Jump to content

AT&T LTE and Network Discussion


Trip

Recommended Posts

3 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

My area is covered in these. Bands 2/12 LTE band 2 HSPA.

How have they been handling the FirstNet upgrades on those? Have they been just adding additional antennas or rip and replace? Its funny that for awhile they were deploying this small of a setup, compared to the older and new sites that 2-5 antenna per sector. I'll have to test these 2 sites for HSPA for my curiosity. I know our brand new sites are all LTE only.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

ow have they been handling the FirstNet upgrades on those?

lol they aren't. They have been like this for 2 years now, my mono pole got band 2 slapped on and they are using one rrh for two sectors; they just upgraded like 6 sites along the main tourist drag and called it tony the tiger.

If they are 70% done with FirstNet, then surrounding areas better be at 150%.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, belusnecropolis said:

lol they aren't. They have been like this for 2 years now, my mono pole got band 2 slapped on and they are using one rrh for two sectors; they just upgraded like 6 sites along the main tourist drag and called it tony the tiger.

If they are 70% done with FirstNet, then surrounding areas better be at 150%.

Interesting. Here I'd say they're 80-85% complete with upgrading sites in the Louisville Metro area, and 50-60% with the suburban and rural sites. Most of the remaining non-upgraded sites around me have had the 2nd GCI added which usually means the physical upgrades are coming soon. They've also been adding small cells like crazy in town and adding new macro sites in rural areas. Louisville does have AT&T's millimeter 5G+ live as well as 5G on 850 MHz.  I just came across a new permit for a new AT&T macro site in south Louisville, not sure why we're getting so much love here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

millimeter 5G+ live as well as 5G on 850 MHz

T-Mo and VZW hold the 850 licences here and there are no small cells yet. I am also in a T affiliate market. Even though HTC participated in just about every spectrum auction recently, they don't seem inclined to put it to use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/2/2020 at 10:18 PM, belusnecropolis said:

T-Mo and VZW hold the 850 licences here and there are no small cells yet. I am also in a T affiliate market. Even though HTC participated in just about every spectrum auction recently, they don't seem inclined to put it to use.

I'm not an expert fully understanding ULS sometimes, but it appears to me that HTC leases AWS A to Tide Mobility, LLC which is a shell for ATT.  Then the 700A that they own they have pending application and likely Farmers Telephone Coop is using for fixed wireless. On 700A, maybe even a deal with TMobile feel through.

Edited by red_dog007
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/27/2019 at 8:19 PM, mdob07 said:

Brand new site just went up not far from my house that I'm 99.999% sure is AT&T. This is the first completely new site I've seen them add since I starting tracking this area about 2 years ago. For some reason the SE sector has 3 antennas, while the other 2 sectors have 2. I couldn't get a picture of it but the ground equipment here is much different than the usual AT&T huts. Looks more like a tall metal garden shed. I'm curious to see what GCIs they use for this site, everything in this area begins with 024-027. Assuming it will be a two GCI site like all of the other upgraded sites.

PemloP1.jpg

AC6BVwU.jpg

This site went live Dec 17th, here's the GCI/PCI data I've gathered so far. Not sure why all of the AT&T sites in this area are so all over the place with PCIs. Hardly any sites line up across different bands on the same sector. 

IM4LUmq.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I became a bad man and switched my work line from T-Mobile to my uncle's ATT account. I've made some interesting discoveries. Turns out that when they say "AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy", that means you're deprioritized 24/7. I've also found a site here in town that has no HSPA/HSPA+. It's LTE or nothing which I thought was odd. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

I became a bad man and switched my work line from T-Mobile to my uncle's ATT account. I've made some interesting discoveries. Turns out that when they say "AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy", that means you're deprioritized 24/7. I've also found a site here in town that has no HSPA/HSPA+. It's LTE or nothing which I thought was odd. 

What kind of speeds are you seeing when you're getting deprioritized? It definitely varies from market to market, but I rarely see any deprioritization here. I did these tests over 2 days driving around town while I was well over 30GB on my current billing cycle (thanks to some out of town trips). Also, all new sites are being built as LTE only. 

vJfX6Utl.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

What kind of speeds are you seeing when you're getting deprioritized?

Anywhere from >1Mbps up to 50Mbps. Speeds are wildly inconsistent. Ping times are god awful. I think the best ping I've seen so far is 79ms. 90% of the time it's 110ms+. 

6 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

Also, all new sites are being built as LTE only.

This site isn't new. It's been around for a while. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Brad The Beast said:

This site isn't new. It's been around for a while. 

Hmm, I wonder if they're starting to take the Verizon approach, and not fixing it when it breaks? That is interesting. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Brad The Beast said:

Actually, I just noticed that I'm not getting H+ anywhere now. Used to get it at my apartment and now I'm not. 

If you have the "Mark the Spot" app I'd report the issue. They seem to actually use the reports, I reported my office as weak signal and they installed a small cell in our parking lot. 

Ap0TbCkl.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Submitted report. Got a message under "Upcoming improvements" (I guess them fixing the network counts as an upcoming improvement). The message says "We are currently experiencing a technical issue in this area and we are working hard to resolve it". Don't know if this is just the default response or what. We'll see what happens. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So this is my 4 days in review. 

Coverage: I've only been in town. Seems fine. About the same as T-Mo and Sprint. Verizon is better thanks to small cells on the university campus and a couple more sites around town. 

Call performance: Much better than T-Mobile. No call problems so far, call quality doesn't seem to be very good.

Data performance: So the definition of busy in "when the network is busy" is: if there's at least one other device using the same tower as you. I am deprioritized 24/7. Speeds are wildly inconsistent. When the network isn't being dumb the speeds are good. 40-90Mbps down and up to 12Mbps up. Pings are 110ms+ most of the time. 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Brad The Beast said:

So this is my 4 days in review. 

Coverage: I've only been in town. Seems fine. About the same as T-Mo and Sprint. Verizon is better thanks to small cells on the university campus and a couple more sites around town. 

Call performance: Much better than T-Mobile. No call problems so far, call quality doesn't seem to be very good.

Data performance: So the definition of busy in "when the network is busy" is: if there's at least one other device using the same tower as you. I am deprioritized 24/7. Speeds are wildly inconsistent. When the network isn't being dumb the speeds are good. 40-90Mbps down and up to 12Mbps up. Pings are 110ms+ most of the time. 

 

Are you on AT&T proper? You try different APNs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I became a bad man and switched my work line from T-Mobile to my uncle's ATT account. I've made some interesting discoveries. Turns out that when they say "AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy", that means you're deprioritized 24/7. I've also found a site here in town that has no HSPA/HSPA+. It's LTE or nothing which I thought was odd. 
It's definitely on a tower by tower basis. My parents are using an unlimited iPad SIM in an LTE modem (depriorized after 22 GB), and they usually push 250 GB/month on it. On just the B2 carrier, no CA (I'll see 2+12 CA right after it connects to the network, but then it drops 12 and never comes back). They consistently get 20 Mbps, and up to 30 at off peak hours. But they're also on a rural tower with light load (tower is still only B2 and 12).

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, ingenium said:

It's definitely on a tower by tower basis. My parents are using an unlimited iPad SIM in an LTE modem (depriorized after 22 GB), and they usually push 250 GB/month on it. On just the B2 carrier, no CA (I'll see 2+12 CA right after it connects to the network, but then it drops 12 and never comes back). They consistently get 20 Mbps, and up to 30 at off peak hours. But they're also on a rural tower with light load (tower is still only B2 and 12).

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
 

For the three or so years we have been hearing them speak of band 30, then one touch upgrades and now Firstnet there sure is a lot of that exact 2/12 only combo on their network in large swaths. Slow rollouts are not exclusive to Sprint.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • large.unreadcontent.png.6ef00db54e758d06

  • gallery_1_23_9202.png

  • Posts

    • Since this is kind of the general chat thread, I have to share this humorous story (at least it is to me): Since around February/March of this year, my S22U has been an absolute pain to charge. USB-C cables would immediately fall out and it progressively got worse and worse until it often took me a number of minutes to get the angle of the cable juuuussst right to get charging to occur at all (not exaggerating). The connection was so weak that even walking heavily could cause the cable to disconnect. I tried cleaning out the port with a stable, a paperclip, etc. Some dust/lint/dirt came out but the connection didn't improve one bit. Needless to say, this was a MONSTER headache and had me hating this phone. I just didn't have the finances right now for a replacement.  Which brings us to the night before last. I am angry as hell because I had spent five minutes trying to get this phone to charge and failed. I am looking in the port and I notice it doesn't look right. The walls look rough and, using a staple, the back and walls feel REALLY rough and very hard. I get some lint/dust out with the staple and it improves charging in the sense I can get it to charge but it doesn't remove any of the hard stuff. It's late and it's charging, so that's enough for now. I decide it's time to see if that hard stuff is part of the connector or not. More aggressive methods are needed! I work in a biochem lab and we have a lot of different sizes of disposable needles available. So, yesterday morning, while in the lab I grab a few different sizes of needles between 26AWG and 31 AWG. When I got home, I got to work and start probing the connector with the 26 AWG and 31 AWG needle. The stuff feels extremely hard, almost like it was part of the connector, but a bit does break off. Under examination of the bit, it's almost sandy with dust/lint embedded in it. It's not part of the connector but instead some sort of rock-hard crap! That's when I remember that I had done some rock hounding at the end of last year and in January. This involved lots of digging in very sandy/dusty soils; soils which bare more than a passing resemblance to the crap in the connector. We have our answer, this debris is basically compacted/cemented rock dust. Over time, moisture in the area combined with the compression from inserting the USB-C connector had turned it into cement. I start going nuts chiseling away at it with the 26 AWG needle. After about 5-10 minutes of constant chiseling and scraping with the 26AWG and 31AWG needles, I see the first signs of metal at the back of the connector. So it is metal around the outsides! Another 5 minutes of work and I have scraped away pretty much all of the crap in the connector. A few finishing passes with the 31AWG needle, a blast of compressed air, and it is time to see if this helped any. I plug my regular USB-C cable and holy crap it clicks into place; it hasn't done that since February! I pick up the phone and the cable has actually latched! The connector works pretty much like it did over a year ago, it's almost like having a brand new phone!
    • That's odd, they are usually almost lock step with TMO. I forgot to mention this also includes the September Security Update.
    • 417.55 MB September security update just downloaded here for S24+ unlocked   Edit:  after Sept security update install, checked and found a 13MB GP System update as well.  Still showing August 1st there however. 
    • T-Mobile is selling the rest of the 3.45GHz spectrum to Columbia Capital.  
    • Still nothing for my AT&T and Visible phones.
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...