AT&T LTE and Network Discussion

[wispiANt]

2 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Where is this map from?

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/c-band-auction-maps-and-charts-who-won-what-where-and-how-much/d/d-id/767682?

[RAvirani]

1 hour ago, thisischuck01 said:

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/c-band-auction-maps-and-charts-who-won-what-where-and-how-much/d/d-id/767682?

Thanks!

[mdob07]

I've been noticing around here that EN-DC for NSA N5 has been a mess recently. I guess it has to be configured for each LTE carrier on each sector, as sometimes it only 1 particular carrier on one sector, sometimes its the same one on all sectors, and some sites seem to only have it configured for the primary carrier for B2 and B66, and the 2nd and 3rd carriers don't get N5 aggregation. It usually varies site to site. Some sites it works on all sectors/bands like its supposed to. Some that previously worked don't work now. Typically on those bands/sectors that it doesn't work you won't even get the 5G logo, it'll just be 4G LTE or 5Ge. I'm hoping they turn SA N5 on soon, no sign of it as well as N2/N66 here yet. 

[belusnecropolis]

Matsing ball!
 

 

[PedroDaGr8]

9 hours ago, belusnecropolis said:

Matsing ball!
 

 

Pretty cool! I didn't know that these even existed. 

[mdob07]

I'm down in Daytona Beach for vacation this week. AT&T seems to be doing quite well here even with having much less spectrum than they have where I live. Network seems pretty dense and even found several small cells along A1A. N5 at 10x10 seems to be pretty wide spread, though since both 10x10 B5 LTE carriers are still on air I wonder why they don't combine them to be a single 20x20 carrier with DSS instead of 2 10x10 with DSS on I assume only 1 of them. Anyone know?

[RAvirani]

2 hours ago, mdob07 said:

I'm down in Daytona Beach for vacation this week. AT&T seems to be doing quite well here even with having much less spectrum than they have where I live. Network seems pretty dense and even found several small cells along A1A. N5 at 10x10 seems to be pretty wide spread, though since both 10x10 B5 LTE carriers are still on air I wonder why they don't combine them to be a single 20x20 carrier with DSS instead of 2 10x10 with DSS on I assume only 1 of them. Anyone know?

B5 doesn’t support carriers larger than 10x10.

B26 supports up to 15x15, but many AT&T devices don’t support it. Plus, that wouldn’t entirely solve their problem. 

[dkyeager]

On 7/20/2021 at 1:14 AM, RAvirani said:

B26 supports up to 15x15

Is that what you meant to say?

[RAvirani]

4 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

Is that what you meant to say?

Yes. If AT&T broadcasted B26, they could run a 15x15 carrier. B5 is limited to 10x10 per 3GPP spec. 

[dkyeager]

7 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Yes. If AT&T broadcasted B26, they could run a 15x15 carrier. B5 is limited to 10x10 per 3GPP spec. 

Using the old Sprint spectrum plus their existing B5 I assume.  Any complicating factors that would require FCC approval?

[Trip]

36 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

Using the old Sprint spectrum plus their existing B5 I assume.  Any complicating factors that would require FCC approval?

They wouldn't need it.  If they hold both A- and B-blocks, that's 25x25 total, and they could run Band 26 across 15x15 of that spectrum.  Band 26 covers all of Band 5 plus the Sprint spectrum.

- Trip

[RAvirani]

13 minutes ago, Trip said:

They wouldn't need it.  If they hold both A- and B-blocks, that's 25x25 total, and they could run Band 26 across 15x15 of that spectrum.  Band 26 covers all of Band 5 plus the Sprint spectrum.

- Trip

This!

[mdob07]

On 7/20/2021 at 1:14 AM, RAvirani said:

B5 doesn’t support carriers larger than 10x10.

B26 supports up to 15x15, but many AT&T devices don’t support it. Plus, that wouldn’t entirely solve their problem. 

 

On 7/22/2021 at 1:37 PM, RAvirani said:

Yes. If AT&T broadcasted B26, they could run a 15x15 carrier. B5 is limited to 10x10 per 3GPP spec. 

 

On 7/22/2021 at 2:21 PM, Trip said:

They wouldn't need it.  If they hold both A- and B-blocks, that's 25x25 total, and they could run Band 26 across 15x15 of that spectrum.  Band 26 covers all of Band 5 plus the Sprint spectrum.

- Trip

It looks like N5 supports 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz channel widths. I wonder how long they'll wait before they make a change to be able to use more of that spectrum for N5. Possible options I see:

• Use 15x15 as B26/N5 using DSS (If thats an option, or would it have to match and be N26?) 5x5 as B5 LTE for older phones and that still leaves 5x5 for HSPA. 
• A more aggressive option would be to use 20x20 for N5 exclusively and 5x5 for HSPA. This still leaves 10x10 B12 and 10x10 B14 for older phones for low band. Hopefully they enable SA if they go this route.

Since I believe you can't aggregate low band LTE with low band NR in most cases, phones using the N5 carrier would not be touching the B12 and B14 carriers. If they enable SA on the 20x20 N5 carrier it would also help free up their limited midband spectrum for older non-NR phones. That would also prevent falling back to LTE only inside a building just because the mid-band anchor band was too weak. In Daytona AT&T was broadcasting 5x5 B2, 10x10 B66, and 10x10 B30 and that was it for midband. 

[mdob07]

Also I wonder when/if AT&T will flip any of their 2nd and 3rd PCS/AWS carriers to NR. In Louisville it's 20x20 and 5x5 for PCS, and 10x10, 10x10, and 5x5 for AWS. South of Louisville PCS goes to 10x10, 5x5, and 5x5. No phone that I know of can aggregate that many carriers at the same time plus all of the other bands. 

[dkyeager]

On 7/27/2021 at 10:56 PM, mdob07 said:

Also I wonder when/if AT&T will flip any of their 2nd and 3rd PCS/AWS carriers to NR. In Louisville it's 20x20 and 5x5 for PCS, and 10x10, 10x10, and 5x5 for AWS. South of Louisville PCS goes to 10x10, 5x5, and 5x5. No phone that I know of can aggregate that many carriers at the same time plus all of the other bands. 

How does Dish spectrum align with those frequencies? Perhaps they will get wider bands better suited for 5g. Of course horse trading with other carriers and speculators also possible.

[Brad The Beast]

On 8/16/2020 at 1:32 PM, JossMan said:

Was AT&T previously on this site?  This almost looks like a new build

Yup. It's an upgrade.

[jakeuten]

On 7/14/2021 at 10:36 PM, belusnecropolis said:

Matsing ball!
 

 

AT&T has one of these permanently mounted outside of the MN state fair grounds. Seemed really impressive when I was being served off of it. Thousands of people at a music festival and I could muster 60 DL, whereas T-Mobile and Verizon outright didn't work.

[belusnecropolis]

11 hours ago, jakeuten said:

AT&T

Yeah it really works nicely. This covers the area across from the sports complex at the local college. Many visitors gather here to cross the highway at the crosswalk and there is student housing under the other sectors so it does a good job of adding capacity in a small sector and not making a ton of noise for the other sectors.

I will say on this one I am confused by the presence of all those radios that are unutilized on the west sector but it is a neat site for sure. 

[Destroyallcubes]

On 8/11/2021 at 7:46 PM, jakeuten said:

AT&T has one of these permanently mounted outside of the MN state fair grounds. Seemed really impressive when I was being served off of it. Thousands of people at a music festival and I could muster 60 DL, whereas T-Mobile and Verizon outright didn't work.

What in the heck? Have never seen one of these before! Really  looks cool! Can you post the address to this site, or cross streets? I work at ATT and curious what this looks like through an internal tool for where cell sites are and has information  on them in a basic way

[jakeuten]

8 hours ago, Destroyallcubes said:

What in the heck? Have never seen one of these before! Really  looks cool! Can you post the address to this site, or cross streets? I work at ATT and curious what this looks like through an internal tool for where cell sites are and has information  on them in a basic way

On Google Maps the address is 1628 Como Avenue Falcon Heights, MN.

[mdob07]

I've noticed around here that AT&T is no longer broadcasting their 5x5 secondary AWS1 carrier here on some sites, instead putting the 10x10 AWS3 carrier in its GCI pattern. I'm noticing it on new sites and recent rip and replace rebuilds so far. Wondering if it's just a cost cutting move or if they are positioning to trade that license or move that carrier to NR only. Most sites are still broadcasting all 3 AWS carriers though. 

[Destroyallcubes]

On 10/5/2021 at 12:18 PM, mdob07 said:

I've noticed around here that AT&T is no longer broadcasting their 5x5 secondary AWS1 carrier here on some sites, instead putting the 10x10 AWS3 carrier in its GCI pattern. I'm noticing it on new sites and recent rip and replace rebuilds so far. Wondering if it's just a cost cutting move or if they are positioning to trade that license or move that carrier to NR only. Most sites are still broadcasting all 3 AWS carriers though. 

Does your area have N5 live? I have noticed that some sites have 1/3 sectors with a 5x5mhz b30 , but the other 2 sectors are 10x10. Does Dish have any AWS 3 in your area? Could involve the partnership with Dish potentially.

[RAvirani]

1 hour ago, Destroyallcubes said:

Does your area have N5 live? I have noticed that some sites have 1/3 sectors with a 5x5mhz b30 , but the other 2 sectors are 10x10. Does Dish have any AWS 3 in your area? Could involve the partnership with Dish potentially.

The 5x5 B30 carrier @ 9840 is used in certain areas to prevent interference with Sirius XM. 

[Destroyallcubes]

2 hours ago, RAvirani said:

The 5x5 B30 carrier @ 9840 is used in certain areas to prevent interference with Sirius XM. 

Normally I’d think it’s because of that but it’s a single sector, and you will connect to other sites in the same area with full 10x10. It’s odd for sure. And only one 2 sites locally with 10x10 on adjacent sites that will also cover the area

[RAvirani]

4 hours ago, Destroyallcubes said:

Normally I’d think it’s because of that but it’s a single sector, and you will connect to other sites in the same area with full 10x10. It’s odd for sure. And only one 2 sites locally with 10x10 on adjacent sites that will also cover the area

This is not done per site or per region/area. The optimization team modifies tilt/power on a per-sector basis based on the drive test data they get. 

In areas where satellite signal is weak, XM band-stop filters do not have adequate rolloff to tolerate the significantly more powerful WCS signal, since the guard band can be as low as 2 MHz.