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Been seeing a lot of these being built. But for who?

jthawks

By jthawks
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jthawks Member Level: 4G WiMax

jthawks

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Sorry for putting this under here I apparently forgot my password. Anyways this is number 2 that I've seen put up in the past couple month's. This one sits next to sprint and t-mo site the other one next to a Verizon site. So we can rule out them obviously. Does anyone know who these belong too?63e2530c15b1369cca0e75b6d8774d90.jpg11868842a17134d3553b8d240d474517.jpg

 

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Terrell352 Member Level: LTE Advanced

Terrell352

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Sorry for putting this under here I apparently forgot my password. Anyways this is number 2 that I've seen put up in the past couple month's. This one sits next to sprint and t-mo site the other one next to a Verizon site. So we can rule out them obviously. Does anyone know who these belong too?63e2530c15b1369cca0e75b6d8774d90.jpg11868842a17134d3553b8d240d474517.jpg
 
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Looks like a Sprint GMR site. I would say it's TMobile but I'm not sure they are starting to rollout 3 antenna set ups but the equipment looks different than this one. Maybe a different vendor.

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jthawks Member Level: 4G WiMax

jthawks

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1 hour ago, Terrell352 said:

Looks like a Sprint GMR site. I would say it's TMobile but I'm not sure they are starting to rollout 3 antenna set ups but the equipment looks different than this one. Maybe a different vendor.

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Well like I said there is a shared sprint t-mo site 100ft away.  At&t site just across the street from these site's.  So I'm really curious on who this belongs too.

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Terrell352 Member Level: LTE Advanced

Terrell352

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Well like I said there is a shared sprint t-mo site 100ft away.  At&t site just across the street from these site's.  So I'm really curious on who this belongs too.
Verizon has been doing 3 antenna towers too. I have yet to see one but they have been reported.

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jthawks Member Level: 4G WiMax

jthawks

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9 minutes ago, Terrell352 said:

Verizon has been doing 3 antenna towers too. I have yet to see one but they have been reported.

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They just put new antennas on the Verizon site next to one of these they just built.  

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RAvirani Member Level: LTE Advanced

RAvirani

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38 minutes ago, jthawks said:

Also another thing I should of noted,  both of these new towers are constructed in a substation for the power company. 

It is probably the power company building out their own network. What company/market is it?

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jthawks Member Level: 4G WiMax

jthawks

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1 minute ago, RAvirani said:

It is probably the power company building out their own network. What company/market is it?

Colorado market.  Xcel energy.  I'm thinking this could dish network. They are in talks with equipment providers for their wireless networks.  

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Tengen31 Member Level: 4G LTE

Tengen31

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Well like I said there is a shared sprint t-mo site 100ft away.  At&t site just across the street from these site's.  So I'm really curious on who this belongs too.

I asked one of the s4gru members he doesn't know for sure if it's Sprint or no says that Clearwire or Mini macros have set ups like that

 

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lilotimz Member Level: LTE Advanced

lilotimz

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Getting a picture of the RRUs would help…
The RRUS are there on the ground. It's an all in one eNB. Not airspan, Nokia, Ericsson, or Samsung as far as I can tell.

Could be a WISP or another broadband provider using more obscure equipment...

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MrZorbatron Member Level: eHRPD

MrZorbatron

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There are sites around me that look like they should have 6 carriers on them. I don't get it either.

 

What's the best way (other than physically approaching it) to determine what carriers are on what structures?

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RAvirani Member Level: LTE Advanced

RAvirani

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36 minutes ago, MrZorbatron said:

There are sites around me that look like they should have 6 carriers on them. I don't get it either.

 

What's the best way (other than physically approaching it) to determine what carriers are on what structures?

There are tons of ways—looking at the physical equipment, measuring RSRP/RSCP/RSSI levels near the site, trying to connect to the different sectors of a site as you move around it, online tools that provide this sort of data, etc. 

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Trip Member Level: 4G LTE

Trip

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4 hours ago, MrZorbatron said:

There are sites around me that look like they should have 6 carriers on them. I don't get it either.

 

What's the best way (other than physically approaching it) to determine what carriers are on what structures?


Some sites may have old equipment/racks on them.  It wasn't that long ago that Nextel, MetroPCS, and Cricket were separate companies with their own gear.  Clear gear is often on its own rack as well.

I have phones for all five major carriers.  (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and US Cellular, in addition to my primary Sprint line.)  That gives me a reasonable idea of who is where.  I replace my Verizon SIM every 90 days to keep LTE active, and the T-Mobile SIM stays active without service.  FreedomPop provides 200MB/mo of AT&T service for free.  I have a $10/mo prepaid plan with US Cellular that I put money on when I am going into US Cellular territory.

Building permits, if they're available online, can also be helpful in that regard.

- Trip

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red_dog007 Member Level: eHRPD

red_dog007

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Found some old articles about them having wireless meters that use two-way radio.  Maybe this is expansion of that network if you are finding these at substations.

You live  in the area, any news on that front?  Lack of meter readers, or new meters being installed?

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mystica555 Member Level: Morse Code

mystica555

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This is the Xcel Energy's "Field Area Network" WiMax, at 3.65GHz.

 

Yes, WiMax - LTE with its multiple layers of 'oldschool telephone stuff' was too complicated initially, and apparently Mimosa TD-LTE-in-a-box weren't cheap enough, so they went with a pure-IP simpler-to-implement WiMax network.   

If they're put _inside_ substations, Xcel owns them. Xcel even mentions the fact they want to put up a new tower inside of their substation as it is property they already own, in my linked Adams County document below.

I've only ever seen commercial carrier antennas ontop of geographically important power transmission-line towers, always either in the middle of a neighborhood, or near a freeway, and nothing else but those towers is tall enough to cover the area needed.  Again, all legacy high-voltage power transmission towers.  A lot of the "power-line" cellsites I've seen have gone away too, replaced by on-building sites for density.

http://www.adcogov.org/sites/default/files/PRA2017-00002_Request_for_Comments.pdf has an example site view, signal overlay, etc, of a substation north of DIA.

There are also a lot of FCC and Public Utilities Commission filings, and such if you google for "Xcel Energy" and/or "PSCO" and "wimax" and even "LTE" as one document they published explains why they decided on wimax instead, you will find a treasure trove of testimony explaining what you are seeing being constructed.  Look closely enough, I bet you'll find the County proposal for the tower you've photographed.

 

https://www.xcelenergy.com/staticfiles/xe-responsive/Company/Rates & Regulations/CO-advanced-grid-direct-testimony-Wendall-Reimer.pdf

On pages 58-60 of this rather enlightening document it explains why they chose WiMax, and the alternatives investigated are represented by other questions answered within close proximity of these pages.

In explaining why not commercial Cellular networks, a clear future design of their network is detailed: 

"Under the chosen solution
(Company-owned WiMAX and WiSUN networks), substations will effectively
become miniature, remote data centers where field data is aggregated at the
substation for remote decision-making, and only that subset of data that is
needed for the head-end data center applications will be transmitted there via the
WAN. For example, by using WiMAX and WiSUN, data will reach the substation
in less than one second."

Welcome to #SmartGrid

Edited by mystica555
Added another link to a different PDF that explains why Xcel chose Wimax and lots of other questions answered and then fixed grammatical issues.
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