T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[RAvirani]

21 minutes ago, jthawks said:

Well shoot,  my mom was right.  Haha. So I guess she should stick it out for now and pay the price.  Thank you for the great info I will pass that on. Wish there was a way to find out legit upgrades coming to that site.  I should try and get a ticket started? 

Kenmore permits can be found here:

https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/

That's probably a good place to start.  

[Brad The Beast]

I've been testing the T-Mobile network here in Grand Forks for the past two days on the Test Drive program. I am less than impressed. Of the 27 tests I've done, only 4 of them have had download speeds in the double digits. No tests have resulted in upload speeds in the double digits. Summarized data:

Average DL: 6.76Mbps

Average UL: 2.79Mbps

37% of download tests were slower than 5Mbps.

48% of download tests were between 5 and 10Mbps.

15% of download tests were faster than 10Mbps.

63% of upload tests were slower than 3Mbps.

22% of upload tests were between 3 and 5Mbps.

15% of upload tests were faster than 5Mbps. 

I will say I have yet to have a test fail. 

[banananuts87]

As with any mobile network, YMMV

[though]

On 9/11/2019 at 9:25 PM, Brad The Beast said:

I've been testing the T-Mobile network here in Grand Forks for the past two days on the Test Drive program. I am less than impressed. Of the 27 tests I've done, only 4 of them have had download speeds in the double digits. No tests have resulted in upload speeds in the double digits. Summarized data:

Average DL: 6.76Mbps

Average UL: 2.79Mbps

37% of download tests were slower than 5Mbps.

48% of download tests were between 5 and 10Mbps.

15% of download tests were faster than 10Mbps.

63% of upload tests were slower than 3Mbps.

22% of upload tests were between 3 and 5Mbps.

15% of upload tests were faster than 5Mbps. 

I will say I have yet to have a test fail. 

Very usable. How are pings?

[Brad The Beast]

1 hour ago, though said:

Very usable. How are pings?

Between 50ms and 250ms. I'd say the average is around 100ms. Speeds aren't impressive due to lack of spectrum assets in my area. The majority of the towers here are bands 2 and 12, both of which are 5x5. There is one that's bands 2 and 4 (band 4 is also 5x5). There is another that is bands 2, 12, and 71 (pretty sure 71 is 10x10).

[though]

46 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

Between 50ms and 250ms. I'd say the average is around 100ms. Speeds aren't impressive due to lack of spectrum assets in my area. The majority of the towers here are bands 2 and 12, both of which are 5x5. There is one that's bands 2 and 4 (band 4 is also 5x5). There is another that is bands 2, 12, and 71 (pretty sure 71 is 10x10).

I don't think ND is known for the best network speeds on any network. If you are getting a consistent 6+/2+ I would consider that good for the time being...

[Brad The Beast]

19 minutes ago, though said:

I don't think ND is known for the best network speeds on any network. If you are getting a consistent 6+/2+ I would consider that good for the time being...

Well when I'm getting up to 300Mbps down on VZW and up to 50Mbps down on Sprint I wouldn't consider 6 down 2 up good. 

[danlodish345]

Well when I'm getting up to 300Mbps down on VZW and up to 50Mbps down on Sprint I wouldn't consider 6 down 2 up good. 

Well 5g for all carriers including TMobile is still in it's infancy and coverage is still insanely limited.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Brad The Beast]

Just now, danlodish345 said:

Well 5g for all carriers including TMobile is still in it's infancy and coverage is still insanely limited.

These are LTE speeds. I never mentioned 5G.

[danlodish345]

These are LTE speeds. I never mentioned 5G.

Hm ok it's seems like TMobile is capacity limited ...in many areas .

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Brad The Beast]

Just now, danlodish345 said:

Hm ok it's seems like TMobile is capacity limited ...in many areas .

Yep. We won't be seeing 5G from anyone for at least 10 years. 

[danlodish345]

Yep. We won't be seeing 5G from anyone for at least 10 years. 

Exactly. I don't even pay attention to it anymore. Whenever someone mentions fifth generation network technology I just sit back and chuckle. Besides they're a joke if they think they're going to run 5G on 5 MHz of band 71. in my area T-Mobile runs it on 5 MHz of band 71 even though they have 10 megahertz total. It's a total joke that's why they stop paying attention and long ago after they rolled it out here.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[jthawks]

So -115 strength in band 71 inside a one story building, not much for obstructions and the site was a block and a half getting 1.6 mbps down and no upload.  What's the story behind this? So far I haven't been impressed with band 71 especially comparing to band 26 on sprint

[dkyeager]

On 9/20/2019 at 1:10 PM, jthawks said:

So -115 strength in band 71 inside a one story building, not much for obstructions and the site was a block and a half getting 1.6 mbps down and no upload.  What's the story behind this? So far I haven't been impressed with band 71 especially comparing to band 26 on sprint

How new is it?  It initially took months for Sprint to umbrella out B26 coverage.  Do the antennas point in your direction? (although at 1.5 blocks you should get strong signal no matter what unless you are too close).

[jthawks]

Fairly new.  Maybe under two months.  I know there is a 10 story or under office building in its path.  But the hotel t mobile is on I believe is a couple stories higher.  But maybe you're right about it will take some time for adjustments or whatever they need to still do. I can give you the address? But most of the band 71 sites aren't impressive right now. 

[danlodish345]

Fairly new.  Maybe under two months.  I know there is a 10 story or under office building in its path.  But the hotel t mobile is on I believe is a couple stories higher.  But maybe you're right about it will take some time for adjustments or whatever they need to still do. I can give you the address? But most of the band 71 sites aren't impressive right now. 

Where I live T-Mobile launched band 71 on pretty much every site. But the capacity is only a 5 MHz chunk of the 10 megahertz they own here. But then again it is what it is.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[red_dog007]

On 9/11/2019 at 10:25 PM, Brad The Beast said:

I've been testing the T-Mobile network here in Grand Forks for the past two days on the Test Drive program. I am less than impressed. Of the 27 tests I've done, only 4 of them have had download speeds in the double digits. No tests have resulted in upload speeds in the double digits.

Im sure you are aware, but I'd also keep in mind that the hotspot can't CA. IMO the device is meant more for coverage awareness.  

If you want to test speeds, grab a TMobile sim and drop that into an unlocked phone.  Speedtest app is whitelisted. 

[Brad The Beast]

4 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

Im sure you are aware, but I'd also keep in mind that the hotspot can't CA. IMO the device is meant more for coverage awareness.  

If you want to test speeds, grab a TMobile sim and drop that into an unlocked phone.  Speedtest app is whitelisted. 

I don't think aggregating with the unusable band 12 would help speeds much since it's pretty much the bands 2 & 12 show here. 

[danlodish345]

I don't think aggregating with the unusable band 12 would help speeds much since it's pretty much the bands 2 & 12 show here. 

I don't even think on the phone side that bands 12 and 71 can be aggregated yet.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[dkyeager]

19 hours ago, jthawks said:

Fairly new.  Maybe under two months.  I know there is a 10 story or under office building in its path.  But the hotel t mobile is on I believe is a couple stories higher.  But maybe you're right about it will take some time for adjustments or whatever they need to still do. I can give you the address? But most of the band 71 sites aren't impressive right now. 

Signal reaches you in a zone that is basically football shaped. Thus that building greatly affects your signal. You can test this by doing tests a few blocks in either direction. Most people think signal is in straight lines in all directions. Often more like a three leave clover or a three petalled flower. Today's antennas are actually made up of dozens of small attennas, each pointable.

The other factor with band 71 is T-Mobile is reserving spectrum for 5g. In other cases more spectrum will be available later.

[jthawks]

On 9/23/2019 at 3:58 PM, dkyeager said:

Signal reaches you in a zone that is basically football shaped. Thus that building greatly affects your signal. You can test this by doing tests a few blocks in either direction. Most people think signal is in straight lines in all directions. Often more like a three leave clover or a three petalled flower. Today's antennas are actually made up of dozens of small attennas, each pointable.

The other factor with band 71 is T-Mobile is reserving spectrum for 5g. In other cases more spectrum will be available later.

That's great info thank you very much.  Don't think t mobile is very active in Colorado for building 5g

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, jthawks said:

That's great info thank you very much.  Don't think t mobile is very active in Colorado for building 5g

All of the Band 71 equipment is 5g ready. It needs smartphones and firmware updates. Hopefully the backhaul needed is already installed. Given the same bandwidth, band 71 5g is expected to be twice as fast. This may not sound like much, but when you are at the edge of the cell or indoors it could make a world of difference.

[Brad The Beast]

Band 71 speeds in my area are hot garbage now that they went from 10x10 to 5x5. They're about as bad as worthless band 12. I always laugh at the people who think band 71 is the congestion savior. 

[RedSpark]

9 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

Band 71 speeds in my area are hot garbage now that they went from 10x10 to 5x5. They're about as bad as worthless band 12. I always laugh at the people who think band 71 is the congestion savior. 

Why did they do this?

[RedSpark]

On 9/25/2019 at 12:27 AM, dkyeager said:

All of the Band 71 equipment is 5g ready. It needs smartphones and firmware updates. Hopefully the backhaul needed is already installed. Given the same bandwidth, band 71 5g is expected to be twice as fast. This may not sound like much, but when you are at the edge of the cell or indoors it could make a world of difference.

T-Mobile seems to do a better job of planning and deploying backhaul than Sprint has.

I wonder if the New T-Mobile will have greater leverage or economies of scale for backhaul deployment.