AT&T LTE and Network Discussion

[RAvirani]

23 minutes ago, LordDonkey said:

Side note: I noticed Band 5 LTE going away in some areas. A tower in Bittinger, MD previously had Band 5 LTE and now it no longer does. It still has band 2 and 17 and no aggregation, at least not with my phone. I think it used CA with my ZTE MF288 modem. The Band 2 has 15 MHz bandwidth and hits 80 Mbps no problem.

Band 5 LTE is being shut down to deploy NR in the CLR block. AT&T doesn't have free spectrum anywhere else. 

[greenbastard]

19 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Band 5 LTE is being shut down to deploy NR in the CLR block. AT&T doesn't have free spectrum anywhere else. 

In my area, 3G was the one that was actually taken down. Band 5 LTE is still there. I haven't been able to make calls at my place since unlocked phones don't have VoLTE. WCDMA Band 2 doesn't reach indoors for me for fallback on.

But then again, it could just be issues with my tower. I haven't left the house much since the quarantine. And when I do, I forget to check since T-Mobile is my daily driver.

[Brad The Beast]

Are there distinct antennas for band 14 deployment? There's a new rack going up with new kinds of antennas here in Grand Forks. The antennas are approximately the same size as T-Mobile's 600MHz antennas but it's not those.

[Brad The Beast]

Got some pictures

https://imgur.com/a/KpA4fZc

It's definitely for AT&T since the empty boxes were inside their fence.

[Yuhfhrh]

AT&T DSS just went live in North Texas: https://www.pcmag.com/news/atts-5g-network-gets-more-dynamic

[red_dog007]

137 New 5G markets, 160+ Million covered.

https://about.att.com/newsroom/2020/5g_announcements.html

Coverage map still not updated.

[red_dog007]

On 6/5/2020 at 11:51 PM, Yuhfhrh said:

AT&T DSS just went live in North Texas: https://www.pcmag.com/news/atts-5g-network-gets-more-dynamic

Why is pcmag showing a map of possible 5G on 700 when AT&T? As at least we know, AT&T is deploying 5G on 850 where they too lack nationwide license coverage.

[Yuhfhrh]

12 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

Why is pcmag showing a map of possible 5G on 700 when AT&T? As at least we know, AT&T is deploying 5G on 850 where they too lack nationwide license coverage.

I think they're just showing possible long term spectrum that could be used for 5G.

[red_dog007]

AT&T seriously not update their coverage map yet to reflect this new 5G coverage? Im still waiting...

[red_dog007]

So they have pdfs of their coverage, but the map still isn't updated.  They added a few more cities. They are now at 179 million people.  Expanded DSS. 

https://www.att.com/5g/coverage-map/

https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/at-t-expands-5g-to-28-new-markets-continues-dss-deployment

 

[mdob07]

Wow... 

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/08/03/5g-4g-cell-phones-towers-att-berkeley-ca-protesters

[vryan44]

On 8/4/2020 at 6:27 PM, mdob07 said:

Wow... 

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/08/03/5g-4g-cell-phones-towers-att-berkeley-ca-protesters

Misinformation spread is getting out of hand..

[JossMan]

On 6/5/2020 at 6:30 PM, Brad The Beast said:

Got some pictures

https://imgur.com/a/KpA4fZc

It's definitely for AT&T since the empty boxes were inside their fence.

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

[mdob07]

I've recently started seeing permits around here for adding this AWS filter to sites around here. Not really sure what the purpose is. 

From Louisville's permit portal:

[RAvirani]

58 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

I've recently started seeing permits around here for adding this AWS filter to sites around here. Not really sure what the purpose is. 

These are AWS/PCS filters to minimize interference with the 2097.5-2109.5 MHz Broadcast Auxiliary Service band.  

[mdob07]

9 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

These are AWS/PCS filters to minimize interference with the 2097.5-2109.5 MHz Broadcast Auxiliary Service band.  

Interesting. I've just recently started seeing these permits, I wonder whats changed that to drive these being installed? The downlink side of AWS3 has been live here for a couple years now, UL side is lighting up now along with 5G upgrades. 

[RAvirani]

6 minutes ago, mdob07 said:

Interesting. I've just recently started seeing these permits, I wonder whats changed that to drive these being installed? The downlink side of AWS3 has been live here for a couple years now, UL side is lighting up now along with 5G upgrades. 

The BAS band was probably recently allocated to a TV station or something similar (and it was probably previously unused).  This could explain the sudden deployment of filters.  

 

[RAvirani]

13 hours ago, mdob07 said:

Quick question - what did you search on to get these results? I always struggle to find AT&T permits in Accela-built permit systems because of the ampersand...

[mdob07]

5 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Quick question - what did you search on to get these results? I always struggle to find AT&T permits in Accela-built permit systems because of the ampersand...

I actually got lucky on this one, these showed up just by searching for Cell Tower permits under Building permits. But typically I have to search using Ansco in the Name of Business field, Ansco is the contractor they use 95% of the time around here. but I've recently started seeing a few new companies for small cell installations. Most macro work in Louisville has site plans under the attachments section.

[mdob07]

Looking over a plan I found this morning it looks like they've moved to a combined RRH for B5/B12. 

 

[iansltx]

Got a CricKet data SIM a week and a half ago for my Nighthawk M1. AT&T is 15x15 B4 and B2, 10x10 B12 and B14 (though my M1 doesn't have B14), 5x5 (!) B30...and 20x20 (!!!) B5 around here. Looks like they're also licensed for some 700 SDL, as well as another 10x10 of B66. Maybe some more PCS too? Anyway, AT&T has an absurd amount of spectrum here.

In any case, I have to think they're running DSS on band 5, with a single H+ carrier taking up the remainder. Otherwise they would be limited to 5x5 of NR, which wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. I suppose you *could* just aggregate with a bunch of other bands and call it a day, but...well, I wish I had an AT&T 5G device to test out my theory.

Seems like CricKet's download speeds are pretty heavily deprioritized to "whatever's left over on the network at the time", but either they aren't deprioritizing uploads or there's *just that much* upload capacity available; I've seen upload speeds of nearly 40 Mbps near cell sites...on plain old LTE. AT&T definitely got their money's worth when climbing the bunch of sites they needed to add B14 to.

[Sprke]

ATT is finally building out in SW Iowa. There’s a couple new towers now up, the antennas are still laying on the ground. I took a stroll over for a closer look. I have attached some pictures, this means these panels are capable of broadcasting B14, B2, B4 and B30? But not all 4? So they will for sure do B14 and only 2 of the other 3?

[RAvirani]

29 minutes ago, Sprke said:

ATT is finally building out in SW Iowa. There’s a couple new towers now up, the antennas are still laying on the ground. I took a stroll over for a closer look. I have attached some pictures, this means these panels are capable of broadcasting B14, B2, B4 and B30? But not all 4? So they will for sure do B14 and only 2 of the other 3?

They'll probably run:

• B12/B14 and B5 at 4x4 through the lowband ports via a 700/850 diplexer
• B2 and B66 at 4x4 through one of the mid/highband arrays via a PCS/AWS diplexer
• B30 at 4x4 though the other mid/highband array

[Sprke]

2 hours ago, RAvirani said:

They'll probably run:

• B12/B14 and B5 at 4x4 through the lowband ports via a 700/850 diplexer
• B2 and B66 at 4x4 through one of the mid/highband arrays via a PCS/AWS diplexer
• B30 at 4x4 though the other mid/highband array

They don’t own any B12 or B5 in this area, so B14 is all they have for low band here. They can actually run everything else with this 1 panel?

[RAvirani]

47 minutes ago, Sprke said:

They don’t own any B12 or B5 in this area, so B14 is all they have for low band here. They can actually run everything else with this 1 panel?

Yes.