Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[Dkoellerwx]

10 hours ago, dkyeager said:

Another possibility is to divide up NSA and SA with one getting 100MHz and the other getting 80MHz or the remainder. Some people on Reddit have reported seeing this.  I may have seen it, but did not test it well enough to comment yet.

Anywhere that has less than 80MHz on n41 doesn't allow for it to be the primary carrier on SA out here, but allows for it to CA with n25 and n71. That's why you don't see n41 on any western Nebraska or Northeast Colorado sites on Cellmapper. They're all 50+30, 40+40, 20+40, or something like that. At least they were. n41 was there, but was never the primary carrier. But still allowed to operate as 3 or 4xCA while in SA mode. Not sure if that's what you meant, but that's what I've seen on some very rural sites that appear to be using all the spectrum available at the time. 

[schmidtj]

I have a current iPhone. It has a setting Cellular->Voice&Data where I can specify "5G Standalone". If I turn that on an additional setting becomes available "Voice Over 5G Standalone". 

If I turn on 5G Standalone, Field Test typicall shows NSA and sometimes SA+NSA.

To me there is no perceptible difference outside of Field Test.

I live in Chicagoland and I never experience any issues so what settings would be best in my situaltion?

I figure if anyone knows the right answer it would be one of the folks who hang out here.

Thanks in advance,
J

PS. If this isn't the place to discuss this please move as necessary.

[dkyeager]

On 3/7/2024 at 12:36 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

Anywhere that has less than 80MHz on n41 doesn't allow for it to be the primary carrier on SA out here, but allows for it to CA with n25 and n71. That's why you don't see n41 on any western Nebraska or Northeast Colorado sites on Cellmapper. They're all 50+30, 40+40, 20+40, or something like that. At least they were. n41 was there, but was never the primary carrier. But still allowed to operate as 3 or 4xCA while in SA mode. Not sure if that's what you meant, but that's what I've seen on some very rural sites that appear to be using all the spectrum available at the time. 

 I am now just seeing SA in my market with either 100mhz or 80Mhz as primary, an FD SA, then the other SA b41.  Will be out again looking for auction 108 live spectrum very soon.

[Dkoellerwx]

They just expanded the primary n41 carrier here in Omaha! Up until sometime this morning we were at 80+40n41. This afternoon we are 100+40! A relatively small change but nice to see nonetheless.

[dkyeager]

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1030712968789/1

Very rosey reports from SpaceX of satellite to phone performance stating ingredients it even worked inside. Note the testing was done at low altitudes.

Operates on band 25 g block as was noted in the past.  Number of satellites will be key, as well as how use is limited, since satellite capacity is finite.

Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/s/MrnobMcnMR

[Dkoellerwx]

17 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

They just expanded the primary n41 carrier here in Omaha! Up until sometime this morning we were at 80+40n41. This afternoon we are 100+40! A relatively small change but nice to see nonetheless.

With that change... first time I've cracked Gig+ in Omaha. Granted it was before 6am, but still... 

[cooltech6597]

Took a trip down to Columbus this week and they seem to have just turned up the spectrum in some of the rural counties I passed on the way down in the past few days. This Sprint convert near North Baltimore, OH used to be 50+30mhz n41 on Thursday, but on my way back yesterday it had been converted to 100+80mhz

  s

 

I also enabled UL MIMO according to a guide on https://band.radio, and it seems to be working according to AirScreen, however, it doesn't show 256QAM UL being active on n41 which is strange. I didn't do much testing with AirScreen outside my hotel in downtown Columbus, so I'm not sure if 256QAM UL is just disabled on the phone or market wide or something.

Also, it seems like the Sprint DAS in the convention center has been shut down. Even though T-Mobile SA works OK in the convention halls during events, the upload gets congested really quickly so sending pictures/videos take forever. AT&T has a DAS throughout the whole convention center with n5 on it so they work really well in the convention center. The VZ DAS seemed to get overloaded really quickly, I ended up having to hotspot to my friends on VZ since they couldn't even send an imessage.  

[iansltx]

7 hours ago, dkyeager said:

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1030712968789/1

Very rosey reports from SpaceX of satellite to phone performance stating ingredients it even worked inside. Note the testing was done at low altitudes.

Operates on band 25 g block as was noted in the past.  Number of satellites will be key, as well as how use is limited, since satellite capacity is finite.

Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/s/MrnobMcnMR

Splitting hairs, but sat capacity is fine. Issue is sat coverage area is rather large, and there's only a 5x5 LTE channel (likely at low modulation) worth of capacity to play with. The satellites themselves have tens of gigabits of capacity, but require a proper terminal to tap into that.

[dkyeager]

7 hours ago, iansltx said:

Splitting hairs, but sat capacity is fine. Issue is sat coverage area is rather large, and there's only a 5x5 LTE channel (likely at low modulation) worth of capacity to play with. The satellites themselves have tens of gigabits of capacity, but require a proper terminal to tap into that.

Time will tell.  If popular, will they added more satellites to reduce coverage area? Will this also apply to an hurricane or earthquake damaged area?

[RedSpark]

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/08/dish-network-the-trump-era-fix-for-the-sprint-t-mobile-merger-heads-into-its-final-death-spiral/

It's not going well.

[iansltx]

On 3/9/2024 at 5:49 PM, dkyeager said:

Time will tell.  If popular, will they added more satellites to reduce coverage area? Will this also apply to an hurricane or earthquake damaged area?

They're asking for permission to deploy another shell closer to the earth's surface, so short answer is yes, this will get better over time, but you're not going to have cell sizes smaller than a terrestrial rural site, and you're not going to have capacity more than that 5x5 block, so in emergency areas the better option will be to get power to an existing site or COW and backhaul that site via Starlink, at like 30x the capacity.

[radem]

7 minutes ago, iansltx said:

They're asking for permission to deploy another shell closer to the earth's surface, so short answer is yes, this will get better over time, but you're not going to have cell sizes smaller than a terrestrial rural site, and you're not going to have capacity more than that 5x5 block, so in emergency areas the better option will be to get power to an existing site or COW and backhaul that site via Starlink, at like 30x the capacity.

The 5x5 will be more than enough for text messaging and hundreds or thousands of simultaneous phone calls per satellite cell.  As long as they prioritize phone calls with text messaging without media including data apps such as iMessage, RCS, WhatApp, etc. second, they can put all the other types of media including MMS and app-based photo attachments, etc. and all other data types in lowest priority.  People will get terrible data performance but general data might work or might not.  That is more than enough for many people in an emergency.

[jonathanm1978]

49 minutes ago, radem said:

The 5x5 will be more than enough for text messaging and hundreds or thousands of simultaneous phone calls per satellite cell.  As long as they prioritize phone calls with text messaging without media including data apps such as iMessage, RCS, WhatApp, etc. second, they can put all the other types of media including MMS and app-based photo attachments, etc. and all other data types in lowest priority.  People will get terrible data performance but general data might work or might not.  That is more than enough for many people in an emergency.

It would be great if firstnet didn't rely soley on AT&T towers to provide cellular service.. but B14 seems like it's already crowded.

[cooltech6597]

I'm starting to find FDD+TDD UL sites. It seems to be enabled on a per-site basis, rather than market wide from my testing. So far I've found one in my immediate area, which is a site T-Mobile used to have a low 12/66 rack, and moved up to a higher Sprint rack (while adding n41 and the usual bands) within the last week. I've also found a few UL CA enabled sites along US-23 when I was going up to Ann Arbor today. Uploads peaked at 135mbps, which isn't exactly as fast as I had expected, but that's expected given I can't figure out how to enable 256QAM NR upload on my S24 (I could on my S21).

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, cooltech6597 said:

I'm starting to find FDD+TDD UL sites. It seems to be enabled on a per-site basis, rather than market wide from my testing. So far I've found one in my immediate area, which is a site T-Mobile used to have a low 12/66 rack, and moved up to a higher Sprint rack (while adding n41 and the usual bands) within the last week. I've also found a few UL CA enabled sites along US-23 when I was going up to Ann Arbor today. Uploads peaked at 135mbps, which isn't exactly as fast as I had expected, but that's expected given I can't figure out how to enable 256QAM NR upload on my S24 (I could on my S21).

Are you finding the sites with high upload speeds (CA) are also 1Gps+ sites?

[cooltech6597]

Some are, the Sprint convert site with ul-ca maxes at 700mbps, so I don't believe all sites with ul-ca are multi-gig.

[iansltx]

On 3/12/2024 at 10:43 AM, jonathanm1978 said:

It would be great if firstnet didn't rely soley on AT&T towers to provide cellular service.. but B14 seems like it's already crowded.

SES has done n5 tests, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if AT&T eventually did B14 with them.

[PedroDaGr8]

Scattered reports over on Reddit that TMO has started deploying a third 10MHz n41 channel in select markets (bringing the BW up to 190MHz). Keep an eye out for it.

[iansltx]

On 3/19/2024 at 2:58 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

Scattered reports over on Reddit that TMO has started deploying a third 10MHz n41 channel in select markets (bringing the BW up to 190MHz). Keep an eye out for it.

Wait, third 10 MHz? All I'm seeing is people posting 100+90 MHz, which makes miles more sense, as n41 definitely has the 90 MHz channel width.

[dkyeager]

Seeing SA n41(100) + n71 ÷ n25 + NR_SLICE/PDU: eMBBFFFFFF/1 NR_SLICE/PDU: eMBBFFFFFF/2 + n41(80)

[PedroDaGr8]

On 3/23/2024 at 6:57 PM, iansltx said:

Wait, third 10 MHz? All I'm seeing is people posting 100+90 MHz, which makes miles more sense, as n41 definitely has the 90 MHz channel width.

Yes, the posts were for a 100MHz+80MHz+10MHz split. Here is one:
 

 

[Paynefanbro]

26 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Yes, the posts were for a 100MHz+80MHz+10MHz split. Here is one:
 

 

I'm confused. The screenshot in the post shows a 90MHz secondary carrier and a 20MHz n25 carrier, not a third 10MHz n41 carrier.

[PedroDaGr8]

40 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm confused. The screenshot in the post shows a 90MHz secondary carrier and a 20MHz n25 carrier, not a third 10MHz n41 carrier.

Yeah, ignore me. I apparently fail reading comprehension. 

[PedroDaGr8]

On a related note, I did some diving the through the FCC documents for the AEHC. I couldn't find any that indicated they validated it for NR100+NR90 (just NR100+NR50+LTE20+LTE20). This makes me think we will only see the NR100+NR90 channels in Ericsson markets. 

[iansltx]

6 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

On a related note, I did some diving the through the FCC documents for the AEHC. I couldn't find any that indicated they validated it for NR100+NR90 (just NR100+NR50+LTE20+LTE20). This makes me think we will only see the NR100+NR90 channels in Ericsson markets. 

100+80 works in Nokia markets though (e.g. here).