AT&T LTE and Network Discussion

[iansltx]

https://twitter.com/iansltx/status/1464042108021583882

Got to play with some AT&T mmW last night.

[dkyeager]

1 hour ago, iansltx said:

https://twitter.com/iansltx/status/1464042108021583882

Got to play with some AT&T mmW last night.

How rapidly did the data rate fall off?  How far away did you need to walk before the n260 dropped you?  Did you try going into a close-by building and standing in the window to see the speed or behind a large bush or small tree or around the corner on a side street?  Looking for how delicate is this frequency currently. 

Band 41 was often derided for its short range, but was soon refined to go much longer distances and into buildings.  Is the same thing starting to happen with this frequency? 

[mdob07]

AT&T and Verizon asked to delay firing up their C-Band spectrum again. I would usually side with safety on something like this but at the same time it's not like this came out of the blue. The FCC didn't just sell this spectrum on a moments notice, its likely been in the works for several years. It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out in the coming months. This is already the 2nd delay in launching the early clearing spectrum. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/u-officials-ask-t-verizon-232514442.html

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/airlines-ask-fcc-to-again-delay-c-band-5g-rollout-near-airports-beyond-jan-5/

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, mdob07 said:

AT&T and Verizon asked to delay firing up their C-Band spectrum again. I would usually side with safety on something like this but at the same time it's not like this came out of the blue. The FCC didn't just sell this spectrum on a moments notice, its likely been in the works for several years. It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out in the coming months. This is already the 2nd delay in launching the early clearing spectrum. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/u-officials-ask-t-verizon-232514442.html

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/airlines-ask-fcc-to-again-delay-c-band-5g-rollout-near-airports-beyond-jan-5/

The US is already a laggard in this spectrum. It is not as if airplanes are falling from the sky in these other countries.  If believable, maybe the FAA is allowing defective planes to fly in the US? How many defective planes are we actually talking about?

[iansltx]

On 11/26/2021 at 8:51 PM, dkyeager said:

How rapidly did the data rate fall off?  How far away did you need to walk before the n260 dropped you?  Did you try going into a close-by building and standing in the window to see the speed or behind a large bush or small tree or around the corner on a side street?  Looking for how delicate is this frequency currently. 

Band 41 was often derided for its short range, but was soon refined to go much longer distances and into buildings.  Is the same thing starting to happen with this frequency? 

Apologies for the slow reply on this one.

I didn't have contiguous coverage despite the sites being every block. Outdoors, either line of sight or with my back turned to the site. Given that most buildings near there have thick limestone blocks for walls, basically zero chance the signal would've made it inside (though I didn't check).

VZW's n260 on the macro near my place in Austin is significantly more durable, though I keep forgetting to test it indoors quite nearby (betting it wouldn't work though).

LAA was less fragile than n260 for these SCs.

So, in answer to your question, no. Not for AT&T at least. This is a "throw whatever capacity we can at outdoor users and see what sticks" play.

[dkyeager]

53 minutes ago, iansltx said:

 This is a "throw whatever capacity we can at outdoor users and see what sticks" play.

I have always thought T-Mobile should have a warm and cozy restaurant scene in Chicago with every doing something data intensive, then a Verizon customer would have to go outside into blizzard to do the same. (But then came Covid.)

[iansltx]

On 1/1/2022 at 4:21 PM, dkyeager said:

I have always thought T-Mobile should have a warm and cozy restaurant scene in Chicago with every doing something data intensive, then a Verizon customer would have to go outside into blizzard to do the same. (But then came Covid.)

Heh, as of this morning you could do that here (okay, no blizzard, but below freezing). The fun part is that the site with VZW mmW doesn't have T-Mobile n41 on it, so by the time you're in range for VZW mmW the T-Mobile n41 signal is a bit weaker, though still plenty enough to hit 300+ mbps.

[dkyeager]

On 1/1/2022 at 2:27 AM, mdob07 said:

AT&T and Verizon asked to delay firing up their C-Band spectrum again. I would usually side with safety on something like this but at the same time it's not like this came out of the blue. The FCC didn't just sell this spectrum on a moments notice, its likely been in the works for several years. It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out in the coming months. This is already the 2nd delay in launching the early clearing spectrum. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/u-officials-ask-t-verizon-232514442.html

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/airlines-ask-fcc-to-again-delay-c-band-5g-rollout-near-airports-beyond-jan-5/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/03/att-verizon-ceos-reject-us-request-for-5g-deployment-delay.html

Instead they propose using the same rules as France, where most of these carriers already fly.

[red_dog007]

What range of spectrum does aviation use that is specifically impacted?

Why the heck is FAA making noise now?  Did they make as much noise as possible before, during and just after the auction? If the FAA didn't show one ounce of concern before the auction, I would say the Feds auctioned this in bad faith as they did not do their due dillagence.  They should have known before the auction and put * on licenses containing impacted airports. Any license area with an impacted airport the FCC should refund a portion of the bid for any delays and/or new requirements in the the license areas impacted by airports. 

Im all for safety, but the auction ended almost a year ago now and we knew the C-Band auction was coming for month before hand. 

[Trip]

Much as I'm loath to recommend VICE News, this is actually the best article I've seen on the subject.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb3m3/the-5g-airport-apocalypse-is-incredibly-dumb-experts-say

- Trip

[Trip]

This one's pretty insightful too.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/airline-ceos-make-u-turn-now-say-5g-isnt-a-big-problem-for-altimeters/

- Trip

 

[red_dog007]

15 hours ago, Trip said:

Much as I'm loath to recommend VICE News, this is actually the best article I've seen on the subject.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb3m3/the-5g-airport-apocalypse-is-incredibly-dumb-experts-say

- Trip

I like VICE.  They actually report on news no one else is willing to report. A lot of the places they go no sane person would want to be there.  They put their life on the line in many cases to get a story. From stories about the avocado wars in Mexico, being in the front lines against ISIS and Ukraine, to being embedded with terrorist organizations.

 

FAA might have some conspiracy 5G nut on their team or something.  At work ever year we have some one come in and say "hey, can you turn off the WIFI in my room? I don't want its radiation".  It doesn't make sense and their reasoning is always uneducated conspiracy. I can see someone coming into my office and acting crazy over C band disregarding everything else.

Edited January 22, 2022 by red_dog007

[radem]

On 1/22/2022 at 12:39 PM, red_dog007 said:

FAA might have some conspiracy 5G nut on their team or something.

This entire FAA argument is stupid with no evidence at all that there is an issue with C-band.  You may be right that there is some conspiracy nut involved.

The guard-band between what aircraft altimeters use and cellular C-band is 220MHz.  If any safety critical aircraft altimeter is reading signals from 220MHz away from the frequencies it is designed to use, that is a very broken safety critical device and should have been replaced long ago.  Everything in an aircraft is designed and certified for precision and is checked regularly.  The aircraft is not designated as airworthy for instrument flight if the systems in it are not certified to be precise and in good working order.  If an altimeter is so broken that it is off by more than 220MHz from the frequencies it is designed to use, it could just as easily be off by 1GHz or more which would likely cause it to fall into other frequencies that are also already in use. 

[iansltx]

In other news, so far I haven't seen any C Band from AT&T. Just got a new Boost SIM so now I can actually check. It picks up n5 but no C Band.

[iansltx]

Did see n66 DSS earlier tonight though. 

 

[mdob07]

11 hours ago, iansltx said:

Did see n66 DSS earlier tonight though. 

 

Are they using DSS on B5 also? I'm wondering if they'll turn B5 LTE back on here with DSS once they widen N5 to 10x10 after shutting down WCMDA.

[iansltx]

4 hours ago, mdob07 said:

Are they using DSS on B5 also? I'm wondering if they'll turn B5 LTE back on here with DSS once they widen N5 to 10x10 after shutting down WCMDA.

They are using DSS on B5 here, on one carrier. LTE-only on the other AFAIK.

I kinda hope AT&T doesn't turn DSS on in markets where dropping H+ bumps them from 5x5 for everything else to 10x10. They have 10x10 of B14 and 5x5-10x10 of B12 to throw users on, and with the delays to their C-Band deployment due to waiting for gear their network is effectively LTE-only in many areas despite an increasing proportion of 5G phones. The network was doing just fine without the extra B5 bandwidth, so not a whole lot of reason to basically go backwards when they said they're dropping 3G to expand 5G.

[red_dog007]

On 1/24/2022 at 9:26 PM, iansltx said:

In other news, so far I haven't seen any C Band from AT&T. Just got a new Boost SIM so now I can actually check. It picks up n5 but no C Band.

Fiercewireless put out an article today.  Sounds like AT&T wont get heavily started until later this year when equipment will be more available that supports both 3.45GHz and C-Band.

[dkyeager]

1 hour ago, red_dog007 said:

Fiercewireless put out an article today.  Sounds like AT&T wont get heavily started until later this year when equipment will be more available that supports both 3.45GHz and C-Band.

Financially makes sense, but may put them far behind T-Mobile and Verizon 5g marketing.  Could put them up against Dish if Dish gets their act together and starts their public network in Las Vegas in late February.

[iansltx]

Did some more exploring yesterday/last night and I think I spotted some LAA downtown but didn't get a chance to confirm before it went away in favor of mmW, which also went away pretty quickly.

Also saw another n66 site, as well as an n2 site, making AT&T the second carrier to run n2 DSS within a few miles of me.

I think at this point they won't be able to advertise anything flashy, but due to the sheer amount of CA they're throwing at customers here they can keep their network at 50+ Mbps until they can deploy both 3.45 and 3.7, and that's probably enough.

[iansltx]

Typing this from tethered Boost/AT&T. Hit nearly 300 Mbps yesterday coming into Austin thanks to AFAIK 5CA + n5. My bet is that the traffic on the n5 channel was light enough that I had it to myself, rather than taking the DSS penalty (since there's another B5 channel), and AT&T has 15x15 in both PCS and AWS, plus B12, B14, B30, and another B66 carrier. So, lotta potential bands to aggregate.

Also saw AT&T include a 5x5 B2 sliver in their LTE mix further west. So at this point AT&T is using every bit of spectrum they can.

[mdob07]

On 1/28/2022 at 8:45 AM, iansltx said:

Did some more exploring yesterday/last night and I think I spotted some LAA downtown but didn't get a chance to confirm before it went away in favor of mmW, which also went away pretty quickly.

Also saw another n66 site, as well as an n2 site, making AT&T the second carrier to run n2 DSS within a few miles of me.

I think at this point they won't be able to advertise anything flashy, but due to the sheer amount of CA they're throwing at customers here they can keep their network at 50+ Mbps until they can deploy both 3.45 and 3.7, and that's probably enough.

I'm surprised AT&T hasn't flipped any additional spectrum here to NR. For PCS that have 2 carriers and 3 once you get south of Louisville, and 3 AWS carriers. If they aren't going to try to swap blocks around with T-Mobile and Verizon to make their spectrum 1 large chunk then why not switch one of each AWS and PCS to NR. PCS is either 20x20 + 5x5 or 10x10 + 2 5x5, AWS is 2 10x10 + 5x5. I'm still hopefully that now Verizon owns Bluegrass Cellular they will work with AT&T, it would definitely be beneficial to both. 

[dkyeager]

My HPSA+ still active on AT&T. A roaming deal for their 3g to be on T-Mobile was signed yesterday according to https://www.lightreading.com/4g3gwifi/atandt-inks-last-minute-3g-roaming-deal-with-t-mobile/d/d-id/775491

Yes, I use a VoLTE phone and a 5g with their network.

[littlejth]

My Note 20 Ultra can still be forced to HSPA+ in the MSP market still too. I did read on /r/att that some people around for the 2G shutoff noted that it was gradually shut off over a week or two after the official date so I guess it'll be something to keep an eye out for. Really hope they do it here soon and bring it over to N5 since right now in this market 10x10 B14 in CA is replaced by 5x5 N5. Hoping that comes up to N10x10 for some better performance.

[mdob07]

HSPA still working here in Louisville KY also.