by Sensorly. I think they need to filter things like that out to get an accurate picture of actual coverage. On the other hand, I've had a great 4G signal in Los Angeles so I know it isn't my phone. :-)
  10. Cathedral City. Nearest tower is 30th. Ave. and Landau.
  11. Looks like they're finally starting to turn things on. I've yet to get 4G in my area but I've been seeing some error messages on my phone in the morning indicating a data outage overnight. I'll take that as a positive sign that work is being done. :-)
  12. I just hope it's not some gimmicky, value-added service rather than a real bandwidth improvement.
  13. Isn't indoor performance the hot topic these days? Back in the day people used cell phones to supplement their land-line and cable internet when they were on the road, but now many are relying on it as a primary means of communication. I suppose 2.5GHz is important in urban areas, but for the majority of the country wouldn't it be better to focus on lower frequencies with better building penetration?
  14. Yeah, I believe that the NV equipment is capable of at least some LTE Advanced functions with only a software upgrade, so it begs the question: What will Softbank do with such a huge capital expenditure? Are they going even beyond LTE-A? if so, look out Verizon!
  15. I read that Softbank plans to more than double capex for the next two years to upgrade the Sprint network. This appears above and beyond Network Vision. My understanding is Sprint's original NV plan was to complete upgrades more or less by next year. Does anyone know what such big upgrades by Softbank might be? LTE Advanced? Additional cell sites? Sounds exciting for us customers.
  16. Hopefully my comment is of interest to others as well. In other news, I got my first taste of Sprint LTE in Los Angeles. 20Mb down/7Mb up. I can't wait for it to roll out here in the Riverside market. The responsiveness when on LTE is impressive.
  17. The new company will be called (appropriately enough) New Sprint. It's too soon to know about the rest, but the head of Softbank supposedly got interested in buying Sprint because of the poor data experience he had with US carriers. His goal was to create a premium experience for users. I looks to me like all of the major and not so major carriers will have LTE by next year and they'll be more similar than different in terms of data performance (i.e. fast enough). The next round of competition will be price.
  18. UPDATE: No LTE today right next to the tower at Landau and Vista Chino (Cathedral City). Six bars of 3G though.
  19. I'm in Cathedral City between Date Palm and Landau. It's showing EVDO right now. I usually get eHRPD so maybe they're working on it. There are towers at Landau and Date Palm right off the freeway as well as one a bit farther south on Landau at 30th.
  20. Thanks for the report! It appears that many if not most of the towers in the area have been upgraded but none are operating in LTE mode. That leads me to suspect the backhaul isn't ready yet. I saw a contractor (Pacific West Communications) installing fiber at the end of last year so I'm hopeful we'll be up and running soon. Anyone have more details?
  21. The only question is when. By the way I think they said Pechenga not Morongo.
  22. That's good if true. Sensorly maps look pretty bare east of Ontario.
  23. Does anyone know what is going on in the Coachella Valley area (i.e. Palm Springs) wrt LTE rollout? There was a lot of work being done until February and now everything is really quiet. Not a single LTE tower in operation yet. Is the backhaul not ready? Meanwhile San Diego and Orange County are firing up cells like crazy!
  24. There's aleady a working tower in Temecula. It won't be too much longer.
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