Sprint spark now active in Houston

deakelem · Feb 3, 2014

Hello everyone

I have found one tower in the Houston area that is pumping out spark speeds. 290 just past Hollister near the panera bread I got download speeds of over 65mbps!

I have to say at first I laughing at spark when they said 100mbps or more..I figured oh great this will take another 9 years to see it but I'm sure if it was the middle of the night and not during rush hour I would have gotten over 100mbps easily..

Let's post any other spark tower locations if you guys find them

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/724943118

nandowong · Feb 3, 2014

deakelem said:
Hello everyone

I have found one tower in the Houston area that is pumping out spark speeds. 290 just past Hollister near the panera bread I got download speeds of over 65mbps!

I have to say at first I laughing at spark when they said 100mbps or more..I figured oh great this will take another 9 years to see it but I'm sure if it was the middle of the night and not during rush hour I would have gotten over 100mbps easily..

Let's post any other spark tower locations if you guys find them

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/724943118

you got this on the nexus 5? i thought it required the update and not just enabling the bands through LTE engineering menu.

deakelem · Feb 3, 2014

nandowong said:
you got this on the nexus 5? i thought it required the update and not just enabling the bands through LTE engineering menu.

Yes n5 and yea I enabled triband after I got my msl. A profile update in the future will do the same. Google how to enable triband on nexus 5 for sprint and that's the guide I used. I don't have the link on me right now.

Cheers

lilotimz · Feb 3, 2014

nandowong said:
you got this on the nexus 5? i thought it required the update and not just enabling the bands through LTE engineering menu.

An update is required but I figured out (by a miracle mistake) that enabling the bands and then cycling PRL update and profile update would let you connect to B41... that is until you restart your phone and have to do another PRL + profile update.

So yeah... spark update is still required.

deakelem · Feb 3, 2014

lilotimz said:
An update is required but I figured out (by a miracle mistake) that enabling the bands and then cycling PRL update and profile update would let you connect to B41... that is until you restart your phone and have to do another PRL + profile update.

So yeah... spark update is still required.

after enabling the bands if you do a profile update it will change the priorities of the bands but should still leave all bands enabled. sprint never touches the ota's so a software update wouldnt be able to change it id assume only a profile update will change it.. prl should only change the prl not your engineering profile settings.

test it out.. enable the other 2 bands and find spark tower ill post a pic after work of the towers and attachments

reddragon72 · Feb 3, 2014

lilotimz said:
An update is required but I figured out (by a miracle mistake) that enabling the bands and then cycling PRL update and profile update would let you connect to B41... that is until you restart your phone and have to do another PRL + profile update.

So yeah... spark update is still required.

The PRL didn't help. The update profile rebooted the phone and prioritized the bands to
1
0
1
So that is no good.

With that said I am still setting at Jones and Louetta and have ye to see Spark on my N5.

lilotimz · Feb 3, 2014

reddragon72 said:
The PRL didn't help. The update profile rebooted the phone and prioritized the bands to
1
0
1
So that is no good.

With that said I am still setting at Jones and Louetta and have ye to see Spark on my N5.

No wimax towers in that area of Houston has been converted to B41 TDD-LTE which is why you don't get "Spark".

reddragon72 · Feb 3, 2014

lilotimz said:
No wimax towers in that area of Houston has been converted to B41 TDD-LTE which is why you don't get "Spark".

So why do they show the map for coverage lol. And how can you tell? Must be a site that lists it I take it.

Oh and what the heck is this Turbo crap lol

deakelem · Feb 3, 2014

lilotimz said:
No wimax towers in that area of Houston has been converted to B41 TDD-LTE which is why you don't get "Spark".

you really think 1.9ghz band is pumping out 80+mbps?

deakelem · Feb 3, 2014

reddragon72 said:
The PRL didn't help. The update profile rebooted the phone and prioritized the bands to
1
0
1
So that is no good.

With that said I am still setting at Jones and Louetta and have ye to see Spark on my N5.

set the bands to

0
0
1

and reboot, after the reboot view the priorities by clicking edit not view, i noticed that view shows different info that edit sometimes.. i know i know weird

mine is still set to
0
0
1 after reboots but profile updates make it go back to 1 0 1

lilotimz · Feb 3, 2014

reddragon72 said:
So why do they show the map for coverage lol. And how can you tell? Must be a site that lists it I take it.

Oh and what the heck is this Turbo crap lol

Sprint LTE maps... I laugh at them and you should too. Overstates coverage for everything though it is getting a little bit more accurate with LTE 800 being deployed but it's still a crapshoot. Look at the 1x map and then decrease it a little bit and you'll have the LTE coverage map as PCS LTE is always weaker than 1xRTT 1900.

I, and a very few select others over @ s4gru.com, have access to to a very recent engineering map from clearwire that has what sites are live as part of the Phase 1 TDD-LTE deployment and deployment schedules (& time frames) for some markets.

Some of us have been actually running around Phase 1 sites (Phase 2A {1st half 2014} are just beginning) getting engineering screens. In fact I just went to another one just a 2 hours ago...

[311-490 / 311-870 = TDD-LTE B41, 310-120 = PCS LTE or eSMR LTE]

No one actually is sure what exactly the turbo area is. We assume it's just areas where the actual Band 41 sites got upgraded backhaul to spit out the 50-60 mbps peak speeds. Many sites are still running on old clearwire wimax backhaul which tops at 10-20 mbps per sector.

deakelem · Feb 4, 2014

lilotimz said:
Sprint LTE maps... I laugh at them and you should too. Overstates coverage for everything though it is getting a little bit more accurate with LTE 800 being deployed but it's still a crapshoot. Look at the 1x map and then decrease it a little bit and you'll have the LTE coverage map as PCS LTE is always weaker than 1xRTT 1900.

I, and a very few select others over @ s4gru.com, have access to to a very recent engineering map from clearwire that has what sites are live as part of the Phase 1 TDD-LTE deployment and deployment schedules (& time frames) for some markets.

Some of us have been actually running around Phase 1 sites (Phase 2A {1st half 2014} are just beginning) getting engineering screens. In fact I just went to another one just a 2 hours ago...

[311-490 / 311-870 = TDD-LTE B41, 310-120 = PCS LTE or eSMR LTE]

No one actually is sure what exactly the turbo area is. We assume it's just areas where the actual Band 41 sites got upgraded backhaul to spit out the 50-60 mbps peak speeds. Many sites are still running on old clearwire wimax backhaul which tops at 10-20 mbps per sector.

Hmmm Interesting.. Thanks for the info I have no clue what turbo is.. Sounds very 80sish haha.

Im convinced that at after hours that cell site would push much more than 70mbps like I got earlier.. All the office buildings nearby including my office

cause some congestion.. I just still have a hard time believing 1.9 has that throughput alone

Only site I've found around that has those speeds and not sure it matters but I'm running .15 modem

lilotimz · Feb 4, 2014

deakelem said:
Hmmm Interesting.. Thanks for the info I have no clue what turbo is.. Sounds very 80sish haha.

Im convinced that at after hours that cell site would push much more than 70mbps like I got earlier.. All the office buildings nearby including my office cause some congestion.. I just still have a hard time believing 1.9 has that throughput alone

Only site I've found around that has those speeds and not sure it matters but I'm running .15 modem

Anything over 37.5/12 is B41 TDD-LTE (aka spark) as LTE 800 / 1900 runs 5x5 mhz FDD-LTE and are incapable of going over the aforementioned.

deakelem · Feb 5, 2014

lilotimz said:
Anything over 37.5/12 is B41 TDD-LTE (aka spark) as LTE 800 / 1900 runs 5x5 mhz FDD-LTE and are incapable of going over the aforementioned.

Tomorrow I'm gonna do some.speedtest after I disable both bands and only use 1.9 I want to see if that has any affect. Also take some pictures of the tower.. Its a tiny tower with only a few panels small panels too doesn't look like it's providing any 3g/CDMA either judging by my weak 3g strength

deakelem · Feb 13, 2014

deakelem said:
Tomorrow I'm gonna do some.speedtest after I disable both bands and only use 1.9 I want to see if that has any affect. Also take some pictures of the tower.. Its a tiny tower with only a few panels small panels too doesn't look like it's providing any 3g/CDMA either judging by my weak 3g strength

I confirmed using the engineering screen that that tower mentioned in the op is putting out 41

My phone was connected to band 41 and pushing 70mbps

timsterzzz · Feb 13, 2014

I just came off a 10 day roadtrip over the southeast, including 4 days in the Tampa market. I tried prl updates with the suggested settings, but never could get Spark like speeds or even connect on band 41. Funny think was that the fastest Sprint speeds I found were at my house in the central Arkansas area. Coverage is really bad here on Sprint, but I live next to a tower getting 32/8 on 1900.

THEGAMEPLAY94 · Feb 13, 2014

I have found a way to consistently connect to band 41 lte aka spark. It is risky though. By flashing the .15 radio and enabling all the bands with band 41 as the first priority you can connect much more easily. The downfall is that on sites without an e/CSFB upgrade which tells your phone to fall back to 3g for a call, it won't kick you off lte so you could be unknowingly without service but you'll have LTE data. More can be found on this at s4gru but I thought I'd let you guys know about the .15 baseband.

MrObvious · Feb 13, 2014

Can someone find which towers are spark active in Wichita Kansas?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

deakelem · Feb 13, 2014

THEGAMEPLAY94 said:
I have found a way to consistently connect to band 41 lte aka spark. It is risky though. By flashing the .15 radio and enabling all the bands with band 41 as the first priority you can connect much more easily. The downfall is that on sites without an e/CSFB upgrade which tells your phone to fall back to 3g for a call, it won't kick you off lte so you could be unknowingly without service but you'll have LTE data. More can be found on this at s4gru but I thought I'd let you guys know about the .15 baseband.

This is exactly how I got the 41 band near work. .15 modem with all bands enabled priority 0 0 1.

Fortunately there are less and less towers not ecsfb

Sprint spark now active in Houston

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