Well looky here! Band 12 sighting in Massachusetts

[LeoRex]

Back in the day when T-Mobile announced they were finally rolling out band 12 support nationwide, I was pleased... adding the 700MHz band could lead to some better coverage in certain spots around the region. That is, until I looked at the coverage map and saw that they pretty much all of eastern Massachusetts was frozen out of the band 12 rollout due to a rinky-dink UHF TV station that still operated down in Rhode Island... this created an exclusion zone and T-Mobile couldn't implement the new freqs....

Well... looks what I saw this weekend in Sterling MA. I've also picked up a 12 signal in the Oxbow reserve on Rt 2.... which was a big ol' dead spot only a couple of weeks ago. Not sure if I am picking up the same tower or not (I might be) but it is a welcomed sight.

 

[Almeuit]

Once it becomes more established you should see if the speeds are good .

 

[LeoRex]

Yeah... I haven't had a chance to go check out what a strong signal on band 12 gives for speeds. I didn't nail down where that band 12 tower is yet. Maybe I'll take a little bit of a drive next week to see what that sucker pushes out when its a strong connection.

 

[tonyr6]

Getting Band 12 in Brooklyn, NY 11217 zip code. Streaming music earlier today the signal is stronger and faster. It does not drop down to that useless HSPA junk with dead connections no more either.

 

[Almeuit]

Getting Band 12 in Brooklyn, NY 11217 zip code. Streaming music earlier today the signal is stronger and faster. It does not drop down to that useless HSPA junk with dead connections no more either.

Ouch HSPA sucks in your area? .

 

[tonyr6]

Ouch HSPA sucks in your area? .

Yes it does. It is only good for phone calls and that is even saying alot as I get missed calls when I have LTE drop down to HSPA for phone calls. Now with 6.0 voLTE calls sound great again on T-Mobile so no more HSPA for phone calls.

 

[Almeuit]

Yes it does. It is only good for phone calls and that is even saying alot as I get missed calls when I have LTE drop down to HSPA for phone calls. Now with 6.0 voLTE calls sound great again on T-Mobile so no more HSPA for phone calls.

Ah that sucks. HSPA here can hit upwards of 15 Mbps so I don't really mind if I am on it during a call and need to use data.

 

[tonyr6]

Yes I can hit speeds of about 10 Mbps on HSPA but the biggest problem I have is that the connection just goes dead. I am streaming music on HSPA for about a minute or two and all of a sudden it starts to buffer. Open up Chrome and it says no connection. Open apps and they say network error. Then it switches back to LTE (as long as I don't access the internet just playing local stored content) and everything works perfectly again. This is the issues I had with Lollipop but now with 6.0 it stays on LTE so I don't get a dead connection anymore.

 

[tonyr6]

Earlier today downtown Brooklyn. Streaming music is great.

 

[LeoRex]

-85dBm.... yeah, you're probably not going to have many issues there.

Glad to see it around NYC... that was one of the areas that was frozen out for a while.

 

[tonyr6]

-85dBm.... yeah, you're probably not going to have many issues there.

No issues. Signal strength is a lie anyway. HSPA would show a super strong signal but I will be streaming music and then it would just buffer and all I get is network error. Then it might work again for a few minutes then it does it again. Only on LTE it stays on and this is before Band 12 support.

 

[tonyr6]

Yesterday walking home streaming Smooth Jazz 24/7 I was only able to connect to Band 4. No big deal as Band 4 is still very strong in my area with no dropouts to HSPA. I guess they are still testing it in my area but according to the Band 12 map it shows a antenna downtown in Brooklyn but it is still not officially confirmed.

 

[LeoRex]

No big deal as Band 4 is still very strong in my area with no dropouts to HSPA. I guess they are still testing it in my area but according to the Band 12 map it shows a antenna downtown in Brooklyn but it is still not officially confirmed.

You won't see band 12 until 4 starts to peter out. They transmit both bands from the same towers. Band 4 is their workhorse, especially in a congested area like yours. 12 is reserved as a fall back if 4 isn't working out. Band 12 doesn't have a ton of bandwidth, so it can get congested a lot quicker than 4, so its a 'use if if you need it' frequency.