How much bandwidth does a single LTE site have?

[leozno1]

What does it matter if the backhaul is so fast? You would be limited by the LTE connection so the rest would just be wasted.

If the backhaul is faster than the theoretical airlink connection, it is wasted speed. Now if Sprint acquires additional spectrum or hosts Clear's spectrum I understand that can change, but for the most part, having 1gb/s backhaul when your airlink can only support 300mb/s is a waste.

The "thousands of people" comment is misleading. Whether one user is connected to the sector or a thousand users are connected to the sector, the total downlink throughput for that LTE sector·carrier maxes out at 37 Mbps. The airlink is the bottleneck, not the backhaul, so 1 Gbps is definitely not necessary anytime soon.

 

AJ

 

Its better to have some left over than to not have enough. Not having enough backhaul is part of what has Sprint in this mess to begin with.

[Boosted20V]

Its better to have some left over than to not have enough. Not having enough backhaul is part of what has Sprint in this mess to begin with.

 

As others have said, from many posts I've seen from Robert, he references contract which allow for scaling backhaul capacity.

[DaQue]

Correct, which is why over time I don't see how you don't impose usage caps. Albeit higher than what ATT/VZ offer. Unless users are forced to keep in mind some semblance of usage, they waste the bandwidth. I suppose if you put Clear's holdings to full use it would put it off for a while but on a long enough timeline I still think caps are necessary.

 

I would prefer X bytes full speed per month, then throttle to maybe 5% speed over, but still unlimited. ie 30 mbps then 1.5 mbps or 3G speed. Maybe even break it down to per week. Go over your slapped for a few days then back to full speed a lot sooner than a month. Maybe let you do that one time in 30 days if your over twice its slow for 30.

[lilotimz]

I would prefer X bytes full speed per month, then throttle to maybe 20% speed till cap 2 then maybe 5% over that, but still unlimited. ie 30 mbps then 6 mbps then 1.5 or 3G speed.

 

Imposible. Data speed is affected by signal and reception. Unlike land lines, wireless networks don't have the stability that hard, physical connections give. There's a reason that the you get slower speeds as you move farther away from a tower and get better speeds when you get close to a tower.

[WiWavelength]

Not having enough backhaul is part of what has Sprint in this mess to begin with.

 

Yes, that is true, but you are seemingly distorting that truth to serve your argument. In its legacy network, Sprint often had insufficient backhaul per site for airlink capacity at that site. Network Vision backhaul -- even at only 300 Mbps or so -- will exceed airlink capacity essentially at every site. But there is no point in paying for backhaul capacity that would greatly exceed airlink capacity just for "specsmanship." Such would provide no benefit and would be a huge waste of money.

 

AJ

[DaQue]

Imposible. Data speed is affected by signal and reception. Unlike land lines, wireless networks don't have the stability that hard, physical connections give. There's a reason that the you get slower speeds as you move farther away from a tower and get better speeds when you get close to a tower.

 

I thought AT&T throttled grand fathered unlimited plan people who used too much. A guy at work said he got a message and his speed went to hell when he used to much.

 

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/01/atandt-announces-throttling-changes-now-kicks-in-at-3gb-or-5gb-fo/

[CriticalityEvent]

 

Not to change the subject, but it strikes me how this also helps illustrate/underscore the importance of Wi-fi offloading when available, particularly in the face of more egregious/abusive usage. Unless I'm misunderstanding the numbers here (and please by all means correct me if I am), say hypothetically you get more than say 10 max people downloading things over an extended period of time on one sector....and suddenly you're in danger of being back at square one in spite of Network Vision.

 

THIS. I was thinking the exact same thing. As soon as I saw these numbers, I began thinking of ways to incorporate this thread into the offloading debate thread.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[imekul]

So I guess the number of sites in a given area can vary greatly based on how dense the area is?

 

Say there are 10,000 people at a ballgame in Atlanta or some big city... how much bandwidth would they be sharing, assuming they're all Sprint customers with LTE phones?

 

Better yet, any estimate on what kind of bandwidth OVERALL would be available in a given market? Are we talking just hundreds of megabits per second, gigabits, or just how high does it get if it's covering 50 or 100 square miles (or however large the market is)?

 

This stuff just interests me, and I'm wondering what the breakdown is of total bandwidth available to an entire market and then also broken down into smaller, denser areas.

[billyjoejimbob]

 

Better yet, any estimate on what kind of bandwidth OVERALL would be available in a given market? Are we talking just hundreds of megabits per second, gigabits, or just how high does it get if it's covering 50 or 100 square miles (or however large the market is)?

 

 

Total bandwidth overall would obviously depend on population density, number of towers etc... Here's an article from last February about Sprint's network vision overhaul in Chicago. It appears to indicate that for the entire Chicago market (not sure what suburbs that number includes) Sprint thinks that an OC48 (2400mbps) is the capacity needed to serve it's cell sites in that area.

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?app=blog&module=display&section=blog&blogid=1&showentry=11&k=bb2fe024f8a71424996db6d9af08c1fc&settingNewSkin=2

 

It also says that each site is being fed with a DS3 (45mbps). Doing some quick math, it would take roughly 54 cell towers running at 100% of it's backhaul capacity to use up an OC48 (54 sites x 45mbps = 2430mbps). Sprint has 1000+ towers in the Chicago area, so something seems a little out of whack if they only need an OC48, with 1000 cell sites that's an average backhaul of about 2.4mbps per site, which likely isn't even enough capacity for their current EVDO network. However, if the OC48 is strictly the capacity for the LTE network than I could believe that. It will take time for users to start moving onto the LTE network so an OC48 may be adequate for awhile.

[S4GRU]

Total bandwidth overall would obviously depend on population density, number of towers etc... Here's an article from last February about Sprint's network vision overhaul in Chicago. It appears to indicate that for the entire Chicago market (not sure what suburbs that number includes) Sprint thinks that an OC48 (2400mbps) is the capacity needed to serve it's cell sites in that area.

 

http://s4gru.com/ind...ettingNewSkin=2

 

It also says that each site is being fed with a DS3 (45mbps). Doing some quick math, it would take roughly 54 cell towers running at 100% of it's backhaul capacity to use up an OC48 (54 sites x 45mbps = 2430mbps). Sprint has 1000+ towers in the Chicago area, so something seems a little out of whack if they only need an OC48, with 1000 cell sites that's an average backhaul of about 2.4mbps per site, which likely isn't even enough capacity for their current EVDO network. However, if the OC48 is strictly the capacity for the LTE network than I could believe that. It will take time for users to start moving onto the LTE network so an OC48 may be adequate for awhile.

 

It never said in the documents that the OC48 fed all sites. I never was able to determine the full scope of that line. Since there are many different backhaul vendors being used in Chicago, it is likely that the OC48 is to serve only Sprint corporate fiber sites. Sites by AAV or microwave vendors are probably connected to the cores and backbone via a different conduit.

 

Robert

[Ace41690]

So there are sites being given only a DS3?

[lynyrd65]

Yes, that is true, but you are seemingly distorting that truth to serve your argument. In its legacy network, Sprint often had insufficient backhaul per site for airlink capacity at that site. Network Vision backhaul -- even at only 300 Mbps or so -- will exceed airlink capacity essentially at every site. But there is no point in paying for backhaul capacity that would greatly exceed airlink capacity just for "specsmanship." Such would provide no benefit and would be a huge waste of money.

 

AJ

 

I imagine that backhaul can be scaled up as needed pretty easily too.

[Paynefanbro]

By scaled up, do you mean, made faster by computer, instead of having crews go to the tower and add T1's?

[Deval]

By scaled up, do you mean, made faster by computer, instead of having crews go to the tower and add T1's?

 

Exactly. Fiber is fiber, no need for another site visit.

[Paynefanbro]

 

 

Exactly. Fiber is fiber, no need for another site visit.

 

Cool!

[leozno1]

Yes, that is true, but you are seemingly distorting that truth to serve your argument. In its legacy network, Sprint often had insufficient backhaul per site for airlink capacity at that site. Network Vision backhaul -- even at only 300 Mbps or so -- will exceed airlink capacity essentially at every site. But there is no point in paying for backhaul capacity that would greatly exceed airlink capacity just for "specsmanship." Such would provide no benefit and would be a huge waste of money.

 

AJ

 

I get what you mean. In many cases it will be overkill to have so much bandwidth to 1 cell site when the tower is only capable of transmitting only a fraction of the total backhaul capacity. But in the instances where a cell site is connected via microwave link, would it make sense at that point to scale up the bandwidth of the fiber line to that specific tower since it will probably be serving the backhaul to multiple sites?

[pyroscott]

 

I get what you mean. In many cases it will be overkill to have so much bandwidth to 1 cell site when the tower is only capable of transmitting only a fraction of the total backhaul capacity. But in the instances where a cell site is connected via microwave link' date=' would it make sense at that point to scale up the bandwidth of the fiber line to that specific tower since it will probably be serving the backhaul to multiple sites?[/quote']

 

Yes. That is precisely what they would do.

[LTEBrooklyn]

 

 

The "thousands of people" comment is misleading. Whether one user is connected to the sector or a thousand users are connected to the sector, the total downlink throughput for that LTE sector·carrier maxes out at 37 Mbps. The airlink is the bottleneck, not the backhaul, so 1 Gbps is definitely not necessary anytime soon.

 

AJ

 

In other words if let's say 100 people do speed tests all at the same time, our speeds with be like a 56k modem?

[pyroscott]

 

In other words if let's say 100 people do speed tests all at the same time, our speeds with be like a 56k modem?

 

Each person would have a theoretical max of 370kbps, but would likely see much less than that. So, depending on the signal strength, yes, each speed test could easily look like a 56k modem's speeds.

[LTEBrooklyn]

I guess one of the reasons Verizon Lte is so fast is because no one will hog the speed when u have tired data. How many Lte blocks are they per ave block or does It not work like that?

[pyroscott]

I guess one of the reasons Verizon Lte is so fast is because no one will hog the speed when u have tired data. How many Lte blocks are they per ave block or does It not work like that?

 

Not sure what you're asking.

 

Verizon has twice the spectrum that they are utilizing for their initial rollout of lte. However, in most cases, they are deploying widely spaced sites instead of on every cell site, as sprint is deploying. Verizon, and AT&T have employed the tiered pricing strategy to incentivize data offloading, and it appears to be very effective for them.

[LTEBrooklyn]

 

 

Not sure what you're asking.

 

Verizon has twice the spectrum that they are utilizing for their initial rollout of lte. However, in most cases, they are deploying widely spaced sites instead of on every cell site, as sprint is deploying. Verizon, and AT&T have employed the tiered pricing strategy to incentivize data offloading, and it appears to be very effective for them.

 

If they are widening it, wouldn't that mean less coverage or it means the signal is stretched? I see it takes less time to set up if its not as many sites. But even if I were to get 3mbps consistently I think I'd rather have that then pay per gb even if its overloaded. I hope it's not like me metropcs Lte. They have a 1x1 spectrum and in NYC speeds are at 1mbps. Just pathetic

[pyroscott]

If they are widening it, wouldn't that mean less coverage or it means the signal is stretched? I see it takes less time to set up if its not as many sites. But even if I were to get 3mbps consistently I think I'd rather have that then pay per gb even if its overloaded. I hope it's not like me metropcs Lte. They have a 1x1 spectrum and in NYC speeds are at 1mbps. Just pathetic

 

Yes, the wider cell sizes encompass more subscribers and provides lower signal strength at cell edge or in structures on the outer half of the cell, resulting in lower speeds. Rollout is much faster when you deploy that way, but if the carrier wants to maintain QOS and higher speeds as more customers upgrade to LTE devices, they would need to split the cells and thicken their coverage. The higher factor of propagation that the 700mhz spectrum has can be a negative factor if they try to thicken coverage too much though. They will encounter a lot of interference near the cell edges, much like when you start receiving 2 radio stations on the same frequency. Neither one works very well, even if one signal would be strong enough to work well, the interference causes the radio to pick up both stations and get all jumbled up giving useless playback.

[LTEBrooklyn]

In other words are u saying that sprint LTE will be the most consistent and reliable?

[S4GRU]

In other words are u saying that sprint LTE will be the most consistent and reliable?

 

It should be. The densest LTE deployment, with half the customers of the big two. And also, Sprint has more options to deploy additional LTE carriers at their sites. Much more options than VZW and AT&T,

 

Robert