T-Mobile rejects Dish's play for its 800MHz spectrum

https://www.lightreading.com/5g-and-beyond/t-mobile-rejects-dishs-play-for-its-800mhz-spectrum/d/d-id/786272?

Quote

"Our position is explained in the filing: Dish's motion should be denied. They continue to tie up valuable 800MHz spectrum that they have not yet even committed to buy. Their hardship claim is a stalling tactic that is detrimental to putting this spectrum to use for consumers," T-Mobile wrote in a statement to Light Reading.

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T-Mobile argued that the companies' original 2019 agreement covering the possible sale of 800MHz from T-Mobile to Dish specifically prohibits the companies from delaying the deal over financial hardships.

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T-Mobile wrote that other companies are now interested in purchasing the spectrum.

"In fact, several potential auction participants have already expressed interest in purchasing the 800MHz spectrum licenses from T-Mobile," the company wrote. "Burns & McDonnell Engineering states that it has been 'planning for years' to purchase the spectrum if Dish does not buy it. Burns & McDonnell reports that it would 'leverage the nationwide spectrum for targeted community benefit enabling critical infrastructure operators like electric utilities to deploy wireless broadband networks.' The sooner the licenses are sold, the better."

Dish isn’t the only one interested in T-Mobile’s 800 MHz spectrum

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/dish-isnt-only-one-interested-t-mobiles-800-mhz-spectrum

Quote

Burns & McDonnell (B&M), a large engineering and consulting firm, is seeking permission to participate in the court proceeding where Dish is asking for more time to buy T-Mobile’s 800 MHz spectrum licenses

In a note for investors Thursday, NSR analyst Blair Levin said B&M is likely to be a stalking horse for a fragmented group of electric utilities who have spectrum needs. Electric utilities represent a large traditional client base for B&M.

NSR cites B&M’s petition saying it wants to participate in the 800 MHz proceeding as a buyer in an auction if the court denies the Dish extension request. In its filing, B&M asserts that these infrastructure operators are in an excellent position to aid in closing the digital divide with 5G and open radio access technologies.  

NYC barely has any DoD deployed but the jump to 80MHz on C-band has increased AT&T's performance significantly here. While they were at 40MHz I hovered in the 100-200Mbps range almost all the time. Occasionally I'd come across a site that gave me 400Mbps. With the increase to 80MHz, speeds have effectively doubled on AT&T citywide. Now most sites have performance well in line with T-Mobile and Verizon at around 350-450Mbps. They're still slower than the other two on average but the gap isn't nearly as wide. 

A bunch more gig+ sites. All of these sites I received 980-1.3Gbps on.

1. T-Mobile eNB 41049
   1. Located at 1087 Carroll St, Brooklyn, NY 11225
      (40.667658796370766, -73.95374354474157)
2. T-Mobile eNB 40134
   1. Located at 80 Hanson Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11217
      (40.68527685550247, -73.97444104502252)
3. T-Mobile eNB 41151
   1. Located at 77 Greenwich Ave, New York, NY 10014
      (40.73672993463041, -74.00145695280355)
4. T-Mobile eNB 310770
   1. Located at 17 E 84th St, New York, NY 10028
      (40.77991952641031, -73.96002308225343)
5. T-Mobile eNB 51834
   1. Located at 200 W 14th St, New York, NY 10011
      (40.73853707658754, -74.00009990838936)
6. T-Mobile eNB 49157
   1. Located at 9201 Flatlands Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11236
      (40.64133977316714, -73.90469983135205)
7.  T-Mobile eNB 56030
   1. Located at 1149 Putnam Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11221
      (40.689799813485784, -73.91743043696097)
8. T-Mobile eNB 44201
   1. Located at 1028 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11221
      (40.69099137713572, -73.92141905647789)

1 hour ago, jreuschl said:

Problem is T-Mobile brags about being the fastest overall in 5G, yet the speeds being posted after Verizon has uncapped N77 are pretty incredible. There was a 2.3gbps test on r/cellmapper on 140MHz N77.

They'll lose that title quick. I'm not saying anyone needs even 700mbps.

I think it's important to remember that we're in a honeymoon period for Verizon's C-band network so we're gonna see a ton of gigabit speed tests since people are running around testing every site to post the fastest speeds they can find. The reality though is that the vast majority of sites are nowhere near that fast, just as it is on T-Mobile. I have plenty of gigabit speed tests on T-Mobile myself. I just don't feel the need to upload each one I get.

That said I think we'll see a lot more backhaul increases on T-Mobile in the coming months. It's in their best interest to keep up the perception of being America's largest and fastest 5G network. In NYC I've encountered a lot of sites that received backhaul upgrades in the past few months so the work is definitely being done. You can even see it in the screenshot that the number of gigabit speed tests is increasing in recent months.

12 minutes ago, the_intern said:

On the topic of backhaul, I was talking to a T-Mobile tech at a local site recently. He claimed that the site has 10Gbps transport, even though my speeds are generally always between 700-800 Mbps only. He mentioned that most(?) T-Mobile sites place a limit on individual UE throughput below what is theoretically possible. To test this, I took a family members phone and ran two speedtests at the same time. Sure enough, both of our devices got ~700 Mbps simultaneously. Could whatever they are doing be why we generally assume that T-Mobile still has 'limited' backhaul on most sites? 

That's really enlightening. I've always said that it felt like T-Mobile was trying to maintain a baseline in my neighborhood of 500/100 at all times of day. So far that has held up despite 5G usage increasing a ton since my site first got upgraded. There are even some TMHI customers nearby that I can see when I scan for WiFi.

I wonder what's different about those sites where you can easily pull upward of 1Gbps? Just this morning I connected to a site here in NYC that gave me 1.1Gbps down and 140Mbps up.

On 8/1/2023 at 6:03 PM, T-MoblieUser207 said:

I took the LIRR from Jamaica to East New York Saturday, and there was no T-Mobile LTE in it then, only Verizon, and the eNB was found Friday. It's possible they turned on the Atlantic to Nostrand Avenue section only for now.

Looks like you and another user mapped a new eNB 435763 right by East New York Ave station at the end of July. There's even two PCS cells mapped, Cell 11 is near Atlantic Ave and Dewey Place where the line goes under Atlantic, and Cell 12 is right by the East New York Ave stop. So it seems like the tunnel DAS is active from the Barclays Center to East New York Ave.

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Three more keep sites:

1. Sprint eNB 5888 -> T-Mobile eNB 894509
   1. Located at (40.626123308302006, -73.93491164383306)
   2. This site was converted but not live for a while.
   3. T-Mobile eNB 41387 got decommissioned in favor of this new Sprint conversion, likely because the new site is on a much taller building and provides significantly better coverage in the area.
       
2. Sprint eNB 7068/7069 -> T-Mobile eNB 875919
   1. Located at (40.777295261569435, -73.96188129012455)
       
3. Sprint eNB 79419-> T-Mobile eNB 310769
   1. Located at: (40.77597793649145, -73.96063612433635)
   2. What makes this site stand out is that it's one of those mini-macros like the Grimaldi's site in Dumbo. It’s the first conversion I’ve seen with those kind of antennas.
       
4. Sprint eNB 73984 -> T-Mobile eNB 347835
   1. Located at: (40.66576415487458, -73.80671119247368)
   2. T-Mobile eNB 56209/56759 got decommissioned in favor of this Sprint conversion. This eNB was on the building next door to the new site.

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T-Mobile eNB 128752-2/12 (small cell) is also broadcasting n41. I'm getting those characteristic 500Mbps speeds and super low ping. This time it was 11ms.

Verizon has been littering Staten Island with these mmWave small cells. I even saw some Altec workers installing one today. Rather than deploying them borough-wide, it seems like they're deploying them in hyperlocal areas. It's as if they target a specific neighborhood and then deploy dozens of them.

I also noticed that all of the Verizon installed nodes in Staten Island are mmWave only. The Extenet-installed small cells in the outer boroughs all have an LTE antenna on top at the very least and on rare occasion they'll install Samsung mmWave radios too. I wonder why they're opting to just do mmWave and not both?

Here are two pics I took today. It's like they're just slapping three antennas on a pole and calling it a day. Notably, there's no box on the side of the pole housing radio equipment like the cantenna sites in the other boroughs. Just a power meter and some labels.

5 hours ago, iansltx said:

IIRC it's 40 MHz, not 60, of n77, at least in the markets I checked when the C-Band auction concluded.

Still, that's a slice of spectrum wide enough to put T-Mobile at ~220 MHz of midband in those markets, and means VZW would have at most 160 MHz in the same markets. To your point, TMo will be fine.

I should've clarified that I was referring to C-band+DoD. They average 40MHz of C-band covering 220 million people but they also have 20MHz of DoD covering 184 million people.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-extends-5g-leadership-in-auction-110

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-further-solidifies-5g-leadership-position-with-successful-c-band-auction

2 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Given what's happening with Verizon now, T-Mobile needs to keep ahead of the game with spectrum:

https://totaltele.com/verizon-gains-full-access-to-c-band-after-satellite-exodus/

Verizon had initially deployed 60MHz of C-band spectrum across 46 markets in 2022, a total that slowly expanded as the satellite operators gradually migrated away from the C-band. Now, full access to the company’s C-band holdings means the operator can provide a minimum of 140MHz of spectrum across the contiguous US, with an average of 161MHz.

In 158 markets in the US ­­– covering almost 40 million people – customers will have access to the full 200MHz of spectrum.

This could be reflected in the upcoming rankings, etc.

After they’re granted their Auction 108 winnings T-Mobile will have ~180MHz of n41 on average nationwide. They also have a further 60MHz of n77 that covers nearly 200 million people that they plan to start deploying later this year through next year. I think they’ll be fine. 
 

Not to mention the massive coverage gap between them and the other two and neither Verizon nor AT&T have forecasted when they’re gonna hit 300 million POPs with midband. 

AT&T's jump to 80MHz has made them significantly more competitive with Verizon and T-Mobile citywide. I didn't realize how much they were being held back by their lack of midband. Before the clearing my fastest speed on their network was about 440Mbps with average speeds around 120Mbps. Now average speeds are in the 350-450Mbps range and peak speeds are over 700Mbps. I don't know if they massively increased backhaul alongside expanding C-band but kudos to AT&T nonetheless!

12 hours ago, iansltx said:

So, AT&T isn't allowed to have more than 40 MHz of 3.45: https://www.comm-law.com/fcc-adopts-345-ghz-service-rules

I recalled this being the case but didn't know if I was misremembering. If T-Mobile is able to get it's hands on enough DoD spectrum to have 40MHz throughout much of rural America, that would make them super competitive in areas where Verizon has 200MHz of C-band. Especially since after T-Mobile receives its spectrum from Auction 110, they'll have nearly the entirety of BRS/EBS in much of rural America.

A sale of U.S. Cellular is pretty much a spectrum sale for the Big 3.

Best case scenario, T-Mobile buys them and sells off all of their Band 5 AT&T and Verizon, and the towers to whoever wants it. Worst case, AT&T buys them and keeps pretty much all of their spectrum, only selling off 600MHz to T-Mobile. If Dish were in a better financial position I would have loved to see them buyout U.S. Cellular and have an immediate presence in rural areas. Maybe U.S. Cellular can hold out until Dish gets its house in order.

That said, given U.S. Cellular's size as the last "big" regional carrier I don't think regulators will be happy to see Verizon take over them without significant concessions or see T-Mobile take them over given they got away with a massive merger with Sprint just 3 years ago. AT&T would likely face the least pushback.

I also mapped a new AT&T eNB 112900 on July 20th and didn't know what it was so I left it unconfirmed. The cell numbers gave away that it was some sort of picocell on indoor DAS but I didn't know what for.

Given what you guys have said it's probably their LIRR tunnel DAS. It's located right where the line goes under Atlantic Ave headed toward East New York station. Seems that both AT&T and T-Mobile went live recently.

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Also no idea if it's all 889xxx small cells in Long Island City but eNB 889940-1/11 is definitely broadcasting standalone n41. Got 519/98 with a 16ms ping while right next to it. Well in line with the performance of the small cells I saw in Downtown Brooklyn. This small cell first went live December 2022. It also had fantastic range too thanks to the omnidirectional antenna on top, though I have seen small cells without an omni-antenna have great range too like eNB ID 134824-6/16.

— — — — — 

C-band got widened to 80MHz on AT&T.

— — — — —

Also mapped a new oDAS node at Atlantic and 3rd Ave, eNB 478115-1/11. Probably has n41 and fills in a weak spot in coverage.

39 minutes ago, AirlineFlyer said:

Did T-Moible finally get its DAS system turned up in the LIRR tunnels? It has been literally years behind Verizon in getting this done and I've been pestering the NY Engineering & Ops director about it. It was supposed to go online in 2020, then 2021, then November 2022, then March 2023, then April, and last week he said finally it would be online end of this week. Can anyone confirm that its online through the whole tunnel?

Sounds like you nailed it. The coverage pattern on Cellmapper make its look like the signal is definitely coming from the tunnel that runs underneath Atlantic.

I mapped a new eNB 345042 in Brooklyn. I thought it was a new macro given that Band 12 got mapped but there are no permits for any new sites or Sprint conversions in the area. Maybe a new DAS at the Nostrand Avenue LIRR station?

14 hours ago, T-MoblieUser207 said:

Excellent news, I wonder if it was a remote update or someone climbed the pole and added equipment recently.

 

From what I've seen in some Ericsson PDFs the currently installed 22xx radios support LTE (FDD+TDD) and LAA alongside 5G via software update but I'm not certain what bandwidth on NR. The 44xx radios on the other hand support up to 6 LTE carriers (FDD+TDD) and up to 100MHz on NR but they don't support LAA.

In a previous post you mentioned that you saw 120MHz n41 on a small cell which makes me wonder how they managed to do that given the bandwidth constraints of the currently installed antennas. The small cells are also broadcasting LAA as far as I can tell.

What that makes me think is that T-Mobile is potentially installing the Dual Radio variant of their Ericsson Micro Radios, the same one you see on those new strand mounts they've been installing in New Jersey, maybe with a single 44xx and a single 22xx. Doing so would allow them to simultaneously run Band 2/n25, Band/n66, LAA, and n41 at 120MHz (I think). 

There's a user on the Cellmapper Reddit who seems to be a tower/small cell tech here in NYC and he mentioned a while back that he hadn't seen any of the designs for the new T-Mobile 5G nodes yet. Hopefully he'll be able to provide some insight in the future.

T‑Mobile Delivers Industry‑Leading Growth in Customers and Profitability in Q2 2023, Raises 2023 Guidance Again

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/business/t-mobile-q2-2023-earnings

On 7/7/2023 at 5:53 PM, Paynefanbro said:

Caught workers on this site. It's still not live but it looked like they're doing their finishing touches.

This site is live now:

Sprint eNB 6786 -> T-Mobile eNB 446333
Location: 40.64708295826081, -73.97986782685851

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T-Mobile eNB 344423 is a gig+ site.

— — — — —

600MHz LTE is still live in Staten Island. Connected to it while in Red Hook and while driving along the Belt Parkway recently. 

1 hour ago, mirskyc said:

I just noticed N71 is 15MHz and B71 doesn't exist anymore.

I recall B71 being 10 MHz and N71 being 5MHZ. Then I thought they swapped to B71 5MHz and N71 10MHz. Then they leased spectrum from Dish and this allowed N71 to be bumped up to 15MHz but I thought B71 was stil broadcasting. 

Nope, no more Band 71 in NYC. It still exists in Long Island though. I connected to it in Great Neck last week. 

2 minutes ago, swintec said:

yea but which devices support this now?

Phones with an x70 modem like the Samsung Galaxy S23.

On 7/25/2023 at 9:31 AM, mirskyc said:

Interesting that this site actually relied on microwave backhaul, which is now also removed, from a near by Sprint site at 23-35 Broadway. T-Mobile was also located there. I wonder if they had fiber installed on the keep site

Virtually all of the recent Sprint conversions I've found have multi-gig fiber backhaul. I think that's gonna be the norm for their sites going forward.

On 7/24/2023 at 11:18 PM, Paynefanbro said:

gNB 1347372 fits the bill. Each cell pretty matches up with an existing oDAS node in Downtown Brooklyn.

Cell 301 -> eNB 134687 Cell 1/11
Cell 303 -> eNB 134687 Cell 3/13
Cell 306 -> eNB 134688 Cell 6/16 (Importantly this small cell and the corresponding gNB were spotted two days apart confirming that they're the same site)

Following up on this, a bunch of small cells definitely have n41. I just visited some in Brooklyn Heights/Dumbo and all of them had n41 broadcasting from them. 

1. eNB 134685-3 is a small cell across the street from the 130 Furman St. Got -65dbm SA n41 signal while next to it.
   
   
   
    
2. eNB 134686-6 is a small cell at the intersection of Hicks and McKenney, right by the southbound entrance to the BQE in Brooklyn Heights. I got -72dbm signal on SA n41 and look at how low that ping is.
   
   
    
3. eNB 134687-1 in Brooklyn Heights is a small cell near the intersection of Henry St and Poplar St. The nearest macro with n41 in this area is the site on top of Grimaldi's and this specific area is at the edge of the range of that cell so signal should be weak. Instead I had -75dbm signal and great speeds.
   
   
    
4. eNB 134687-3 at Pearl St and High St in Downtown Brooklyn.
   
   
   
   

8 hours ago, T-MoblieUser207 said:

Speaking of small cells, I think T-Mobile has already added n41 to some of the newest ones. I have realized I picked up decent n41 signal in places where there is no macro, only to find service mode saying 100+20 instead of the 100+40 which the macros currently have. Any gNB that has 304-306 for their cell number, or 301-303 but all macros are located already seems to have a polygon that matches the coverage area of the nearby LTE small cell. 301 or 304 matches Cell 1 or 4 for B66; 302 or 305 for Cell 2 or 5; 303 or 306 for Cell 3 or 6. Some small cells have their own gNB, some are shared. I haven't located any yet as I want to find more data across the city confirming it first.

Nice catch!

gNB 1347372 fits the bill. Each cell pretty matches up with an existing oDAS node in Downtown Brooklyn.

Cell 301 -> eNB 134687 Cell 1/11
Cell 303 -> eNB 134687 Cell 3/13
Cell 306 -> eNB 134688 Cell 6/16 (Importantly this small cell and the corresponding gNB were spotted two days apart confirming that they're the same site)

I believe that 347812-6 that I mapped in Brooklyn Heights may have n41 too. I reported really fast speeds and strong n41 signal next to it earlier this year but at the time I chalked it up to a nearby macro just performing really well. Maybe I was wrong about that. 

I'll have to check all of them out. This is big news!

Sprint eNB Unknown -> T-Mobile eNB 894878
Located at 40.88814659211605, -73.9045439608868.
Site address is 3840 Greystone Ave, Bronx, NY 10463

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Filled out a bit more of Flatlands/Old Mill Basin on Cellmapper

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I'm also mapping a bunch of new T-Mobile small cells every time I go out. Unfortunately none are the newer 5G nodes. It seems like right now Crown Castle is still fulfilling some sort of existing contract to build out small cells that were first submitted as far back as 2017. I get the feeling that T-Mobile is still trying to figure out what their 5G small cell strategy is gonna look like here. It'll certainly include midband but they might want to deploy mmWave as well since they could feasibly deploy both with the new design.

T‑Mobile Takes the Limelight in Latest Industry Expert Report