New 4G Tower active in Lexington, Kentucky!!!

[NMherron]

New 4G tower went active in Lexington, Kentucky last week. This was one of the largest markets in the U.S. that Sprint had no 4G/WiMax coverage. Just one tower and it covers about 70% of the metro area with some coverage. Turn on your 4G antennas, scan for service and start surfin'!

Enjoy this one tower for awhile. It will probably be awhile before tower #2 arrives. Now the folks in Reno, Nevada and Dayton, Ohio are envious. These are now the largest U.S. cities without any Sprint 4G service. (Yes, I know Phoenix and San Diego virtually have no service).

Please note that with only one tower coverage, you are not likely to get service in a building unless you are near the center of the coverage area. The first time you try service, confirm you are in the coverage area and then go outside to try to connect. Happy surfin'!

 

[j_grouchy]

Mind if I ask how you get that map?

Also...does CLEAR 4G tower always = Sprint 4G tower? I know CLEAR shows tower locations on their site, but I'm not clear (no pun intended) on whether they have exclusively CLEAR and exclusively Sprint 4G towers or if they all pull double-duty.

 

[tybo31316]

Usually, if it shows up on the clear map that your city has coverage its for both sprint and clear but sometimes the phones dont have a strong enough connection but data cards seem to have better reception.

 

[NMherron]

Mind if I ask how you get that map?

Also...does CLEAR 4G tower always = Sprint 4G tower? I know CLEAR shows tower locations on their site, but I'm not clear (no pun intended) on whether they have exclusively CLEAR and exclusively Sprint 4G towers or if they all pull double-duty.

Map is from clear.com website. Clear 4G service is always Sprint 4G service. Clear and Sprint pooled their 2.5Ghz spectrum licenses together and thus have an agreement that their users can use their service interoperably. Also, Sprint owns 54% of Clear.

Fortunately there are no exclusive towers for only Sprint or Clear. Sprint WiMax devices see Clear's network as native. I read lots of message boards and haven't read anywhere that a Sprint user could not connect to a Clear tower. I have had a connection problem at a tower in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But I read where a Clear user couldn't connect to that tower either on a message board.

There are currently 9 Clear towers in New Mexico (where I live). I have been able to connect to all of them (except the one noted in Albuquerque) with my HTC Evo 4G device on Sprint. My only complaint is they need about 100 more towers here!

 

[NMherron]

Usually, if it shows up on the clear map that your city has coverage its for both sprint and clear but sometimes the phones dont have a strong enough connection but data cards seem to have better reception.

Good point! The data cards broadcast a higher wattage signal and usually offer noticeably superior performance than phones. Especially at edge of service and in buildings.

 

[j_grouchy]

Map is from clear.com website. Clear 4G service is always Sprint 4G service. Clear and Sprint pooled their 2.5Ghz spectrum licenses together and thus have an agreement that their users can use their service interoperably. Also, Sprint owns 54% of Clear.

Fortunately there are no exclusive towers for only Sprint or Clear. Sprint WiMax devices see Clear's network as native. I read lots of message boards and haven't read anywhere that a Sprint user could not connect to a Clear tower. I have had a connection problem at a tower in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But I read where a Clear user couldn't connect to that tower either on a message board.

There are currently 9 Clear towers in New Mexico (where I live). I have been able to connect to all of them (except the one noted in Albuquerque) with my HTC Evo 4G device on Sprint. My only complaint is they need about 100 more towers here!

Reason I ask is because of the Nexus S 4G signal issues and the test I performed the other day as described in this post:

So I did the test I've been meaning to do for a long time now. I know exactly where the CLEAR tower is located (about a mile from my house on a major intersection). The other day as I was at the gas station at this intersection, with the tower not 200 feet away and with a direct line of sight I turned on the 4G and let it sit for a few minutes while I filled up. When I checked it, I had one "bar" of signal and the speed test gave me a hair over 1 mbps download. Is it that perhaps this CLEAR tower is devoted to CLEAR internet subscription service or does it pull double-duty and also serve Sprint 4G data subscribers? I ask because I also get CLEAR internet off this exact same tower and regularly pull between 3 and 5 mbps download. So I figure it can be only a limited number of reasons:

1 - The tower service is fragmented and my phone would actually pull from a different tower further away from this particular CLEAR tower.

2 - My position was somehow too close...? Would I have received better service if I had been standing a little further out? I'm picturing the signal to be some array of 'cones', with areas of less strong signal strength between these cones and maybe being almost directly below the tower was one of these 'dead zones'.

3 - The 4G radio on the phone is crippled either by a physical defect or a software bug.

The fact is that my CLEAR home modem works fine a mile from the tower and the phone, literally held two inches away from the modem (which is getting a full 4 to 5 bars of signal), is getting zero 4G service.

You answered my first question...

 

[wphend00]

Reason I ask is because of the Nexus S 4G signal issues and the test I performed the other day as described in this post:




You answered my first question...

There was a 1-2 mile radius outtage of Sprint Services, in the Leestown road\Old Frankfort Pike RD area, a couple of weeks ago, that lasted for a week. I sat in my house with 4 different Sprint phones (my Epic 4g, Wife's Samsung INtercept, Son's Palm Pre, and my HTC Arrive from work) and literally had NO calls or data... every now and then the data and the bars would "light" up for maybe 5 minutes, and I would get e-mails and txt's to the phone, and then it would go back to NOTHING... I called and talked to sprint, opened a service ticket with them... and its strange, but the 3 times I talked to the 3 different service reps, I nicely complained "When are we going to get 4g, its a shame I have been paying $10.00 a month for a year for 4g (now its a 3g fee) and still no 4g". I guess the outtage was due to them installing the antennae....

I did like someone else suggested, and just did a scan network in the Kroger's parking lot of Leestown road... and boom, 1 bar. I ran some speed test...2-3 megs download and 400-500K upload... it is a huge improvement over the 3g that was only getting 285-700K downloads... Now if any one knows of an app like wi-fi or wireless tether, that will share out that 3g, I would greatly appreciate it.
THe coverage is like rain... you won't get a drop if you are in a building, your car, or even standing under a tent... but once you are out in the open... you get coverage.
Supposedly, they are beta testing WIMAX in Louisville...

 

[wphend00]

Also, to the OP, I don't think they have Sprint 4G in Louisville. They do have Verizon LTE around CHurch Hill downs and the "YUM!" center.

 

[NMherron]

They do have Sprint 4G service in Louisville. It's not full coverage. But they do have two towers.