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


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1 hour ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

The site in downtown Juanita Beach is now equipped with n41. It's got a pretty good backhaul, I was able to hit around 470 down (n41+B2+B66).

Is this the T-Mobile site on the Livengood building?

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2 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Is this the T-Mobile site on the Livengood building?

Nope, that's downtown Kirkland/Norkirk and I don't think the permit has been issued for that one yet.

This is the Weidner Apartment building right by Juanita Beach Park in downtown Juanita Beach.

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6 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Nope, that's downtown Kirkland/Norkirk. This is the Weidner Apartment building right by Juanita Beach Park.

Oops - I totally misread your message. Permits are in to put 2500 on the downtown Kirkland site (SE02100T). That's why my mind went there. Nice find!

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13 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Oops - I totally misread your message. Permits are in to put 2500 on the downtown Kirkland site (SE02100T). That's why my mind went there. Nice find!

I hadn't been able to find officially what was being upgraded at the Livengood site. Considering B41 and mmWave are the only bands missing from that site (plus downtown Kirkland has no TMo B41 sites), I figured it would be B41. I am still incredibly surprised that TMo did not install B41 when they installed the Kirkland Urban site.

The building behind the Totem Lake McDonald's (by the 405) is slated for a 2500 upgrade as well. It looks like it will be getting a Nokia AEHC:

http://permits.kirklandwa.gov/WebDocs/2018064012/3e1ee991-9ca4-469c-b220-898d43f224c9.pdf

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I saw that permit as well. I honestly think that site should be decommissioned - it does more damage to the SNR of other sites than good. 

There's another colocation planned in that area on the same building as the AT&T site (47.7095747, -122.1880277). That should be interesting!

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3 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

I saw that permit as well. I honestly think that site should be decommissioned - it does more damage to the SNR of other sites than good. 

There's another colocation planned in that area on the same building as the AT&T site (47.7095747, -122.1880277). That should be interesting!

Agreed, about that site. It is the LEAST optimal site I have ever seen for a tower. It sits so low that it doesn't cover barely any area. Yet now they are adding the highest BW B41 antenna to that location. I am very curious if it is even able to reach the majority of the new Totem Lake development. It would have made FAR more sense to add that antenna to ANY of the other sites.

I saw that addition, that will make four towers all serving roughly the same exact area. 

1. The aforementioned Totem Lake site

2. The new site you mentioned (seems more logical for the B41 antennas). 

3. The site atop the Evergreen Hospital (maybe even more logical for the B41 antennas).

4. The site an exit away, by the Cross Kirkland Corridor, which is also a colo with AT&T. Despite being farther away, its reasonable height means  it serve much of the Totem Lake area.

 

 

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26 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

I saw that permit as well. I honestly think that site should be decommissioned - it does more damage to the SNR of other sites than good. 

There's another colocation planned in that area on the same building as the AT&T site (47.7095747, -122.1880277). That should be interesting!

Speaking of the Evergreen Hospital site, looks like THAT one is slated for upgrade as well!

https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/WIR20-00679/Kirkland

While this application doesn't explicitly state T-Mobile, the applicant "GARY ABRAHAMS" seems to be a T-Mobile contact. Searching for his name brings up only T-Mobile permits. 

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3 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Agreed, about that site. It is the LEAST optimal site I have ever seen for a tower. It sits so low that it doesn't cover barely any area. Yet now they are adding the highest BW B41 antenna to that location. I am very curious if it is even able to reach the majority of the new Totem Lake development. It would have made FAR more sense to add that antenna to ANY of the other sites.

I saw that addition, that will make four towers all serving roughly the same exact area. 

1. The aforementioned Totem Lake site

2. The new site you mentioned (seems more logical for the B41 antennas). 

3. The site atop the Evergreen Hospital (maybe even more logical for the B41 antennas).

4. The site an exit away, by the Cross Kirkland Corridor, which is also a colo with AT&T. Despite being farther away, its reasonable height means  it serve much of the Totem Lake area.

 

 

Getting rid of SE03314B and keeping the other 3 would work out best. Three sites will more than cover the area's capacity needs, and it's not difficult to make use of downtilt and 45° antennas (as opposed to the usual 65° antennas) to keep the SNR from dropping due to inter-site noise. 

The number one problem with T-Mobile in the Seattle market today is that their signal to noise ratio is consistently terrible (by comparison to the other carriers). This is not due to congestion but due to overlapping sectors. It seems the Sprint team was largely retained (as all my former contacts are staying with T-Mobile) and they're working to clean the network up as much as possible.

EDIT: New imgur link

https://imgur.com/a/Op6GVHs

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On 12/14/2020 at 12:45 PM, RAvirani said:

Getting rid of SE03314B and keeping the other 3 would work out best. Three sites will more than cover the area's capacity needs, and it's not difficult to make use of downtilt and 45° antennas (as opposed to the usual 65° antennas) to keep the SNR from dropping due to inter-site noise. 

The number one problem with T-Mobile in the Seattle market today is that their signal to noise ratio is consistently terrible (by comparison to the other carriers). This is not due to congestion but due to overlapping sectors. It seems the Sprint team was largely retained (as all my former contacts are staying with T-Mobile) and they're working to clean the network up as much as possible.

EDIT: New imgur link

https://imgur.com/a/Op6GVHs

That is very good to hear! I had noticed that the SNR numbers for T-Mobile look notably worse than what I remembered for Sprint. I thought it was in my head/due to tower distances but clearly it is not. Thanks a bunch for these updates!

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On 11/29/2020 at 2:52 PM, RAvirani said:

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. 

Two Woodinville towers (SE03XC157 and SE35XC004) just started broadcasting the 312-250 PLMN.

SE35XC004 (near the Slough in Woodinville) = This one is not surprising. That tower will fill a relative hole for T-Mobile and increase capacity for the parks/industries/etc. nearby. 

SE03XC157 (Woodinville warehouse district) - I am honestly very surprised (and happy) that this tower was kept considering T-Mobile has two towers within a half mile of this one. While one was clearly going to be kept (the one in downtown Woodinville), the other at 47.76079, -122.13790 is just up the hill from SE03XC157. Based on my experience in the warehouse district area, the second tower was honestly horrible and, despite its location, didn't really cover the warehouse district at all. As a result, indoor speeds were a fraction of what I would get from SE03XC157. So from a coverage perspective, it makes sense to keep SE03XC157 but I didn't expect it to actually happen.

 

 

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On 12/8/2020 at 11:28 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

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

The 20x20 B2 rollout will be completed today.

Final edited handoff/load balancing parameters will go live tonight to account for the additional BW. 

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On 12/18/2020 at 10:52 AM, RAvirani said:

The 20x20 B2 rollout will be completed today.

Final edited handoff/load balancing parameters will go live tonight to account for the additional BW. 

Thanks for the update, I haven't noticed anything on my end but I guess I shouldn't for something like this. 

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1 hour ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Thanks for the update, I haven't noticed anything on my end but I guess I shouldn't for something like this. 

Other than seeing B2 more often you won't notice too much difference.

I believe the updated QRxLevMin is -124. QQualMin values should be the same. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
21 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Not sure if it is due to the wind storms last night but as of this morning keep site SE03XC157 is not broadcasting. I will go check it out later. 

Ok it isn't just SE03XC157.

 

Sprint towers SE03XC658 and SE52XC053 are no longer broadcasting Sprint signals either. These two are co-lo with T-Mobile. The T-Mobile racks are still broadcasting. I wonder if these are some of the first Sprint towers in this area to get shutdown.

At this point, the closest Sprint site to downtown Woodinville still broadcasting is the keep site on the Slough. 

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14 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Ok it isn't just SE03XC157.

I was under the impression that this was a keep site. I'll try to drive by in the next few days. If it's still out, I'll reach out to the network team. 

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On 1/14/2021 at 10:29 PM, RAvirani said:

I was under the impression that this was a keep site. I'll try to drive by in the next few days. If it's still out, I'll reach out to the network team. 

Just drove by there today and SE03XC157 is back online. I guess the aforementioned wind storm temporarily knocked it offline.

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/14/2020 at 10:31 AM, RAvirani said:

I saw that permit as well. I honestly think that site should be decommissioned - it does more damage to the SNR of other sites than good. 

There's another colocation planned in that area on the same building as the AT&T site (47.7095747, -122.1880277). That should be interesting!

The upgrade of SE03314B went live today. The placement of these antennas is absolutely ABSURD! The AEHC panel is mounted on a riser above the other antenna. 

IAVtgtp.jpg

If you look carefully, you can just barely see the second antenna below the AEHC. 

zxuCrKv.jpg

I am unsure if they upgraded the antenna or I'm just paying closer attention but that antenna appears MUCH larger and closer to the ground than before. The bottom is basically 7-8ft above ground level! Nothing like sitting in the McDonalds drive thru and getting a huge RF blast from the antenna. I had signal values in the -40s in the parking lot. 

gA3260j.jpg

On a good note, this site has 80MHz of n41 bandwidth (the first one I have seen here). On that note, it looks like at some point recently they also moved the n41 carrier for the area up from up to 2607.8MHz from 2597.0MHz. This explains why they decommissioned the Sprint  2640.4MHz B41 carrier. An 80MHz BW centered at 2608MHz would have overlapped notably this carrier. As it is right now, the 2660MHz carrier is only a couple MHz away. 

4z0pA8W.jpg


I will try and see if I can get some better pictures of how outright absurd this location is. 

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5 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

The upgrade of SE03314B went live today. The placement of these antennas is absolutely ABSURD!

I will try and see if I can get some better pictures of how outright absurd this location is. 

Absurd is a generously nice adjective for that site location. 

I wish they would have just decommissioned the site. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just saw this Bothell permit: 

https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/BNR2021-27514/Bothell

This is the first permit I have seen which appears to be T-Mobile actually converting a Sprint Keep site. Remarkably, I didn't know this was going to be a keeper, I have never gotten the 312-250 PLMN from this site. I just assumed it was going to be decommissioned considering the number of T-Mobile towers in the area. In particular, there is a T-Mobile tower just across the 405.

Adding a couple more permits:

Snohomish County: https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/21104003CBP/Snohomish County

Sammamish Kinda Permit: https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/FEAS2020-00779/Sammamish

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2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Off the bat, I think that site is meant to cover Juanita-Woodinville Way going south to site SE02523A. That's always been a weaker coverage area for T-Mobile. 

2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

That's a good add for T-Mobile, both from a coverage and a capacity standpoint. 

2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

That site is a great addition from a coverage standpoint, as it sits squarely between SE02654C and SE02628D. That being said, I was hoping they would hop on Verizon's SEA North Sammamish site (47.6019, -122.07074). I'll shoot them an email about that one.

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Thanks for the analysis on those sites! The Juanita-Woodinville Sprint tower at 47.74330, -122.19131 was mostly a surprise because:

  1.  The T-Mobile tower at 47.74440, -122.18346 is only 2000ft away and the T-Mobile tower at 47.74641, -122.20140 is only 2700ft away.
  2. The fact it NEVER showed the 312-250 PLMN. This is despite me trying hard to find out if it or the Sprint tower at 47.747532, -122.18941 were going to be keep sites. 

If this were to fill that geographic dead zone, I would imagine something located closer to Oskam's Corner would be more suitable. I guess it is a case of a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush. 

As for T-Mobile's roll-out of B41/N41, I have to say I am impressed with the speed of deployment. Driving north on I-405 from the start at I-5, I locked my phone to B-41. I did not lose my T-Mobile B41 connection until I reached Kirkland. Even then, there was only a small gap and I likely would have been able to reach north of the 124th in Kirkland without issue. It seems like they are upgrading a number of sites in suburban Snohomish county near the King/SnoCo border.

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2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

If this were to fill that geographic dead zone, I would imagine something located closer to Oskam's Corner would be more suitable. I guess it is a case of a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush. 
 

I agree. I think AT&T site SB25 at Oksams corner would be a much better fit. 

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Found a few more Sprint Keep Sites:

SE63XC203 at 47.73257, -122.11774 in Woodinville. I guess this will replace  one or more of the nearby T-Mobile B12/B66 sites.

SE73XC026 at 47.69437, -121.96558 on Novelty Hill, between Carnation and Duvall.

The last one SE03XC659 at 47.80177, -122.00862 shows up in my log but it lacks a lot of info so it might not be valid. Occasionally, SignalCheck will keep the PLMN as it switches towers (meaning I have a number of towers with obvious T-Mobile bands and/or Sprint sites that do not confirm as Keep sites).

 

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