T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[mdob07]

N41 increased to 80MHz in Louisville finally. I'll get some tests tonight on my way home. 

[Dkoellerwx]

24 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

N41 increased to 80MHz in Louisville finally. I'll get some tests tonight on my way home. 

Nice! Still 40Mhz here. Will be very interested to see the performance on that.

[mdob07]

3 hours ago, mdob07 said:

N41 increased to 80MHz in Louisville finally. I'll get some tests tonight on my way home. 

 

2 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Nice! Still 40Mhz here. Will be very interested to see the performance on that.

Heres some tests from a few places as I drove home, interestingly not all sites were at 80MHz, a couple were still 60MHz. Some of these were stationary and some were while moving. I was even able to hit almost 200mbps in my basement on the far side from the tower about 3/4 miles away. The last time I tested my home site at 2AM the best I could get was 525 down, so this easily tops that at just shy of 700mbps.

 

 

[Paynefanbro]

After seeing a ton of these n41 speed tests on sites with anywhere from 40-80MHz of spectrum I'm beginning to suspect that T-Mobile is intentionally limiting themselves with regard to backhaul. Speed tests greater than 700Mbps seem few and far between, even in ideal conditions.

[clbowens]

I found some 80Mhz N41 here also.  Speed was about 350 down.

[clbowens]

Does anyone know if T-Mobile has plans to keep expanding their network?  Maybe not right now, while they are focused on rolling out 5G, but maybe in a year or 2, expanding to uncovered areas?  

Just wondering.

[wispiANt]

2 hours ago, clbowens said:

Does anyone know if T-Mobile has plans to keep expanding their network?  Maybe not right now, while they are focused on rolling out 5G, but maybe in a year or 2, expanding to uncovered areas?  

Just wondering.

Last I heard, T-Mobile plans to boost their number of macro sites from 65K (pre-merger) to 85K over the next five years. Between 10-15K of those sites are Sprint conversions, whereas the rest are greenfield builds.

[mdob07]

Just now, thisischuck01 said:

Last I heard, T-Mobile plans to boost their number of macro sites from 65K (pre-merger) to 85K over the next five years. Around 15K of those sites are Sprint conversions, whereas 10K are greenfield builds.

I know for here in KY they have a lot of work to do to get on the same level as AT&T and Verizon. But T-Mobile did have better native rural coverage here than Sprint, Sprint just roamed on Bluegrass Cellular. 

[clbowens]

Any guesses on what this will be about?  
T‑Mobile Announces Next Big 5G‑Powered MoveJoin us on March 4 | T‑Mobile Newsroom (t-mobile.com)

[RAvirani]

On 2/9/2021 at 1:32 PM, clbowens said:

Does anyone know if T-Mobile has plans to keep expanding their network?  Maybe not right now, while they are focused on rolling out 5G, but maybe in a year or 2, expanding to uncovered areas?  

Just wondering.

They're currently building out in rural areas around Seattle.

[clbowens]

1 minute ago, RAvirani said:

They're currently building out in rural areas around Seattle.

That's good to hear.  Wondering if they will keep building out where my parents live, in eastern NC.

[Paynefanbro]

41 minutes ago, clbowens said:

That's good to hear.  Wondering if they will keep building out where my parents live, in eastern NC.

They're still doing new builds in eastern NC. Just east of Greenville in Chocowinity there used to be no coverage but as recently as January a new site went live there. The T-Mobile coverage map still shows that there's almost no coverage there but if you drove by today you'd have full signal.

[danlodish345]

On 3/2/2021 at 3:07 PM, Paynefanbro said:

They're still doing new builds in eastern NC. Just east of Greenville in Chocowinity there used to be no coverage but as recently as January a new site went live there. The T-Mobile coverage map still shows that there's almost no coverage there but if you drove by today you'd have full signal.

Are they doing a native LTE build out?

[Paynefanbro]

1 minute ago, danlodish345 said:

Are they doing a native LTE build out?

Yup. The site has both LTE and n71.

[danlodish345]

On 3/4/2021 at 11:28 PM, Paynefanbro said:

Yup. The site has both LTE and n71.

That's very good. I'm glad to see T-Mobile building out there coverage. I have T-Mobile they have tremendously improved their LTE coverage in my area along with fringe coverage performance. Hope to see more improvements.

[clbowens]

T-Mobile Aiming to Cover 90% of Americans With 'Ultra Capacity 5G' By 2023 - MacRumors

90% of Americans covered with Ultra Capacity 5G, now THAT'S what I want to hear.  🙂

[red_dog007]

End of 2023 is a long time from now. 

Will wait and see how coverage really is. In my area, TMobile still has a hell of a lot of work to do to be on par with AT&T/VZW.  Hopefully the extra 20k macro sites are strictly for suburban/rural coverage.  Here where I am, if they end up keeping the Sprint sites that don't have TMobile on them they will do very well. But hopefully sooner than later.

[dkyeager]

17 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

End of 2023 is a long time from now. 

Will wait and see how coverage really is. In my area, TMobile still has a hell of a lot of work to do to be on par with AT&T/VZW.  Hopefully the extra 20k macro sites are strictly for suburban/rural coverage.  Here where I am, if they end up keeping the Sprint sites that don't have TMobile on them they will do very well. But hopefully sooner than later.

In Columbus OH we have about 10 permits now to convert Sprint only sites. We have about 40 permits to convert Sprint colocated sites to Starry.com, a WISP that plans to come to town. Permits here are good for 12 months. If they start work they get a six month extension.

[Trip]

I haven't seen any permits yet around here, and I've been checking several non-collocated sites around me in Alexandria and Fairfax County.

And, of course, the Shentel sale hasn't closed, so nothing's happening there yet.  I'm waiting to see 312250 show up there.

- Trip

 

[mdob07]

I've noticed around here that since B2 was widened to 15x15 that older non-upgraded sites are still only 10x10, even through they are using the same new EARFCN (Previously B2 was EARFCN 1051). I wonder if its a limitation of the older radios?

[jthawks]

On 3/2/2021 at 12:25 PM, RAvirani said:

They're currently building out in rural areas around Seattle.

How's the service now with t mobile up there now? Switching my mom over here in the next week.

[mdob07]

On 3/21/2021 at 7:39 PM, mdob07 said:

I've noticed around here that since B2 was widened to 15x15 that older non-upgraded sites are still only 10x10, even through they are using the same new EARFCN (Previously B2 was EARFCN 1051). I wonder if its a limitation of the older radios?

I've also noticed here that all of the N41 sites with the older Nokia M-MIMO gear is still only at 60MHz, but the newer Nokia gear is all at 80 MHz. Both have 2 20MHz LTE carriers as well. If this is some limitation of the old gear I bet we see them start swapping those out soon with the newer version.

[RAvirani]

19 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

I've also noticed here that all of the N41 sites with the older Nokia M-MIMO gear is still only at 60MHz, but the newer Nokia gear is all at 80 MHz. Both have 2 20MHz LTE carriers as well. If this is some limitation of the old gear I bet we see them start swapping those out soon with the newer version.

It's an instantaneous bandwidth limitation. The new AEHCs are much better with a limit of 194 MHz IBW/190 MHz OBW. 

[tybo31316]

What’s the perks of switching to a T-Mobile sim?

I currently have ROAMAHOME active on my account. 

[dkyeager]

14 hours ago, tybo31316 said:

What’s the perks of switching to a T-Mobile sim?

I currently have ROAMAHOME active on my account. 

The salesperson at the store gets a commission.

Make certain it is the strongest signal where you need it.  They don't really want you to change back --  ie get a free line first with a t-mobile sim if you need to test).