Verizon Small Cells(?) show on Cellmapper as DAS

[schmidtj]

Numerous antennas mostly atop utility poles have started popping up every few blocks along major roads here in North suburban Chicago. I asked one of the install crews who they were for and was told Verizon. Until only recently they didn’t show up on Cellmapper and now they show as Verizon DAS locations. 
Is this how small cells are identified or are they something else?

ATT has a similar looking site but it shows in Cellmapper as a normal cell site. 
 

Any insight appreciated. 
J

[radem]

https://www.crowncastle.com/communities/small-cell-information has a good write up on small cells, how they work and what they look like.  They will not show up on apps like cellmapper until they are turned on so that users can connect to them.  After that it requires someone running the app to connect to them before they get mapped.  That can be from a few days to months after they are installed.

[PedroDaGr8]

On 6/18/2023 at 9:47 AM, schmidtj said:

Numerous antennas mostly atop utility poles have started popping up every few blocks along major roads here in North suburban Chicago. I asked one of the install crews who they were for and was told Verizon. Until only recently they didn’t show up on Cellmapper and now they show as Verizon DAS locations. 
Is this how small cells are identified or are they something else?

ATT has a similar looking site but it shows in Cellmapper as a normal cell site. 
 

Any insight appreciated. 
J

Not all small scales are DAS setups. Pretty much all providers do a mix of single eNB per small-scale and DAS-type shared eNBs. As for CellMapper, the DAS identification you mention is triggered manually.

 

To do so:

1. Open CellMapper on PC 

2. Click on the tower which is a DAS

3. Click in 'Change tower type'.

4. Select DAS.

Doing this will split all of the sectors into individual "towers" with (DAS) appended to the end of the eNB. 

Another wrinkle tothis is that some DAS-type small-scale setups share sectors across multiple sites. Those cannot be handled by switching the tower to a DAS type. The best thing to do in that case is to make a note that the sectors are split across multiple sites and that it shouldn't be pinned. 

[schmidtj]

Thank you all. Educational as always. J