Network Vision/LTE - New York City Market

[Paynefanbro]

Looks like Sprint eNB 839574 in SoHo got converted and is now T-Mobile eNB 875857.

[wispiANt]

On 3/18/2022 at 10:45 AM, Paynefanbro said:

eNB 9097/9098/9099 (Location: 40.73731141530291, -74.00194364096748)

T-Mobile has to be looking to decomm eNB 41151 if they convert this site. I just don't see how it would make sense to keep them both.

I'm looking forward to seeing what T-Mobile does with these on-building "small cells", they have a good number of them in Manhattan and IIRC they are still only broadcasting 2x2 MIMO B2/B66. AT&T has a whole bunch, as well, but it seems like they've upgraded quite a few of them with mmWave.

[AirlineFlyer]

So it seems like CityBridge has a single test site up in LIC. It doesn’t have the LinkNYC kiosk but the 5G mini tower and antenna shroud is there. I hope one of us makes it out there soon. This thing is fugly.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/3/20/22985681/linknyc-5g-tower-lic?utm_content=buffer45c52&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer

[Paynefanbro]

No idea how this person keeps finding these small cells so early on but he found one of the new ones. Looks like the franchisee that reserved this one is Extenet II, the same company that has been installing the new small cells on wooden poles that we've been seeing.

Location: 40.722109338932334, -73.93909165030479

 

[wispiANt]

Wasn't able to grab a pic, but I believe the AT&T site (eNB 113160) just North of the Hewes St (M/J) stop has Ericsson C-Band antennas deployed. T-Mobile has also filed to remove the Sprint equipment on that collocation. 

[wispiANt]

Spotted my first Sprint -> Dish permit, 4318 Broadway in Upper Manhattan. Sprint decomm is Job #M00611880, Dish deployment is Job #M00616806.

The Sprint site at 102 North End Ave is another convert site, but the supporting documents haven't been uploaded and the description doesn't name the new carrier. Job #M00626206. Gonna lean towards T-Mobile on that one.

[wispiANt]

Another one!

[Paynefanbro]

I visited the Link5G in Long Island City and it's only broadcasting WiFi right now, no LTE or 5G coming from it at all. In person, they're not that bad looking. They're as tall as street lights but not nearly as thick as photos make them seem. Over time I can see them fitting in with the streetscape. 

Interestingly there's one of those newer small cells on a street light on the opposite corner of the same block the Link5G is on. Literally less than 100ft away. It looks like it was installed by ZenFi and has been there since at least May 2021 if we're to believe Google Street View. It's amazing none of us spotted it until now. I wasn't getting anything from it on my T-Mobile or Verizon iPhones so I'm assuming that it's an AT&T small cell. Kinda redundant if one of these Link5G's are nearby.

Finally, I also got to visit the Extenet small cell by the Staples in Williamsburg. It's definitely a Verizon small cell broadcasting mmWave but nothing else. I wasn't picking up LTE nor C-band from it. Speeds were around ~2.2Gbps coming from it and it had an outdoor coverage radius of about a block and half before my phone dropped it completely.

On the topic of C-band though, it seems like Verizon has been lighting up a lot of sites as I'm now seeing it more often. However, I haven't been too impressed by the speeds on it. While speeds on n77 are significantly better than on n5, they're noticeably slower than what I typically see on n41. Average speeds are about 300-350Mbps outdoors which while fast is significantly slower than what I'm seeing posted in the VZW subreddit in other cities. I'm hoping that deploying more sites (macros and small cells), as well as just further optimization increases speeds over time because for now it's looking like T-Mobile's super dense macro network strategy is paying off for them here, and they're only making it more dense with all of these Sprint conversions.

Sidenote: I was able to confirm that those two Clearwire era small cells in SoHo are in fact broadcasting the keep PLMN. While I was hypothesizing before, I managed to drive up next to them and actually confirm it. My phone had a -60dbm Band 41 signal while standing right next to them. I'm interested in what this means for T-Mobile. Do they plan on keeping them running just as they are post-Sprint LTE shutdown or will they pay Extenet to completely replace them with an n41 small cell? I'm also curious as to how many of these Sprint small cells they have broadcasting the keep PLMN citywide.

[wispiANt]

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

Finally, I also got to visit the Extenet small cell by the Staples in Williamsburg. It's definitely a Verizon small cell broadcasting mmWave but nothing else. I wasn't picking up LTE nor C-band from it. Speeds were around ~2.2Gbps coming from it and it had an outdoor coverage radius of about a block and half before my phone dropped it completely.

I feel like this kinda makes sense to me? If you look at the technical drawings, it appears as though the deployment strategy is a cantenna-style antenna up top and then the accompanying RRUs below. I'm assuming Verizon provided these drawings (Nokia gear), but in T-Mobile's case the radios would likely be an AIR 4435 (n41 4x4), dual Ericsson MicroRadio 6503s (B2/B66 4x4), and an Ericsson MicroRadio 4408 (4x4 LAA and/or CBRS). Or something equivalent - it'd be nice to see something like the Ericsson RRU 4460 instead of those older 6503s but that might be a bit too big.

Anyway, I don't see how they could fit both all their sub 6GHz and mmWave gear under a single-carrier shroud. Verizon is more invested in mmWave so it wouldn't surprise me that they went the mmWave-only route more often. 

And I'm kinda impressed by the range! That seems to be the typical range of the current oDAS nodes.

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm also curious as to how many of these Sprint small cells they have broadcasting the keep PLMN citywide.

I'm guessing very few - I'm kinda under the impression that there are not many active oDAS nodes left overall. I haven't found an active one in Bushwick/Williamsburg/Harlem in ages. 

[Paynefanbro]

27 minutes ago, thisischuck01 said:

And I'm kinda impressed by the range! That seems to be the typical range of the current oDAS nodes.

Definitely better than what I expected but it's also kind of an ideal scenario. The area that this small cell is in has no vegetation and is mostly single-story industrial buildings. I'm not certain if it's range is that good in every direction. For example, I didn't connect to it while on Morgan Ave at all with the exception of when I was within direct line of site. Here's a map of the range I saw.

By the time I was at the corner of Lombardy St and Morgan Ave, I was at ~90 dbm. I would disconnect while walking down the street but an airplane mode cycle would reconnect me. By the time I got to Lombardy and Vanderhoort I could only connect to n77.

Seems like ideal spacing for mmWave is something like one site every couple hundred feet if you want contiguous coverage.

[wispiANt]

16 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Seems like ideal spacing for mmWave is something like one site every couple hundred feet if you want contiguous coverage.

Wouldn't be surprised if Verizon is aiming to do just this. I believe they're still planning on eventually carrying 50% of urban traffic on mmWave and this NYC small cell situation has been a major roadblock. They're probably chomping at the bit to get mmWave deployment fully underway in NYC.

[T-MoblieUser207]

22 hours ago, thisischuck01 said:

23 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm also curious as to how many of these Sprint small cells they have broadcasting the keep PLMN citywide.

I'm guessing very few - I'm kinda under the impression that there are not many active oDAS nodes left overall. I haven't found an active one in Bushwick/Williamsburg/Harlem in ages. 

I'll need to recheck across South Brooklyn at some point, from Dyker Heights to Brighton Beach to confirm this. Last time I was there was quite a few of oDAS nodes from Sprint still live in Bath Beach, but it was via the Sprint SIM I picked them up on, and I haven't been back since the keep PLMN was flipped on. Problem is T-Mobile B41 is nearly ubiquitous now, so roaming onto the oDAS to check if they have the keep PLMN active will be a challenge in some areas, as I think Sprint eNB 8188 might be kept from the azimuths of the sectors from the nearby towers, but I don't know.

 

On 3/9/2022 at 7:06 PM, Paynefanbro said:

Looks like it's an upgrade of an Extenet small cell just like the one posted on Reddit a few months ago. 

The common theme that I see is that they're using this design on wooden poles. Maybe the city carved out an exception.

If I'm recalling correctly there's another Extenet small cell near the one in your photo on Snyder and Troy that got upgraded around December 2021. It's also a on wooden pole and using the same design.

I think you are right, they may have carved out an exception. Church Avenue and East 53rd Street, southeast corner, has the same design, wooden pole with MmWave panels below and a cantenna at the top. The MmWave small cell buildouts is definitely starting to ramp.

[Paynefanbro]

Four more Sprint sites broadcasting the keep PLMN. I found two in Dyker Heights, one in Bay Ridge, and one that I suspect is in Staten Island but I'm not sure exactly where since I connected to it while in Brooklyn.

1. eNB 9493
   1. Location: 40.616105992921554, -74.01143434077802
2. eNB 9453 
   1. Location: 40.61988322331958, -74.01998863821413
3. eNB 8999
   1. Location: 40.636305818445145, -74.03644800944117
4. eNB 5790
   1. Location: Unknown

— — — — —

I also think that Verizon has turned on C-band on nearly every site that it's deployed on. To be honest I was kinda expecting Verizon to just throw money at the wall and as much backhaul as possible (considering they often user themselves for backhaul) so that they could light a fire under T-Mobile but I'm not really seeing that. They're getting the same speeds on 60MHz that I was seeing from T-Mobile when they were at 60MHz. That's not a bad thing though, it's just that I set my expectations pretty high lol.

Here's a speed test that I took in Flatbush comparing Verizon and T-Mobile. They had similar signal strength. While I'm sure you can find just as many examples of the opposite result (where T-Mobile does poorly at similar signal strength) I'm only posting because I suspect either something is wrong with this Verizon site or they need to significantly increase backhaul. That ping is much higher than what I typically see on Verizon.

— — — — —

Yesterday I was in Red Hook at Louis Valentino Jr. Park and was seeing great speeds on n77 at ~430Mbps. T-Mobile desperately needs a macro in that area because they're struggling. Since you're at the edge of cell of every T-Mobile site in the area you tend to bounce between n71 SA and Band 26 from Sprint keep sites in Staten Island. Verizon eNB 84642 and AT&T eNB 111519 cover that part of Red Hook really well while T-Mobile's most recent addition to that area is a single small cell, eNB 141343. That small cell performs really well when you're close to it and has decent range because the area is pretty underdeveloped but it's no replacement for a macro.

Here's a speed test from the small cell (T-Mobile eNB 141343) and from Verizon eNB 84642 on n77:

— — — — —

Finally, here's an interesting site in Park Slope where for some reason Verizon deployed CBRS but not mmWave and also decided to sheathe the antenna on only one of the three sectors.

[AirlineFlyer]

I'm not yet sure if they're working on the Verizon or T-Mobile equipment, but a team is up on the roof of the building near the corner of Ashland Pl and DeKalb Ave in Fort Greene. The site is currently lacking n41 for tmo and n77 for Verizon (it already has at least mmWave), so I'm interested to see what happens here.

Edited April 4, 2022 by AirlineFlyer

[wispiANt]

Another Verizon deployment, this time at the corner of Graham and Scholes (40.709250369767524, -73.94362128284861). Didn't have my Verizon SIM on hand, but it either hasn't been turned up or it's mmWave-only.

[AirlineFlyer]

6 minutes ago, thisischuck01 said:

Another Verizon deployment, this time at the corner of Graham and Scholes (40.709250369767524, -73.94362128284861). Didn't have my Verizon SIM on hand, but it either hasn't been turned up or it's mmWave-only.

Nice! Also, I didn't previously catch on to this design easter egg. Love it!

[AirlineFlyer]

On 4/7/2022 at 2:52 PM, thisischuck01 said:

Another Verizon deployment, this time at the corner of Graham and Scholes (40.709250369767524, -73.94362128284861). Didn't have my Verizon SIM on hand, but it either hasn't been turned up or it's mmWave-only.

I went to check it out and yea it’s not online yet. There is n77 in the area and my phone eventually connected to that, but the node isn’t yet operational.

[Paynefanbro]

Another indoor UC vs UW speed test. This time on 4th Ave in Bay Ridge.

Verizon with 60MHz n77 and T-Mobile with 40MHz n41. 

[AirlineFlyer]

Stupid way to find this kind of thing but there's one of the new oDAS sites at 4th Ave and 36th St in Brooklyn

 

[wispiANt]

Looks as though Sprint eNB 79117 (40.701608578984036,-73.95875047577074) was converted to T-Mobile eNB 87493.

[Paynefanbro]

Assuming we're gonna start seeing these getting deployed on the T-Mobile side later this year/early next year too: 

 

[wispiANt]

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

Assuming we're gonna start seeing these getting deployed on the T-Mobile side later this year/early next year too: 

 

I believe these are dual-radio units, so I don't think we'll be seeing T-Mobile deploying this exact model.

The permit almost make me think this might just be a 6419 and 6449 bolted together? The listed dimensions/weight work out to be a little over twice that of a 6449. They also state that the unit can be broken down into (at least) two parts.

[Paynefanbro]

Saw an interesting Verizon C-band site in the Financial District. Any idea what that little antenna on the far right is? CBRS maybe?

— — — — —

T-Mobile and AT&T sites on the buildings next door:

Seems like most sites in the Financial District have over a gig of backhaul. I got great speeds ranging from 700-900Mbps from lots of sites in the area. iPhone Field Test reported that I was connected to eNB 127915 during this test but I'm not sure where it's located exactly.

[wispiANt]

19 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Saw an interesting Verizon C-band site in the Financial District. Any idea what that little antenna on the far right is? CBRS maybe?

I can never remember the model, but this is OLD Nokia mmWave gear. Both AT&T and T-Mobile have deployed this model, AT&T in NYC and T-Mobile in Miami.

 

19 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

iPhone Field Test reported that I was connected to eNB 127915 during this test but I'm not sure where it's located exactly.

That eNB looks to be an oDAS node.

[Paynefanbro]

Sprint eNB 76027 right next to the Javits Center is broadcasting the keep PLMN.

Location: 40.75896286453815, -74.0001921377359

— — — — —

Also the AT&T site just off the Manhattan side of the Manhattan Bridge that's collocated on the building with T-Mobile eNB 45718 has C-band antennas on it. No DoD antennas on it though.