iansltx

I believe I've seen the difference even when n41 was at 40 MHz, though it's been awhile since I checked that. My market is 100 and other places are 80 right now, vs. 2CA B41 (so 40 MHz).

In terms of X goes further than Y, I've seen this IRL on sites around here. Same equipment broadcasting both n41 and B41, with B41 usually at a higher frequency than n41. LTE is a less complex signal than NR, and chipsets are more mature, so it just goes further before dropping out. When the closest n41 site to me was ~1 mi away I could pull B41 from that site consistently, but to get anything near reliable n41 I'd have to get within 0.7 mi or so. It's less obvious at this point as n41 coverage is closer to contiguous, but I know for a fact that I was looking at B41 and n41 from the same site, same panels (though IIRC LTE gets broadcast from different M-MIMO antenna elements), and these are the perf characteristics I've seen. Note that the interference robustness issue shouldn't ever come into play as we're talking about licensed spectrum. Attenuation, sure, but fancier modulations require higher SNR to make work. Likewise, VZW n2 doesn't reach nearly as far as B2 here, though that may be a function of VZW not trying very hard to keep phones on DSS rather than plain LTE.

B41 goes further than n41, so my bet is that the site is broadcasting n41, just not loudly enough for your phone to hear it.

Last night I forced B25 downtown and got a T-Mobile carrier using only the G block, rather than the typical Sprint 10x10 carrier that showed up when I went a few blocks north (this was downtown Austin, 1st St bridge). Center frequency was offset 100 KHz vs. the usual G-only Sprint B25 installs. Got like 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up in the middle of a fireworks show when AT&T was basically dead, VZW was iffy, and deprio'd T-Mobile was hit or miss (I did too many speed tests and hit the 50 GB soft cap last night).

Just cycled through here and there's a Sprint Keep Site within range with 25+26+41. 25 is still 10x10, while 41 is the same 10 MHz at the top of the band that I saw at the airport on Friday night. Speeds aren't great, but signal isn't bad, so my guess is that they turned up the power on the site vs. where it was before (B26 is -101 RSRP and I know the site nearest me is gone). Will be downtown for fireworks tonight, so will see how networks perform. I have mmW-enabled VZW and AT&T SIMs to play with.

Just cycled through where I'm sitting...not near any keep sites...and 25/26 don't exist...locking to them but.ps me over to AT&T MFBI (why TMo isn't doing 2/25 MFBI here I don't know...maybe Nokia equipment can't do it?). TMo B41 is visible, but Sprint isn't. Two nights ago I saw 10 MHz Sprint B41 at the top of the band. Not sure whether that's live today.

Dish has base stations and antennas already set up for n26, and phones are starting to come out supporting that. Yes, it's a 5x5 patchwork, but it can basically provide an anchor for higher-frequency NR that augments n71, which in many places is only 5x5 on Dish.

So, there are definitely a few sites broadcasting in San Marcos and New Braunfels, but my M6 Pro wouldn't connect to them, and putting the SIM in my S22 just gave me AT&T LTE roaming. Pinged Project Genesis on Twitter to see if I can get some resolution on this.

7x7. So Dish will be able to run another 5x5 on it. Plus 5 MHz SDL on n29. Plus whatever they have on n71. Not a ton of low-band, but remember that Sprint didn't have low-band at all until they got 5x5 B26, and T-Mobile didn't until they got 5x5 B12, and then only in some areas. And Dish can in-market roam on TMo/AT&T B12/71 anyway.

Author kinda doesn't know what they're talking about, as they assumed their speeds were n71-only (it's like they half-read the PCMag article they cite). The speeds they're mentioning are 100% from n71 + n66 SDL, which also explains speeds dropping off a cliff when they walk indoors. In fact, Dish has some paired AWS-3 in Spokane, albeit just 5x5, so I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't bothered deploying that and are just doing 71 + n66 SDL (the former at 5x5). May head down to San Marcos and New Braunfels tonight to do some testing. I expect either n71-only or n71 + SDL, not sure which. n71 is 5x5 here as Dish has leased half of their 10x10 to T-Mobile. When that lease expires they'll be at 10x10, and they could get another 10 MHz FD (albeit not contiguous) from speculators if T-Mobile didn't outbid them. Will be interesting to see who buys what when.

25/26 are still on here, though the site historically nearest me has been decom'd. I did have to cycle to B26 and then B25 to get my phone to lock on, as going directly to B25 landed me on AT&T MFBI. Will be interesting to see how long 25/26 stay on; it's hard to connect to Sprint B41 here as there's plenty of T-Mobile B41 on n41 sites.

Got the hotspot, and got it set up (took a call in, but wasn't a big deal). Roaming data is a low-throughput mess without IPv6 connectivity, but it does work. Haven't gotten the hotspot somewhere with a decent DishNet signal so not sure how the native network performs in Albuquerque. Should know in the next few days. IP address while roaming was us-east-1, with the accompanying 200+ms latency penalty. Will be interesting to see whether the device starts roaming on T-Mobile as well now that the agreement includes in-market roaming on that side.

So my hotspot would've gotten delivered today, but Dish screwed up the delivery address. So now I'm waiting for a call back from them as they sort things out with FedEx. Hopefully they call soon enough that I can pick up at a FedEx location here or something, as I really want to play with it both here (Albuquerque) and in Denver, and then in San Marcos/New Braunfels.

I think there was talk of one, including tower leases. Don't think they do now though. With the TMo overbuild going on though, there may not be much of a need to actually roam on USCC.

More of a big deal for Dish, since now they have really good roaming agreements with everyone except Verizon, so once they get their network stuff set up they'll have the best coverage on cheap plans, so not a whole lot of reason not to use them. At which point Dish can build out a thin network layer for outdoor coverage (tight enough spacing for n70 outdoors) and take their sweet time on providing anything more than that due to cheap roaming. They can add sites based on really high roaming usage as needed, but they'll have a few years to do that, and they could add those sites as n48/77 small cells overlaying their macro grid in a surgical fashion, much as AT&T is adding n77 on their own network. Kinda brilliant for "build a network on a shoestring" use cases.

IIRC both topped out at 5x5 MHz, though 1.4x1.4 was more common. 5x5 was e.g. on MetroPCS in Dallas.

Spoke too soon. Card transaction went through, shipping to Albuquerque. Will be able to play with the hotspot in a little over a week ($20 unlimited FTW). Will check out coverage in one of the TX markets near me (probably San Marcos) the following week I think. Was thinking of getting the S22 but the Nighthawk M6 Pro fits my use case better, and if it's anything like my M1 I can telnet in and pull signal info over USB, so I'm not losing much vs. ServiceMode on the S22. Don't care about VoNR as it's probably garbage on DishNet anyway. I fully expect to get booted in November unless they have coverage in Austin by then, as I'll totally use this to run conference WiFi at a location that doesn't have particularly strong hard-line WiFi. But we shall see.

So, their online order form thing is broken-ish. Strips apartment numbers on addresses and doesn't let you add them in later. Trying to order to an apartment in Albuquerque and...maybe I can use Ye Olde View Source to get through because I really want that M6 Pro hotspot and $20 unlimited hotspot data but...we shall see.

Guessing n25 at 20x20 won't be here for another couple years, as our setup here is 25x25 + 10x10, with the latter including the G block. Betting we see at least 10x10 as of July 1 here though, maybe 2x 10x10 if TMo is willing to drop their B2 LTE carrier to 15x15 (otherwise they'd only have 5x5 to play with there). As they bleed LTE traffic off, guessing we'll see 15x15 n25 sometime in 2023, and 20x20 in 2024, though at that point they'll be at 5x5 B2. Which will mean they're leaning heavily on 2x 10x10 + 5x5 on AWS to handle heavier-duty LTE...which is probably fine. I do think we'll hit 100+90 MHz n41 here early next year though. Pointless without backhaul, but they have the spectrum for it here AFAIK.

AT&T doesn't have any tech that fits in 2.5x2.5, so nothing. n5 is already 10x10 here in areas where they don't have the entirety of 850. Guessing it'll happen where you are soon.

Fredericksburg now no longer has Sprint B41, it seems, and it looks like T-Mobile has n41 at 40 MHz (come on Auction 108!) on another site or two, allowing for n41 reception at my parents' place while outdoors (including NR CA of course, with 20x20 n71 for pretty decent speeds if you CA that way). LTE is 10x10 B71, 10x10 B2, 10x10 + 5x5 B66, as well as T-Mobile B41 at 2525 MHz in a spot or two. Saw nearly 400 Mbps on n41 + LTE on the way out of town eastbound. Sprint still has G block and another 5x5 in PCS A-F turned on; didn't try B26 but I'm sure it's still there, so Sprint still has 15x15 total to play with, though at this point all of that is 312-250. Further east I ran into Sprint B41 still live on 2626 MHz (no CA), clocking solid (~60 Mbps down, 7 Mbps up) speeds. T-Mobile B2 bumped up to 15x15 in the same general area (IIRC where Verizon has 850B so spectrum config is a little different than Fredericksburg), allowing for ~90 Mbps up on 20x20 n71 (~190 Mbps down). Entertainingly, I had to power cycle my phone to get off of West Central Wireless roaming as I got into T-Mobile territory west of Fredericksburg. Which I definitely wanted to do, as their 10x10 B12 was clocking single-digit Mbps, and it didn't seem like it was due to throttling. I had also seen HSPA/HSPA+ (actually saw both) on WCW on 850 MHz (Boost could actually pass calls and texts on it...the Celero's H+ reception isn't half bad), as well as EDGE (!). Even saw at least one site using WCW's lone 5x5 of AWS spectrum (1730-1735 MHz). Side note: T-Mobile should buy West Central Wireless. AT&T has basically completely overbuilt WCW (I roamed on AT&T more than I did WCW, to my chagrin as AT&T roaming is throttled to like 64 kbps), and all of the spectrum WCW has except 850 is complementary to T-Mobile's. TMo could trade the 850 licenses to AT&T for the other half of the PCS license WCW owns in the San Angelo area (going from 7.5x7.5 to 15x15), plus the bottom 10 MHz of AWS AT&T owns in the Concho RSA (which would bring T-Mobile to 20x20 in e.g. San Angelo). T-Mobile could even work out a swap such that they kept 5x5 of B5 long enough to get WCW subscribers off (say, 12/31/22), so AT&T could go from effectively 10x10 to 20x20, then go to the full 25x25 thereafter. No, it's not worth keeping 850 split to ensure Verizon gets some of it, given the amount of B13-only areas in that neck of the woods.

G block and B26 are live out here (near-ish London, TX), in addition to 5x5 B71 on what I believe is another site. Will know tonight what's live in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, but betting 2x 5x5 B25 and 20 MHz B41 is still live with how heavily TMo relies on keep sites there.

Posting this from AT&T n5 pretty close to the middle of nowhere; T-Mobile roams on West Central Wireless H+ (B12 doesn't make it here), though occasionally I can get Sprint B26. VZW is B13 only. AT&T has 10x10 n5 (H+ is gone). Plus 10x10 each of B66, B66, B2, B14, B30, plus 5x5 B12 and I think B2. Some sites around here only have 5x5 B30, and those sites also have neither NR nor B14. Saw in excess of 100 Mbps down at times on 50x50 5CA, including n5. T-Mobile roams on AT&T out here, albeit at like 64 kbps. Boost on T-Mobile roams on West Central H+ for voice and SMS only. Maybe WCW B12 too but it doesn't reach to where I've been for the past 24 hours.

AT&T only has 40 MHz deployed right now; 80 will require the S22 or better (3.45) and combo radios, and 120 has to wait until December 2023. They won't get 160...they have 40 MHz each of 3.7/3.8/3.45. Given timing, mmW will still be useful for AT&T, particularly given that iPhones can't use 3.45, and there are a handful of phones that can do mmW but not C-Band. AT&T does have 10x10 of WCS deployed in some areas; I've seen it even on some sites in the Austin area. It's just hit or miss. They use it for FWA too I believe, at 256QAM down 64QAM up. Haven't seen them deploy NR on it...yet. they don't seem to want to throw NR on anything less than 15x15 once they have the icon.

One more high score. Turns out, using a USB 3 cable rather than the one that came with my PH-1 unlocks full wired tethering speeds well in excess of a gigabit. Now, T-Mobile could totally do this on n41+n41+n71 3CA if they actually tried, and you wouldn't have to pick one specific street corner downtown to get it, but that's neither here nor there for this post. AT&T also has n66 DSS on downtown, so there's technically 30x30 of sub-6 live where I'm sitting on top of 800 MHz of 38 GHz. As a final note, and I do note this in the Twitter thread, Boost Mobile pretty obviously does *not* speed-cap its AT&T provisioned SIMs, tethered or on-phone. So they're excellent network test SIMs if you're judicious about how many mmW speed tests you do...and I'm not entirely sure why you'd get AT&T postpaid when this is an option unless your data usage is >35GB.