Changes in Chicago--NID Changes and Dropped Calls

[Mattguy]

NW Indiana here, dropped calls, roaming to US Cellular. People have been calling my phone and it doesn't even ring on there end, but my phone does. This is my first phone on the sprint network, had IDEN for 12 years and never had this many dropped calls or going in and out of roaming.

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[Shizam76]

Ok...I am no longer "on the border" in my town. They FINALLY changed over the 2 towers that border me on the east, to network vision. They are now reporting as NID 123. The one tower west has been on for a month already. It has been hell flopping from legacy to NV. That brings up another point. That theory on the dropped calls...because of the handoffs not working from Motorola to Samsung equipment (http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/e...he-windy-city/ ) while true, I have discovered another issue. While driving on the interstate the other day, while being handed off between NV towers, my call got choppy for a mile or so...and then I lost it. There are problems handing off from NV tower to NV tower.

Back on the home front, the tower 3 miles east of me is finally "on", I have noticed NO increase in coverage. While pulling into my driveway my calls get very choppy...then my phone gets handed off to the NV tower 7 miles west of me which works rather well, then back to the new NV tower 3 miles east of me, then to the new NV tower 6-8 miles south east of me...then DROP. Then it found my airvana.

My question is, why is my phone pulling the tower 7 miles west of me (and then the tower 6-8 miles SE) with somewhat decent reception....while I can barely get anything on the new NV tower 3 miles east of me? Does it have to be fine tuned? I thought it was supposed to somewhat better reception with the equipment behind the panels....causing less signal loss, etc.

[chamb]

A thought on this --- it may be your Airvana causing you trouble in your driveway. You have two regular cell sites and the airvana all trying to serve you. The two cell sites may work fine if the Airvana is taken out of the picture.
Airvana's work ok when you are in an area that has practically no signal from any cell site. But they do not play well when you have a decent cell signal from a normal cell site. It may be time to retire your Airvana.

[Shizam76]

A thought on this --- it may be your Airvana causing you trouble in your driveway. You have two regular cell sites and the airvana all trying to serve you. The two cell sites may work fine if the Airvana is taken out of the picture.
Airvana's work ok when you are in an area that has practically no signal from any cell site. But they do not play well when you have a decent cell signal from a normal cell site. It may be time to retire your Airvana.

At home testing this stuff out, if I unplug the airvana, I get the tower 7 miles west. Usually its -99 to -106, but its usable in most rooms of the house. Not all. Why wouldn't I get the tower 3 miles from me? That's the weird part. It seems the coverage area has expanded for the tower west....but not the one to the east.

Oh...and calls NEVER handoff to the airvana in my driveway. If I pull into the garage, usually the call drops. Then it will find and connect to it.

[bzeringue]

At home testing this stuff out, if I unplug the airvana, I get the tower 7 miles west. Usually its -99 to -106, but its usable in most rooms of the house. Not all. Why wouldn't I get the tower 3 miles from me? That's the weird part. It seems the coverage area has expanded for the tower west....but not the one to the east.

Oh...and calls NEVER handoff to the airvana in my driveway. If I pull into the garage, usually the call drops. Then it will find and connect to it.

My calls don't drop when I pull up to my house on my Samsung Airave. I can even walk into the same room as the Airave and the call won't drop. But when I leave the house, the call will never handoff from the Airave to the Sprint tower.

[larryt510]

Why wouldn't I get the tower 3 miles from me? That's the weird part. It seems the coverage area has expanded for the tower west....but not the one to the east.

Could it be that one cell site is powered higher than the other? Or maybe the azimuth of the antennas has changed or is pointing away from your house. I have seen stuff like this before. Fairly common. 7 miles is quite a distance to be from a cell site and so is 3 miles. Surprised you could pick up as well as use either one actually as around here maximum range is about 2 miles.

I have a cell site near me that is only at 50% power on two of the azimuth's and 100% on the third. The engineers designed it that way for a reason. You would be surprised at the adjustments they make sometimes.

Oh...and calls NEVER handoff to the airvana in my driveway. If I pull into the garage, usually the call drops. Then it will find and connect to it.

Calls from a cell site cannot hand off to the Airvana. Only the other way around. It wasn't designed to work that way.

[Shizam76]

Could it be that one cell site is powered higher than the other? Or maybe the azimuth of the antennas has changed or is pointing away from your house. I have seen stuff like this before. Fairly common. 7 miles is quite a distance to be from a cell site and so is 3 miles. Surprised you could pick up as well as use either one actually as around here maximum range is about 2 miles.

I have a cell site near me that is only at 50% power on two of the azimuth's and 100% on the third. The engineers designed it that way for a reason. You would be surprised at the adjustments they make sometimes.

The tower 7 miles west must be at mammoth power. I get -80 outside....if I go 1/2 mile west of my porch. Sitting there is 7 miles from the tower. I got 2400 kbps download on 3G last night. That tower is in the middle of a field. NOTHING out there, so it has to be powered high. The tower 3 miles east of me, sits right along I-55. 55 is just west of the tower, as is my town. So I would imagine if any of the azimuth's were turned up, it would be the ones facing I-55 and town.

[Shizam76]

Ok....another article in the paper is out today. Things aren't getting better here. I wonder if any other network vision areas have this big of problems??

Sprint is going to be losing ALOT of $$$$ if all these agencies drop their phones...and alot I'm sure have laptop cards. They aren't the only ones. People in Grundy County are getting pretty ticked too. I'm sure there are more areas.

http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/news/...er-switch.html

[Evan702]

Cool story, bro.

[cpddude]

Been dropping alot of calls on 3g but my wimax here in chicago has been awsome.

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[503ducati]

Been dropping alot of calls on 3g but my wimax here in chicago has been awesome.

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That's pretty good WiMAX speed.

[Shizam76]

Just ported both lines out to at&t. Couldn't take it anymore. And when you have an upset wife that got dropped from 9-1-1 once...and then dropped from State Police a second time...gotta do something. :-(

[Airb330]

Just ported both lines out to at&t. Couldn't take it anymore. And when you have an upset wife that got dropped from 9-1-1 once...and then dropped from State Police a second time...gotta do something. :-(

I don't blame you. My family was complaining about Sprint's coverage last night too. No service in the house, dropping calls, data nonexistant. I explained network vision and hopefully it would be better soon. Otherwise they'll be gone in February too; I told them to go to at&t as well. Verizon is just not on enough towers in the Philly burbs to recommend them.

[Shizam76]

It's really too bad. EVERY Verizon or at&t store I went into to browse prior to making a decision was filled with almost all upset Sprint people. It's really bad here in the Chicago area. Not sure about the other NV markets. We were all trading war stories at the displays in the stores.