Noticing several things in hunting down the Dish 5g network:

1) I can not always do speed tests. I believe this is congestion. Tonight I had reasonable signal signal and it failed to start. I don't even try if my rsrp is -140. Never had any issues so far when a 1 mile or less to the site.

2) GPS is not always accurate. Can be off by a few blocks.

3) Most of the PCIs are sequential. (per site)

Boston cream pie

https://www.t-mobile.com/2023-annual-report

Most items s4gru members will be aware of, but an interesting read.

coupe d'afrique football

6 hours ago, Trip said:

I have my Dish phone locked to NR-only.  That keeps it on Dish and only occasionally will it see T-Mobile NR SA for brief periods before going to no service.

I also don't have mine band locked beyond that, except that I have some of the unused bands turned off just to try to reduce scan time.  Fortunately, my Dish phone is the one with the MediaTek chipset, so it has NR neighbor cells, and I can usually see n71, n70, n66, and sometimes n29 (market-dependent) through those regardless of which band it's connected to as primary.

- Trip

Yes! That does keep it from wandering off Dish and most importantly, reconnecting immediately (at least where there is n70). Thanks!

Excuse my rookie comments here, but after enabling *#73#, it seems that the rainbow sim V2? requires n70 (I turned it off along with n71 - was hoping to track n66) to be available else it switches to T-Mobile.  So this confirms my suspicion that you need to be close to a site to get on Dish.  Have no idea why they don't just use plmn.

To test, I put it into a s21 ultra, rebooted twice, came up on T-Mobile (no n70 on s21).  Tried to manually register on 313340, but it did not connect

(tried twice).

I am on factory unlocked firmware but used a s22 hack to get *#73# working.  Tried what you were suggesting with a T-Mobile sim partially installed, but that was very unstable with Dish ( I think they had figured that one out). 

[edit: and now I see Boost sent me a successful device swap notice which says I can now begin to use my new device.  Sigh.  Will try again later and wait for this message - too impatient.]

12 hours ago, Yuhfhrh said:

The manual network selection sounds like it isn't always scanning NR, hence Dish not showing up. Your easiest way to force Dish is going to be forcing the phone into NR-only mode (*#*#4636#*#* menu?), since rainbow sims don't support SA on T-Mobile.

In the conference call they had two question on additional spectrum. One was the 800 spectrum. They are not certain what will happen, thus have not really put it into their plans either way (sale or no sale). They do have a reserve level. Nationwide 800Mhz is seen as great for new technologies which I presume is IOT or 5g slices.  T-Mobile did not bite on use of their c-band or DOD.  mmWave rapidly approaching deadlines not mentioned at all.

FWA brushes on this as it deals with underutilized spectrum on a sector by sector basis.  They are willing to take more money to allow FWA to be mobile (think RV or camping). Unsure if this represents a higher priority, for example, FWA Mobile in RVs in Walmart parking lots working where mobile phones need all the capacity.

In terms of FWA capacity, their offload strategy is fiber through joint ventures where T-Mobile does the marketing, sales, and customer support while the fiber company does the network planning and installation.  50%-50% financial split not being consolidated into their books.

I think discussion of other spectrum would have diluted the fiber joint venture discussion. They do have a fund which one use is to purchase new spectrum. Sale of the 800Mhz would go into this. It should be noted that they continue to buy 2.5Ghz spectrum from schools etc to replace leases.

They will have a conference this fall  to update their overall strategies.

Other notes from the call are 75% of the phones on the network are 5g. About 85% of their sites have n41, n25, and n71, 90% 5g.  93% of traffic is on midband.  SA is also adding to their performance advantage, which they figure is still ahead of other carriers by two years.

It took two weeks to put the auction 108 spectrum to use at their existing sites. Mention was also made that their site spacing was designed for midrange thus no gaps in n41 coverage, while competitors was designed for lowband thus toggles back and forth for n77 also with its shorter range.

21 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile Delivers Industry-Leading Customer, Service Revenue and Profitability Growth in Q1 2024, and Raises 2024 Guidance

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-q1-2024-earnings

— — — — —

I find it funny that when they talk about their spectrum layers they're saying n71, n25, and n41. They're completely avoiding talking about mmWave.

"The company’s unique multi-layer approach to 5G, with dedicated standalone 5G deployed nationwide across 600MHz, 1.9GHz, and 2.5GHz delivers customers a consistently strong experience, with 85% of 5G traffic on sites with all three spectrum bands deployed."

Meanwhile they are very close to a construction deadline June 1 for 850Mhz of mmWave in most of Ohio covering 27500-28350Mhz expiring 6/8/2028. No reported sightings.  Buildout notice issue sent by FCC in March 5, 2024 https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/letterPdf/LetterPdfController?licId=4019733&letterVersionId=178&autoLetterId=13060705&letterCode=CR&radioServiceCode=UU&op=LetterPdf&licSide=Y&archive=null&letterTo=L  No specific permits seen in a quick check of Columbus.

They also have an additional 200Mhz covering at 24350-25450 Mhz and 24950-25050Mhz with no buildout date expiring 12/11/2029.

4 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Unable to confirm if it's really off but I noticed this morning that I'm no longer connecting to Band 41 on my home site. Switching my phone to LTE-only pretty much always put me on Band 41 since it was the least used band on T-Mobile's network. Now I'm only able to connect to Band 2/66. Not complaining because it means speeds are faster on LTE and maybe 150MHz n41 is around the corner.

Was true in my market. Likely means a higher percentage of 5g phones in your market.

Definite usage quirks in hunting down these sites with a rainbow sim in a s24 ultra. Fell into a hole yesterday so sent off to T-Mobile purgatory. Try my various techniques. No Dish. Get within binocular range of former Sprint colocation and can see Dish equipment. Try to manually set network and everybody but no Dish is listed.  Airplane mode, restart, turn on and off sim, still no Dish. Pull upto 200ft from site straight on with antenna.  Still no Dish. Get to manual network hunting again on phone, power off phone for two minutes. Finally see Dish in manual network selection and choose it. Great signal as expected.

I still think the 15 minute rule might work but lack patience. (With Sprint years ago, while roaming on AT&T, the phone would check for Sprint about every fifteen minutes. So at highway speed you could get to about the third Sprint site before roaming would end).

Using both cellmapper and signalcheck.net maps to hunt down these sites. Cellmapper response is almost immediate these days (was taking weeks many months ago).  Their idea of where a site can be is often many miles apart. Of course not the same dataset. Also different ideas as how to label a site, but sector details can match with enough data (mimo makes this hard with its many sectors).

Dish was using county spacing in a flat suburban area, but is now denser in a hilly richer suburban area.  Likely density of customers makes no difference as a poorer urban area with likely more Dish customers still has country spacing of sites.

Mike if you need more Dish data, I have been hunting down sites in western Columbus.  So far just n70 and n71 reporting although I CA all three.

Drove out into the country today.  Dish stuck to my phone like glue. At least -120 rsrp. Likely only good for phone calls (should have tested.) It then switched to T-Mobile.

Getting back on Dish was another issue. I am used to dragging out coverage so I expected a few miles, but had to drive at least 10 miles towards a Dish site. Airplane mode, which worked for Sprint, did nothing. Rebooting did nothing. Finally got it to change over about 2 miles from the site by manually setting the carrier to Dish then it had great reception. Sprint used to have a 15 minute timeout but I did not have the patience today. 

Previously I did a speed test on Dish out in the country at the edge of Dish coverage. My speeds were 2g variety.

Dish has really overclocked some of these sites. Seen rssp readings in the 50s. Would have called them boomer sites with Sprint but much  more common with Dish.

On 4/10/2024 at 8:12 AM, PythonFanPA said:

So....this will help Dish in Colorado to some small degree, I guess?   I gotta admit I kind of started just laughing after about 10-15 seconds of reading this:

 

https://ir.dish.com/news-releases/news-release-details/boost-mobile-and-deion-coach-prime-sanders-team-new-partnership

Gives them some entertaining store videos.

Finally got a rainbow sim after about a year of occassionally trying. N70, n71, and n66 working on byod s24 ultra.  Speed around 550Mbps down, 40 up during rush hour:

https://imgur.com/a/ENhnSI2

https://news.samsung.com/global/one-ui-6-1-brings-galaxy-ai-from-s24-series-to-even-more-galaxy-devices

So it will be missing the advanced photo editing.  Likely the same for the S21 series.

Google may be covering that for phones from Android 8 with 3GB of Ram, although they are reserving some functions just for Pixels.

Google is opening up its AI type editing features to "To use some features, you must have at least 3 GB RAM and Android 8.0 and up." Of course some features are reserved for Pixel phones. 

Wonder if this will cause Samsung to expand what the s21 can do in terms of AI in future firmware updates? 

Of course what we are really talking about is the data that they can capture from photos. Access to all your photos is required.

1 minute ago, mikejeep said:

Google Play has been slow at approving releases lately, but I did see it finally got cleared around 9:15 Eastern this morning.

Those seem like low duplicate numbers, that is good. Mine were worse but I also intentionally try to force behavior to trigger bad logs for testing purposes. If you run the "Clean up duplicate GCI" entry from the Logs > Clear menu, it will eliminate them.

Worked no problem.

Finally got latest update within the hour. Duplicate GCI updates: Most used s24 ultra: none. S21 ultra #1:  0.3%, s21 ultra #2: 0.1%.  Networks: T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T.

All have dual sims, but recently disabled second sim given scp issues.  All with latest firmware.

33 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I haven't really noticed any significant differences. I declined as much of the AI stuff as I could. 

Yes, I did not want to turn over all my photos either for AI

On 1/12/2024 at 4:21 AM, gr8nuguy said:

 

On 2/13/2024 at 8:10 AM, clbowens said:

 

On 1/12/2024 at 7:22 AM, Dkoellerwx said:

 

What do you all think of UI 6.1 on the S23?

3 hours ago, jreuschl said:

Wonder when we'll get OneUI 6.1

Seen press predictions of late April

2.1MB download for Google play system now available. Must go to about phone | software information and select it.  Same March 1st date.

Cruel Summer

Cool for the Summer

N41 coverage expansion likely related to auction 108 new licenses: the northern run from Columbus to Pittsburgh now shows n41 (except between Coshocton and Newcomerstown, around Tappan Lake, and Hopedale) on the T-Mobile coverage map. The northern run is 161,  37, 16, US 36, US 250, US 22 and is 2/3 divided highway.  It is a more picturesque alternate to I-70 and I-79.

If true, this would be a big change. I did not see this a month ago.  Even if just a plan, it is still good news for Home Internet in new rural areas.