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Network Vision/LTE - West Washington Market (Seattle/Puget Sound Region)


drlovety

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Found a third n41 along that same powerline. A new T-Mobile B41/n41 signal has appeared at the 405/522 interchange. I discovered that the powerline tower at 47.7798189, -122.1750665 has been upgraded to B41/n41. It is broadcasting 40MHz of B41 and 60MHz of n41. I was able to pull around 400 Mbps from it when I was close by. 

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On 9/25/2020 at 2:03 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

Confirmed n41, though it's not live yet.43b3a73b2c8ee715511e2fb867787f45.jpg

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk
 

After over a month, they finally turned on n41 on this tower. Previously I could connect to B41 but could never get an n41 signal.  

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Some more towers have been moved over to 1910/1990 for B25 this morning. I am starting to wonder if the towers on 1910/1990 are ones which will potentially be kept.  It seems like at this point, the only ones left on 1907.5/1987.5 are towers which will obviously not be kept. 

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On 11/6/2020 at 8:41 AM, PedroDaGr8 said:

Some more towers have been moved over to 1910/1990 for B25 this morning. I am starting to wonder if the towers on 1910/1990 are ones which will potentially be kept.  It seems like at this point, the only ones left on 1907.5/1987.5 are towers which will obviously not be kept. 

And over the weekend, the remaining towers have been converted to 1910/1990. 

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Some network updates in downtown Bellevue:

SE03312B on top of Greg's Bicycle is broadcasting 2500. This will be a huge capacity boost for T-Mobile around Lincoln Square/Bellevue Square Mall. 

New build SE03939D on top of Centre 425 is also live with everything except 2500 (as the permits for this site were submitted before the merger). 

New build SE03338I on top of the North Civica building has been built (similarly with everything except 2500) and is currently undergoing call testing. OA is expected late this month. 

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On 11/10/2020 at 1:55 PM, RAvirani said:

SE03312B on top of Greg's Bicycle is broadcasting 2500. This will be a huge capacity boost for T-Mobile around Lincoln Square/Bellevue Square Mall. 

SE03312B has mmWave as well! No backhaul upgrade yet, though. 

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On 11/19/2020 at 3:24 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

Can you connect to mmWave with ROAMAHOME or does it require TNX?

Went by there today and was able to connect. 

Has anyone seen the 312-250 PLMN in the metro Seattle area? I see that one tower was broadcasting it out by Port Orchard, WA but nothing else in the state.

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2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Went by there today and was able to connect. 

Has anyone seen the 312-250 PLMN in the metro Seattle area? I see that one tower was broadcasting it out by Port Orchard, WA but nothing else in the state.

It's rolling out slowly.

You'll be able to catch it at Westwood Village shopping center in West Seattle. The Sprint site in Startup as well as the Sprint site at Snowqualmie Pass are some other examples of 312-250 sites. 

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2 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

PCS E+F+C3+C4. They chopped the C4 block off Sprint's 15x15 carrier. 

Gotcha. T-Mobile expanded from 10x10 to 15x15 here, but they were using existing T-Mobile spectrum. Sits right next to the G Block, but don't expect them to take that over any time soon.

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17 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Gotcha. T-Mobile expanded from 10x10 to 15x15 here, but they were using existing T-Mobile spectrum. Sits right next to the G Block, but don't expect them to take that over any time soon.

Keep your eyes open. Rumor has it there's something similar to DSS in the works. It would allow a PCS C+G carrier to be simultaneously broadcasted as a 15x15 B2 C carrier and a 20x20 B25 C+G carrier based on device compatibility. 

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Just now, RAvirani said:

Keep your eyes open. Rumor has it there's something similar to DSS in the works. It would allow a PCS C+G carrier to be simultaneously broadcasted as a 15x15 B2 C carrier and a 20x20 B25 C+G carrier based on device compatibility. 

Well that would be sweet. Would give us 20x20 AWS + 20x20 PCS. 

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15 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Keep your eyes open. Rumor has it there's something similar to DSS in the works. It would allow a PCS C+G carrier to be simultaneously broadcasted as a 15x15 B2 C carrier and a 20x20 B25 C+G carrier based on device compatibility. 

That's Multiple Frequency Band Indicator (MFBI) and has been a part of the LTE spec since 2015.  https://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=551

Sounds like it will be primarily a 20x20 B25 carrier broadcasting a 15x15 B2 MFBI so that older or foreign devices that lack B25 support will be able to use part of the spectrum.  I bet they'll do this in all markets where they have contiguous C+G holdings.

 

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15 minutes ago, dewbertdc said:

That's Multiple Frequency Band Indicator (MFBI) and has been a part of the LTE spec since 2015.  https://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=551

Sounds like it will be primarily a 20x20 B25 carrier broadcasting a 15x15 B2 MFBI so that older or foreign devices that lack B25 support will be able to use part of the spectrum.  I bet they'll do this in all markets where they have contiguous C+G holdings.

 

The MFBI spec does not support simultaneously different IBWs/center frequencies.  For example:

15x15 C block carrier could be simultaneously broadcasted as B2 (1125) and B25 (8565) with MFBI.  However, MFBI does not support simultaneous broadcast of 15x15 B2 (EARFCN 1125 in the PCS C block) and 20x20 B25 (EARFCN 8590 in the PCS C+G block) that overlap by 15 MHz.  

Achieving the latter is a much more complex problem due to the fact that guard bands would be of different widths and thus, the physical resource blocks and LTE subcarriers wouldn't necessarily line up.  These challenges require careful timing, real-time PRB blanking, dynamically served handoff parameters, etc. to solve.

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14 hours ago, RAvirani said:

The MFBI spec does not support simultaneously different IBWs/center frequencies.  For example:

15x15 C block carrier could be simultaneously broadcasted as B2 (1125) and B25 (8565) with MFBI.  However, MFBI does not support simultaneous broadcast of 15x15 B2 (EARFCN 1125 in the PCS C block) and 20x20 B25 (EARFCN 8590 in the PCS C+G block) that overlap by 15 MHz.  

Achieving the latter is a much more complex problem due to the fact that guard bands would be of different widths and thus, the physical resource blocks and LTE subcarriers wouldn't necessarily line up.  These challenges require careful timing, real-time PRB blanking, dynamically served handoff parameters, etc. to solve.

Ah, thanks.  The More You Know(TM).

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On 12/7/2020 at 11:47 AM, RAvirani said:

T-Mobile L1900 is going to 20x20 in two weeks per the engineering team's estimate!

Looks like 20MHz B2 signal went live quicker than expected. That or I somehow caught a late night beta test.

1650791297_Screenshot_20201208-232628_ServicemodeRIL.thumb.jpg.0b1770dd90e29030cf9f50a1f322a8bd.jpg

Screenshot_20201208-232650_SignalCheck Pro.jpg

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9 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Interesting. This is the info I got:

https://imgur.com/a/bVymrPP

Still live this morning, so not a late night beta. Maybe a staggered roll out which will be complete in two weeks.

So far, confirmed in Bellevue, Bothell, Kingsgate, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Shoreline, and Woodinville. The user in Shoreline is reporting notably better signal overnight as well (from 1 bar to 3-4 bars).

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