Network Vision/LTE - Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands Market

[Tengen31]

This is the Neighbor list.https://imgur.com/gallery/JSiNxyG

That's not 13+25+25 is that? Don't know of any device that supports that

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

[lethalboy]

Any news for voLTE? 

[hmendez787]

Still not available. I am at the Embassy Suites in Dorado. LTE works great and indoors cells at the lobby. Only B41 LTE.

[lethalboy]

Hi ..

 

workers in my town antenna.. can somebody help me what carrier is the one doing the upgrades?

They are working in the green rectangle i made

Edited March 24, 2020 by lethalboy

[wacko 11]

Does TMobile has any towers on STX?

[Paynefanbro]

8 hours ago, wacko 11 said:

Does TMobile has any towers on STX?

Yeah they do.

[wacko 11]

5 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Yeah they do.

How's their signal and have you been able to roam on it

[themuffinman]

Looks like if you have a 5g phone you can connect to t-mobile b66/b71 on st Thomas. A friend of mines came in from Miami with an S20 ultra and had 5g around most of the island. My S20 is on att and my note 10 on sprint isn't the 5g model. 

[themuffinman]

Activated my n20 ultra on sprint, great to see things moving on island.  I am able to connect to band 66 just about every where on island with pretty decent and consistent speeds.

[wacko 11]

Is there a way to get my pixel 4 to use TMobile network?

[JonnygATL]

Was in San Juan area feb 20 through 23rd for my 41st bday....was amazing and so was tmobile's performance!  Great signal everywhere i went while my ATT toting friend was stuck having to use wifi or my phone as a hotspot!  Interesting.

[dkyeager]

On 3/7/2021 at 11:54 PM, JonnygATL said:

Was in San Juan area feb 20 through 23rd for my 41st bday....was amazing and so was tmobile's performance!  Great signal everywhere i went while my ATT toting friend was stuck having to use wifi or my phone as a hotspot!  Interesting.

T-Mobile has signed some new B41 leases during the last year in PR iirc.

[Paynefanbro]

Recently came back from a vacation where I got to spend some time in Puerto Rico. I stayed around San Juan and Carolina 99% of the time. The network experience there is superb, similar to what I see here in NYC which was really surprising. I was seeing 100MHz of n41 almost everywhere I went giving me 400-500Mbps speeds and even when I dropped down to n71, speeds were pretty much always >100Mbps which was really impressive in my opinion. Even LTE performed well. My Verizon line roamed on Claro and was getting speeds in the 40-50Mbps range which would be considered fast nearly anywhere else if it weren't for the fact that T-Mobile is significantly faster than any of the local competition.

Here are some speed tests.

20MHz of Band 41:

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100MHz n41:

 

[Paynefanbro]

Just got back from Puerto Rico. I spent a lot of time going around the San Juan metro area, predominantly in Viejo San Juan, Santurce, Isla Verde, and a short stop in University Gardens. 

T-Mobile's network still performs as well today as it did when I last tested and in my opinion is the best on the island. n41 is still at 100MHz in most areas though I did record a few areas with only 80MHz. Yesterday the FCC announced that they're finally granting T-Mobile their Auction 108 winnings so we'll probably finally see that increase. They also have 15MHz of n25 and 15MHz of n25 and 15MHz n71. The fastest speed I recorded while there was 922 down and 120 up, presumably aggregating n41+n25 and potentially n71 as well but I wasn't able to confirm that. A couple of things I noticed about their network are that their is a ton of split-sector n25 deployed in San Juan, much like in the U.S. I even noticed some n41 sites that had 4 or more sectors. The weirdest being the site on top of SJU Airport where they have 6 n41 sectors each broadcasting 80MHz of n41.

AT&T SIMs roam on LIberty's network but they still treat it as the home network. In my opinion they're the second best network in Puerto Rico. Liberty is still using the AT&T MCC-MNC code and is pretty much coasting on AT&T's network upgrades. They have 10MHz n5 virtually everywhere but I never saw my phone connect to any other 5G bands. Their saving grace was just how much spectrum they have to aggregate across midband and lowband. I'd see combos like 10MHz n5 + 20MHz B2 + 10MHz B66 + 10MHz Band 30 + 5MHz Band 2 and get upwards of 200Mbps. Coverage was slightly worse than T-Mobile in my experience, even indoors which is a surprise given T-Mobile usually struggles a bit indoors due to their macro density.

Verizon is roaming on Claro in Puerto Rico just as they have been for years. No idea if there is 5G roaming because I was connected to LTE the entire time. Toggling 5G didn't do anything and both pings and speeds weren't great. Speeds were in the 20-40Mbps range consistently and pings over 200ms. For comparison T-Mobile's pings are in the teens and Liberty pings are in the 40's even when roaming using an AT&T SIM. Claro's network is ok in my experience with nothing really notable about it. 

— — — — —

Here are some pics of sites that I took:

[Paynefanbro]

On 2/28/2024 at 10:58 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Yesterday the FCC announced that they're finally granting T-Mobile their Auction 108 winnings so we'll probably finally see that increase.

Impeccable timing

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/5g-home-internet-puerto-rico

[Paynefanbro]

Was in Puerto Rico and St. Croix recently and got to test T-Mobile, Liberty, (and to a lesser extent) Claro, and Viya's networks.

— — — — —

In Puerto Rico, T-Mobile's network is marginally better than when I was there in April due to them receiving their Auction 108 spectrum and increasing their n25 carrier size. Throughout the San Juan metro area, all sites are now at 100MHz, up from 80MHz, and n25 increased to 20MHz from 15MHz. This means that on midband, T-Mobile customers went from having 95MHz on the low end to now everyone having 120MHz which is a decent boost in performance.

Liberty performed the same as they did back in February which is to say they performed well given their lack of midband thanks to carrier aggregation. I consistently saw 10MHz Band 30 + 20MHz Band 66 + 20MHz Band 2 + 10MHz n5 which would give me speeds around 150-200Mbps but they still haven't made any improvements on coverage with new sites or anything like that so I did see weaker signal on Liberty's network on average.

I tested Claro using a Verizon business line and for some reason Claro still doesn't allow 5G roaming on that line despite having Verizon's highest tier business line. LTE performance was just like February with speeds peaking around 55Mbps and pings in the 200's due to Verizon routing traffic back to the mainland.

— — — — —

St. Croix is very interesting because T-Mobile's network is severely limited there due to a lack of spectrum. In total, T-Mobile has 20MHz AWS, 15+5+5MHz PCS, 10MHz 600MHz, and 10MHz 700MHz (Band 13 from Sprint/Open Mobile). T-Mobile doesn't have any Band/n41 on the island because Viya (the third major carrier in the US Virgin Islands) controls the entire BRS/EBS band. There is also no n25 as there is just not enough spectrum available to dedicate to a PCS NR carrier. It seems like T-Mobile wants n25 to be at least 10MHz and to do that in the Virgin Islands, they'd need to reduce LTE to two 5MHz Band 2 carriers which would significantly effect network performance. The average 5G data session in St. Croix aggregates 20MHz Band 66 + 15MHz Band 2 + 5MHz n71. However, due to the low population of the island (~50,00 people) and there being 3 carriers, T-Mobile still performs well. I averaged about 110Mbps on the island with peak speeds of 215Mbps in Frederiksted.

Liberty is on another level in St. Croix. They control a massive amount of spectrum across multiple bands. They have 10MHz 850MHz, 25MHz +20MHz + 15MHz AWS, 15MHz + 5MHz PCS, 15MHz 700MHz, and 10MHz WCS. Because of that I consistently saw 200Mbps+ speeds in and around Frederiksted along with great coverage. Short of T-Mobile acquiring Viya, I don't think there is any way for them to match or surpass Liberty Mobile on the island. 

Viya performed similarly to T-Mobile in my experience. I experienced no issues with speed or coverage on their network at all. Once again I couldn't connect to their 5G network but I'm not certain if that's because they didn't have it deployed in Frederiksted or if Verizon was blocked from roaming on their 5G network there. Viya claims on their site that they have 5G deployed which I'm certain is through n41 and n5 but I wasn't able to map it or test it. I'd expect it to be at least as fast as Liberty given all the midband they have.