Network Vision/LTE - New York City Market

[Paynefanbro]

I think the newer ones have signal bars on them. I took a photo of one in Red Hook a month or two ago that had the same design.

[AirlineFlyer]

8 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I think the newer ones have signal bars on them. I took a photo of one in Red Hook a month or two ago that had the same design.

Ah, that’s super disappointing if so. 

[Paynefanbro]

A bunch of T-Mobile's recent permits are for upgrading the dozens of flagpole sites they have throughout the city. About two years ago T-Mobile upgraded one flagpole site in Canarsie with n71 but it lacked n41. Then T-Mobile started upgrading  some of their odd sites with smaller passive n41 antennas that only do Band 2/66 and n25/n41. With the recent round of flagpole permits I'm curious to see if they've finally figured out how to do n25/41/71 or if they're still choosing between lowband or midband 5G only. Unfortunately because they've all been submitted within the past month I likely won't be able to test any of them until the end of the year.

[Paynefanbro]

On 7/14/2024 at 4:54 PM, Paynefanbro said:

A permit was issued for a Sprint conversion at 150 Prospect Park West, finally filling in what is T-Mobile's largest coverage gap in Park Slope. Verizon is collocated on that building and AT&T has placed small cells along Prospect Park West to fill in coverage there while T-Mobile struggled using two sites, one at Grand Army Plaza at the far north and another at Bartel Pritchard Square to the far south.

T-Mobile has already taken down the Sprint antennas from this site. No T-Mobile antennas up yet.

[mirskyc]

I've had a Verizon Sim for a few months now and I've noticed wherever Verizon has C-Band they are beating T-Mobile in terms of Speed. They have 180MHZ of C-Band deployed and I am constantly reaching over 1Gbps. It seems like they're on top of updating the backhaul with multigig access.  If they catch up to T-Mobile's N41 deployment with C-Band, T-Mobile will be in trouble. Especially with the dense mmWave deployment taking some of the strain off C-Band in dense areas

[AirlineFlyer]

11 minutes ago, mirskyc said:

I've had a Verizon Sim for a few months now and I've noticed wherever Verizon has C-Band they are beating T-Mobile in terms of Speed. They have 180MHZ of C-Band deployed and I am constantly reaching over 1Gbps. It seems like they're on top of updating the backhaul with multigig access.  If they catch up to T-Mobile's N41 deployment with C-Band, T-Mobile will be in trouble. Especially with the dense mmWave deployment taking some of the strain off C-Band in dense areas

I think the only thing stopping Verizon from truly blowing the other side of the water right now is that many sites still don’t have C-band installed, or even have work permits filed to do it in the near future.

[mirskyc]

1 hour ago, AirlineFlyer said:

I think the only thing stopping Verizon from truly blowing the other side of the water right now is that many sites still don’t have C-band installed, or even have work permits filed to do it in the near future.

They coverage map is a bit exaggerated but I've noticed a lot of improved coverage in Manhattan and Queens. Long Island is still very much slacking and overstated

 

I'm curious what could be next for T-Mobile. I believe they are capped at 140Mhz of B41 in NYC. I wonder how soon until more LTE reframing or C-Band/CBRS deployment starts

[Paynefanbro]

7 hours ago, mirskyc said:

I've had a Verizon Sim for a few months now and I've noticed wherever Verizon has C-Band they are beating T-Mobile in terms of Speed. They have 180MHZ of C-Band deployed and I am constantly reaching over 1Gbps. It seems like they're on top of updating the backhaul with multigig access.  If they catch up to T-Mobile's N41 deployment with C-Band, T-Mobile will be in trouble. Especially with the dense mmWave deployment taking some of the strain off C-Band in dense areas

Really area dependent. I drove through Williamsburg, Park Slope, and Crown Heights last weekend while running CoverageMap’s multiple speed tests and T-Mobile still edged out VZW by about 50Mbps over 50 speed tests. With Verizon I recorded a ton of gig+ speed tests but I also recorded an equal number of 150-180Mbps speed tests too. On T-Mobile while I recorded fewer gig+ speeds their lower end speeds tended to be higher than Verizon’s.

Verizon has improved a lot but T-Mobile still edges them out and has quite a bit of runway in terms of capacity in the form of 60MHz of n77 and oodles of mmWave that they haven’t even touched yet whereas Verizon has deployed virtually all of their spectrum mmWave, CBRS, etc across macros and small cells. Not to mention the (unlikely) possibility that T-Mobile acquires NextWave’s spectrum. 

Edit: Also isn’t VZW at 160MHz in NYC?

[mirskyc]

5 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Edit: Also isn’t VZW at 160MHz in NYC?

You're correct, got confused with AT&T which only has 80MHz deployed 

[Paynefanbro]

Sprint site at 1184 60th St, Brooklyn, NY got a conversion permit submitted.

— — — — —

On 7/14/2024 at 4:54 PM, Paynefanbro said:

A permit was issued for a Sprint conversion at 150 Prospect Park West, finally filling in what is T-Mobile's largest coverage gap in Park Slope. Verizon is collocated on that building and AT&T has placed small cells along Prospect Park West to fill in coverage there while T-Mobile struggled using two sites, one at Grand Army Plaza at the far north and another at Bartel Pritchard Square to the far south.

On 8/3/2024 at 3:59 PM, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile has already taken down the Sprint antennas from this site. No T-Mobile antennas up yet.

Antennas up on this site but not live yet.

[Paynefanbro]

On 5/17/2024 at 4:58 PM, Paynefanbro said:

On 5/13/2024 at 12:06 PM, Paynefanbro said:

Also saw a permit for a new site at 200 W 55th St, New York, NY 10019, replacing T-Mobile eNB 41188.

eNB 41188 is decommissioned but as far as I can tell the site at 200 West 55th is not built yet.

This site isn't built yet but work has started. Part of the roof where there used to be a bannister and outdoor plants has started to be cleared. Most of the bannister is removed and here is now yellow caution tape surrounding the part of the roof where the antennas will be placed.

[Paynefanbro]

The lone site stuck on 1Gbps backhaul in my part of Crown Heights finally got reprovisioned with higher backhaul overnight. Now I'm officially surrounded by >1Gbps+ speeds on every site around me. Before this change, Verizon was the fastest carrier in the immediate area of this site due to their nearby site being having multi-gig backhaul already. Now T-Mobile surpassed them.

[Paynefanbro]

On 8/13/2024 at 3:40 PM, Paynefanbro said:

This site isn't built yet but work has started. Part of the roof where there used to be a bannister and outdoor plants has started to be cleared. Most of the bannister is removed and here is now yellow caution tape surrounding the part of the roof where the antennas will be placed.

Saw workers on the roof of the building this morning. The antenna mounts are being installed now.

[Paynefanbro]

One sector down, two more to go

— — — — — 

I was at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the U.S. Open today and the good news is that there is an n25/41 DAS setup throughout USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. From the "boardwalk" to the outdoor concession area, to inside the stadium; you connect to standalone n41 and n25 everywhere via oDAS and iDAS. The bad news is that in the actual stadium it's beyond useless. While I saw strong coverage as indicated by signal bars and I was able to make calls and send texts, there was no data throughput at all. Running a speed test failed 9 out of 10 times. The only time I got a speed test to work was by switching to LTE funnily enough or by using NSA 5G where the test would initiate via LTE and then n41 would kick in giving me ~20Mbps. T-Mobile has so much traffic on their 5G network that now n41 gets bogged down before LTE. That was a first for me! In the stadium in the same area Verizon got 1.2Gbps on mmWave and LTE kept timing out when trying to test it. My Boost line on AT&T got upwards of 150Mbps on C-band and I know they have mmWave deployed as I saw their Nokia mmWave antennas deployed but I was unable to test it.

In the outdoor concession area T-Mobile performed well getting over 150Mbps on n41. AT&T in these areas saw over 250Mbps on C-band and I didn't get the opportunity to test Verizon there.

It just seems like 140MHz n41 is not enough capacity for the amount of people inside the stadium. Hopefully T-Mobile is considering deploying n258 to all of these stadiums since they now own that mmWave nationwide. It'd make a world of difference in terms of capacity at these venues.

Bonus Pics:

Verizon and AT&T mmWave

Hidden carrier neutral DAS: 

[Paynefanbro]

On 8/26/2024 at 11:01 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Saw workers on the roof of the building this morning. The antenna mounts are being installed now.

All done!

[RAvirani]

On 8/29/2024 at 10:16 AM, Paynefanbro said:

I was at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the U.S. Open today and the good news is that there is an n25/41 DAS setup throughout USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. From the "boardwalk" to the outdoor concession area, to inside the stadium; you connect to standalone n41 and n25 everywhere via oDAS and iDAS. The bad news is that in the actual stadium it's beyond useless. While I saw strong coverage as indicated by signal bars and I was able to make calls and send texts, there was no data throughput at all. Running a speed test failed 9 out of 10 times. The only time I got a speed test to work was by switching to LTE funnily enough or by using NSA 5G where the test would initiate via LTE and then n41 would kick in giving me ~20Mbps. T-Mobile has so much traffic on their 5G network that now n41 gets bogged down before LTE. That was a first for me! In the stadium in the same area Verizon got 1.2Gbps on mmWave and LTE kept timing out when trying to test it. My Boost line on AT&T got upwards of 150Mbps on C-band and I know they have mmWave deployed as I saw their Nokia mmWave antennas deployed but I was unable to test it.

In the outdoor concession area T-Mobile performed well getting over 150Mbps on n41. AT&T in these areas saw over 250Mbps on C-band and I didn't get the opportunity to test Verizon there.

It just seems like 140MHz n41 is not enough capacity for the amount of people inside the stadium. Hopefully T-Mobile is considering deploying n258 to all of these stadiums since they now own that mmWave nationwide. It'd make a world of difference in terms of capacity at these venues.

I come to the US Open men’s semifinals and finals every year, and I’ve never been able to use my T-Mobile phone successfully.

Usually AT&T is the top performer—good to hear Verizon has upped their game. 

[Wfmets45]

Does anyone know how well implemented is VoNR in the 5 boroughs. Does anyone use it? I have an iPhone 15 Pro.

Does anyone know if T-Mobile is still working on upgrading their network? It seems like the service has gone down. My phone struggles in parts of the Belt Pkwy, and data is slow. 

[Paynefanbro]

2 hours ago, Wfmets45 said:

Does anyone know how well implemented is VoNR in the 5 boroughs. Does anyone use it? I have an iPhone 15 Pro.

Does anyone know if T-Mobile is still working on upgrading their network? It seems like the service has gone down. My phone struggles in parts of the Belt Pkwy, and data is slow. 

As far as I know it's ubiquitous. Ultimately the network decides if you should use VoNR vs VoLTE but pretty much anytime my phone is in standalone mode and I place a call, it goes over NR.

 

7 hours ago, RAvirani said:

I come to the US Open men’s semifinals and finals every year, and I’ve never been able to use my T-Mobile phone successfully.

Usually AT&T is the top performer—good to hear Verizon has upped their game. 

Yup, it was terrible. After a while, I just connected to the WiFi, and that worked fine at about 90Mbps. I get the feeling that rather than doing a "real" upgrade where they install new antennas, upgrade backhaul, etc., T-Mobile instead installed new radios onto the existing and already overloaded DAS and called it a day, which isn't enough. Compared to Yankee Stadium, where they actually went and deployed new antennas/radios for their n41 upgrade, and you're able to get upwards of 200Mbps at sold-out games, Arthur Ashe really is a joke. What's worse is that the folks in their NOC likely know this already, but no effort is being made to change that.

I'm not asking for T-Mobile to deploy mmWave everywhere like Verizon but there is a real use case for it at stadiums.

[Paynefanbro]

Verizon and AT&T completely crapped out at the Labor Day Parade today.

I watched a Verizon iPhone repeatedly drop to SOS while on Eastern Parkway and when I could finally connect and get a speed test to load it was virtually unusable. T-Mobile on the other hand was solid the entire time. Upload speeds took a hit but T-Mobile's density combined with recent  backhaul upgrades on virtually all of the sites along Eastern Parkway meant that they weren't nearly as negatively impacted. I'm sure folks within mmWave range had no issue on Verizon but it seems like today C-band couldn't handle the traffic. 

[AirlineFlyer]

MTA announced today the first "full subway line" to have mobile connectivity. Kind of cheating with the 42nd Street Shuttle, but whatever! Next up is the 4/5 tunnel between Bowling Green and Borough Hall in the middle of 2025, and then breaking ground next year for 5 miles north of Grand Central up to 161st Street.