Google announces Project Fi: Partners with Sprint and T-Mobile for Network Access (previous title: Google to start it's own Wireless Service; using T-Mobile/Sprint for it's Network Footprint.)
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I think it is likely that T-Mobile will be forced to honor any existing US cellular roaming agreements in those areas as a condition of them taking over the spectrum. In that case, there would be no improvement of service unless T-Mobile improves the service offering in those areas. -
My understanding is the MNO carriers are the one who have objected to the use of cell phones in commercial planes. I understand that it ties down too many cell phones at once, thus I can not see this changing. However this depends on how it is structured. Use of a different plmn for satellite service might make it possible for planes only to connect with satellite. Private pilots have been using cellphones in planes for many decades. Far fewer phones at a lower altitude. -
On Reddit, someone asked (skeptically) if the US Cellular buyout would result in better service. I'd been pondering this very issue, and decided to cross-post my response here: I've been pondering the question in the title and I've come to the conclusion that the answer is that it's possible. Hear me out. Unlike some of the small carriers that work exclusively with one larger carrier, all three major carriers roam on US Cellular today in at least some areas, so far as I know. If that network ceases to exist, then the carriers would presumably want to recover those areas of lost service by building out natively. Thus, people in those areas who may only have service from US Cellular or from US Cellular and one other may gain competition from other carriers backfilling that loss. How likely is it? I'm not sure. But it's definitely feasible. Most notably, AT&T did their big roaming deal with US Cellular in support of FirstNet in places where they lacked native coverage. They can't just lose a huge chunk of coverage whole still making FirstNet happy; I suspect they'll have to build out and recover at least some of that area, if not most of it. So it'd be indirect, but I could imagine it. - Trip -
Historically, T-Mobile has been the only carrier contracting with Crown Castle Solutions, at least in Brooklyn. I did a quick count of the ~35 nodes currently marked as "installed" and everything mapped appears to be T-Mobile. However, they have a macro sector pointed directly at this site and seem to continue relying on the older-style DAS nodes. Additionally, there's another Crown Castle Solutions node approved for construction just around the corner, well within range of their macro. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Verizon using a new vendor for their mmWave build, especially since the macro site directly behind this node lacks mmWave/CBRS deployment (limited to LTE plus C-Band). However, opting for a multi-carrier solution here seems unlikely unless another carrier has actually joined the build. This node is equidistant (about five blocks) between two AT&T macro sites, and there are no oDAS nodes deployed nearby. Although I'm not currently mapping AT&T, based on CellMapper, it appears to be right on cell edge for both sites. Regardless, it appears that whoever is deploying is planning for a significant build. There are eight Crown Castle Solutions nodes approved for construction in a 12-block by 2-block area. -
Starlink (1900mhz) for T-Mobile, AST SpaceMobile (700mhz and 850mhz) for AT&T, GlobalStar (unknown frequency) for Apple, Iridium (unknown frequency) for Samsung, and AST SpaceMobile (850mhz) for Verizon only work on frequency bands the carrier has licensed nationwide. These systems broadcast and listen on multiple frequencies at the same time in areas much wider than normal cellular market license areas. They would struggle with only broadcasting certain frequencies only in certain markets so instead they require a nationwide license. With the antennas that are included on the satellites, they have range of cellular band frequencies they support and can have different frequencies with different providers in each supported country. The cellular bands in use are typically 5mhz x 5mhz bands (37.5mbps total for the entire cell) or smaller so they do not have a lot of data bandwidth for the satellite band covering a very large plot of land with potentially millions of customers in a single large cellular satellite cell. I have heard that each of Starlink's cells sharing that bandwidth will cover 75 or more miles. Satellite cellular connectivity will be set to the lowest priority connection just before SOS service on supported mobile devices and is made available nationwide in supported countries. The mobile device rules pushed by the provider decide when and where the device is allowed to connect to the satellite service and what services can be provided over that connection. The satellite has a weak receiving antenna and is moving very quickly so any significant obstructions above your mobile device antenna could cause it not to work. All the cellular satellite services are starting with texting only and some of them like Apple's solution only support a predefined set of text messages. Eventually it is expected that a limited number of simultaneous voice calls (VoLTE) will run on these per satellite cell. Any spare data will then be available as an extremely slow LTE data connection as it could potentially be shared by millions of people. Satellite data from the way these are currently configured will likely never work well enough to use unless you are in a very remote location.
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