AT&T LTE and Network Discussion

[red_dog007]

I totally forgot that Bluegrass sold.  Wonder how far behind Appalachian Wireless will be.

[red_dog007]

I was in Gatlinburg and they had 5MHz on n66.

I use the SignalCheck Pro app on my Pixel 7. It only shows 1 band you are connected to which I assume to be the primary band.
app was showing I was connected to n5. If that happens is that 5G SA in action?

Every other time my phone shows 5G, I open the app and it shows LTE. Similar to the 5G on my SOs S22 in the service menu.

[dkyeager]

2 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

I was in Gatlinburg and they had 5MHz on n66.

I use the SignalCheck Pro app on my Pixel 7. It only shows 1 band you are connected to which I assume to be the primary band.
app was showing I was connected to n5. If that happens is that 5G SA in action?

Every other time my phone shows 5G, I open the app and it shows LTE. Similar to the 5G on my SOs S22 in the service menu.

You are likely correct. 5G SA lists NCI (think GCI for NR) while NSA typically omits these details.

[red_dog007]

I'm 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh. Signal Check app just showed that I connected to AT&T n77. ARFCN 652000 3780MHz. Weird cause Spectrum Sequence shows that as VZW. It shows ATT only owns 3840-3900.

 

It's also weird cause the app will show I'm connected to 5G-NR but the status icon will still say LTE.

Edited January 12, 2023 by red_dog007

[PedroDaGr8]

1 minute ago, red_dog007 said:

I'm 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh. Signal Check app just showed that I connected to AT&T n77. ARFCN 652000 3780MHz. Weird cause Spectrum Sequence shows that as VZW. It shows ATT only owns 3840-3900.

I seem to remember that AT&T got permission to temporarily use some of Verizon's spectrum in some areas. Unfortunately, I can't find any direct articles due to all of the other "noise" around C-Band.

[iansltx]

On 1/12/2023 at 3:13 PM, red_dog007 said:

I'm 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh. Signal Check app just showed that I connected to AT&T n77. ARFCN 652000 3780MHz. Weird cause Spectrum Sequence shows that as VZW. It shows ATT only owns 3840-3900.

 

It's also weird cause the app will show I'm connected to 5G-NR but the status icon will still say LTE.

Until the entire band opens up, VZW has the bottom 60 MHz of C-Band, while AT&T has the next 40 MHz. In areas where more C-Band has cleared, VZW IIRC continues to have the bottom of their band at 3700, with AT&T above that, though AT&T might be 3820 MHz center freq in those markets rather than 3780. Once C-Band clears entirely, specmap will be accurate.

[mdob07]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:59 PM, mdob07 said:

Looks like Verizon and AT&T finally got around to doing spectrum swaps here in central KY after Verizon bought Bluegrass Cellular. Looks like they swapped a 5x5 PCS block allowing AT&T to go to 20x20 (was 10x10, 5x5, 5x5) and Verizon to go to 10x10 (was 5x5, 5x5). Looks like AT&T also swapped their 5x5 AWS block for Verizons 5x5 B12, so now they have 10x10 b12 in a large part of rural KY and Verizon increases their AWS to 15x15 + 10x10. This definitely helps clean up AT&Ts spectrum holdings here, going from 3 different PCS carriers and 3 AWS to a single large PCS and 2 AWS carriers. 

I didn't catch it at first but as part of these swaps it looks like AT&T got Verizon's PCS C4 block in Louisville and to the north/east. This makes sense as they already own A+D in that area so they traded their AWS C block to Verizon for their PCS C4 block here. This gives AT&T 20x20 + 10x10 now in PCS for these areas and also means Verizon now has 0 PCS in Louisville. Hopefully AT&T can now work with T-Mobile to swap and make their holdings whole. i wonder if AT&T will flip the 10x10 carrier to NR soon.

[dkyeager]

1 hour ago, mdob07 said:

IThis gives AT&T 20x20 + 10x10 now in PCS for these areas and also means Verizon now has 0 PCS in Louisville. Hopefully AT&T can now work with T-Mobile to swap and make their holdings whole. i wonder if AT&T will flip the 10x10 carrier to NR soon.

AT&T has typically gone with DSS, so wouldn't going NR for the 10x10 be a change in strategy?  (They might have a few iirc, but cellmapper.net appears to be down since I can't login.)

[iansltx]

On 1/20/2023 at 1:27 PM, dkyeager said:

AT&T has typically gone with DSS, so wouldn't going NR for the 10x10 be a change in strategy?  (They might have a few iirc, but cellmapper.net appears to be down since I can't login.)

I've only seen DSS in 2/66 here, but AT&T also only has 15x15 PCS here, and only one block of AWS wider than 10x10. By contrast, n5 is a dedicated channel now as it's 15x15 (and n5 was dedicated west of here back when it was 5x5, and stayed that way when they widened to 10x10).

So with that said I'd expect 10x10 LTE and 20x20 n2 DSS in the situation mdob07 described. At 20x20 DSS should perform pretty well. Nice thing about DSS is it seems NSA NR and the LTE PCC can always CA on upload, so you'll wind up with 10 MHz LTE and 20 MHz DSS on the uplink, for upload capacity in the 100 Mbps range (AT&T actually tends to have better upload speeds than T-Mobile in a lot of places here, though for downlink there's still no contest).

[mdob07]

AT&T is really starting to ramp up deployment of c-band/DoD here. if they keep this pace up they will have the majority of the city covered by early summer. 

[4GHoward]

FYI..

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/at-t-expands-5g-home-internet-with-new-internet-air-offering-in-16-markets/

 

[mdob07]

I'm starting the see the 80MHz C-band carrier pop up around Louisville today. This was originally a DoD only area. 

[iansltx]

I saw 80 MHz n77 in Austin last week (along with 100 MHz VZW n77). Speeds weren't all that great, but the spectrum is indeed provisioned.

[Paynefanbro]

NYC barely has any DoD deployed but the jump to 80MHz on C-band has increased AT&T's performance significantly here. While they were at 40MHz I hovered in the 100-200Mbps range almost all the time. Occasionally I'd come across a site that gave me 400Mbps. With the increase to 80MHz, speeds have effectively doubled on AT&T citywide. Now most sites have performance well in line with T-Mobile and Verizon at around 350-450Mbps. They're still slower than the other two on average but the gap isn't nearly as wide. 

[dkyeager]

https://about.att.com/blogs/2023/network-ready.html

interesting discussion of At&T's standalone 5g deployment.  They are doing it by application and area, so to see if your area has it you will want to keep tabs on AT&T Internet Air (currently in alpha or beta).   My guess is your local site needs to have c-band/DOD service as a prerequisite.

[red_dog007]

Few weeks ago I noticed that 3.7GHz was active on AT&T in my area. Had it basically down the whole interstate, some 15 miles. But it was only 2xCA.  Usually paired with PCS. The signalcheckpro app showed it as 80MHz with a center frequency of 3871.20MHz.  Ok, cool.  Assumed it was 3830 to 3910MHz.  I couldn't remember the exact band layout while I was driving.  Looking at it just now on Spectrum Omega, that was way wrong. AT&T owns B4 through C2, or 3860MHz to 3940MHz.

So instead of having a single 80MHz carrier, it is really 4 carriers? I have a Pixel 7, so not sure if it is 5xCA or 6xCA, but 4 carriers will be taken up by 3.7GHz? With that spectrum ownership, I would have figured a single 80MHz carrier with a center frequency of 3900MHz. Then I could CA 4 or 5 other carriers and be connected to upwards of 200MHz.

Edited September 13, 2023 by red_dog007

[PedroDaGr8]

1 hour ago, red_dog007 said:

Few weeks ago I noticed that 3.7GHz was active on AT&T in my area. Had it basically down the whole interstate, some 15 miles. But it was only 2xCA.  Usually paired with PCS. The signalcheckpro app showed it as 80MHz with a center frequency of 3871.20MHz.  Ok, cool.  Assumed it was 3830 to 3910MHz.  I couldn't remember the exact band layout while I was driving.  Looking at it just now on Spectrum Omega, that was way wrong. AT&T owns B4 through C2, or 3860MHz to 3940MHz.

So instead of having a single 80MHz carrier, it is really 4 carriers? I have a Pixel 7, so not sure if it is 5xCA or 6xCA, but 4 carriers will be taken up by 3.7GHz? With that spectrum ownership, I would have figured a single 80MHz carrier with a center frequency of 3900MHz. Then I could CA 4 or 5 other carriers and be connected to upwards of 200MHz.

Some phones report the SSB instead of the center frequency. In LTE they were the same but in NR the SSB can be any frequency within the range. It makes it a huge pain to identify the center frequency. 

[red_dog007]

2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Some phones report the SSB instead of the center frequency. In LTE they were the same but in NR the SSB can be any frequency within the range. It makes it a huge pain to identify the center frequency. 

Thanks.  Didn't know about that.

 

For discussion...

Whats the word on 3.45GHz?  From my understanding, 3GHz radios at first (maybe still not?) didn't support both 3.45 and 3.7GHz. What about CBRS? Was that it's own radio or supported by 3.45 or 3.7GHz?

Just curious when we might see this band go live if not already. I haven't heard much buzz around it.

Edited September 13, 2023 by red_dog007

[dkyeager]

8 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

Thanks.  Didn't know about that.

 

For discussion...

Whats the word on 3.45GHz?  From my understanding, 3GHz radios at first (maybe still not?) didn't support both 3.45 and 3.7GHz. What about CBRS? Was that it's own radio or supported by 3.45 or 3.7GHz?

Just curious when we might see this band go live if not already. I haven't heard much buzz around it.

You will have to upgrade your LG V30+ to a S22 or better for C-band plus DOD

Lots of C-band installed, but I have not seen much DOD equipment in my very limited excusions.

 

[dkyeager]

AT&T's all important phone white-list updated last week.  If your phone is not on this list you will likely be booted off in 1 to 14 days with regular usage:

https://www.att.com/scmsassets/support/wireless/devices-working-on-att-network.pdf

 

 

[mdob07]

I noticed today while I was out and about in Louisville that b30 has been widened back to 10x10. They reduced it to 5x5 back in Sept 2018 presumably due to satellite radio interference. Not sure how long ago the change happened but it couldn't have been too terribly long ago. I noticed the different earfcn in the neighbor list, I don't usually see b30 as pcc much but I wonder if that will change now. I locked my phone to b30 only on my drive home from work and noticed the new(old?) earfcn on every site, so it wasn't just a 1 or 2 site fluke. It also looks like they've been doing some fiber or other cabling work around the b2/b46 small cell nodes, I wonder if they are about to start adding c-band radios to those. 

[Paynefanbro]

Nationwide AT&T outage occurring right now affecting all of their brands, MVNOs, and even FirstNet. Although this kind of outage is rare, I bet Verizon and T-Mobile are both gonna try to use this to pull First Responders to their network or at least consider them for backup services.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24079910/att-network-outage-sos-mode

[dkyeager]

Service just restored in Columbus Ohio on AT&T network.  They seemed to do it in the following order: business (done early) then 5g hours later then ADSL and 4g about 4 hours after business. Then texting and wifi calling that was not setup before.

At one point they were trying to route calls on T-Mobile 2g, but that failed.

[dkyeager]

Outside expert explanations of AT&T outage: https://www.lightreading.com/mobile-core/at-t-s-outage-twists-up-its-mwc-story

[Paynefanbro]

3 hours ago, dkyeager said:

At one point they were trying to route calls on T-Mobile 2g, but that failed.

I noticed that on my Boost line. I ended up mapping some 2G on Cellmapper because of that lol. Looked like it would connect to T-Mobile 2G for a bit and then disconnect and show no signal. Thankfully it's back up and running.