Paynefanbro

Looks like T-Mobile added mmWave to Yankee Stadium: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-5g-swings-into-yankee-stadium

Cool find! Been there since 2018 according to Cellmapper. The only other time I've seen them leave up a temp site like this for a long period of time was when a nearby site is temporarily inoperable like the one in Red Hook Houses. That doesn't seem to be the case here and it's pretty much a GMO site at this point. My best guess is that T-Mobile wanted to put a site there to fill in coverage but because it's on LGA's grounds getting the actual permission to do so is extremely complex so they worked out a deal with the Port Authority to put up a COW in the meantime.

Recently came back from a vacation where I got to spend some time in Puerto Rico. I stayed around San Juan and Carolina 99% of the time. The network experience there is superb, similar to what I see here in NYC which was really surprising. I was seeing 100MHz of n41 almost everywhere I went giving me 400-500Mbps speeds and even when I dropped down to n71, speeds were pretty much always >100Mbps which was really impressive in my opinion. Even LTE performed well. My Verizon line roamed on Claro and was getting speeds in the 40-50Mbps range which would be considered fast nearly anywhere else if it weren't for the fact that T-Mobile is significantly faster than any of the local competition. Here are some speed tests. 20MHz of Band 41: — — — — — 100MHz n41:

Back with another update! This time I went to Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Sint Maarten. T-Mobile has a domestic network in Puerto Rico so I'll leave my thoughts on that for the PRVI thread. Since my previous update I've upgraded my plan to Magenta MAX to take advantage of the free 5GB of high speed international roaming among other perks. — — — — — Labadee, Haiti: Haiti has two networks, Digicel and Natcom. Digicel is well known throughout the Anglophone/Francophone Caribbean and the Netherlands Antilles. They have a presence in 27 Caribbean countries and Panama and they operate LTE networks in every single one. Natcom on the other hand was previously a state-owned telecom but in 2010 they privatized and are now 60/40 private-public with Vietnam's Viettel owning 60% of the company and the Haitian government owning 40%. Upon taking my phone off of airplane mode, my phone immediately connected to Digicel's network and here's the welcome text that I received: It seems that because Digicel's roaming agreement covers 27 Caribbean countries, T-Mobile has opted to provide a generic "Welcome to The Caribbean" message when you connect to their network. I was able to see Natcom's network via the network selector on my iPhone but I was unable to connect to it, indicating that T-Mobile doesn't have any sort of roaming agreement with them. Attempting to connect to it would cause me to lose signal completely. However I could see via ServiceMode that Natcom uses 10MHz of Band 12. Digicel's LTE network on the other hand consists of 20MHz of Band 3 and 10MHz of Band 5. Interestingly I noticed them use MFBI to broadcast Band 26 too. Here are some ServiceMode screenshots showing Band 3, 5, and 26. My phone never aggregated the two bands so speeds on Digicel's network in Haiti weren't impressive but they were more than enough to do any browsing or streaming you need. For a country with so many people and only two carriers, you'd think they'd be using more spectrum or have better performance on each carrier but that wasn't the case. Here are some speed tests. — — — — — Sint Maarten/Saint Martin: Sint Maarten is the complete opposite of Haiti in terms of the telecom landscape. While Haiti is a country about 10,000 sq mi in size with 11.4 million people and 2 carriers, Sint Maarten/Saint Martin is only about 34 sq mi with a population of 74,000 people and has 6 carriers and technically 7 networks. Because I arrived via cruise ship, on the ocean you can see every network operating on the island. Here's the network selector showing every network. The networks in Saint Martin are Dauphin Telecom (340 08), Orange Caraïbe (F-Orange), SFR Caraïbe (not listed), Chippie (340-03), and Digicel (Digicel/Digicel-StaySafe). In Sint Maarten there are two networks, Chippie (CHIPPIE/Flow) and Telcell (Telcell GSM). Here are some interesting factoids about their network situation and how it works with so many carriers. The island is small but very mountainous so coverage on one side can't reach the shores of the other side. All of the French operators with the exception of Digicel (Orange, SFR, Dauphin) offer free roaming in the Dutch part (Sint Maarten) through Telcell. Chippie uses their own partner network (same name, different PLMN) depending on which side you're on, and Telcell has free roaming on Dauphin Telecom. While I typically spend most of my time on the island in Saint Martin (the French side) this time I decided to stay in Sint Maarten (the Dutch side). Because we pulled into port from the north (the French side) my phone initially connected to Digicel's network indicating to me that they're the primary roaming provider for people visiting Saint Martin. Interestingly, they didn't use the normal Digicel PLMN but instead the Digicel-StaySafe PLMN (which I'm assuming was created for Covid awareness). I got another one of those generic "Welcome to the Caribbean" messages just like I did in Haiti. I was seeing 10MHz of Band 12 on Digicel and speeds were similar to what I was seeing in Haiti. When we finally docked in Sint Maarten just outside of the capital of Phillipsburg, my phone switched to Chippie and I got the following welcome text: I thought this was weird given that I wasn't in Curaçao but after some research I found out that Chippie was once operated by a company called UTC which was based out of Curacao. UTC operated the Chippie network throughout the Netherlands Antilles using a single 362-91 PLMN. As a result, they form a single network on all Dutch islands. This means that Chippie users can roam free in Curaçao, Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten and St. Martin. They refer to their combined network as "Chippieland". UTC was acquired by Liberty Latin America in 2019. This is the same company that runs Liberty Mobile in Puerto Rico and the USVI, BTC in the Bahamas, and Flow throughout the rest of the Caribbean. While all of UTC's operations in the Netherlands Antilles have been renamed to Flow, their mobile network is still called Chippie. Speeds on Chippie were pretty inconsistent due to the terrain of the country. Their LTE network primarily operates on 20MHz of Band 3 but looking at Cellmapper there are a few sites where they use Band 66 as well. Here are some sites I took pictures of in Sint Maarten:

Spotted a Link5G at Clinton and Grand.

T-Mobile forks over $3.5B for more 600 MHz spectrum https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-forks-over-35b-more-600-mhz-spectrum Between Auction 108, this purchase of 600MHz licenses, and Shentel selling their 2.5GHz licenses, it seems like a lot of things are lining up for T-Mobile this year.

Looks like T-Mobile just got an opportunity to expand n41 in Shentel-land https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/shentel-sell-its-25-ghz-spectrum-assets

They did just that. T-Mobile (to no one’s surprise) has the best 5G network https://rootmetrics.com/en-US/content/US-state-of-5G-1H-2022

My fastest LTE speed test ever. LAA small cell in Crown Heights. — — — — — Also saw this small cell in Downtown Brooklyn. Franchisee is Crown Castle NG but I didn't get a chance to pull over and test to see what carrier it is. All of the Crown Castle NG small cells around my house are T-Mobile's. Even if this one isn't T-Mobile, it's still good news because it means that Crown Castle has finally started 5G small cell deployments in the city. — — — — — Edit: Noticed earlier while in Chelsea that Sprint's PLMNs disappeared. Confirmed it's also gone in Crown Heights. Looks like the Sprint network has officially been shut down here. 😞

Anyone else noticing more dual eNB sites? A lot of the recent upgrades and new builds have I've spotted have Band 12/71 on the same eNB ID as Band 2/66 post-upgrade and are only getting a split for Band 41.

Seems like preparation for a nationwide VoNR launch.

If that's what they're doing then it's working lol. They had lower postpaid phone churn than Verizon for the first time ever.

With regard to that specific tweet, as someone who spent years living in a city that had trolleys and trolley buses, in my opinion overhead catenaries are a lot uglier and disruptive than those Link5Gs. That said, I think it would've made more sense to wire up existing street lights with free WiFi using the existing approved design for small cell as opposed to these. None of them are broadcasting anything besides WiFi anyway and the carriers have so many deals with franchisees that these Links are gonna be an afterthought for them. — — — — — I have been spotting Altec trucks working on light poles all throughout Crown Heights recently. They even lifted up a light pole a few doors down from my house and worked on it a few weeks ago. There aren't any franchisee requests on my block at all so maybe they're just running dark fiber for future use.

T‑Mobile Delivers Industry‑Leading Postpaid Service Revenue and Cash Flow Growth in Q2 2022 and Raises Guidance Across the Board https://www.t-mobile.com/news/press/t-mobile-delivers-q2-2022earnings

That’s one thing I’ll always commend Verizon for. They’re very quick to add new sites in areas that are rapidly developing. T-Mobile historically hasn’t been as proactive however I have seen across the river in North Jersey that T-Mobile has been doing a bunch of new builds in the past year. Hopefully that means they’ll start doing the same here in the city. I feel like for now though T-Mobile is focused on upgrading all of the Sprint keep sites and after those are integrated they’ll see about new builds where necessary. (fingers crossed)

UPDATES: T-Mobile is definitely using a new mini-antenna for Band 41/n41. I visited eNB 41048 again this morning and took pictures of the antennas for comparison. There are at least 2 new antennas. Also ran another speed test. Before: After: — — — — — Also here are some converted keep site locations confirmed: T-Mobile eNB 895027/895028 Location: 40.88564951832065, -73.90133384752056 T-Mobile eNB 875678 Location: 40.745381147041456, -73.87620296763178 Sprint eNB 900047 | T-Mobile eNB 895079 Location: 40.683859016488334, -73.87804129483136

They definitely upgraded the sites and there is definitely n41 present but I don't think they're using Ericsson 6449s. If they are, then they hid them on the roof away from the facade of the building. However, my best guess is that they've replaced the mini-antennas with one that's n41 capable and I just can't identify them. I think we'll need a second set of eyes to determine for sure. — — — — — You can see in this photo of eNB 42012 that they definitely replaced the older antennas and put new ones up if you compare it to StreetView from 2019. I can't tell if that middle antenna is an AIR32 or if it's something else. Here's the traditional macro side of the site the speeds I was getting from it. I had to move a decent distance away to get out of range of mmWave but still had LoS. — — — — — Same deal at eNB 41048. There were no visible n41 antennas. I think they replaced the mini-antennas on this one too but I could be wrong. The west-facing sector that has traditional macros has something covering them so you can't see if there's a 6449 there but the numbers don't lie. I was 100% seeing 100MHz n41 and a strong signal in FieldTestMode. This speed test is from right in front of the site: I was kinda in a rush today so I’ll pass again tomorrow to see if I can get a better view.

T-Mobile eNB 880571 is a Sprint conversion located at 40.714440769670546, -74.00645299485078 Link to landmark approval with more details here. The permit is listed as Job# M00556584 Filing# I1 in the DOB Public Portal just in case the link to the file breaks.

Looks like the national ranking was a shared win for AT&T and Verizon. I'd love to see them release a separate report showing data for 5G separately like how Ookla and OpenSignal do.

Was checking for permits for Sprint keep sites and noticed that Verizon eNB 84004 in Brooklyn Heights is getting C-band but using 8T8R JMA MX14FIT465-01 passive antennas instead of the Samsung Massive MIMO antennas they normally deploy according to the permits online. I remember seeing a site in Los Angeles in the Cellmapper subreddit where they did something similar. Sprint used the Nokia Massive MIMO antennas to deploy 5G on this site so I'm not sure why Verizon chose not to follow suit. Weird. https://a810-dobnow.nyc.gov/Publish/DocumentStage/PortalDownloadedDocuments/BROOKLYN/B00678468/I1/Supporting Documents/Landmark Approval_1dc135b1bd.pdf

T‑Mobile Dominates in New Report from Ookla https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-dominates-ookla-q2-2022-report

If no one gets to them by this weekend, I'll definitely try to check them out on Friday and get some pics.

Went to Staten Island to visit a whole bunch of non-collocated Sprint sites. Here's the route that I took: Since there aren't many T-Mobile Cellmapper users in Staten Island, the map isn't very up to date. A lot of the T-Mobile sites that are listed as 2/12/66 on Cellmapper have Band 41 and 71 now. It looks like T-Mobile's approach to site upgrades in Staten Island is different from the rest of the city. Most modernized T-Mobile sites in Staten Island are skipping out on the dual APXVAR18_43-C-NA20 antennas and going for a FFVV-65A-R2-V1 instead. I'm still seeing only 40MHz of n41 in Staten Island and 15MHz Band 41. Unfortunately spotting second carriers isn't easy on iPhones so I couldn't tell if there was a second NR or LTE carrier live. That said, n41 was giving me speeds of ~250-300Mbps on average throughout the borough with peaks around 390Mbps. While I wasn't testing Verizon, I did notice that they had C-band on the vast majority of their sites that I spotted. They also have virtually no mmWave deployed on any macros out there and I only saw one site with a CBRS antenna whereas in the other 4 boroughs CBRS and mmWave are a lot more common. AT&T looks like they haven't even started C-band deployment there at all which is odd considering how fast they've been moving everywhere else. — — — — — Of the nine Sprint sites I visited, only one was actually broadcasting the keep PLMN. Two were completely decommissioned (antennas removed), one still had antennas but was no longer broadcasting any Sprint signal from it at all, and two were fully converted. Sprint eNB 5753/8976 is broadcasting the keep PLMN Location: 40.63805968188845, -74.16188225922848 Sprint eNB 98501/5759 has been converted and is now T-Mobile eNB 876440 Location: 40.63232964181816, -74.13368964336959 Sprint eNB 75141 has been converted but it isn't live yet Location: 40.62939661971586, -74.07909837602293

Sprint eNB 73926 in Bed Stuy is broadcasting the keep PLMN Location: 40.68555589873271, -73.941627756675

Weird how they've already done all of the metro and state rankings for 1H 2022 but the national ranking is only on 2H 2021.