What is this new antenna for?

[orangeblue]

I noticed this new antenna, a small round cylinder on several Sprint towers. What is this for?

 

http://s29.postimg.org/vltvezkc7/image.png

Edited March 15, 2016 by orangeblue

[lilotimz]

I noticed this new antenna, a small round cylinder on several Sprint towers. What is this for?

 

http://s29.postimg.org/vltvezkc7/image.png

Those aren't sprint towers and those are raycaps. Verizon and ATT are the primary users.

[orangeblue]

It's actually a Sprint tower. Same device is installed on the Sprint tower at the 85/87 transition.

 

This was seen along 880 in Union City. Top row is all Sprint.

[lilotimz]

It's actually a Sprint tower. Same device is installed on the Sprint tower at the 85/87 transition.

 

This was seen along 880 in Union City. Top row is all Sprint.

 

Yes... and the circled ray cap is on ATTs rack. 

 

They aren't "Sprint" towers but towers Sprint is colocated on. It's 99% certain that it's owned by one of the large tower owning companies. 

[orangeblue]

Yes... and the circled ray cap is on ATTs rack. 

 

They aren't "Sprint" towers but towers Sprint is colocated on. It's 99% certain that it's owned by one of the large tower owning companies. 

 

What is the purpose of the ray cap?

[lilotimz]

What is the purpose of the ray cap?

 

Over voltage protection and a fiber demarcation point. 

[orangeblue]

Over voltage protection and a fiber demarcation point. 

 

So what makes them so special to Verizon and AT&T and why is Sprint not using them? Wasn't NV1.0 all about fiber directly up the tower?

[lilotimz]

So what makes them so special to Verizon and AT&T and why is Sprint not using them? Wasn't NV1.0 all about fiber directly up the tower?

 

Both have a huge amount of copper infrastructure on their cell sites due to previous legacy deployments and their initial LTE overlay being cabinet radios. Copper coax is highly conducive to lightning strikes and thus zapping all the electrical components if it occurs.

 

Sprint and Tmobile typically uses just a handful of hybrid cables that bring fiber and power up to the tower top and thus does not have the same risk as ATT or VZW who can have a dozen copper lines per site.