AT&T LTE and Network Discussion

[red_dog007]

I think AT&T generally has enough spectrum to not really worry about DSS. 

[mdob07]

I'm starting to see my 5G mapping show up on CellMapper. I'm still surprised by how little N5 is active in Louisville, especially considering how many sites should be capable based on B5 LTE added during the recent upgrades. I thought it was just a firmware update to switch from B5 to N5. Only a handful of sites even have the 5G indicator, and of those only a smaller group are actually broadcasting N5. The good part is that as long as the adjacent sites have been upgraded it will keep the N5 connection while connected to LTE from another site. 

Map of Louisville:

 

I've seen the 5G indicator whenever a site has "Support" for the UPPERLAYER_IND_R15 field in the Service Mode screen.

It will not show when connected to a non-anchor LTE band. For N5 its B2, B4(B66), and B30 as the anchor bands. N260 adds B12 as an anchor band. I'll have to do some more in depth testing to see how much N5 is contributing speed wise, the sites I've tested so far I don't really have any before data to compare to. My phone (S20 Ultra) doesn't seem to have any trouble initially connecting to and staying connected to N5, and it seems to want to hang on to a tower that supports it longer before handing off to the next tower at times. I have noticed NR PCIs high into the 900s, vs LTE PCIs that didn't go much higher than 500.  

MM-Wave testing

SO far I've only found N260 on one site in Louisville. Looks like an Ericsson M-MIMO panel.

 I was wondering if it would be on all of the small cells they are throwing up everywhere but so far they're still only B2/B46 LTE. I wasn't able to test range much in the below example as its downtown around lots of buildings and bridges. Luckily there is a McDonald's right next to the tower, so that is where this testing is from. Disclosure: I was going for best case scenario for testing. I had the case off and was holding it out my window to get the best signal. But I did connect to it just fine in my truck with the windows up and case still on for the first test. The first round of tests were done at 6:30pm on March 13th. 

I had the opportunity to test this site again at 1:30am last Sunday morning from the same spot to see the difference from a high traffic time to a low traffic time:

Ping was consistently around 14-15ms

[RAvirani]

2 hours ago, mdob07 said:

MM-Wave testing

SO far I've only found N260 on one site in Louisville. Looks like an Ericsson M-MIMO panel.

Great info!

Out of curiosity, would this site happen to be right next to 65 south of Slugger Field?

[mdob07]

Just now, RAvirani said:

Great info!

Out of curiosity, would this site happen to be right next to 65 south of Slugger Field?

That's the one!

[jakeuten]

In case anyone was curious, iOS 13.4 enabled EVS-SWB to iPhones. How far back that goes I'm not sure, but iPhone 11 series and Xs for sure. I know that EVS support in general goes back to the iPhone 8.

[jakeuten]

On 3/22/2020 at 8:57 PM, mdob07 said:

I've seen the 5G indicator whenever a site has "Support" for the UPPERLAYER_IND_R15 field in the Service Mode screen.

Upperlayer indicator is what both T-Mobile and AT&T are using with their 5G rollouts. It allows them to show the 5G icon even if you aren't necessarily connected. A fun infographic if you're curious.

 

5G icon scenarios

[mdob07]

I wonder if this virus pandemic will delay the DoD rebanding in AWS-3. Target completion to clear the J-block uplink was April 30th 2020. Currently still relegated to to downlink only for J-block AWS within about 50 miles of Ft Knox. 

[jakeuten]

6 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

I wonder if this virus pandemic will delay the DoD rebanding in AWS-3. Target completion to clear the J-block uplink was April 30th 2020. Currently still relegated to to downlink only for J-block AWS within about 50 miles of Ft Knox. 

Do you have a source where we can view it for all areas? I wanna know H+I in mine. 😃

[mdob07]

On 10/29/2019 at 10:08 PM, belusnecropolis said:

https://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2018/transition-plans-and-transition-data-1755-1780-mhz-band

 

Transition Plans and Transition Data for the 1755 – 1780 MHz Band

 

Topics:

• Spectrum Management
• AWS-3 Transition

 

Date: 

October 24, 2018

Transition Plans

• Department of Commerce  — xlsx | pdf —
• Department of Defense (DoD)
  • U.S. Air Force — xlsx | pdf —
  • U.S. Army — xlsx | pdf —
  • U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps — xslx | pdf —
  • Defense Spectrum Organization — xlsx | pdf —
• Department of Energy  — xlsx | pdf —  
• Department of Homeland Security  — xlsx | pdf —
• Department of Housing and Urban Development  — xlsx | pdf —  
• Department of the Interior
  • U.S. Geological Survey  — xlsx | pdf —  
  • National Park Service  — xlsx | pdf —
• Department of Justice  — xlsx | pdf —  
• Department of Transportation  — xlsx | pdf —
• Department of Veterans Affairs  — xlsx | pdf —
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration  — xlsx | pdf —
• U.S. Capitol Police  — xlsx | pdf —
• U.S. Agency for International Development  — xlsx | pdf —
• U.S. Treasury  — xlsx | pdf —

Bureaucrats mostly. 

 

 

On 10/29/2019 at 10:25 PM, mdob07 said:

Looking at the status of transition spreadsheet, I see 6 entries for Army UAS in KY. Army Ft Knox is just south of Louisville, and is pretty much centered in the dead zone on the cellmapper map data. Transition due date is 4/30/2020. I wonder if they'll complete early and release the spectrum before that date or drag it out to the end? I haven't seen TMO fire up any of their AWS-3 here either, I'm guessing they're stuck waiting also.

 

6 minutes ago, jakeuten said:

Do you have a source where we can view it for all areas? I wanna know H+I in mine. 😃

I quoted Belusnecropolis's post, that's how I found it. 

Update to my quoted post above, TMO does have their AWS-3 live here now for both uplink and downlink. 

[RAvirani]

On 3/22/2020 at 9:57 PM, mdob07 said:

 

SO far I've only found N260 on one site in Louisville. Looks like an Ericsson M-MIMO panel.

The AT&T site on top of The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown also has N260. 

[mdob07]

I wonder if this virus pandemic will delay the DoD rebanding in AWS-3. Target completion to clear the J-block uplink was April 30th 2020. Currently still relegated to to downlink only for J-block AWS within about 50 miles of Ft Knox. 

Caught this today in Louisville, not sure if it was a fluke or not. This site is being worked on currently. Its gotten the full rip and replace treatment, the crew started on it right after Christmas and they are still working on it. Its possible it was accidentally turned on while they are making configuration changes. If its intentional it should be widespread in a day or two. So far its the only site I've caught.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

[mdob07]

On 4/7/2020 at 6:20 PM, mdob07 said:

Caught this today in Louisville, not sure if it was a fluke or not. This site is being worked on currently. Its gotten the full rip and replace treatment, the crew started on it right after Christmas and they are still working on it. Its possible it was accidentally turned on while they are making configuration changes. If its intentional it should be widespread in a day or two. So far its the only site I've caught.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk
 

I did connect to J Block off this site again yesterday, but its still the only site around here so far. Got some pictures of a worker up on the tower with my S20 Ultra. 

Thats a big nope from me:

[belusnecropolis]

41 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

I did connect to J Block off this site again yesterday, but its still the only site around here so far. Got some pictures of a worker up on the tower with my S20 Ultra. 

Thats a big nope from me:

Was the worker on site alone?

[mdob07]

9 minutes ago, belusnecropolis said:

Was the worker on site alone?

No, there was another worker sitting in a truck that is just out of the picture to the left. 

[RAvirani]

11 hours ago, mdob07 said:

Interesting how everyone has a high-capacity setup here except Verizon. 

[mdob07]

50 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Interesting how everyone has a high-capacity setup here except Verizon. 

And Verizon is garbage in this area too. This is by Jefferson Mall, they need small cells in the area badly. I'm surprised they haven't added mm-wave and CBRS to this area yet. 

 

[RAvirani]

15 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

And Verizon is garbage in this area too. This is by Jefferson Mall, they need small cells in the area badly. I'm surprised they haven't added mm-wave and CBRS to this area yet. 

 

I think I know the area you're talking about. That tower is off of Outer Loop correct?

[mdob07]

25 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

I think I know the area you're talking about. That tower is off of Outer Loop correct?

Yep. Outer Loop and Shepherdsville Rd.

[mdob07]

I've been noticing a lot of revisits to AT&T's towers around here by tower crews. Looks like there might be a 2nd phase to the recent FIrstnet project. I'll post some pictures later but looks like more antenna/radio swaps. I'm guessing the first round might have just been to add the new technologies (B(N)5, B14, B66) and this phase might be to clean everything else up and get to 1 standard. The few towers I've got pictures of look to be the same antenna setup now, vs before they were just adding either that 1 wide antenna or 2 smaller ones mounted together to whatever was pre-existing. Looks like they might finally be doing some standardization, or these could just be some one offs, who knows.

Also, doesn't look like they are lighting up Dish's AWS-4 spectrum here, most sites are utilizing an Ericsson 8 port dual B2/B66 radio and since we already have 20x20 B2, 5x5 B2, 10x10 B66, 5x5 B66, and 10x10 B66 I don't know how those radios could support much else at a decent power level. I do have a custom SCP alert for that EARFCN should it ever pop up though.  

[red_dog007]

I've had a line on AT&T since December.  I must say, either they have been lucky or their network is pretty robust.  I have been extremely impressed with them.  Coverage is consistent. Always have a pretty solid signal. But there have been some incidents lately were VZW has just been down for days due to weather. TMobile has even been impacted but not to the same extent.

So far this year VZW has been down for almost 10 days.  A tornado 200 miles away impacted my entire areas service. Metro area is like 350k people.  You'd think that they could reroute traffic that went over the fiber they lost in that storm. Then a recent tornado here took them down again. TMobile went down this time as well but they went to zero service for a few days. The local ISP lost 125miles of fiber, and a major line with 825 fibers had to be reran and spliced in.  So the damage done to others was pretty intense.  But no relief trucks from TMobile or VZW.  I didn't see one either from AT&T but their service was up and usable regardless.

[dkyeager]

33 minutes ago, red_dog007 said:

I've had a line on AT&T since December.  I must say, either they have been lucky or their network is pretty robust.  I have been extremely impressed with them.  Coverage is consistent. Always have a pretty solid signal. But there have been some incidents lately were VZW has just been down for days due to weather. TMobile has even been impacted but not to the same extent.

So far this year VZW has been down for almost 10 days.  A tornado 200 miles away impacted my entire areas service. Metro area is like 350k people.  You'd think that they could reroute traffic that went over the fiber they lost in that storm. Then a recent tornado here took them down again. TMobile went down this time as well but they went to zero service for a few days. The local ISP lost 125miles of fiber, and a major line with 825 fibers had to be reran and spliced in.  So the damage done to others was pretty intense.  But no relief trucks from TMobile or VZW.  I didn't see one either from AT&T but their service was up and usable regardless.

Should the S20 Nextel merger like trend continue, AT&T will likely be my next carrier.

[mdob07]

On 5/1/2020 at 9:50 AM, red_dog007 said:

I've had a line on AT&T since December.  I must say, either they have been lucky or their network is pretty robust.  I have been extremely impressed with them.  Coverage is consistent. Always have a pretty solid signal. But there have been some incidents lately were VZW has just been down for days due to weather. TMobile has even been impacted but not to the same extent.

So far this year VZW has been down for almost 10 days.  A tornado 200 miles away impacted my entire areas service. Metro area is like 350k people.  You'd think that they could reroute traffic that went over the fiber they lost in that storm. Then a recent tornado here took them down again. TMobile went down this time as well but they went to zero service for a few days. The local ISP lost 125miles of fiber, and a major line with 825 fibers had to be reran and spliced in.  So the damage done to others was pretty intense.  But no relief trucks from TMobile or VZW.  I didn't see one either from AT&T but their service was up and usable regardless.

The Nashville tornado back in March wrecked havoc on Verizon and others networks. We had a bunch of stores in various parts of KY lose their WAN circuits for almost 2 weeks. One of our stores in Nashville took a direct hit from it. I've seen some additional cameras from the one in the linked story and it was pretty gnarly inside the store. I was saying the same thing though, I thought they could have rerouted traffic differently to get those circuits that were 200+ miles away from the damage back up sooner. Nashville must be one of their main network hubs.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/nashville-tornado/surveillance-video-shows-impact-of-tornado-at-hermitage-kroger/

[red_dog007]

20 hours ago, mdob07 said:

The Nashville tornado back in March wrecked havoc on Verizon and others networks. We had a bunch of stores in various parts of KY lose their WAN circuits for almost 2 weeks. One of our stores in Nashville took a direct hit from it. I've seen some additional cameras from the one in the linked story and it was pretty gnarly inside the store. I was saying the same thing though, I thought they could have rerouted traffic differently to get those circuits that were 200+ miles away from the damage back up sooner. Nashville must be one of their main network hubs.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/nashville-tornado/surveillance-video-shows-impact-of-tornado-at-hermitage-kroger/

Yep, that's the one that talking about 200 120 miles away.  Chattanooga was hit a couple weeks ago and took down Verizon in the greater area.

You'd think we'd be routeable through ATL.  I wish I had a line on Sprint back in March as well.  I think they have a major hub in Nashville. I at least didn't hear about Sprint being down.

[LordDonkey]

Tillman Infrastructure built a new tower near me last October. A company finally came in to install the antennas and ground equipment on April 1st and 2nd. It's not completely finished yet and nobody has been back as far as I know since. The area shows AT&T 5G coverage by June 2020 according to the map on page 2 here: https://www.att.com/idpassets/sales/uf/assets/5g/ATT_5G_Maps_WV.pdf

This site is 2500 ft down the road from an existing AT&T B4/B12 site. It's in Western MD near the WV Line, right beside I-68. Kind of reminds me of the setup at the top of page 5.

New Cell site pics:

 

[dkyeager]

19 minutes ago, LordDonkey said:

Tillman Infrastructure built a new tower near me last October. A company finally came in to install the antennas and ground equipment on April 1st and 2nd. It's not completely finished yet and nobody has been back as far as I know since. The area shows AT&T 5G coverage by June 2020 according to the map on page 2 here: https://www.att.com/idpassets/sales/uf/assets/5g/ATT_5G_Maps_WV.pdf

This site is 2500 ft down the road from an existing AT&T B4/B12 site. It's in Western MD near the WV Line, right beside I-68. Kind of reminds me of the setup at the top of page 5.

2500 feet can make a huge difference in that mountainous area.