T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion

[danlodish345]

sprint has begun band 41 deployments here....i was on the main highway that runs through my town and by the mc donalds there is a sprint tower that has band 41 on it and also there lte coverage here in town is almost no existant except for the high way ... t mobile gets 90 on the entire surrounding me plus i got lte inside the buildings where sprint roams

 

10-15 is even high for my standards, I'd love to have even a consistent 5mbps so I can load pictures/videos at anytime.  Although I do like to show off B41 speedtests to my cousins who have ATT and Verizon.

[gusherb]

FINALLY after MONTHS of waiting I saw workers in a bucket lift adding RRH's to their site on the water tower by my house. I'm excited to FINALLY get strong LTE signal and do an apples to apples comparison with Sprint from the comfort of my own home. 

[danlodish345]

FINALLY after MONTHS of waiting I saw workers in a bucket lift adding RRH's to their site on the water tower by my house. I'm excited to FINALLY get strong LTE signal and do an apples to apples comparison with Sprint from the comfort of my own home. 

what t mobilel market do you live in

[gusherb]

what t mobilel market do you live in

I'm in northwest Indiana so that'd be part of the Chicago market.

[Vince]

FINALLY after MONTHS of waiting I saw workers in a bucket lift adding RRH's to their site on the water tower by my house. I'm excited to FINALLY get strong LTE signal and do an apples to apples comparison with Sprint from the comfort of my own home.

I've been testing T-Mobile for the last 3 weeks on a $30 prepaid sim in a cheapo Samsung Galaxy Light. Speeds are, for the most part, solid. I don't see these speedtests everyone posts over on HoFo. We're a 15x15mhz market, and the fastest I've seen during that time (and believe me, all I'm doing is hammering speedtests) is 43/17 a few times. Is that average? Is it the phone or that fact that I'm prepaid? T-Mobile tech support is claiming that they no longer prioritize postpaid over prepaid when a tower is congested. I wonder if an iPhone 6 would perform better.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[gusherb]

I've been testing T-Mobile for the last 3 weeks on a $30 prepaid sim in a cheapo Samsung Galaxy Light. Speeds are, for the most part, solid. I don't see these speedtests everyone posts over on HoFo. We're a 15x15mhz market, and the fastest I've seen during that time (and believe me, all I'm doing is hammering speedtests) is 43/17 a few times. Is that average? Is it the phone or that fact that I'm prepaid? T-Mobile tech support is claiming that they no longer prioritize postpaid over prepaid when a tower is congested. I wonder if an iPhone 6 would perform better.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

Last I checked a few months ago they were 10x10. The highest I've seen is 45 Mbps. Do you have any data that it's 15x15? I confirmed 10x10 back in August when my friend was using T-Mobile on her GS3. and I normally see around 15-30 mbps on average, which seems to be on par with B41 where backhaul isn't turned up. 

[Vince]

Last I checked a few months ago they were 10x10. The highest I've seen is 45 Mbps. Do you have any data that it's 15x15? I confirmed 10x10 back in August when my friend was using T-Mobile on her GS3. and I normally see around 15-30 mbps on average, which seems to be on par with B41 where backhaul isn't turned up.

Oh, wow. You're right. For some reason, I was under the impression that we were 15x15. But I thought tmo in Chicago has 30mhz of aws?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[lilotimz]

Oh, wow. You're right. For some reason, I was under the impression that we were 15x15. But I thought tmo in Chicago has 30mhz of aws?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

 

Forget they run HSPA+ in AWS as well?

[Vince]

Forget they run HSPA+ in AWS as well?

What about pcs?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[lilotimz]

What about pcs?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

 

HSPA+ too. 

[reedacus25]

What about pcs?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

I believe Chicago was one of the first markets to launch DC-HSPA in the PCS band.

 

T-Mobile has walked a very fine line, annoyingly at times, between cannibalizing spectrum from UMTS to LTE. In some markets they go gung-ho and get to 15-20 MHz as quickly as possible. Obviously there they have the spectrum to do so.

 

But in some markets they lag and the LTE layer becomes very saturated (looking at you New Orleans).

 

And then in some markets they just do some odd things. My old market of Starkville, MS has had 2 AWS HSPA carriers for a few years now and have never been configured for DC-HSPA, and within the last 6 months launched LTE alongside a PCS HSPA carrier. They also shuffled the GSM spectrum around to something that made even less sense (C block to A block for those wondering). Then they shrunk the PCS HSPA carrier down to less than 5 MHz, and this weekend while hear I noticed that there was a second shrunk PCS HSPA carrier and sure enough DC-HSPA is active on that layer.

 

So with 3.8 (4 really) HSPA carriers atop GSM and an LTE layer that's 5 MHz wide, there is a ridiculous disproportionate amount of wasted HSPA capacity. So hoping they kill an AWS carrier for widening the LTE channels here as that would make much, much more sense.

 

Either way, expect to see the network recenter around AWS LTE, PCS UMTS, and PCS GSM over time in the urban core, and PCS LTE and PCS GSM outside of that. And eventually L700 sprinkled in both of those categories where applicable.

[gusherb]

Yeah 30 MHz AWS here, 20 MHz allocated to LTE and the other 10 allocated to HSPA. And then DC-HSPA is on PCS as is GSM. I think their PCS holdings amount to 25mhz here.

[Vince]

Can't they eliminate hspa from aws and expand LTE? T-Mobile is usually on top of making things happen with their network, and it's been 10x10 here since I think July 2013. Maybe it's not possible to refarm anymore spectrum here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[lilotimz]

Can't they eliminate hspa from aws and expand LTE? T-Mobile is usually on top of making things happen with their network, and it's been 10x10 here since I think July 2013. Maybe it's not possible to refarm anymore spectrum here.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

 

No. That would screw all the legacy and LTE devices that supports B4 HSPA but not B2 HSPA.

[Vince]

So, unless leap sells the adjacent AWS D-block, T-Mobile will be stuck at 10x10 here?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[lilotimz]

So, unless leap sells the adjacent AWS D-block, T-Mobile will be stuck at 10x10 here?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

 

 

You get headlines like this, "FCC speeds up pace of AWS-3 auction, now with more than $41B in bids", for a reason. 

[Vince]

You get headlines like this, "FCC speeds up pace of AWS-3 auction, now with more than $41B in bids", for a reason.

Can you explain the correlation of that article to my question, Tim? The article says Verizon and AT&T are winning the auction.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

[lilotimz]

Can you explain the correlation of that article to my question, Tim? The article says Verizon and AT&T are winning the auction.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone 6

 

Guess who's also bidding in the auction? Yup. Tmobile. 

 

Tmobiles greatest strength is their data speeds but nothing ever stays on top forever. They need more spectrum to keep those speeds high and ATT and VZW knows it and they themselves need it for capacity as well. 

 

So in order to get more AWS LTE spectrum for Chicago, T-mobile will need to outbid ATT and VZW for the AWS-3 spectrum there. In the meantime they can refarm some PCS for LTE which will supplement AWS and acquire 700a for capacity / coverage. 

[danlodish345]

Guess who's also bidding in the auction? Yup. Tmobile. 

 

Tmobiles greatest strength is their data speeds but nothing ever stays on top forever. They need more spectrum to keep those speeds high and ATT and VZW knows it and they themselves need it for capacity as well. 

 

So in order to get more AWS LTE spectrum for Chicago, T-mobile will need to outbid ATT and VZW for the AWS-3 spectrum there. In the meantime they can refarm some PCS for LTE which will supplement AWS and acquire 700a for capacity / coverage. 

can the fcc restrict AT&T and verizons bidding ?

[unoriginal]

can the fcc restrict AT&T and verizons bidding ?

 

Not at this point, the auction has been running for weeks. Can you imagine how fast Verzion and AT&T would run to court and sue if the FCC changed the rules now?

 

The 600mhz auction is supposed to have spectrum reserved for smaller companies that will be off limits for Verizon and AT&T. But that auction has been postponed for so long, who knows when it will actually happen.

[gusherb]

So it's no surprise to me but they turned on LTE today and I'm getting more then double what I get with Sprint inside my house. Seeing upwards of 30/15 inside with pings in the upper 20s. B41 isn't even delivering that outside my house. (And I get B41 almost none of the time inside)

Not bad T-Mobile! At my home they're only behind Verizon in LTE speeds.

[S4GRU]

So it's no surprise to me but they turned on LTE today and I'm getting more then double what I get with Sprint inside my house. Seeing upwards of 30/15 inside with pings in the upper 20s. B41 isn't even delivering that outside my house. (And I get B41 almost none of the time inside)

Not bad T-Mobile! At my home they're only behind Verizon in LTE speeds.

And that just depends on where you go. Tmo beats VZW in many places I go.

 

Using Nexus 5 on Tapatalk

[danlodish345]

And that just depends on where you go. Tmo beats VZW in many places I go.

 

Using Nexus 5 on Tapatalk

do you have sprint coverage where you live ? i do they dont have lte or smr turned on yet ...but they have improved alot ... data is still slow but the signal strength has improved and into reference t mobile they beat att and verizon in my area with speed and ping .... they used to be real bad by me up until 5 years ago ! now they are kicking butt and t mobiles A block lte 700 mhz covers most of state.....i cant wait for them to turn it on

[S4GRU]

do you have sprint coverage where you live ? i do they dont have lte or smr turned on yet ...but they have improved alot ... data is still slow but the signal strength has improved and into reference t mobile they beat att and verizon in my area with speed and ping .... they used to be real bad by me up until 5 years ago ! now they are kicking butt and t mobiles A block lte 700 mhz covers most of state.....i cant wait for them to turn it on

 

There is only AT&T and VZW coverage in my area.  The nearest Sprint or Tmo service is 350 miles away.

[danlodish345]

There is only AT&T and VZW coverage in my area.  The nearest Sprint or Tmo service is 350 miles away.

holly cow far ! i hope that the other two build out their network there