T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[Ascertion]

They have b2 in Orlando? I have yet to see it. Maybe I come on good days. The only time I see that is band 12 and b4 at like 130dbm but on a good signal. Never.

 

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In most scenarios it was very usable. This was inside the Lego Store in Orlando.

[S4GRU]

I can honestly say I have never seen tmobile below 5 mbps anywhere in the southeast region I have traveled to recently unless there was no coverage or I was on b12.

And I'm talking about Washington State. T-Mobile's home turf. Although they probably have a disproportionately high share here. But there are too many bogged down sites. And they are in the highest demand places. Like around malls and events.

 

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[RAvirani]

I can honestly say I have never seen tmobile below 5 mbps anywhere in the southeast region I have traveled to recently unless there was no coverage or I was on b12.

My family was here from India last week so I picked up a prepaid tmo SIM and they were complaining about the speeds a lot up here in Seattle. Keep in mind they come from India and they had never even heard of LTE (they have Vodafone back in India and they've only got WCDMA if I remember correctly). Not to mention tmo phones usually sit on edge at my house if not no service. Your experience is not an accurate reflection of full network performance.

[richy]

My family was here from India last week so I picked up a prepaid tmo SIM and they were complaining about the speeds a lot up here in Seattle. Keep in mind they come from India and they had never even heard of LTE (they have Vodafone back in India and they've only got WCDMA if I remember correctly). Not to mention tmo phones usually sit on edge at my house if not no service. Your experience is not an accurate reflection of full network performance.

Neither is yours? The network varies in performance from amazing to abysmal. I can get 30mbps or drive a little way and get a congested sub 1mbps or drive a little farther and get no signal. Which experience is an accurate description of full network performance? 

 

I think the best way to approach it is to compare growth in coverage and capacity year on year and remember that experiences will vary wildly based on location and usage cases. Sprint and tmo have both come on massively over the past few years in performance but there will be area where they will be sub part and areas where they beat the big two.

[richy]

And I'm talking about Washington State. T-Mobile's home turf. Although they probably have a disproportionately high share here. But there are too many bogged down sites. And they are in the highest demand places. Like around malls and events.

 

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Just curious but do you happen to know how much they had refarmed on those cells? It's frustrating to see some of tmos congested cells only having 10x10 or when they finally bump to 15x15 the performance remains the same as they don't upgrade the backhaul. I find it odd,  I hope they are just keeping opex down until after the auction to increase fcf. They are in danger of losing subs over their performance in some locations. 

[RAvirani]

Neither is yours? The network varies in performance from amazing to abysmal. I can get 30mbps or drive a little way and get a congested sub 1mbps or drive a little farther and get no signal. Which experience is an accurate description of full network performance?

 

I think the best way to approach it is to compare growth in coverage and capacity year on year and remember that experiences will vary wildly based on location and usage cases. Sprint and tmo have both come on massively over the past few years in performance but there will be area where they will be sub part and areas where they beat the big two.

Never suggested mine was. Just gave a counter example to his experience. Totally agree with you as well. Growth and improvement are everything.

[richy]

Never suggested mine was. Just gave a counter example to his experience. Totally agree with you as well. Growth and improvement are everything.

Sorry, I must have misinterpreted your meaning. I'm just hoping in 3 to 5 years we have 4 strong carriers with truly nation wide networks with sufficient capacity. We would then see equalization of subscribers over time. Right now we are headed in the right direction. Sprint and tmo both have their own unique challenges but sprint has done more in the past couple of years to catch up then most people credit them for but there is a lag between performance and it reflecting in their subs numbers. Tmo has done well in overlaying lte and getting it's subs numbers up. They may have adopted a non traditional personal but they have managed to shake things up and sell what they have, now they are facing their own infrastructure issues. Hopefully they will continue to refarm, buy more spectrum, build new towers and upgrade backhaul on existing ones. 

[RAvirani]

Sorry, I must have misinterpreted your meaning. I'm just hoping in 3 to 5 years we have 4 strong carriers with truly nation wide networks with sufficient capacity. We would then see equalization of subscribers over time. Right now we are headed in the right direction. Sprint and tmo both have their own unique challenges but sprint has done more in the past couple of years to catch up then most people credit them for but there is a lag between performance and it reflecting in their subs numbers. Tmo has done well in overlaying lte and getting it's subs numbers up. They may have adopted a non traditional personal but they have managed to shake things up and sell what they have, now they are facing their own infrastructure issues. Hopefully they will continue to refarm, buy more spectrum, build new towers and upgrade backhaul on existing ones.

Don't worry - no offense taken. Totaly agree with you as well - people don't realize the number issues that only sprint has had to deal with. Tmo already had fiber in place for HSPA - they just needed to send crews out to change out RRUs and antennas. Sprint has had tons of backhaul issues some of which still haven't been resolved. WiMAX also totally screwed sprint over - they built out a whole network, took it down and put up a totally separate network in a similar time frame time other carriers built out their LTE networks in. The delay of the WiMAX shutdown also hurt sprint. They probably caused data speeds to take a hit in the 1H16 rootmetrics report. These are all issues no one else had to face - AND sprint has been extremely short on money the whole time. Since pretty much all of these issues have been resolved - at least for the most part - I think sprint will start to progress very quickly in the coming months. Same goes for tmo - they will soon be going back to add B4 and B2 to their B12 only rural builds and as 4x4 MIMO phones start to trickle in, their speeds will rise. There is a lot of growth potential for both and I'm sure we will start to see that more and more in the next few months.

[tybo31316]

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/16/11957002/t-mobile-facebook-video-binge-on

 

What's the deal with T-Mobile making most video streaming free? Is this a tactic to do away with unlimited data? Seems like they should almost make all their plans unlimited.

 

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[derrph]

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/16/11957002/t-mobile-facebook-video-binge-on

 

What's the deal with T-Mobile making most video streaming free? Is this a tactic to do away with unlimited data? Seems like they should almost make all their plans unlimited.

 

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I saw this last night and slightly got irritated over it. I always looked at BingeOn as a back pedal pussy pop method of controlling what goes in and out the network when it comes to video. The network can't handle too much more based on the amount of customers they are gaining. So it seems like T-Mobile will keep adding video related things that they see is putting strain on the network until they are able to control all aspects of video and ensuring that it doesn't cripple the network.

 

I still say that they shot themselves in the foot a while back boasting they have more spectrum per customer than Verizon and AT&T and that you can steam all day and night because our network can handle it cause it's data strong. But hey I can't knock them the free video is making people sign up.

 

 

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[S4GRU]

I've noticed Tmo adding B12 to the B2 GMO sites. Which has been nice to expand rural coverage. But the big network issue is the declining speeds. At high use sites, I see the decline every month. Most of the really high speed sites seem unaffected, though. Tmo will need to densify in my area.

 

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[reedacus25]

I've noticed Tmo adding B12 to the B2 GMO sites. Which has been nice to expand rural coverage. But the big network issue is the declining speeds. At high use sites, I see the decline every month. Most of the really high speed sites seem unaffected, though. Tmo will need to densify in my area.

In the areas they have had the L700A license in Louisiana (not recent areas like New Orleans/Baton Rouge), they have very much targeted major vehicular corridors.

I-10 from Texas to almost Baton Rouge is B12 the entire way except for a lapse in Crowley.

I-20 from Minden to the end of the license in Delhi, aside from the site in Ruston.

And I-49 from Shreveport to north of Alexandria was all B2 and has been overlaid with B12 now.

 

Point being, major corridors are being overlaid pretty well in markets where the license has been held.

 

New Orleans is just now getting to the permit side of things with the L700 overlay after having the license since last fall.

 

However, if recent events should mean anything, expect some aggressive PCS refarming. New Orleans and Baton Rouge down to single U1900 carriers to make way for L1900. Very interesting to see them break their 2c UMTS soft limit they've held fast to nearly nationwide.

 

 

 

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[Fraydog]

B12 can't help where I live since I'm in one of the few places where T-Mobile doesn't have it.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

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[1dante]

New carrier update came to my IPhone 6s today. Changed from sprint 24.1 to 24.2. Any idea what changed? Any info would be great. Thanks.

[Deval]

In the areas they have had the L700A license in Louisiana (not recent areas like New Orleans/Baton Rouge), they have very much targeted major vehicular corridors.

I-10 from Texas to almost Baton Rouge is B12 the entire way except for a lapse in Crowley.

I-20 from Minden to the end of the license in Delhi, aside from the site in Ruston.

And I-49 from Shreveport to north of Alexandria was all B2 and has been overlaid with B12 now.

 

Point being, major corridors are being overlaid pretty well in markets where the license has been held.

 

New Orleans is just now getting to the permit side of things with the L700 overlay after having the license since last fall.

 

However, if recent events should mean anything, expect some aggressive PCS refarming. New Orleans and Baton Rouge down to single U1900 carriers to make way for L1900. Very interesting to see them break their 2c UMTS soft limit they've held fast to nearly nationwide.

 

 

 

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I guess the push is to get everyone on VoLTE?

[reedacus25]

B12 can't help where I live since I'm in one of the few places where T-Mobile doesn't have it.

 

I'm in Mississippi enough to feel your pain on this.

 

 

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[danny12345]

Tmobile just activated a antennas in Foresthill ca.

 

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[joshuam]

New carrier update came to my IPhone 6s today. Changed from sprint 24.1 to 24.2. Any idea what changed? Any info would be great. Thanks.

Seems to have made the phone not hold on to band 12 like it used to.

[Volaris]

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/16/11957002/t-mobile-facebook-video-binge-on

 

What's the deal with T-Mobile making most video streaming free? Is this a tactic to do away with unlimited data? Seems like they should almost make all their plans unlimited.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

Various reasons. Main reason is for the network. You get unlimited video as long as you keep BingeOn on. That throttles your video quality to 480p (DVD) quality. That's around 1000-1500kbps I believe. Compare that with HD. 720p needs around 3Mbps and 1080p around 5Mbps. They've mentioned they've seen a reduction in bandwidth (10%? if my memory is right) after turning on BingeOn. To put it simply, people only have limited time to watch videos. If they have unlimited video, their data usage isn't going to increase much overtime. That's because most data usage growth is due to video, so by throttling video, you can somewhat control data usage growth. I think the benefit of BingeOn will be even greater once they have 4x4 MIMO (because data growth won't be as high, which should leave more network capacity open for other stuff).

 

Side note: Sprint used to throttle/compress video to 600kbps in the past. I personally had no problem with it since it saved me a ton of data. Was 360p quality. They got rid of it after people complained a year or two ago, so Marcelo gave in. 

 

Second side note: with newer/better video encoding, you'll actually be able to stream 720p HD video soon using the same 1000-1500kbps that 480p streaming currently uses. I've seen some people mention they've been able to stream 720p YouTube on BingeOn... I'm guessing on high end smartphones that support h265 video (takes more phone resources to stream h265).

 

Second reason is marketing. Unlimited video streaming = happier customers = more loyal customers. Brand differentiator. You're less likely to leave if you enjoy unlimited video streaming and their competitors don't offer it. But really the main reason was to control data growth / their network. 

 

Tmobile just activated a antennas in Foresthill ca.

 

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Nice to see them continue expanding their network footprint in areas with 700MHz. Regionals will have a new competitor in a few years once T-Mobile has 600MHz in their markets. As they've mentioned, with low band it makes economic sense to expand into rural areas.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Volaris

[RAvirani]

Seems to have made the phone not hold on to band 12 like it used to.

Do you mean while LTE roaming (Sprint does not have band 12 holdings)?

[anthony.spina97]

 

Side note: Sprint used to throttle/compress video to 600kbps in the past. I personally had no problem with it since it saved me a ton of data. Was 360p quality. They got rid of it after people complained a year or two ago, so Marcelo gave in. 

 

Actually, Sprint announced a new plan (called "All In") that had a 600 kbps throttle included in it for video, but Marcelo got rid of the throttle before people were ever able to sign up for it because of the complaining done by the community. So, technically, Sprint never throttled video on their network. Here's and article on it.

 

-Anthony

[joshuam]

Do you mean while LTE roaming (Sprint does not have band 12 holdings)?

So I'm referring to a TMobile iPhone.

[RAvirani]

So I'm referring to a TMobile iPhone.

1dante was referring to a Sprint carrier settings update. A T-Mobile carrier settings update was never mentioned.

[joshuam]

1dante was referring to a Sprint carrier settings update. A T-Mobile carrier settings update was never mentioned.

TMobile carrier settings were recently updated, and this is the TMobile thread...

[Trip]

Cross-posting from T4GRU:

 

Well, as the owner of an LG Leon LTE, I find that phone to spend most of its time on 700, which is fine if I'm looking for 700, but not fine if I'm trying to find towers with AWS and no 700.

 

So I went ahead and ordered the $50 Amazon ad-included Blu R1 HD and a T-Mobile SIM kit.  It doesn't support B12 (yet; might come in an update from what I read) which is probably a good thing for me at this point. 

 

If anyone's interested, I'll give some opinions on it once I have it.  I paid for 1-day shipping so I should have it on the 13th, in time for a trip on the 14th.

 

- Trip