iansltx

Was in South Florida and the Keys until earlier this evening. Saw some sites with 100+50 MHz n41, with reasonable amounts of 10x10 n25...not contiguous, but enough to ensure consistent performance.

One big coverage hole: the Everglades. VZW had spots of coverage, including n77, but was a bit hit or miss. AT&T was a bit better, including my first sighting of 10x10 n2 DSS. T-Mobile should throw 600 MHz on whatever sites AT&T and VZW have because otherwise their customers will be sitting on Starlink once that finally launches.

13 hours ago, jonathanm1978 said:

That was my question too but I didn't want to fill up the comments with things that possibly have been discussed...Hopefully Tmo can just reapply for the authorizations without much hassle...

And then, I hope it's just a software upgrade for the current hardware on the tower and doesn't require a fresh climb to make use of it. Not sure what they are putting on towers nowadays.. 

Won't require another climb to use the extra spectrum.

Speed topped out at 113/28 or so on the n25 channel.

It's definitely not on every site, but in town there are enough sites including it to provide contiguous coverage at this point. Outside town, doesn't look like sites have it as much.

Now that my S22 can do n25 SA, I can 100% confirm that the top 10x10 of band 25 is deployed as NR here now. Have CellMappter turned on so maybe I'll be able to paint the map a bit today as I'm bouncing between downtown and further north.

Got the March security update this morning, which made me look in *#2263# again to see if they had enabled SA n25 finally. Sounds like it may have been an earlier carrier update, but either way I now have n25. Got it single-band locked now and might throw CellMapper on to track how many sites have it enabled in Austin. Only 10x10 here (PCS-G and adjacent 5x5) but low enough traffic I guess as I'm getting ~80 down ~22 up, so plenty enough for tethered connectivity.

6 hours ago, mdob07 said:

I've noticed that T-Mobile has changed their n2 and B25 LTE carriers in the past few days. Instead of just shrinking one and expanding the other they flipped them, the 15x15 that was B2 LTE is now n25, and the 10x10 n25 is now B2 LTE. Not sure why they did it that way since they have 30x30 to play with. They must be keeping some reserved for 3G still within Louisville and didn't want to shift that. I noticed once I get south of Jefferson county it shifts to 20x20 n25 and 10x10 B2 still flipped from previous configuration but with n25 expanded.

Impressive that they're already at 20x20 n25 when phone support is as spotty as it is tbh. Not that I'm complaining...

Additional math: VZW customers consumed on average 760 MB on Sunday, though my guess is that the number was actually lower because VZW probably had some non-fan macro traffic in there.

Wonder what the breakdown on customer count was between AT&T and T-Mobile. In order for AT&T to have used less data per person, T-Mobile market share would need to have been pretty small.

22 hours ago, Yuhfhrh said:

AT&T has already deployed DSS on large portions of their midband spectrum. You can access n2/n66/n30 in NSA on a lot of sites, but they still haven't let consumers on their SA core yet.

I would assume Verizon will follow the same path of DSS on midband eventually. T-Mobile has the luxury of having so much sub-2.5GHz spectrum that DSS isn't entirely necessary for them.

In San Antonio and Austin, VZW doesn't have 850, so they've been running n2 DSS for awhile now, though increasingly phones don't use it because n2 coverage is poor enough to be subsumed by C-Band.

I've seen AT&T n2 and n66 DSS here, but hadn't seen any n30. Can you point to proof of the latter? Seems like 2300 would be an ideal band to not bother with DSS and switch entirely over to NR, as it's only 10x10 anyway and there's plenty of spectrum below 2300 for phones to connect to.

Welp, TNX international roaming is still borked for me. I can get the low-speed roaming, but can't log into T-Mobile to get day/week passes, nor can I buy Sprint day passes. Which is all the more awkward because the TMB CSC on my S22 allows n78, so I can get EE 5G...throttled to a near standstill. The US Mobile eSIM I grabbed and the 3 physical SIM both use XAA so n78 isn't available.

Girlfriend's Pixel 7 seems to be getting 5G on 3 at least...

The Kendall/Kerr/Gillespie PCS swap is a very nice win-win for AT&T and T-Mobile. Means both of them will have a 20x20 PCS channel, though in exchange T-Mobile goes from 10x10 to 5x5 on one of their spectrum blocks. I figure AT&T will start running n2 DSS on that channel, as they have enough customers in those areas to need the capacity, while T-Mobile will probably just run B2 LTE, as once Auction 108 finally clears they'll have plenty of n41 to play with.

Guessing we'll see the non-G-block 5x5 slice running n25, but it would get aggregated with n71 rather than n41 I figure as n71 will remain 20x20 there until the STA goes away (and maybe after that, as if T-Mobile gets 700 MHz as the result of VZW buying West Central Wireless's spectrum there's no reason to run LTE in 600).

Which makes me think that the next move is T-Mobile trading 700A for the 5x5 of orphaned PCS (E block) to VZW once the WCW transaction closes, as that would give VZW 20x20 PCS in the area, and would give T-Mobile 700 MHz in an area where they have none. Then VZW can either trade 700B to T-Mobile as well in exchange for the AWS I block in those areas (gives T-Mobile 10x10 B12, gives VZW 15x15 B66) or they can cut a deal with AT&T to give AT&T 10x10 B12 (AT&T has the lower C block), but I'm not sure what that deal would be if trading like for like (vs. AT&T handing VZW their upper tiny slice of B5, giving VZW 15x15 to play with in that band post-WCW-acquisition).

EDIT: Just looked at AWS spectrum again, and if AT&T would rather have 10x10 B12 than 2x 10x10 AWS, they could swap AWS-D for VZW's 700B block. That would give VZW 20x20 AWS, and would take AT&T down to 10x10 + 5x5...which they'd likely be fine with as they have 20x20 PCS, small cells in the busy areas, and as a result of the transaction three 10x10 chunks of spectrum in the area below 1 GHz. And if VZW traded 700A to T-Mobile for PCS-E VZW would have 20x20 PCS as well. Which is quite useful in an area that's macro-only for VZW and likely not dense enough for proper mobile usage of CBRS or C-Band (and an area where VZW doesn't even run DSS now).

Yeah, $250 credit for an S22 is awful. tbf last year they didn't have solid upgrade credits until mid-late April, which is when I paid $225 to swap my S21 for an S22. Happy to wait 'til then for that kind of deal, though I'll be annoyed at battery life in the mean time.

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).

On 1/17/2023 at 2:02 PM, red_dog007 said:

If that sim comes to BM and BI, I wonder if there will be device restrictions or some such.

Where I am at, lacking n70 on your device is pretty big deal.  Dish does not own any n66 here and only 5x5 of n71. 

I am also assuming that Dish needs to do a second tower climb to add their 3.45GHz.  I have not seen any Dish sites get a second antenna added here yet.

I'd still likely give it a go on my Pixel 7.

Remember, they have n66 nationwide as 20 MHz SDL. 5 Mhz uplink is tight but they have n26 as well.

FWIW the iPhone 14 supports n70 so that takes care of a lot of the phone issue in one fell swoop.

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.

1 hour ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

So, I posted a while back about it appearing like the two n41 carriers in my area were overlapping

I now think that in some cases, the phone is actually posting totally wrong values for the ARFCN. I was looking at some screenshots I took of the 0011 menu while on a trip earlier this month. Two of them include ARFCN/BW combos which are 100% impossible. 

For example, this one: 



That NR ARFCN corresponds to center frequency of 2506.95 MHz with a BW of 100MHz. This would mean the n41 signal would range from 2456.95 MHz to 2556.95MHz. This is impossible because Band 41 only goes down to 2496 MHz. Not sure if this is a Qualcomm bug or a Samsung bug but it is very clearly in error. That or T-Mobile is violating loads of FCC regulations and the phone is totally ignoring an out-of-band signal at the same time.

Also, I don't know if this issue is limited to n41 or exists in other frequency bands as well but this is very unnerving either way. 

I've seen this on n41, and from what I can tell it's on the network side, not the phone side, as IIRC (I'll check this later) phones with Samsung (Pixel) and MTK (Moto) modems spit back the same info. The NR ARFCNs don't reflect center frequency, at least what's visible in debug modes that the phone displays. There's no way T-Mobile is transmitting out-of-band (if they were, they would be pushing more than 140 MHz).

I haven't seen this issue on any other band, including n77, so it's not an NR or TDD NR issue.

2 hours ago, mdob07 said:

 

Correct I did not have to factory reset or flash anything on either of my phones. I had to use my laptop to run the program to unlock the menu on the phone, and the rest was just following the procedure on what settings to change. 

Hmm, I'd still need to grab a Windows machine, which I won't be able to for the next few days, to run Odin.

Went ahad and added Network Pass to gf's Pixel 7 since IIRC that phone *can* do n25 OOTB

17 hours ago, mdob07 said:

If you don't want to wait for T-Mobile to enable it you can follow the instructions from the S22 thread here to enable it. That's how I'm able to get it on my S22 ultra right now. That also worked on my AT&T S22 and even unlocked the band selection menu, so *#2263# works on my AT&T phone now too. 

 

Am aware, but that would require a factory reset and a Windows machine, and I'd rather not do the former right now, and don't have a Windows machine with me for the next week. GF's Pixel 7 may support n25 out of the box anyway, so I may be able to test with hers.

Seeing n25 in both Fredericksburg, TX and Austin, though the former actually has more of it. Had to force it with my brother's Moto Edge 2022.

In Fredericksburg, it doesn't look like they're using PCS-G at all right now, as it's on a 5x5 island and it appears that Sprint sites have all been converted. B2 LTE is 15x15 in PCS-A, while n25 is 10x10 in PCS E-F. Coverage isn't contiguous, but it's available a pretty decent % of the time, though n41 is available more from what I can tell.

In Austin, T-Mobile has 5x5 adjacent to PCS-G so that's where the n25 carrier runs here (10x10). If the Edge 2022's field test mode is to be believed, there are significant gaps in n25 coverage in town, where n41 is effectively contiguous. I imagine this is because sites that aren't relatively new n71 builds don't have n25, and we have plenty of sites that have n41 and no n71. Not that we direly need the n25 layer here with 100+40 MHz n41 and 20x20 B2, but...it's a thing.

Looking forward to getting SA n25 on my S22 eventually to do further testing...

On 12/22/2022 at 1:04 PM, chamb said:

Same here on T-Mobile s-22.  Who knows why the n25 band SA mode is still not there.  I would love to know if Samsung or T-Mobile is the culprit when it comes to not allowing n25 SA.   Sometime I might buy a new phone and I would like to know if I should be buying something other than Samsung.   I am questioning if n25 SA and n41 SA are having issues with VONR. That might be  a good reason to delay implementation. 

My s22 will not connect to n41 SA unless n71 is also involved. Looks like n71 is needed for the VONR part.

I was seeing n41+n41 SA earlier, so it's definitely a thing, though lately my phone's been on NSA, 2/66+n41+n41.

Just got the December update on my unlocked S22. N25 NSA (and a few international NR bands) are now available. No n25 SA though.

Sounds like USCC is getting the better part of a mile out of mmW: https://twitter.com/KieranKentley/status/1604549717199040512?t=TqI6b3TGbnBxymguFwGTkw&s=19

If the minimum for UC branding on n25 (or n66) is 20x20, that's passable, though folks seems to be seeing 10-12 bits per Hz so hopefully they optimize things further. 40 MHz n41 is still a wider channel for downlink though, as TDD ratios are pretty aggressive in favor of downlink.

In Austin, AT&T has 15x15 of PCS, VZW has 15x15, and T-Mobile has 25x25 + 10x10, with the 10x10 including the G block. They don't have any AWS channels wider than 10 MHz so if T-Mobile wants to go hard on mid-band FD NR, the thing to do would be to stop running LTE on PCS, as the 10x10 includes the G block and 5x5 LTE channels aren't great. At that point they'd be down to 5x5 B12 and 10x10 + 10x10 + 5x5 B66 for LTE, which is sufficient for LTE fallback and NSA 5G.

Or they can run 15x15 + 10x10 n25 and leave 10x10 B2, which is what they had here until they started moving things around. Which is probably fine as we can run n41 at 190 MHz once B41 is gone, but don't slap a UC icon on it.

Calling n25 "Ultra Capacity" is...annoying, to say the least. It's worse than calling 40 MHz n77 5G+.

Particularly given that AT&T and VZW don't do this for n25/n66 that they have, which is comparable.

Like, PCS NR as an extra layer is great, but... 😐

So, I've now gone to a legacy Sprint store and talked with various agents on chat, and I keep getting redirected to scripts, with folks throwing solutions at the wall that I know won't work.

I have the Sprint Unlimited Plus business plan, which includes 1080p streaming (8 Mbps throttle). But since going TNX I've been throttled to 2.5 Mbps or less for video.

Who do I contact and how do I ask them to fix this? 'cuz it sounds like someone has gotten this fixed before?

https://www.westcentral.com/west-central-wireless

Effective the 30th, West Central will no longer sign customers up for mobile service or FWA. Sounds like Verizon wanted the spectrum WCW has badly enough that they were willing to pay for it, ignoring the double-handful of customers WCW still has (WCW doesn't have enough spectrum to deploy 5G on its own outside maybe n71 in some areas).

WCW has half of 850 in most of its territory, which is I'm sure why VZW bought in. They also have 10x10 B12 (which is why T-Mobile doesn't in that area), plus some small bits of PCS and AWS in some parts of their service area, plus some 2.5 and 600 in some places. My guess is that VZW will flip the 600, 700, and 2.5, probably to T-Mobile (or maybe AT&T for the 700).

This is notable because T-Mobile roams on WCW. The network isn't fast by any stretch these days, but it covers some areas that T-Mobile doesn't...yet. So T-Mobile will now need to overbuild those areas. On the upside, T-Mobile has plenty of 600 in those areas, and might also get 700...and you routinely see 200-300' towers so cell radii can be 8 miles.

There was a time when one of the companies WCW eventually bought was what I liked to call "Five Bar Wireless"...they had coverage where no one else did, either on TDMA or CDMA. There are still areas where they're the only one with service, though those are harder to find now.

My guess is that it's getting harder and harder to be a mobile provider with less than 100k customers. No economies of scale, rising expenses due to the expectation of 5G, and not enough spectrum to go hard on modern FWA. So best to take the money VZW will give you for the spectrum and sink that into FTTH (WCW is a division of a telephone co-op). Nice thing about FTTH is once the infrastructure is built in that rural of an area, no one will ever overbuild you. And you can build XGS-PON (or upgrade to it), which means FWA can't compete on speed even if they're using a full 200 MHz of C-Band. And you can even sell them backhaul for their mobile service.