T-Mobile is investing 1.4 million in Vegas, installing microcells inside of stores
I just spoke with a store manager, which doesnt hold too much credit but she basically told me that they did install a "repeater" which i assume is really a macrocell due to the new CID, and that T-Mobile is investing 1.4 million in upgrading existing cell sites. What is t-mo doing in your area?
From my T-Mobile Galaxy S II
Last edited by Kies; 05-02-2012 at 06:41 AM.
PCS HSPA in Las Vegas
* Coverage will expand to 100 million LTE pops for the first half of 2013, with the second half of 2013 expanding to 200 million POPs covered. Release 10 LTE (2×10, 2×20) will be better performing than all other competitors. T-Mobile USA. “This year, we’re stepping on the gas again. We are making continued coverage improvements and launching an advanced LTE network
Nothing here. Been checking weekly over an area of 70 miles (due to work) since about November and everything has been the same.
GPRS at home, HSPA in the same place no expansions. EDGE in other cities nearby with similar population as the HSPA city. In one city with only EDGE it seems like the tower is so overloaded if you can even do a speed test before you get connection timeouts it is around 40-50kbps. This city (Statesville, NC) has 2 pretty big hospitals not to mention malls lots of stores in downtown.
I do trust that they are working on it and that they have other areas with a higher priority but it'd be nice to see some news of that.
In my city they have expanded 3G out in areas where it wasn't available and also making 4G available in some areas also. When I went to Louisiana this past weekend they seemed to have upgraded the network to either EDGE or 3G, they just need to get the backhaul connections going to those areas and they will be fine. Also I think in Lake Charles Louisiana they are about to add HSPA+ because I was hitting close to 6mbps with a ping of 80ms during a busy time.
They wouldn't put a macrocell in a store. It'd be a picocell or MAYBE a microcell if they wanted to cover say a whole mall from there (AT&T's "microcell" product is actually a femtocell, just to get that confusion out of the way, smaller than a microcell or picocell). Macrocells cover large areas and are the main network, with microcells and picocells filling in general coverage in building and in small holes, and femtocells providing personal coverage to dead spots.
I got them mixed up. Anyway, t-mo has fixed HSPA at rainbow and arroyo crossing/the 215 beltway. Signal is dramatically stronger. FINALLY. Service was degraded for about 10 months. No doubt due to at&t.
Kies are you sure? I am having huge issues with T-Mobile's data speeds, and it has been so for about 4 months now. I had great 3G speeds on my 9700, I then decided last Nov 2011 to get an Amaze, speeds were fine for a while I'd say until January 2012, but the phone IMO was utter trash, so I ditched it (also thinking that the phone had issues because of the slow speeds I was seeing), and got a MyTouch 4G slide, phone was good but too much bloatware and just unusable, but I start to see slooooooooooooooow speeds more and more often, and btw when I say slow, I mean the phone barely loads anything, and this problem has occurred on both my and my brother's "4G" phones. Between the two, we changed about 5 phones so far (done for the moment), all had data issues. I then got a BB9900 which is my current phone, and I still have sloooooow speeds even if it says 4G with full bars, nothing, just plain out does not load anything, and I am supposedly surrounded by "4G" coverage... WTH is it? I am really mad that I am paying for something that doesn't work as they say it should. I am on Russell and Jones btw, and the data speed problems are pretty much everywhere for me. It is RARE that I see anything data related load fast.
And if you are at Rainbow and Arroyo Crossing, that's pretty much where I am...
Rainbow and Arroyo crossing is a problematic area. They restored full cell power about 2 weeks ago so 4G coverage covered most of the area, but during peak hours speeds were pissy slow, almost to the point of no connectivity so they cut the power back down on that cell site a few days ago. It seems the serving cell tower reaches too many T-Mobile subs in the area, and overloads the tower. Other than that area, and at the District/215/Green Valley exit, I generally don't know of too many other places that have bad HSPA speed outside of the Mountains Edge/Blue Diamond/Rainbow&215 area. The Mountains Edge area is slow due to a lack of backhaul.
When they add 1900MHz PCS, it should alleviate speed issues and greatly improve indoor coverage HSPA coverage with the new LTE-ready panels and radios they are installing. Russell and Jones, I haven't ever noticed any speed issues in that area and if I recall correctly coverage is strong in that area for T-Mobile with the flagpole cell site located at the storage place.
TL;DR... they do need to invest much of this money going towards existing cells in the SW part of the valley! And to solve the problems at the Arroyo Crossing shopping center, they need another cell site close by.
I know, I am supposedly in a good area but we have been having issues for months now to, like you said, no connectivity many times. What's weird is that the phone "acts" like its communicating something but NOTHING happens. It does also happen that I get a "no connection" message, and I will take a pic of it when it does. Any guesstimate about the deployment of the 1900Mhz? Funny how T-Mobile has a store right there by BestBuy (Verizon is there too actually), but they get crap service. I personally see "4G" speeds about once for every 10 times I try to connect, the other 9, it either does not connect or it barely loads anything to speeds lower than EDGE. I know this because if I switch to EDGE, it actually loads faster than "4G". I actually went to that T-Mo store to inquire about this but, OF COURSE, they know nothing of it and the rep's only answer was "I'm sorry" and that "Well you still get EDGE"... -_- Same as the CS btw. CS even worse, one rep told me I have no 4G service, one rep said I am surrounded by 4G towers. Kinda frustrating when you renew with them when I could have gone to another carrier and the service goes down instead of up. Any chance I could terminate the contract on these grounds? (Without paying ETF of course)
1900MHz should start showing up soon, and be finished by years end. Those reps at that store are dumb as ****. No point in wasting your time with them. "all of the 4G phones are connecting in the store and that makes the signal weak", really? What about the thousands of other devices? Just dumb as ****. If you don't know anything, just say you don't know anything but don't give out stupid reasons and act like there ISN'T a problem in the area. The light at the end of the tunnel is that they have to get their act together (they've publically acknowledged this) and they seemingly will be with the network modernization plans, but your problems at Russell & Jones, I will have to see for myself. I know of poor HSPA coverage and poor speeds, but I rarely have problems connecting. The store on Rainbow also has a microcell inside now.
Thank you, that is exactly what drives me nuts. If you don't know, just say so without giving me idiotic replies. The guy there actually wanted me to get a "signal booster". I told him, look I get FULL bars on 4G, and I sure DO NOT want to extend my contract by getting a "booster" which won't do a thing. Anyways, here where I am at, but I experience this also elsewhere, out of 10 times I try to connect, it will connect like 2 times but the other 8 it will either load at GPRS speeds or will tell me "no connection". Anyways, I am just gonna keep everything as is, and then in a year try to switch to another carrier if things keep going this bad.
I went to russell and jones and I did have one instance where it wouldn't start a speedtest, and following speed tests were delayed at the start but I only had an issue connecting once and my speeds were all over 3Mbps (I have a dual cell capable Galaxy S II). The cell tower serving this area is a standalone fake tree which is pretty visible driving up and down jones. The next tower is at Hacienda and Jones, and there is also another cell tower right over the 215 freeway, and the next one is right up on Rainbow and Russell next to the bar, it's painted black.
I'm thinking the 1.4 Million quote wasn't totally accurate or was specifically limited to that section of North Las Vegas, but the mere fact that one of the local engineers said they were investing in the area is good news. Also, at Rainbow and Arroyo Crossing there is a new cell site pink T on the coverage maps which corresponds with the new CID's I see emitting from the same cell tower. Before it was just ee53 (pointing towards the 215 freeway), ee54 Pointing towards Rainbow and Warm Springs/Buffalo and ee55 pointing towards Warm Springs going west. Now I see ee56 and ee57, but it's still hammered and running at a reduced coverage area. The ee53 sector gets hammered the most. Backhaul is not an issue because I've been able to reach over 2Mbps up, but only in the dead of the night. Even at 10PM I could barely break 2Mbps down on that cell site and .30Mbps up as of last week.
Again it is very intermittent, and sometimes it works, but the majority of times it does not. It is now 10:34AM and it connects at barely EDGE speeds. I also noticed that there is a frame of time during the day when it will work more than other times, and that it works much more at night (after 3AM). Either way, it used to work perfectly well before at all times, so something must have happen.
I'd say it's another capacity issue then. Best to wait and see (and get a device that can do) 1900MHz PCS. With that, and LTE offloading, HSPA should be in much better shape than it is now say in 6 months. The only networks that aren't doing too bad are the LTE ones due to it being totally separate. My AT&T HSPA line does pretty bad, even along blue diamond I've gotten .12Mbps and connection errors/speed tests that won't complete. Verizon 3G is pretty horrendous for speeds although it does "work" usually. Sprint is a mess all around right now, slow 3G, spotty WiMAX, no LTE yet.
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