Network Vision/LTE - New York City Market

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, clbowens said:

Do you know how much N41 is available there?  80?  100?

80MHz here. 

[clbowens]

13 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

80MHz here. 

Nice to see you can get that kind if speed with just 80

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, clbowens said:

Nice to see you can get that kind if speed with just 80

It's NSA so it's being aggregated with 20MHz of PCS and 20MHz of AWS which definitely helps.

[AirlineFlyer]

On 6/23/2021 at 9:51 AM, AirlineFlyer said:

eNB 56195 is now also undergoing work. Ericsson is on the roof right now installing new antennas and cabling. An antenna that wasn't there yesterday looks to be a low band antenna, but I'm not totally sure which and don't have a fantastic view. No n41 antenna spotted yet but the work is ongoing.

 

Higher resolution image here: https://imgur.com/a/moyQ6Ol

 

It doesn't look like this setup got mid-band added but after a week's worth of work in getting khc faster speeds on LTE. What used to be 30 Mbps is now 100+. I'm sure it helps that one of the new antennas points in my direction.

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/4649824819

[Paynefanbro]

7 minutes ago, AirlineFlyer said:

It doesn't look like this setup got mid-band added but after a week's worth of work in getting khc faster speeds on LTE. What used to be 30 Mbps is now 100+. I'm sure it helps that one of the new antennas points in my direction.

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/4649824819

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them come back and add n41 within a few weeks. 
 

A site near my home that was originally Band 2/66 only got Band 12/71 added and about 3 weeks later the engineers came back and added Band 41 to the site.
 

I’m surprised it took them a week to upgrade though. My home site was done with physical work in about 2 days and it took another 1-2 days on top of that before everything was live. 

[AirlineFlyer]

12 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them come back and add n41 within a few weeks. 
 

A site near my home that was originally Band 2/66 only got Band 12/71 added and about 3 weeks later the engineers came back and added Band 41 to the site.
 

I’m surprised it took them a week to upgrade though. My home site was done with physical work in about 2 days and it took another 1-2 days on top of that before everything was live. 

I'll be keeping an eye out on it, but it looks pretty done. The Ericsson engineers were still here today, so who really knows. I don't have a 5G phone to test n41, anyway.

[Paynefanbro]

I'm curious about how T-Mobile plans on bringing n41 or n71 to Dumbo considering the two sites (eNB 41051 and eNB 42102) that cover theneighborhood are both using those extremely small antennas like we've seen in some other parts of the city. With their current setup, virtually all 5G in the neighborhood is coming from sites across the river in Manhattan. Speeds and signal are fine outdoors but quickly deteriorate indoors because of this.

I'm hoping that the Sprint site at the intersection of York St and Jay St is converted into a T-Mobile site. The increase in power would mean a large improvement in coverage for the neighborhood over eNB 42102 and could even go so far as completely replacing that site.

As for eNB 41051, I think T-Mobile should consider collocating on the Verizon site in the area which is in a much better place than T-Mobile or even Sprint's sites and provide much better coverage to the neighborhood and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Here's an image showing where T-Mobile's two mini-sites are in relation to the relevant full macros from other carriers in the neighborhood. I've outlined the boundary of Dumbo on the map.

Purple: T-Mobile
Yellow: Sprint
Red: Verizon

[AirlineFlyer]

6 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm curious about how T-Mobile plans on bringing n41 or n71 to Dumbo considering the two sites (eNB 41051 and eNB 42102) that cover theneighborhood are both using those extremely small antennas like we've seen in some other parts of the city. With their current setup, virtually all 5G in the neighborhood is coming from sites across the river in Manhattan. Speeds and signal are fine outdoors but quickly deteriorate indoors because of this.

I'm hoping that the Sprint site at the intersection of York St and Jay St is converted into a T-Mobile site. The increase in power would mean a large improvement in coverage for the neighborhood over eNB 42102 and could even go so far as completely replacing that site.

As for eNB 41051, I think T-Mobile should consider collocating on the Verizon site in the area which is in a much better place than T-Mobile or even Sprint's sites and provide much better coverage to the neighborhood and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Here's an image showing where T-Mobile's two mini-sites are in relation to the relevant full macros from other carriers in the neighborhood. I've outlined the boundary of Dumbo on the map.

Purple: T-Mobile
Yellow: Sprint
Red: Verizon

Ugh, the coverage in Brooklyn Bridge Park is just awful in places. A lot of these mini sites have got to go. They just can't keep up with modern needs or uses.

[Paynefanbro]

3 hours ago, AirlineFlyer said:

Ugh, the coverage in Brooklyn Bridge Park is just awful in places. A lot of these mini sites have got to go. They just can't keep up with modern needs or uses.

I think that they serve their purpose for the most part. Most of them are there for infill coverage as opposed to actual full-scale coverage that normal sized macros provide. These Dumbo sites are more of an exception.

Upgrading the mini sites to support n2/25/n66 may be as easy as an RRU swap but who knows how long it'll be before they can get similarly sized antennas for Band/n71 and Band/n41. They're probably going to be some of the last sites to get upgraded in the city. 

[wispiANt]

12 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm curious about how T-Mobile plans on bringing n41 or n71 to Dumbo considering the two sites (eNB 41051 and eNB 42102) that cover theneighborhood are both using those extremely small antennas like we've seen in some other parts of the city. With their current setup, virtually all 5G in the neighborhood is coming from sites across the river in Manhattan. Speeds and signal are fine outdoors but quickly deteriorate indoors because of this.

I'm hoping that the Sprint site at the intersection of York St and Jay St is converted into a T-Mobile site. The increase in power would mean a large improvement in coverage for the neighborhood over eNB 42102 and could even go so far as completely replacing that site.

eNB 42102 is an interesting site in that one of the sectors utilizes standard macro-style antennas.

That said, this site was the bane of my existence for a full year. It doesn't provide good coverage or speeds either on or under the bridge, and it services far too large and dense an area for anything but standard macro-style antennas to be a option. Practically all the buildings on Sands Street, west of the bridge, are a dead zone.

[Paynefanbro]

11 minutes ago, thisischuck01 said:

eNB 42102 is an interesting site in that one of the sectors utilizes standard macro-style antennas.

That said, this site was the bane of my existence for a full year. It doesn't provide good coverage or speeds either on or under the bridge, and it services far too large and dense an area for anything but standard macro-style antennas to be a option. Practically all the buildings on Sands Street, west of the bridge, are a dead zone.

It's my understanding that they use the smaller antennas to "preserve the character of the building" but rules regarding building modifications in landmarked neighborhoods tend to only apply to what can be seen from ground level. T-Mobile could easily just attach the antennas to this former water tower stand or on the brick rooftop access portal behind it as both are barely visible from any side of the street. 

It also seems like keeping the Sprint site would help with getting rid of that dead zone along Sands St.

[Paynefanbro]

Looks like there's a T-Mobile site at 101st Ave btwn 84th and 85th St in Ozone Park, Queens that hasn't been mapped at all yet on Cellmapper. Sadly I don't have an Android device to do it. I believe that eNB 138730 is the Band 41 eNB for that site.

[AirlineFlyer]

8 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Looks like there's a T-Mobile site at 101st Ave btwn 84th and 85th St in Ozone Park, Queens that hasn't been mapped at all yet on Cellmapper. Sadly I don't have an Android device to do it. I believe that eNB 138730 is the Band 41 eNB for that site.

If we're going to bring up sites that aren't yet mapped, there's also one at Hicks St and Clark St in Brooklyn Heights. Used to live near there and have some images from 2019 https://imgur.com/a/OJDBBlh

[Paynefanbro]

23 minutes ago, AirlineFlyer said:

If we're going to bring up sites that aren't yet mapped, there's also one at Hicks St and Clark St in Brooklyn Heights. Used to live near there and have some images from 2019 https://imgur.com/a/OJDBBlh

That's really weird because all around that site has been mapped already. Maybe the eNB is already on the map but the automatically calculated location is in a weird place. Hopefully someone can go there are see which eNB ID that site is.

[AirlineFlyer]

eNB 50319 in Sunset Park sure is weird looking. n41 up on one sector but the other sector is just a weird mess of antennas points in all different directions.

[Paynefanbro]

14 minutes ago, AirlineFlyer said:

eNB 50319 in Sunset Park sure is weird looking. n41 up on one sector but the other sector is just a weird mess of antennas points in all different directions.

 

Looks similar to how my home site looked after the first day of upgrades. Seems like they're sticking with 3 antennas per sector. I've been seeing that set up a lot more on sites that were upgraded in the past few months. It looks much better than the 4 antenna setup in my opinion.

[Paynefanbro]

On 6/30/2021 at 2:14 PM, thisischuck01 said:

eNB 42102 is an interesting site in that one of the sectors utilizes standard macro-style antennas.

That said, this site was the bane of my existence for a full year. It doesn't provide good coverage or speeds either on or under the bridge, and it services far too large and dense an area for anything but standard macro-style antennas to be a option. Practically all the buildings on Sands Street, west of the bridge, are a dead zone.

Drove by eNB 41051 recently and noticed that it also has a single sector that uses standard macro equipment.  It's facing the waterfront and painted black so you don't notice it unless the light hits it directly. An easy win for T-Mobile might be to just upgrade those sectors with n41 and n71 equipment while they wait for smaller 5G antennas to fit the facade of the building.

[Paynefanbro]

Spotted a Verizon C-band site for the first time in Crown Heights. Sadly Verizon's site density in my area leaves quite a bit to be desired. Outdoors, signal is fine but indoors I can't get more than 2 bars anywhere in my home. I'm curious how C-band will perform or if it'll even be able to reach inside my house at all.

[wispiANt]

Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but it looks like some B48 deployments were mapped in the Bronx back in April/May. eNBs 146589 & 146586 on CellMapper.

[Paynefanbro]

Despite the chorus of complaints and the (now weekly) Reddit thread stating that T-Mobile is getting worse and how everything has gone downhill I'm still spotting more and more n41 and still getting super fast speeds.

I took this test at a red light in midtown around 42nd St and Second Ave this afternoon.

[wispiANt]

14 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Despite the chorus of complaints and the (now weekly) Reddit thread stating that T-Mobile is getting worse and how everything has gone downhill I'm still spotting more and more n41 and still getting super fast speeds.

I took this test at a red light in midtown around 42nd St and Second Ave this afternoon.

These threads are a joke. 28 upvotes on a comment that says "NYC and east of the city seem to be on a steady decline the past couple of months". Uh, would you like to specify where? There's only 5K+ sites in that area.

That's not to say that I haven't been seeing some slow speeds. For example, I stepped out of the subway into Union Sq Park the other day and was only able to pull ~2Mb/s on n41. Or congested (but still usable) service on some LTE-only macros in certain areas of Harlem. Or some congested LTE oDAS nodes in Williamsburg. But this happens on a block by block basis.

On the other hand, more often than not I'm pulling 300+ Mb/s. I rounded the corner at Union Sq and was immediately able to to pull a 400Mb/s speedtest. My average speed at home has gone from 200Mb/s two months ago to hovering around 300Mb/s. Etc, etc, etc.

[T-MoblieUser207]

I guess the 3 of us are the select few whose service got better, as that is the experience for me also. The 5G rollout is moving faster than I expected both n71 and n41, and the speeds are there to match. Plus, the towers that I knew of with slow n41 speeds are starting to see optimizations, as their speeds have also gone up. It's a great time to be a T-Mo customer with a 5G device in NYC.

Speaking of towers, T-Mobile seems to be placing all of their bands on all of their macros, including their midband only sites. There are (technically were now) 2 midband only sites that I know of, and they both got the 6449 and lowband treatment, eNB 56208 and 55976.

The reason I mention it is because it seems like 56208 got the wide RFS panel that people have seen outside of NYC, instead of the double skinny RFS panels.

[Paynefanbro]

Went up to Middletown, NY again for the first time in a few months and every T-Mobile site with the exception of one has been upgraded to include Band 2/12/66/71 and n71. The sole site without Band/n71 at this point is a flagpole site that likely won't be upgraded for a while. 

I got the chance to compare both Verizon and T-Mobile at more than just my friend's house this time around and they performed similarly. I got similar coverage on both carriers and generally slightly faster speeds on T-Mobile. This is because T-Mobile and Verizon are collocated nearly every tower there. There are only about two or three sites in the city where T-Mobile and Verizon aren't collocated. In those areas, one carrier or the other typically vastly outperforms the other in coverage and speeds.

For example in Downtown Middletown I was getting speeds over 100Mbps on T-Mobile while on Verizon I was getting ~30Mbps because T-Mobile has a site near downtown (eNB 48775) that Verizon isn't on. On the other hand, in parts of East Middletown T-Mobile gets destroyed by Verizon because a large portion of it is served by Verizon eNB 74282 and T-Mobile isn't on that site. The good news is that Sprint is on that same tower with Verizon so hopefully T-Mobile decides to keep/convert it.

[AirlineFlyer]

On 5/30/2021 at 5:00 PM, Paynefanbro said:

I was on Box St in Greenpoint last night and finally got to experience T-Mobile's network for an extended period of time in the neighborhood. 

While outdoors, I generally had a decent LTE signal but poor 5G signal. It seems like my phone was bouncing between two T-Mobile sites, eNB 42891 in Greenpoint and eNB 41061 in Long Island City. Performance was usable but still much worse than what I typically see in other neighborhoods throughout the city. Even after midnight I was only getting maximum speeds of around 30Mbps outdoors on LTE. As soon as I went inside any building, I'd drop down to 1 bar of LTE and occasionally, I'd even see no signal at all.

Luckily T-Mobile is allowing their users to roam onto the Sprint tower (eNB 74366). Occasionally while indoors I'd see my signal strength shoot up and I would get over 70Mbps on that single Band 41 carrier.

 

I was in this area again on Saturday and my iPhone (11 Pro) actually dropped to EDGE while standing at the base of this building. EDGE! It quickly bounced back to "4G" before latching on to a weak LTE signal in a minute.

[Paynefanbro]

56 minutes ago, AirlineFlyer said:

I was in this area again on Saturday and my iPhone (11 Pro) actually dropped to EDGE while standing at the base of this building. EDGE! It quickly bounced back to "4G" before latching on to a weak LTE signal in a minute.

That's pretty wild! Since Sprint roaming is active in that area, I'd expect for your phone to switch over to Sprint as it did for me. They really need to get that site converted ASAP. There's also another Sprint site across the water on top of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel ventilation building in LIC that T-Mobile should really consider converting.