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Mjrtom7's profile

Explorer

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25 Messages

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012 6:57 PM

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Will Northeast MI ever receive 3G?

I've heard talk about how ATT is "working on their network coverage" and plans to provide 3G service in Northeast MI "in the coming months".  Well, now that another 2 year contract has expired, I'm seriously wondering if I would be better off jumping to Verizon.  The EDGE data network up here if virtually useless.  5 full bars, yet extremely poor data transfer.  

 

Can anyone provide an HONEST answer as to when this coverage is planned to be upgraded???  Verizon has had 3G for quite a long while up here...

Scholar

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391 Messages

10 years ago

That is a very good sign. The western U.P. is the largest area of EDGE left in Michigan to upgrade so it shouldnt be long now. Funny thing is over the weekend I took the SIM card out of my AT&T 4G hotspot and put it in my Verizon HTC Droid DNA (factory unlocked) and it worked Lol. Had to set the APN but I was on AT&T's blazing fast HSPA+ network with a Verizon phone. Anyway the point is I locked the phone in GSM(EDGE) and speed tests were a consistant 180-220 Kbps here at my house!!! I wonder why they never upgraded northern MI to EDGE Class 10 years ago? They are ramping up tower upgrades all across MI so by next year they should be right there with Big Red especially after they start their tower "densification". 🙂

Scholar

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151 Messages

10 years ago

I think I found the source of that low 4G signal I've been getting. Acorrding to the coverage map it looks like Little Lake has 4G now. I might be picking up the end of that signal.

Scholar

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151 Messages

10 years ago

Checked out the Lathrop tower today. still no antennas but they are running that orange conduit to the tower. I took some pics:

 

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Scholar

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391 Messages

10 years ago

Excellent. They are obviously in the area getting those towers ready to fire up. It definitely won't be long before the tower climbers install the panels, crews finish installing the hardware at the shelter, and within a few weeks (or sooner) after completion they light up UMTS/3G 🙂
This past weekend in Lewiston, I checked service on my Mifi hotspot and it was indicating consistant HSPA+ (3 weeks ago it was UMTS) and the speed test site I was running showed that the network capacity on the site was at 25 Mbps. Although speed test results in town were only running a max of 5 Mbps, it is safe to say the tower in Lewiston has fiber backhaul and probably just needs a software update at the tower to unleash the max HSPA+ speeds.

Lovells tower update:
It doesn't appear that any upgrades have been done on the tower yet, but it appears that Frontier is making their way down F-97 for fiber backhaul. The Orange conduit has been buried along 97 from Old State road to an intersection where a new concrete slab has been poured and prepped for a new switch box. Progress has been made and they are now about 4 miles away from the tower. Hopefully the weather will hold out long enough for them to finish.

Scholar

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151 Messages

10 years ago

It looks like they are startting to run the cable. I saw a spool of cable coming down from a telephone poll. I know charter internet runs along the highway on the poles, so they must be tapping into charters line for the fiber?

Scholar

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391 Messages

10 years ago

American Ninja,

 

Quite possibly and I am betting that Lathrop will be lit up within 2-3 weeks:):)  My source did say that all towers in will be upgraded by the end of November...except for a handful of stragglers. There's already several towers that were very recently upgraded to 3G, that have been tuned up with HSPA+ ( Ironwood, Posen, West Branch, Houghton Lake, and St. Helen)  It won't be long now before the dredded "E" makes way for "4G"

 

  If you get a chance, would you see if you can dial into FieldTest mode on your iPhone. Guys are doing this on another thread with their iPhones(on Verizon) to check Frequency Band Indicator and Download/Upload Bandwidth (carrier size in MHz...5/10/20 etc.).   This can be done by dialing *3001#12345#*  then going to Serving Cell  and wait for the list to populate. I don't know if AT&T allows this access but I am curious to see what results you get. I have an Android so I cannot utilize the code.

Scholar

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151 Messages

10 years ago

I tried that and it doesnt show anything for "Serving Cell".

Mentor

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43 Messages

10 years ago

will be nice when the actual coverage matches what the coverage map shows. 

As I posted awhile ago (been way too busy), I had HSPA at my daughter's soccer game near Ford Airport in Kingsford.

 

That was the one and only time.

For the past few weeks, the coverage map has shown 3g in Iron Mountain/Kingsford. Nothing yet. Haven't seen trucks or anyone working.

 

I had a booth at a semi-local gun/knife show in Goodman, Wisconsin this past weekend and had hspa. Goodman, Wisconsin has about 12 people in it.

 

This is getting ignorant because EDGE is like using a 14.4 baud modem.

 

Scholar

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391 Messages

10 years ago

Thanks for trying that code American Ninja. AT&T must have that network feature blocked. I am in Manistee this week and seen an AT&T truck with guys working on the pole yesterday. I thought all of northern MI was Frontier. Hmmm

c0n.... I would say those towers showing 3G now should light up soon. There have been a lot of anomalies with the coverage viewer lately including the "Voice" coverage map. That is the indicator for tower location but many tower locations aren't depicted properly. Have the cell sites by you been fitted with broadband panels yet? Pretty much all sites are supposed to have HSPA+ activated by years end.

Scholar

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136 Messages

10 years ago

AT&T is the ILEC for Manistee county. Frontier assets are mainly NE, mid-central, and SE MI. I've attached a little ILEC gem to this post 😉 good for cross checking when work to the lines is observed.

 

ILEC_MAP_2013.jpg

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