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AT&T LTE and Network Discussion


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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.

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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%.

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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.

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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.

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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
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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

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  • 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. 

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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

 

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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. 

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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. 

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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

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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. 

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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. 

 

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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?

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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

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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.

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