Network Vision/LTE - New York City Market

[Paynefanbro]

27 minutes ago, Jordanskills134 said:

Was surprised when I read your message. So, I ventured out with a Verizon friend. The coverage between stations was exactly the same as T-Mobile. None of the carriers provide coverage in between stations on the subway.

Yeah same experience here. There are no DAS nodes in any of the tunnels besides the tunnel under the East River between Bedford and 1st Ave on the L train. Maybe in between stations that are super close together like Beverly Road and Cortelyou Road on the Q you can hold onto signal between stations since they're literally a block away from one another. But in between most other stations I drop out of service on both T-Mobile and Verizon.

[Paynefanbro]

mmWave + LAA site in Prospect Heights finally got n41. eNB 41047 if anyone wants to map it on Cellmapper or try to get over 1 Gbps on it.

[wispiANt]

eNB 44643. Don't think this is too far from you, @Paynefanbro. Speeds were okay (248/18.6), but I was a couple blocks away from the site.

[Paynefanbro]

3 hours ago, thisischuck01 said:

eNB 44643. Don't think this is too far from you, @Paynefanbro. Speeds were okay (248/18.6), but I was a couple blocks away from the site.

Awesome NR aggregation! That site usually has very spotty speeds. Sometimes I connect and get over 300Mbps and other times I connect and it struggles to go over 100Mbps. So the speeds you got given that you were a few blocks away are pretty impressive. Were pings noticeably lower?

[wispiANt]

13 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Awesome NR aggregation! That site usually has very spotty speeds. Sometimes I connect and get over 300Mbps and other times I connect and it struggles to go over 100Mbps. So the speeds you got given that you were a few blocks away are pretty impressive. Were pings noticeably lower?

14ms, so about what I typically get on n71 SA (or n41 NSA). I wonder if it might have been better if n41 was the PCC...

[Paynefanbro]

Had to pick up a family member at JFK today and was surprised at how good speeds were. Not every site has 5G enabled yet but on those that do, T-Mobile's network performance was more than satisfactory.

I waited in the Western Cell Phone Lot and I believe that T-Mobile has some sort of DAS system there because my phone indicated LTE in the status bar which it really only does when I'm extremely close to a small cell or out of 5G coverage completely. Cycling airplane mode would put me on a strong 5G signal but I would get bumped back down to LTE within 30 seconds. These are my speeds in the lot: 

At the arrivals area at Terminal 5. I was bouncing between 1-2 bars of 5G but still getting great speeds:

[Paynefanbro]

Just saw a crew working on eNB 40400 in Brooklyn. The site already had n41 so I wonder what work they’re doing?

[wispiANt]

On 4/26/2021 at 11:16 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Just saw a crew working on eNB 40400 in Brooklyn. The site already had n41 so I wonder what work they’re doing?

Spot anything new?

[Paynefanbro]

On 4/27/2021 at 12:52 PM, thisischuck01 said:

Spot anything new?

Just visited the site and I can't see that anything was changed from before. Maybe they were doing some maintenance to it or made a less visible upgrade, something like changing one of the RRU's.

[Paynefanbro]

eNB 41959 at the corner of Nostrand and Jefferson Ave in Bed-Stuy was upgraded and now has Band 71 and Band 41. What separates it from other upgrades though is that T-Mobile completely removed all legacy equipment from it. It has one Ericsson Band/n41 antenna and two of those multi-band antennas that T-Mobile has been putting on every upgraded site in NYC lately. It's a really clean set up. I'll try to go to it to take photos sometime this week.

[wispiANt]

On 2/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, thisischuck01 said:

Did a bit of mapping in the Greenpoint area, as well. Only two of the five sites between Nassau Ave and Newtown Creek have been upgraded with n41, so still a bit of work that needs to be done. Unfortunately, the Sprint site on Ash Ave doesn't seem to be designated as a keep site.

Stopped by this area again. STILL doesn't look like this is going to be a keep site. 

Not really sure what T-Mobile is thinking here. Lots of new high rise development on both sides of the creek and T-Mobile service is total crap. 

T-Mobile:

n41 is on the closest site, though I don't believe it's on the serving site (across the creek). This test was taken outside, which likely means that even if n41 was deployed you'd either get a very poor signal or no n41 signal indoors. Upload test failed.

Sprint:

Locked to a single 20MHz B41 carrier.

[Paynefanbro]

49 minutes ago, thisischuck01 said:

Stopped by this area again. STILL doesn't look like this is going to be a keep site. 

Not really sure what T-Mobile is thinking here. Lots of new high rise development on both sides of the creek and T-Mobile service is total crap. 

T-Mobile:

n41 is on the closest site, though I don't believe it's on the serving site (across the creek). This test was taken outside, which likely means that even if n41 was deployed you'd either get a very poor signal or no n41 signal indoors. Upload test failed.

Sprint:

Locked to a single 20MHz B41 carrier.

I was in Greenpoint and LIC on Friday and was saying to myself that I hope T-Mobile keeps that site right by the creek. It's a shame that that doesn't seem to be the case.

With all of the new buildings going up near the waterfront, T-Mobile has virtually one site (eNB 45653) to cover all of the high-rises along the Long Island City waterfront and one site (eNB 42891) to barely cover Greenpoint Landing (which when complete will add 5,500 new units to the neighborhood). That's not good. T-Mobile needs to be a lot more proactive about building new sites in rapidly developing neighborhoods. For comparison, Starrett City in southeast Brooklyn has ~5,800 units and T-Mobile has 3 sites covering it.

[T-MoblieUser207]

On 4/13/2021 at 9:25 AM, Jordanskills134 said:

Was surprised when I read your message. So, I ventured out with a Verizon friend. The coverage between stations was exactly the same as T-Mobile. None of the carriers provide coverage in between stations on the subway.

My apologies, I should have clarified better.

Along straight sections of the subway system with close stations, say the 1/2/3 from 14th to 42nd, you can hold onto signal into the tunnels better with AT&T/Verizon/Sprint thanks to their lowband being installed, compared to T-Mobile with no lowband that immediately drops once you leave a station. It won't work everywhere, especially around curves of the subway system, as there is no dedicated tunnel cell coverage yet.

On 4/13/2021 at 10:30 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Yeah same experience here. There are no DAS nodes in any of the tunnels besides the tunnel under the East River between Bedford and 1st Ave on the L train. Maybe in between stations that are super close together like Beverly Road and Cortelyou Road on the Q you can hold onto signal between stations since they're literally a block away from one another. But in between most other stations I drop out of service on both T-Mobile and Verizon.

From Prospect Park Station B/Q/S to Newkirk Plaza B/Q is basically all outdoors, although the line is in a trench, in that area I have never lost T-Mobile signal on a train there. The network places me on B12/71 at Parkside and Church Avenue stations, besides those stations its easy to find T-Mo B2/66.

[T-MoblieUser207]

2.5 GHz allocations have changed again.

2538.2 (20 MHz) is now showing up on T-Mobile macros, was formerly on Sprint small cells, yet 2558 (20 MHz) is gone. Every macro that I have mapped before April 17th that had 2558 on it, it got replaced with 2538.2. Maybe they plan on going straight to 100 from 60? 60 MHz n41 is 2.5 MHz away from the 2558 MHz block, and the former 2640.4 MHz B41 Sprint block is still dormant, which means the spectrum above and below of 60 MHz n41 they own. Currently 40 MHz of spectrum is now idle (2558 and the former 2640.4 Sprint block), up from 20. Currently:

(Center frequency, bandwidth = location)
2523.8, 10 MHz = Sprint small cells
2538.2, 20 MHz = T-Mobile macros
2558, 20 MHz = Formerly on T-Mobile macros, currently not in use
2600.55, 60 MHz = T-Mobile n41
2660.2, 20 MHz = Sprint B41 on macros

2680, 20 MHz = Sprint B41 on macros

The only universal allocation consistent across all 5 boroughs seem to be 2538.2 and 2558 for LTE, the rest don't match what is being done in the Bronx/South Brooklyn. I probably will take another trip to the Bronx and check the allocations there, as its seems like the same allocations in the Bronx are the same things being done in South Brooklyn. I was able to find 40 MHz n41 as far north as the Avenue H stop on the Q (T-Mobile eNB 53556/475086), still trying to decipher where the line between 60 MHz and 40 MHz n41 begins/ends in Brooklyn.

[Paynefanbro]

On 5/2/2021 at 12:34 PM, Paynefanbro said:

eNB 41959 at the corner of Nostrand and Jefferson Ave in Bed-Stuy was upgraded and now has Band 71 and Band 41. What separates it from other upgrades though is that T-Mobile completely removed all legacy equipment from it. It has one Ericsson Band/n41 antenna and two of those multi-band antennas that T-Mobile has been putting on every upgraded site in NYC lately. It's a really clean set up. I'll try to go to it to take photos sometime this week.

Someone posted a photo of another site in Brooklyn that seems to have been upgraded recently with the same setup as I was describing. I can't tell if they're doing this because the rack size itself is pretty small and seems to only fit the 3 antennas or if it's indicative of a growing trend. Personally, if I were T-Mobile I would just set up all of my sites like this.

 

[Dkoellerwx]

3 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

I can't tell if they're doing this because the rack size itself is pretty small and seems to only fit the 3 antennas or if it's indicative of a growing trend. Personally, if I were T-Mobile I would just set up all of my sites like this.

I think that 3 antenna setup is pretty standard. Just depends on if they feel like totally replacing what was there already. We only get two antennas out here in Nebraska since we don't have any B12. (B2/66/71 + B41)

[wispiANt]

48 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Someone posted a photo of another site in Brooklyn that seems to have been upgraded recently with the same setup as I was describing. I can't tell if they're doing this because the rack size itself is pretty small and seems to only fit the 3 antennas or if it's indicative of a growing trend. Personally, if I were T-Mobile I would just set up all of my sites like this.

 

I'm a little confused as to why they're leaving up old hardware, as well. As far as I know, they should be able to broadcast LTE (B2/B66), HSPA+, and EDGE via the new RFS APX antennas they're using. I figured they were using the legacy antennas for HSPA+/EDGE, but I've since seen a few instances on Reddit where they're left up (and are still hooked up) on sites that don't broadcast legacy RAN. So who knows. Maybe something to do with prepping for shutting down Sprint sites? None of these antennas list OBW/IBW, but maybe there's some sort of limitation?

[Paynefanbro]

54 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I think that 3 antenna setup is pretty standard. Just depends on if they feel like totally replacing what was there already. We only get two antennas out here in Nebraska since we don't have any B12. (B2/66/71 + B41)

In NYC, a setup like this with 4 antennas is a lot more common. No idea why they leave behind the legacy antenna behind.

[T-MoblieUser207]

Is it just me, or have all the 6488's (original n41 antenna) been replaced? There were 5 or so towers that I knew of, and they have all been replaced with the 6449 antenna. Just curious to know if anyone still sees a 6488 up across the city.

I'll admit, I did not expect T-Mobile to move this fast with the upgrade process. Instead of keeping track of which towers have the n41 antenna, its now keeping track of which ones don't, and it seems like by the end of this year 90%, if not all of them, will have it.

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, T-MoblieUser207 said:

Is it just me, or have all the 6488's (original n41 antenna) been replaced? There were 5 or so towers that I knew of, and they have all been replaced with the 6449 antenna. Just curious to know if anyone still sees a 6488 up across the city.

I'll admit, I did not expect T-Mobile to move this fast with the upgrade process. Instead of keeping track of which towers have the n41 antenna, its now keeping track of which ones don't, and it seems like by the end of this year 90%, if not all of them, will have it.

Nope, I haven't seen any 6488's in a while. Like yourself, I'm more surprised when I see a site without n41 at this point, especially in Brooklyn since it seems like T-Mobile flew through upgrades here. Of course there are still going to be some outliers that probably won't get upgraded for a while like the flagpole site in Canarsie. It only has Band 4 and 12 but I'm certain they're going to find some way to retrofit it to include n41 or make it an n66 site down the line.

Hopefully the next phase of upgrades will include T-Mobile replacing their mmWave antennas with ones that support all of their mmWave spectrum and also C-band antennas.

[wispiANt]

On 5/12/2021 at 9:43 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Hopefully the next phase of upgrades will include T-Mobile replacing their mmWave antennas with ones that support all of their mmWave spectrum and also C-band antennas.

It'll definitely be interesting to see what they do, especially considering there's now a lot more money in the pipeline!

Personally, I'm most excited to see what they'll be doing with the new 5G small cells - this should be an opportunity for them to get a super dense n41, LTE-LAA, mmWave, and maybe even CBRS (there is 80MHz of GAA available...) infill. Can't wait to see what they'll be doing with these.

This also brings up the question of how they'll be addressing mmWave in the future - have they been holding off on upgrades due to their n41 rollout, or because they're waiting for these small cells to be available? Reminds me of how they paused their LTE-LAA macro rollout, but then began to equip their existing LTE oDAS nodes with LTE-LAA.

I am curious about their plans for C-Band, but I'm kinda of the impression that it's a very low priority for them. I doubt we'll be seeing any C-Band rollout for at least another year or so, T-Mobile's spectrum isn't available for deployment until Dec 2023.

All that said, their n41 rollout does leave them with a ton of capacity to work with. Makes me wonder if upgrades (besides spectrum reallocation) in NYC will be put on the backburner for a little while. Lots of non-NYC Sprint sites to convert, and I've even spotted some recent Greenfield rural buildout upstate (if you can believe that).

On another note, very amusing to see the T-Mobile subreddit respond to that NYC mmWave speedtest the other day.

[Paynefanbro]

1 hour ago, thisischuck01 said:

This also brings up the question of how they'll be addressing mmWave in the future - have they been holding off on upgrades due to their n41 rollout, or because they're waiting for these small cells to be available? Reminds me of how they paused their LTE-LAA macro rollout, but then began to equip their existing LTE oDAS nodes with LTE-LAA.

My best guess is that it's a combination of the correct equipment not being available to support all of T-Mobile's mmWave bands and n41 taking precedence over mmWave deployment nationwide. It'll be interesting to see whether T-Mobile decides to make mmWave a citywide thing like Verizon (that they'll aggregate with n41 for gigabit speeds in more places) or if they'll just deploy it in stadiums, airports, and convention centers. 

When T-Mobile acquired Metro, they retained pretty much all of their DAS sites. If they retain all of Sprint's small cells, they'd have a small cell network easily rivaling Verizon and could have an extremely dense mmWave/LAA/CBRS footprint to compliment their already dense (in most places) macro network.

1 hour ago, thisischuck01 said:

I am curious about their plans for C-Band, but I'm kinda of the impression that it's a very low priority for them. I doubt we'll be seeing any C-Band rollout for at least another year or so, T-Mobile's spectrum isn't available for deployment until Dec 2023.

Someone recently made a post about how T-Mobile's tests in C-band were interfering with a local satellite TV operator so it seems like T-Mobile definitely has some interest in getting C-band deployed sooner than later, even if they won't be able to use the spectrum just yet. But like you said, it'll probably be another year or so before we start seeing deployments of that.

1 hour ago, thisischuck01 said:

On another note, very amusing to see the T-Mobile subreddit respond to that NYC mmWave speedtest the other day.

I completely missed that thread but reading over it, so many people are very confused about the mmWave situation in NYC and T-Mobile's network here as a whole. It's pretty sad how people completely disregarded OP immediately.

[wispiANt]

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

My best guess is that it's a combination of the correct equipment not being available to support all of T-Mobile's mmWave bands and n41 taking precedence over mmWave deployment nationwide.

It kinda just blows my mind that it's been almost a year and a half since start of auction and there still isn't a band designation. Why spend almost a billion dollars (T-Mobile's $873 million plus Sprint's $114 million) if you can't even get around to working something like that out with the 3GPP? I pray there's something going on behind the scenes, but I'm not too hopeful seeing as the only other owner of the band is DISH, haha. 

 

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

It'll be interesting to see whether T-Mobile decides to make mmWave a citywide thing like Verizon (that they'll aggregate with n41 for gigabit speeds in more places) or if they'll just deploy it in stadiums, airports, and convention centers. 

I'd be shocked if T-Mobile doesn't keep a strong mmWave presence in lower/mid-Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn with their 5G small-cell rollout. That's key use case. But I agree, it'll definitely be interesting to see what they do outside of that area. You gotta imagine that Verizon played a pretty big part in how the nodes were designed, and Verizon typically loads their small cells up with every mid/high-band tech they've got. So it shouldn't be a matter of if the nodes support the tech, just if T-Mobile deploys the radios. IMO, T-Mobile's mmWave strategy (for both macros and small cells) kinda comes down to if T-Mobile is open to exploring the possibility of mmWave-based Home Internet in NYC.

 

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

When T-Mobile acquired Metro, they retained pretty much all of their DAS sites. If they retain all of Sprint's small cells, they'd have a small cell network easily rivaling Verizon and could have an extremely dense mmWave/LAA/CBRS footprint to compliment their already dense (in most places) macro network.

I really hope they do keep them. Even if they aren't immediately upgraded to 5G, they'd be a big benefit for the network in general. Plus, fiber is already run, permits are already signed, sites are already built. Hopefully the neutral-nature of the nodes makes conversion easy. 

I haven't spotted any nodes broadcasting the keep PLMN, but I'm not all that surprised about that.

 

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I completely missed that thread but reading over it, so many people are very confused about the mmWave situation in NYC and T-Mobile's network here as a whole. It's pretty sad how people completely disregarded OP immediately.

Agreed. There are one or two redditors (who shall not be named) who love to spread questionable info, especially when it comes to NYC. Every carrier has Manhattan blanketed with mmWave! You can get FIOS at any address! T-Mobile has mmWave on every site and it's fast! T-Mobile has the densest small-cell network! Every site has 5gb/s backhaul (or if it doesn't, it's "just about to be upgraded")! It's really weird. Subreddit used to be so much better before it blew up and a handful of great contributors left.

[Paynefanbro]

Went up to Middletown, NY again and there was no change in network performance for T-Mobile since the first time I visited a few months ago. I was able to test both Verizon and T-Mobile in the area and Verizon still vastly outperformed T-Mobile. This is in spite of both carriers being collocated on most sites in Middletown. 

At a friend's house I was bouncing between 2 bars of LTE from the nearest cell site and 1 bar of 5G from a farther site while indoors and my phone refused to connect to SA n71 at all. Meanwhile Verizon was able to provide a consistent 2 bars of 5G indoors with speeds of 90-110 Mbps.

I think the issue is that T-Mobile is oversubscribed and hasn't done upgrades to many sites in years. Verizon has outfitted nearly all of their cell sites in Middletown with their full suite of spectrum bands, Band 2/4/5/13/66. On the other hand T-Mobile's network is mostly still Band 2/4/12 in the area with at least two sites only being dual-band 2/12 or 2/66. The only sites that have T-Mobile's full suite of bands (excluding Band/n41) are near the shopping centers around I-84 and NYS Route 17. 

Really hope T-Mobile upgrades the sites there soon in addition to collocating with Sprint on some of the other sites in the area. They desperately need it.

[T-MoblieUser207]

On 5/14/2021 at 5:40 PM, thisischuck01 said:

I really hope they do keep them. Even if they aren't immediately upgraded to 5G, they'd be a big benefit for the network in general. Plus, fiber is already run, permits are already signed, sites are already built. Hopefully the neutral-nature of the nodes makes conversion easy. 

I haven't spotted any nodes broadcasting the keep PLMN, but I'm not all that surprised about that.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Sprint small cells are going ever to broadcast the keep PLMN, T-Mobile will just add their own equipment or decommission them. I have spotted quite a few new small cells in East Flatbush/Brownsville that popped up within the last year or so, and checking Streetview shows that some of the small cells were there pre to mid-2019, while others showed up between 2019 and now. Could be a Sprint conversion, could be they recently jumped on the small cell, can't really tell.

I do agree they will be a big benefit to the network, especially in the areas where it is hard to reach by a macro. The basic mapping I have done with Sprint for Cellmapper showed in some places street level (possibly indoor too) coverage could be provided with 0 macros, all small cells.

If they do keep all of the small cells, I hope they adjust the macro grid sectors for the small cells. For example, B2 and 66 on eNB 133781 can pull 40-50 down each, but it struggles to keep SNR positive due to the 2 nearby macros (44136 and 43398), especially since one (44136) has one of its sectors aimed at the small cell.