FYI South African base stations (Previously: Azimuth's local South Africa lte base stations)

[Azimuth]

Any idea what the small square antenna is?

[lilotimz]

Any idea what the small square antenna is?

 

Microwave antenna

[Azimuth]

Really?? What's the difference between round and square? I thought microwave always came in the form of a parabolic dish.

[lilotimz]

Really?? What's the difference between round and square? I thought microwave always came in the form of a parabolic dish.

Just the design.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Azimuth]

Here's a quick one from an outing today. The weather was very wintery and light was poor so I didn't unpack my DSLR (f/4-5.6 so best for full sun).

 

Located at a gas station, very popular site here.

 

Compact site.

 

Obligatory warning signs for the people scared of cell tower radiation.

 

This base station belongs to our biggest carrier, Vodacom.

 

Super neat BTS shelter.

 

The same refrigeration company as per my first photo shoot.

 

I hate these 'camo' sites. You cannot see any equipment! Unfortunately all the newer, smaller sites are like this.

 

So this particular base station hasn't been upgraded to LTE. I surveyed last week and there's only 3G (rather fast 3G mind you).

 

[imex99]

Very fast 3g, beats most of our lte in the Columbus, Ohio market.

[Azimuth]

You know, I've been browsing a lot on S4GRU and seen very modest speeds for LTE. Don't worry, I know all too well the low speed posting rule!

 

I'm just trying to understand the logic of LTE that side. Is 3G so saturated and so poor that modest LTE speeds are like a breath of fresh air?

[kojitsari]

You know, I've been browsing a lot on S4GRU and seen very modest speeds for LTE. Don't worry, I know all too well the low speed posting rule!

 

I'm just trying to understand the logic of LTE that side. Is 3G so saturated and so poor that modest LTE speeds are like a breath of fresh air?

Our actual 3g that Sprint and Verizon uses caps out around 2mb down when not saturated. Att and T-Mobile use hspa+ which is faux 4g (suped up 3g), and can go up to as high as 42mb down. One main reason sprint has poor 3g some places is due to some towers not having fiber hooked up yet, and not having LTE live to off load some burden either (no fiber means no LTE).

 

Our cell sites were spaced on the needs of populations years ago and they haven't really been adding very many for capacity, especially not in more rural areas. This could be cost related or do to how big of a pain in the ass it is to get permits through in a decent time frame.

[Azimuth]

Interesting. For a direct comparison, if there's interest, I'll post an image of base stations superimposed onto Google Maps with a scale. It'll be a good basis to compare how each country does spacing. (I'll limit this to my local area only)

[MacinJosh]

Interesting. For a direct comparison, if there's interest, I'll post an image of base stations superimposed onto Google Maps with a scale. It'll be a good basis to compare how each country does spacing. (I'll limit this to my local area only)

If be interested to see a map.

[Deval]

You know, I've been browsing a lot on S4GRU and seen very modest speeds for LTE. Don't worry, I know all too well the low speed posting rule!

 

I'm just trying to understand the logic of LTE that side. Is 3G so saturated and so poor that modest LTE speeds are like a breath of fresh air?

 

3G on the CDMA side (the core technology that Verizon and Sprint use) is based on EVDO-RevA, which has a theoretical maximum speed of 3.1mbps on the downlink. There was a standard created for CDMA, EVDO-RevB, which would increase that speed exponentially, but was never deployed. 

 

The rest of the world uses HSPA and HSPA+ for their 3G/4G base, which offers significantly faster speeds when not on LTE.

[Azimuth]

Azimuth, on 12 Aug 2014 - 2:22 PM, said:

Interesting. For a direct comparison, if there's interest, I'll post an image of base stations superimposed onto Google Maps with a scale. It'll be a good basis to compare how each country does spacing. (I'll limit this to my local area only)

 

My fixed LTE connection is to GC2772, 1622m away.

[burnout8488]

I love the content in these threads the OP is creating, but should these South African LTE topics be moved out of the Sprint NV Deployment forum section, and into General?

[Azimuth]

Totally cool with that, makes sense.

[twospirits]

I already had suggested that and it is in the planning stages. Robert has agreed and will eventually create a totally new section for Overseas topics of deployments, sites pics, and other topics dealing with Japan, South America, Africa etc. Basically a Softbanks' World Domination plan section.  

 

Once the section is created, we'll start moving the threads etc.

 

TS

[darickster09]

I have topped out at 2.41 Mbps down and about 1.39 up on 3g at my home about a month or so ago.  Thats the fastest I have seen for 3G.  LTE on the other hand I topped out this last weekend at about 71 down and 14.74 up.  

[Azimuth]

Wow, your LTE result must be some kinda record there? All I've read so far is people getting 8/3 kinda speeds.

[lilotimz]

Wow, your LTE result must be some kinda record there? All I've read so far is people getting 8/3 kinda speeds.

That's about the highest a Sprint user can get on LTE here and that's with Sprint Spark (i.e. 20 mhz TDD-LTE carriers) with a theoretical max of 101/14.7 mbps DL-UL speeds. 

 

Lucky individuals may reach the 100 mbps theoretical area for a single carrier from the Sprint 8T8R equipment in the future (whenever they're activated) since that equipment is more capable than the ones being used right now (Huawei & Samsung dual mode TDD-LTE / Wimax RRHs) but as of right now a lot of Clear sites have a giant ? for the backhaul which leaves a wide range of speeds for those connecting to currently live B41 sites. 

[Azimuth]

Here's what our distribution looks like for the luckiest LTE users in SA:

 

TDD-LTE

 

1. Hyperbole - 85.74Mbps - Pretoria Gardens, Gauteng

2. Fifaguy - 77.54Mbps - Cape Town, Western Cape

3. jacqueso - 76.06Mbps - Centurion, Gauteng

4. Biggles190 - 74.89Mbps - Northwold, Johannesburg, Gauteng (Poynting XPOL-0001)

5. Azimuth - 73.76Mbps - Helderkruin, Roodepoort, Gauteng (Poynting LPDA-0092's)

6. jcheek - 73.03Mbps - Faerie Glen, Pretoria East, Gauteng (Poynting LPDA-0020's)

7. Marakker - 70.59Mbps - Cape Town, Western Cape

8. kurtg - 65.77Mbps - Greenstone, East Rand, Gauteng (Poynting LPDA-0092's)

9. rpm - 49Mbps - Johannesburg, Gauteng

10. oomdomy - 39.32Mbps - Pretoria North, Gauteng

11. saliehendricks - 38Mbps - Cape Town, Western Cape

12. Nobby - 29.68Mbps - George, Western Cape

13. rustyb1968 - 27.15Mbps - Bellville, Western Cape

14. neetz108 - 24.78Mbps - Randburg, Gauteng

15. Lord Farquart - 24.29Mbps - Centurion, Gauteng

16. RichardG - 22.69Mbps - Centurion, Gauteng

17. Gaz{M} - 22.50Mbps - Rooihuiskraal, Pretoria, Gauteng

18. DA-LION-619 - 22.03Mbps - Durban, KZN

19. gauravgupta - 19.3Mbps - Constantia Kloof, Roodepoort, Gauteng

20. Dirk44 - 18.66Mbps - Honeydew Ridge, Roodepoort, Gauteng

21. Grasmuis - 15.34Mbps - Wilgeheuwel, Roodepoort, Gauteng

22. cavedog - 15.13Mbps - Birdswood, Richards Bay, KZN

23. Teejaybee - 11.69Mbps - de Tyger, Cape Town, Western Cape

 

FDD-LTE

 

1. Voldemort - 70.71Mbps - Johannesburg, Gauteng

2. ECape - 68.41Mbps - Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape

3. torgo - 59.74Mbps - Johannesburg, Gauteng

4. Azimuth - 49.49Mbps - Sandown, Johannesburg, Gauteng

5. Firetelkom - 45.6Mbps - Key West, Krugersdorp, Gauteng

6. Biggles190 - 42.79Mbps - Northwold, Johannesburg, Gauteng

7. cavedog - 34.47Mbps - Richards Bay, KZN

8. jcheek - 27.86Mbps - Faerie Glen, Pretoria East, Gauteng

9. blunt - 16.12Mbps - Cape Town, Western Cape

10. eehellfire - 14.82Mbps - Johannesburg, Gauteng

11. acidrain - 12.89Mbps - Cape Town, Western Cape

 

People back home don't hold much regard for upload speeds so only download speeds were recorded.

 

Typically:

 

- TDD-LTE uploads are at 8Mbps

- FDD-LTE uploads are at 19Mbps

 

 

The colours on the map have no correlation to the speed tests

[Azimuth]

Oops. Cleaning up my Imgur account I deleted most of one album. I expect some images will show dead links soon.

[Azimuth]

This is a base station approximately 1700m from my house.  I only have partial LOS.  The tower is
35m high.
 

The infamous "camo" sites that just started popping up a few years ago. This site went live on or after

4 December 2011.
 

One can just see a few sector antennas and a single microwave antenna. (Please correct me if I refer

to these incorrectly?)
 

Up close.  I was able to get even closer.
 

Apparently the "branches" can be easily removed to add more antennas.
 

Very neat site, bar a bit of trash on the ground.  I couldn't identify the manufacturer of the BTS
shelter...
 

This site belongs to "No. 3" of the Big Four.  No-one else shares the site.  Cell C currently only offer
2G and 3G.  While they ran LTE trials, they've never gone live.  They use 2100MHz for 3G. I've never
personally used this carrier.
 

Local company that does the camo work.
 

Local company that do the sectional poles.
 

A better look at the BTS shelter and the power distribution cabinet. Power supply is usually 380V. For

home owners, our power supply is 220V.  Generally our factories also have 380V supply.
 

 
 

If I'm not mistaken that's a plug to connect a portable generator to should the site "go dark".
 

I'm not sure what the "2 share" part of the label is.  I'm pretty sure only one carrier is on the site but
maybe I'm wrong?
 

Triplexers and feeder cable "hangar".
 

Kathrein triplexer double unit. Port 1 is GSM 900 (380-960MHz), Port 2 is GSM 1800 (1710-1880MHz),

Port 3 is UTMS (1920-2170MHz). All three ports are combined into Port 4 at the top.
 

 
 

Arrrg trash obscuring the beautiful equipment.
 

To be honest I'm not sure what they are...are they ground radio units?
 

 
 

All the feeder cables running underground to the tower.

[Oakley707]

Out of curiosity what phone do you have?  Just curious.

[Azimuth]

The first few images were taken with an iPhone 5S, the rest - as with the others - were taking using a Canon 550D (think it's called a Rebel something or other in the US) and 75-300mm lens.

[Oakley707]

The first few images were taken with an iPhone 5S, the rest - as with the others - were taking using a Canon 550D (think it's called a Rebel something or other in the US) and 75-300mm lens.

Just didn't know what phones were prevalent there.  Much Android support?

[Azimuth]

Android is huge here, especially the Samsung phones. iPhone is more niche. There are also quite a few BB users as well!

 

We have a few carrier phones too which are the cheap android variety.