Azimuth

Firstly, a correction on my part..."the speeds are much more synchronous".

I used the term "fixed broadband" loosely because "fixed mobile broadband" didn't seem right.

Basically I don't roam cells like using a cellphone. I have a SIM card installed in my LTE CPE, with an outdoor directional antenna pointed at a specific base station I have LOS to.

To me it's fixed broadband and wholly replaced my ADSL service. I even cancelled my service with my telco and switched to a VoIP provider.

An an aside:

The tradition fixed broadband here has always been ADSL, very slow ADSL. You were lucky to get 10Mbps and this was very area specific. Now we're getting 20Mbps ADSL but one has to be super close to the telco exchange. Then there's 20-40Mbps VDSL but the same distance restriction applies or there needs to be an upgrade in your area.

Fiber has always been reserved for corporates but FTTH has finally become a reality here. It's still not a service I can use though because the operators want mass numbers, not a single house on a street.

LTE is the absolute best I can get right now. Luckily, I'm not a downloader so don't need much more than 20-30GB monthly.

Copper coaxial or hybriflex / hybrid cable which has fiber and power in one.

 

American carriers uses hybridflex to connect to remote radios units and the final connections from radio to antenna are coax jumpers.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I was first inspired by this GizModo article and thought it'd make an interesting topic on SA forums. So far the interest has been extremely low but that didn't stop me.

It's now become a 'thing' to photograph base stations and learn more about them - which ultimately led me to your forum.

If some people can do train spotting, why not 'tower spotting'?

If you have the market share info, you might want to reduce those operator subscriber numbers to just South Africa. I am a geography guy, but a lot of our members are not. They may see the 210 million and 51.5 million numbers and not realize that South Africa has a population of approximately 52 million.

 

AJ

Certainly can do that!

This was really interesting! I always wonder about stuff like this in other countries.

Hope you're staying clear of the Ebola outbreak!

All I can think of is Outbreak, the movie with Dustin Hoffman. Scary stuff!!

Is 2300Mhz TDD a subset of Band 41?

For interest:

2.3 GHz is also used by

- Rostelecom (WiMAX To LTE), Moscow

- Spectranet Limited, Nigeria

- Celcom (Axiata), Malaysia

- Osnova Telekom, Russia

- Nepal Telecom

- Asiaspace (WiMAX), Malaysia

- MTNL, New Delhi

- Bharti Airtel, New Delhi

- NBN Co, Australia

- TMP Uganda

- Blueline, South Africa.

Source: Poynting Direct - Facebook

I'm curious. Did you mean "hunters" or was it your intention for the title to say "nutters"?

Okay that makes sense. Short runs are coax, long runs are fiber.

After all, it's pure networking between the BTS and radios, right?

Thanks for the wealth of information, lilotimz! Out of interest, are you in the industry or is this also a hobby for you?

How does the cabling work? What sort of cabling are we talking here?

I work a fair bit with antennas and cabling on the consumer side so trying to relate to the carrier side.

Just how long does it take to be an antenna Jedi?

P.S. I could make out Powerwave branding only.

The "interesting to know what this is" looks like GPS.

It's an omni antenna of sorts?

The antennas didn't change because they can generally broadcast whatever technology you feed in to them. An antenna that broadcasts HSPA+ in 5800Mhz should also be able to broadcast LTE in 5800Mhz. I can't really comment on anything else, and I may be wrong about what I just said, but it's true from what I've read here. I hope this helps!

GSM antennas used for LTE? I kinda thought all along the elongated antennas were GSM, while the smaller ones were LTE.

I won't comment again on each photo since I can't add any value; I'll just post the lot here and we can discuss further.

Now that I've posted an intro to South African carriers, I'm comfortable to share some images of our base stations this side of planet Earth.  I'd really appreciate help identifying everything since our equipment is common.

Oh, this base station is located at a local school and serves a really large area.

This is my base station I have clear LOS to.  It's 1622m away.

What is what here?

All the sector antennas seem old yet this site was upgraded within the past year to 100Mbps LTE.

Again, not sure what antenna this is, or what belongs to who.  I suppose it'll be difficult for you guys too given the country difference.

MTN owns this site but also hosts Telkom Mobile equipment.  There is only one large BTS shelter from what I could see.

Interested to know what this is...

Close-up.  I hope the high resolution photo I took is in tact because I can read the writing on the original.

Cabling...

A lot of cabling...

Company that provided the cooling for the BTS shelter.

I realize my contributions won't be about Sprint or anything in the US market...so please feel free to move to a 'foreign' section.

Before I start any new threads or post further, I thought it might be interesting if I share what I know on my local carriers. Here we go...

The Big Four in South Africa

MTN (MTN Group reported 210 million subscribers in April 2014; big push into rest of Africa)

Vodacom (51.5 million subscribers reported in July 2013; owned by Vodafone UK)

Cell C (12.3 million subscribers reported in November 2013; "the underdog")

Telkom Mobile (1.6 million subscribers reported in September 2013; "new kids on the block")

LTE takes off

Telkom Mobile, previously "8ta", were the early adopters and conducted a very visible LTE trial during the period November 2012 - August 2013. MTN and Vodacom followed suit. From what I could see, they conducted closed trials. Cell C has yet to adopt LTE.

SA spectrum

- MTN operates their 3G and LTE networks in the 1800MHz band. They use FDD for LTE.

- Vodacom also operates the 1800MHz band, also using FDD for LTE.

- Telkom Mobile use 2100MHz for 3G and 2300MHz for LTE. They're the only carrier to use TDD.

- Cell C operates in the 2100MHz bands offering 2G and 3G only (as at August 2014)

Personal use of each carrier for LTE

Telkom Mobile uses TDD so get very high speeds; I've hit 73Mbps but have seen demos of 100Mbps; Uploads max out at 7-9Mbps; This is my voice provider.

MTN uses FDD and the speeds are much more synchronous; I've hit up to 50Mbps but have seen other users getting 71Mbps; Uploads max out at 21Mbps. This is my home fixed broadband provider.

Vodacom uses FDD and the speeds are a mixed bag yet performance is good; I've not seen many reports on LTE speeds but have personally hit around 16Mbps down and 9Mbps up, best case; I use this carrier for my iPad 4.

James, very pleased to "meet" you. Who would have thought that my joining here would open a door?

I'd love to help drive OpenSignal in South Africa. To date I've had limited success using your app and can never get *any* cell info for local base stations. All locations I've checked are way off.

Furthermore, the built-in speed test cannot even be compared to speedtest.net, yielding nonsensical results.

(I'm an iPhone user)

That is another topic for another thread. I switched to Ubnt from MikroTik and I've never looked back. MikroTik failed big time in my multi-site wireless deployment!

P.S. Thanks for the welcomes KD and digi.

For sure, was only joking.

Right so Imgur, or Photobucket?

Edit: I like the look of Imgur so giving it a shot. Thanks COZ!

Imgur, as far as I know, is one of the nasties that sheds photos.

Why must I resize? I'll have another reason for my 20Mbps upload.

I'll probably go with 640*480 forum wide? Is that okay to use here?

Who to use for DSLR images? I hate temporary image servers or ones that mess up your links (dead links across a forum are an eye sore). Is Photobucket still good?

LOL well said Admin. I forgot to add to my opening, #1 pet hate is animal cruelty. Pretty sure koji is just being odd though. (Thanks for the welcome koji)

Thank you COZ, JT and burn.

I'll be happy to start a new topic there if you want to leave my intro here?

It's one of the base stations I included on my Sunday shoot.

At the base station there's one large BTS shelter with the main operator identifier but they host a second, smaller operator.

This is why I need to learn more about the sector equipment, was pretty sure only two operators were on the tower. Come to think of it, I saw a strange meter named after another operator and wondered what that was all about...

I'll post the close-ups ASAP. Which section should I use?

Well maybe we could help share the love of Equipment identification. Powerwave is used here as well, as well as others. What frequencies is Wimax run on over there?

 

Just a heads up I know I've seen DSLR pictures, unedited, be very large, so if possible resize them to smaller size if large. Keeps mobile users from too much scrolling

While waiting for those photos, a quick post of my own LTE link:

Pictured:

- 1622m link distance (zoomed in with a 300mm lens)

- 100Mbps tower with TDD and FDD operator

- Cross-polarised dual element 9dBi MIMO LTE antenna

Not pictured:

- -77dBm RSRP after antenna installation

Of late I'm seeing bad download performance that is a fraction of my usual speeds while uploads remain unaffected. I've reported the base station so hope that things come right soon.