ingenium

It sure does, which makes me think they're having trouble keeping enough stock of B71/B41 equipment.

Or the permits didn't allow them to install the new equipment? And they have to wait for a revision or new permit to be approved for N71 and N41 equipment.

Depends on his rigid and slow the permitting agency is. I know in Berkeley, CA for example, is on the extreme end. The permits took years to be approved (and are quite detailed. Many many pages with engineering diagrams, structural diagrams, etc). I know of one site there that when it finally got B41 (late during the deployment, but the first site in Berkeley with it), the permit that was used still referenced Lightsquared / Ligado equipment. That's how long it took for the permit to go through. So I wouldn't be surprised if they had to wait a couple months for a permit in more normal areas.

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My only issue so far with the new Beta is that I had to disable the 5G lost/found chimes.  I don't know if it's the nature of the V60 or the T-Mobile 5G network, or just my local tower, but it so frequently goes in and out of 5G-NR at idle, even with a strong -70dBm signal, that the chimes were going off about 4-5 times per minute. 

Yeah, it drops the NR carrier whenever the connection goes idle. Unlike Sprint where they basically kept CA active all the time (at least on B41). It's behaving more like CA on other providers, where it engages when needed, and then is dropped when usage drops.

Possibly you can have a flag to not show the alert again until the PCC changes. And/or until a certain time has elapsed without the NR indicator coming back.

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Anyone know if the claims of a 3G H+ shutdown end of this year are true?

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I heard HSPA shutdown at the end of 2021, and GSM shutdown at the end of this year. GSM runs in the LTE guard bands, so isn't using spectrum. I was told that HSPA and GSM both run in a sort of minimalist mode, and only power on when a device requests it.

My assumption though is that they only have it on older sites. Any new sites definitely don't have it, and there's a chance rebuilt or recently upgraded sites also don't have it.

Before they can shut it down, they have to ensure that all their customers have VoLTE capable devices. With a lot of Sprint customers being moved to their network, that may be a problem/issue. Especially with 911 regulations, where people have to be able to make a voice call if they have data service (T-mobile I believe locked out B12 access on devices without VoLTE for this reason).

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Might save a tee tiny bit of battery life as the phone isn't scanning through unused frequencies.

That only happens when the phone loses service completely. Once connected to the network, the network will tell the phone when to scan, and what to scan (sends a list of earfcns), and the signal strength and quality is reported back to the network. This happens pretty frequently, especially as your signal gets weaker. It's how the tower knows where to handoff your phone to, and when.

 

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Can I purchase the one plus 8 and activate on sprint? 

I'm pretty sure you can't. I don't think Sprint has whitelisted it, even though it has CDMA. Or at least people were complaining about that when it launched. I'm almost certain I read about one person who bought it and couldn't activate it.

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I will roll in NR only mode and see what she picks up.

I don't believe any providers in the US (or anywhere really) have deployed NR SA. Everything is NSA still. I've seen some Network Signal Guru data from Ericsson test labs showing standalone, but no one is planning to deploy it until the end of the year at the earliest.

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I noticed on my phone that T-Mobile has reordered the band priority moving B41 from second to third. Previously it went B25->B41->B26; now it goes B25->B26->B41. This explains why I have been connecting to B26 a LOT more often than I used to. My guess is this is part of the preliminary steps to phase out B41. 

The band priority on the phone itself is just the scan order. So if it loses service, or comes out of airplane mode, it will scan the bands in that order. Once it's connected to the network, the phone has absolutely no say in which band it's on (other than reporting signal strength of neighbor cells back to the tower so the tower can decide where to put the phone). It's completely controlled by the network, and within a minute or less it will move you to where it wants you. All you can do is completely disable bands on the device if you want to avoid it.

 

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Yeah sounds like false advertising to me. Most people don't know they are not using 5G.

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It's tough to say whether it's internally malicious/misleading, or simply a limitation of Android. Android 10 is pretty limited with it's API for 5G. Android 11 is supposed to be better (maybe this will be fixed then?).

It's possible that Google was having trouble reliably detecting if an NR carrier was used (or maybe a modem limitation?), so they just looked for that flag instead. It might be something like the indicator has to be tied to the primary carrier, and they didn't have time to re-write and test the code to make it instead reflect information from an aggregated carrier. There also weren't many (any?) 5G capable devices when Android 10 was released, and there definitely weren't early enough in development to make big changes.

Is that the reason? Maybe, maybe not, but it's a plausible explanation. Or they just wanted to exaggerate coverage lol.

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So you got yours from Sprint? I have yet to see a NR connection even when it says 5G.

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One thing i just noticed today on my S20.  It shows the 5G icon but if data is otherwise unused / idle...NR is missing from the service menu screens.  Once I start passing traffic it will populate.  maybe that is the issue for you?

The 5G indicator doesn't indicate 5G on T-Mobile. It just means that you might be able to use 5G.

Right now, 5G is only "non standalone" (NSA). This means that LTE has to be the primary carrier, and then it CAN aggregate with NR if it's available, but doesn't have to. If the LTE connection you're using has the ability to aggregate an NR carrier, regardless of whether or not NR is connected or deployed, it shows 5G. That's all that the indicator means, that you can use 5G if it's been deployed. There may not be NR even deployed on that tower, but generally it means that at least one of the nearby towers has NR deployed.

The only way to reliably confirm it is engineering screens or NSG.

Standalone (SA) NR is supposed to begin deployment in December I heard, so hopefully the indicator will be a bit more useful then

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Looks like T-Mobile slowed down 5G deployment significantly in the past few months because of the merger. Only 1,600 sites upgraded in all of Q1 but they managed to do 62.5% of that amount in a single month post-merger.

They have a lot more small cells than I thought. Do they count every antenna on a DAS separately?

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hmmm, I like that idea. 

It works well. I also change cellmapper to log a data point every second instead of every 3 seconds (default), and I exempt it from battery optimization.

 

For the Tasker Bluetooth exit task, have it run the following command to exit cellmapper:

 

am broadcast -a "exitAppIntent" -n "cellmapper.net.cellmapper/.MyBroadcastReceiver

 

 

 

Until we get some new T-Mobile maps on this site, Cellmapper is going to be my source for tracking T-Mobile sites. It reminds me of Sprint's early days when I used to run Sensorly 24/7. The confirmed sites on the map are spot on here. 

T-mobile has a lot of cellmapper users. I'd say it's the most mapped carrier in the US. Sprint is #2. You really only need a few active people in an area to end up mapping it pretty well.

I have it configured to automatically launch and begin mapping when I connect to my car's Bluetooth. Then it exits when Bluetooth disconnects. Cellmapper has built in Intents for a graceful exit that you can use with Tasker.

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New T-Mobile is going to be a force to be reckoned with going forward. I don't think Verizon and AT&T realize it yet.

I think they know it, but there's not much that they can do other than densify heavily and deploy mmwave. Plus deploy DSS (which has overhead of ~10% I think). There's no other spectrum available, so they have no options. CBRS (3.5 GHz) won't be auctioned for a few years, so they can't depend on that. They're in a tough situation honestly, at least assuming new T-mobile actually deploys and mobile bandwidth usage keeps increasing.

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Started on Sprint in 2000.   I had come from a "Bag phone" on Ameritec Wireless.  (50 cents a minute)    My first phone on Sprint in 2000, a Samsung Dual Band Flip.   
Loved it but was bulky.    Had it 2 years and Sprint started given a newer thinner redesigned Samsung flip because the little wire in the earpiece would break from opening and closing the phone.     This is when Sprint was different and was a true pioneer.    
 Sch-3500,    Replaced by the Samsung Sch-n400  (Below in blue)
   
My favorite all time sprint phone:  the Sanyo 8200 Vision phone (2004)
Sanyo phones, at the time, were know to have the best antenna's for Sprint's network.     
 
 
 

Yup I had that Sanyo. I actually went through 2-3 of them.... The hinge kept breaking in the exact same spot, and Sprint would replace it.

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I've been with Sprint since 2002. I was in high school at a conference (where I saw Nextel for the first time as well...I was amazed at the distance on the "walkie talkies"), and another attendee there had Sprint. We needed to look something up on the internet, and he was able to use his phone for it (1x data, used the minutes from the plan). The revelation that I could have internet access anywhere meant that I just had to have it. I convinced my parents to switch to Sprint from CellOne (regional carrier, later acquired by Alltel I think), since Sprint had nation wide coverage (rare at the time) and I was going to college soon somewhere not local.

 

Been with Sprint since then. Those were the days when Sprint was the data king. If you wanted fast mobile data, Sprint was who you had. Until they rolled out their EVDO network (Sprint Vision I think?), SMS was a pain. It was entirely web based. So you'd get an SMS telling you that you had an SMS, and then select the link to load the web portal to view it and respond. The only nice thing about it was that I could text from my computer haha.

 

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All of T-Mobile's 5G phones have got the update to do this at this point. The 5G Mclaren got the capability back in February. Here are some screenshots from back then I have when it was first enabled. Ignore the missing information up top on NSG, this was a beta build.

Oh I didn't know that it got added. Good to know.

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While B71 cannot be the anchor band for N71, it can be aggregated with N71 by sharing the same antenna path in current T-Mobile 5G phones.

Which phones?

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I know you can't have B71 be the "anchor" band for 5G, but are you sure it can't get aggregated with the other LTE bands? according to what my phone was saying it was showing 5G as "connected" and i had 3xCA on LTE, the only bands around me are B66, B2, and B71. So that to me says i had 3xCA with those LTE bands plus N71 5G.

B71 can be aggregated only with B2 and/or B66. It cannot be aggregated with B12 or N71. B12 and N71 are the same, and can only be aggregated with B2 and/or B66. Current RF front ends on phones only support one low band carrier at a time, except the latest Sony phone I believe. So you'll never see B12+B71, B12+N71, B71+N71, or any other combination of those.

 

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RCS seems to not like this setup at all. Says "connecting......." in chat settings in Google Messages. Sucks! 

I've had that happen before. A reboot fixed it.

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yep, thats exactly same scenario. your phone is aggregating LTE B2 + B71 as well as 5G N71 from the same tower. just the LTE alone at 256QAM, 4x4 MIMO on B2, and 2x2 MIMO on B71 would get you to 346mbps on the LTE alone https://www.cellmapper.net/4G-speed

You cannot use B71 and N71 at the same time. It's one or the other. Just like you can't have B12+B71, you also can't have B71+N71 or B12+N71. Only one low band carrier (LTE or NR) can be used at a time. At least with all phones on the market besides the latest Sony Xperia I believe.

 

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I am amazed to hear that. For many months now I have setup my phone in the house with Airplane Mode turned on then I turn on WiFi.  Saves a ton of battery, and cellular in the house sucks, if it's there at all.  But until I got the GS20, I never noticed any issues with SMS/MMS. Admittedly, do much more SMS than MMS, but since even text to multiple parties goes as MMS, I'm sure I must have been doing previously on my S8 on Sprint.  So, is this unique to Sprint.  Will problem go away with Tmobile? Would RCS services solve the issue, or only if the other parties were also RCS?

It's always been that way on Sprint, though I've heard Textra could get around it somehow I think? No idea if other carriers do that as well.

RCS can use wifi for everything. But both people have to be using RCS.

You can probably enable developer settings and then disable "always on mobile data". With wifi calling set to wifi preferred, it *should* basically disconnect from the mobile network when not in use, and you shouldn't really notice any battery difference compared to airplane mode. Then if you need to send/receive a MMS, it'll quickly connect and do it, then disconnect.

Also, a bit too late now, but you should have just requested an Airave. Would have solved your low signal issue. Phone barely used any power idling on wifi with full service.

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Have a GS20. Called Sprint yesterday about my issues with MMS messages over WiFi calling - basically it doesn't work if only in WiFi reception area with no cellular.  Sprint thought a reprovisioning of Network services would clear up the problem. It didn't clear up problem, but now my phone is only getting TMobile bands.  I live far away from Sprint and TMo towers.  Sprint did give me a 1-2 bar signal on Band 25.  Now TMobile is give me 1-2 bar signal on B12 and B71.  But more significantly, It is not picking up the Airave that I have in the house - B41. Not quite the end of the world since I mostly rely on WiFi calling - go back to my origins of my call to Sprint  )  Definitely not getting any 5G signal. Not sure in the overall scheme of things if only getting TMo service instead of Sprint is a good thing or not.

MMS over wifi doesn't work on Android. Sprint's MMS servers are only accessible via mobile data unfortunately.

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My unlocked S20 is now connecting to T-Mobile Bands by default. Still says 5G but account to the debug screen I am not connect to any NR signal. So now I actually don't have 5G at home since before I could connect to a NR41 signal,. 
 
Not even connecting to B71, I am currently using CA with 66, 2 and 12.

N71 can't use b71 as the anchor band. It can only use B2 or B66. ENDC is only enabled on those bands, and whenever you're connected to them the device will say 5G even if you aren't connected to run NR carrier.

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I know I won’t ever have B71. It wasn’t supported until the XS as far as iPhones go. That wasn’t what I was trying to get at. I was just asking if there was going to be an OTA update that would prioritize the T-mobile network, and the LTE bands that they have. Just curious because the only news about updates going out have been about 5G devices previously released by Sprint. 

There is an OTA of sorts (you won't notice it, it would be like a PRL update in the background) that will eventually add T-mobile as a secondary home network on the SIM card. They can then set which network is preferred from the network side, without any software changes on your device. What we'll likely see happen is that T-mobile will be kept as secondary home on the SIM, with equal priority as Sprint. Then they'll gradually shut down or replace Sprint equipment. When that happens, new/replaced equipment will only broadcast a T-mobile signal. So Sprint's network will gradually disappear and be replaced with T-Mobile only. You'll start finding yourself on T-Mobile more and more frequently until you never see Sprint anymore.

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However, if I wasn't connected to NR, and I was actually on LTE, why wasn't the speed similar?  There was a distinctive difference.  Also, why could I only get the 5G icon when I had the radio on n41 and n71 and not other NR bands?  Is the ENDC only visible thru certain bands?
Robert

I'm not sure why there was a speed difference honestly. Possibly it was using NR?

I don't have an 5G phone to test with, but my guess is that the network might only report EN-DC if the UE supports the NR bands it asks about. When your phone connects to the network, the network asks if it's capable of bands x, y, z, etc. And the phone reports back which of those bands it supports, all CA combinations of those bands, 4x4 capabilities on those bands, etc. So if you had N41 and/or N71 disabled, the phone wouldn't report that it supports them, and the network would probably not advertise EN-DC.

Here's an example of a UE capability inquiry signaling message asking about LTE and NR


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