Network Vision/LTE - New York City Market

[Paynefanbro]

I went up to the Bronx yesterday and experienced a weird issue where my phone wouldn't get more than 2Mbps down. It definitely seemed out of the ordinary given that the network screens showed that I had pretty much a perfect signal. After I restarted my phone, speeds went up to 71 Mbps down and 27 Mbps up.

Maybe I'm lucky but for me T-Mobile has been consistently in the 40-80Mbps range. It's slower than my average Sprint speeds in the same areas but T-Mobile has had better indoor LTE coverage in the places I frequent.

My only complaint is that they really need to densify their 5G footprint. It's a shame that T-Mobile can get away with saying they cover NYC in 5G when 9 times out of 10, I'm on LTE while outdoors. The 5G experience on Sprint is way superior to T-Mobile.

[nexgencpu]

3 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I went up to the Bronx yesterday and experienced a weird issue where my phone wouldn't get more than 2Mbps down. It definitely seemed out of the ordinary given that the network screens showed that I had pretty much a perfect signal. After I restarted my phone, speeds went up to 71 Mbps down and 27 Mbps up.

Maybe I'm lucky but for me T-Mobile has been consistently in the 40-80Mbps range. It's slower than my average Sprint speeds in the same areas but T-Mobile has had better indoor LTE coverage in the places I frequent.

My only complaint is that they really need to densify their 5G footprint. It's a shame that T-Mobile can get away with saying they cover NYC in 5G when 9 times out of 10, I'm on LTE while outdoors. The 5G experience on Sprint is way superior to T-Mobile.

The issue with N71 is that it's deployed for capacity and not coverage, which kinda makes sense since there is quite a bit of density in general. But it's somewhat of a double edged sword since you end up giving up the potential coverage of 600mhz.

[mirskyc]

I've been on LI for the past week and where I am staying my S20 says 5G, so I thought it was the same case as before. But after a little digging the local cell tower doesn't even have B71, so I would assume there is no NR71. Why would the site then tell my phone to display the 5G logo. 

Is T-Mobile displaying the 5G logo if enough towers in the area have 5G active?

[Paynefanbro]

11 hours ago, mirskyc said:

I've been on LI for the past week and where I am staying my S20 says 5G, so I thought it was the same case as before. But after a little digging the local cell tower doesn't even have B71, so I would assume there is no NR71. Why would the site then tell my phone to display the 5G logo. 

Is T-Mobile displaying the 5G logo if enough towers in the area have 5G active?

It's partially a limitation of NSA 5G and partially T-Mobile misleading everyone.

T-Mobile uses Band 4/66 and Band 2 as the anchor bands for their 5G network and they basically turned on ENDC network-wide to prepare for the deployment of n71. As a result the 5G icon is on if a site is basically "ready for 5G". 

On the other hand Sprint used Band 41 as the anchor band and only had ENDC active on the sites where they also had 5G deployed. That combined with the Sprint 5G and anchor band footprint pretty much overlapping each other meant that the icon only appeared when you were connected to 5G.

Verizon's implementation is just as weird as T-Mobile but it more a case of undepromising compared to T-Mobile's overpromising of coverage. Verizon doesn't show the 5G icon unless an active 5G data session is occurring which means that you could be within 5G coverage or connected to 5G and still only see LTE in the status bar.

[mirskyc]

It seems like Tmobile has turned off N41 on all the Sprint sites outside of the coverage map they have provided. I believe this because I can no longer connect to N41 when I used the Samsung Band Selector app on my S20. For a week or 2 I could still connect to N41+B41, now my phone will only connect to B41

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, mirskyc said:

It seems like Tmobile has turned off N41 on all the Sprint sites outside of the coverage map they have provided. I believe this because I can no longer connect to N41 when I used the Samsung Band Selector app on my S20. For a week or 2 I could still connect to N41+B41, now my phone will only connect to B41

That sucks. I wonder how long it'll be before T-Mobile starts thinning Band 41 LTE for 5G use. The way I see it, the 20MHz that's currently reserved for small cells are either going to be first to go or last to go. They definitely help augment Sprint's LTE coverage very well so it might be necessary to keep them for a while until they can replace them with 5G small cells.

[nexgencpu]

3 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

That sucks. I wonder how long it'll be before T-Mobile starts thinning Band 41 LTE for 5G use. The way I see it, the 20MHz that's currently reserved for small cells are either going to be first to go or last to go. They definitely help augment Sprint's LTE coverage very well so it might be necessary to keep them for a while until they can replace them with 5G small cells.

We never got to see non-contiguous 2.5 CA, so it would be nice to see them deploy that now to maximize spectrum use and minimize impact on current Sprint b41 users.

[Paynefanbro]

I drove from SoHo to Red Hook today and there was no n41 to be found. 

Separately, I think T-Mobile made the right choice by taking advantage of their dense macro footprint to deploy mmWave because I find myself connected to mmWave quite often when I'm in Manhattan. It's not contiguous coverage by any means but it's far better than what Verizon has deployed in NYC.

I also don't see mmWave being a Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn only deal for much longer. Taking a look at Verizon's 5G coverage map, while coverage is super bad, they are pretty much deploying anywhere they can get a permit to do so. Apparently there's a Verizon mmWave small cell a few blocks from my home. I can definitely see T-Mobile pushing mmWave into the outer boroughs pretty soon to try to outdo Verizon.

[nexgencpu]

I will head downtown to see if I have any luck connecting to this..

Spectacular speeds! And 60mhz n41 which is awesome.

 

[Paynefanbro]

I'm really curious as to what T-Mobile got rid of to make n41 go from 40MHz to 60MHz. 

[transitwatch889]

I'm assuming you're going to do this anyway. But could you for switch between Sprint native and T-Mobile native when you're down there to see what they may have taken offline to increase Spectrum to 60.

[nexgencpu]

23 minutes ago, transitwatch889 said:

I'm assuming you're going to do this anyway. But could you for switch between Sprint native and T-Mobile native when you're down there to see what they may have taken offline to increase Spectrum to 60.

Will do..

[nexgencpu]

Well, TMobile N41 is indeed live! Seems deployment is thin, I connected to two sites in lower east side. I kept bouncing between n261 and N41, definitely a look into what's in store for the future of TMobile..

Aside from that, n41 from this site(s) were 40mhz, B41 was still 3xCA in the area with same EARFCN as expected.

Here are some screen caps..

https://imgur.com/gallery/YgVZIqa

[transitwatch889]

How is Milan getting those stupid high speeds then? That looks about proper from what was capable from before. 

I've noticed that my other line which is an iPhone is connected to tmobile as well. So I expect movement to be swift if they are already moving  devices over already. 

[dkyeager]

16 minutes ago, transitwatch889 said:

How is Milan getting those stupid high speeds then? That looks about proper from what was capable from before. 

I've noticed that my other line which is an iPhone is connected to tmobile as well. So I expect movement to be swift if they are already moving  devices over already. 

One of his comments stated was he was on the same level iirc,  which I took to mean in a building across the street at the same floor level.

[transitwatch889]

I'm not really feeling this. When Sprint actually launched  5G, the network it was like a few blocks of a substantial geographic city block and connected neighborhoods. When T-Mobile launches it's literally a "block"!.

This is just to puff there chest a bit. 

Also the discrepancy with regard to where they have a 20 megahertz wideband and a 15 wide band because that's the same where I am. I lost 5 megahertz over the weekend believe I noticed. Tmobile is burdened here. Its fine on the street for n71 10 mhz as it stands, but every other LTE only device its kind of trash. 

[nexgencpu]

1 hour ago, transitwatch889 said:

I'm not really feeling this. When Sprint actually launched  5G, the network it was like a few blocks of a substantial geographic city block and connected neighborhoods. When T-Mobile launches it's literally a "block"!.

This is just to puff there chest a bit. 

Also the discrepancy with regard to where they have a 20 megahertz wideband and a 15 wide band because that's the same where I am. I lost 5 megahertz over the weekend believe I noticed. Tmobile is burdened here. Its fine on the street for n71 10 mhz as it stands, but every other LTE only device its kind of trash. 

I hear you. It's unimpressive to say the least. Also the fact that Sprint had such a solid deployment here in NY does not help TMobile's case. The thing that scares me the most is what will happen once everybody heads back to work in the city.

TMobile's hodgepodge spectrum deployment is messy and super inconsistent. I was hitting 2mb-100mbs with very few folks walking the streets. And n71 was very sparse. I will give them till the end of the summer, if they don't show real improvement I will just switch to ATT.

 

[Tengen31]

On 5/20/2020 at 5:57 PM, nexgencpu said:

I hear you. It's unimpressive to say the least. Also the fact that Sprint had such a solid deployment here in NY does not help TMobile's case. The thing that scares me the most is what will happen once everybody heads back to work in the city.

TMobile's hodgepodge spectrum deployment is messy and super inconsistent. I was hitting 2mb-100mbs with very few folks walking the streets. And n71 was very sparse. I will give them till the end of the summer, if they don't show real improvement I will just switch to ATT.

 

I'm new York you would be better off with Verizon over at&t. Vzw has 20x20 on both 66 and 2. Att is all 10x10 on each band..att B2 is 10x10+5x5. TMO will be able to go from 10x10 B2 to 20x20 when they can use sprints spectrum.

[nexgencpu]

11 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

I'm new York you would be better off with Verizon over at&t. Vzw has 20x20 on both 66 and 2. Att is all 10x10 on each band..att B2 is 10x10+5x5. TMO will be able to go from 10x10 B2 to 20x20 when they can use sprints spectrum.

Well see how this plays out, but to be honest with you Sprint was probably one of the best option(s) here in NY. 

[Tengen31]

Well see how this plays out, but to be honest with you Sprint was probably one of the best option(s) here in NY. 

Good site density?

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[nexgencpu]

46 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Good site density?

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Great site density, alot of spectrum online and very well optimized. Tmobile is quite a bit worse in the places I normally visit.

[Paynefanbro]

One thing that I've learned over the weekend is that T-Mobile devices in will roam on Verizon LTE when they leave native coverage. It's a really interesting choice given that Sprint chose to roam on AT&T LTE as opposed to Verizon.

Part of me thinks that the reason why they chose Verizon over AT&T is that the coverage gap between AT&T and T-Mobile is a lot smaller than the coverage gap between Verizon and T-Mobile.

[Tengen31]

One thing that I've learned over the weekend is that T-Mobile devices in will roam on Verizon LTE when they leave native coverage. It's a really interesting choice given that Sprint chose to roam on AT&T LTE as opposed to Verizon.
Part of me thinks that the reason why they chose Verizon over AT&T is that the coverage gap between AT&T and T-Mobile is a lot smaller than the coverage gap between Verizon and T-Mobile.

Odd. Any pic of them roaming onto vzw?

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[Paynefanbro]

23 minutes ago, Tengen31 said:

Odd. Any pic of them roaming onto vzw?

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Yup!

[RAvirani]

44 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

One thing that I've learned over the weekend is that T-Mobile devices in will roam on Verizon LTE when they leave native coverage. It's a really interesting choice given that Sprint chose to roam on AT&T LTE as opposed to Verizon.

Part of me thinks that the reason why they chose Verizon over AT&T is that the coverage gap between AT&T and T-Mobile is a lot smaller than the coverage gap between Verizon and T-Mobile.

The agreement is reciprocal.

Verizon non-CDMA devices roam on T-Mobile WCDMA/HSPA when they fall off Verizon LTE. I don't believe Verizon devices roam on T-Mobile LTE, though - at least not yet.