wispiANt

8 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

T-Mobile did two news releases today.

1. T‑Mobile Has Most Reliable 5G Network (Again) According to New Report

   1. T-Mobile has been found to have the fastest, largest, and most reliable 5G network in the U.S. according to umlaut. Although I don't disagree with the results, I still think we should take it with a grain of salt since it was commissioned by T-Mobile and it doesn't look like they covered a very large area.

2. A 5G Build Update! And a Look Toward the Future of 5G

   1. T-Mobile now covers 165 million POPs with Ultra-Capacity 5G and 305 million POPs with Nationwide 5G.

   2. Neville also went to brag about how they fully expect to maintain their spectrum lead well into the future.

      1. T-Mobile will average 100MHz of mid-band nationwide by year-end covering 200 million people for a total of for 60 billion MHz pops. This is compared to Verizon who plans to cover 100 million people next year and use 60 MHz of C-band to get 6 billion MHz pops. That same math for AT&T with their 40MHz of C-band is 4 billion MHz pops.

      2. In 2023 when the rest of the C-band spectrum becomes available T-Mobile is targeting 300 million people covered with 200MHz of mid-band for 60 billion MHz pops. Verizon says they’ll cover 200 million people with 160MHz, bringing them to 32 billion MHz pops. And AT&T will cover 200 million people with 80MHz of C-band, they’ll be at 16 billion MHz pops. 

Also here's an updated (though still low res) map:

You can get a higher resolution map if you remove the dimensions from the url. Link.

14 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

Despite the chorus of complaints and the (now weekly) Reddit thread stating that T-Mobile is getting worse and how everything has gone downhill I'm still spotting more and more n41 and still getting super fast speeds.

I took this test at a red light in midtown around 42nd St and Second Ave this afternoon.

These threads are a joke. 28 upvotes on a comment that says "NYC and east of the city seem to be on a steady decline the past couple of months". Uh, would you like to specify where? There's only 5K+ sites in that area.

That's not to say that I haven't been seeing some slow speeds. For example, I stepped out of the subway into Union Sq Park the other day and was only able to pull ~2Mb/s on n41. Or congested (but still usable) service on some LTE-only macros in certain areas of Harlem. Or some congested LTE oDAS nodes in Williamsburg. But this happens on a block by block basis.

On the other hand, more often than not I'm pulling 300+ Mb/s. I rounded the corner at Union Sq and was immediately able to to pull a 400Mb/s speedtest. My average speed at home has gone from 200Mb/s two months ago to hovering around 300Mb/s. Etc, etc, etc.

Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but it looks like some B48 deployments were mapped in the Bronx back in April/May. eNBs 146589 & 146586 on CellMapper.

12 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I'm curious about how T-Mobile plans on bringing n41 or n71 to Dumbo considering the two sites (eNB 41051 and eNB 42102) that cover theneighborhood are both using those extremely small antennas like we've seen in some other parts of the city. With their current setup, virtually all 5G in the neighborhood is coming from sites across the river in Manhattan. Speeds and signal are fine outdoors but quickly deteriorate indoors because of this.

I'm hoping that the Sprint site at the intersection of York St and Jay St is converted into a T-Mobile site. The increase in power would mean a large improvement in coverage for the neighborhood over eNB 42102 and could even go so far as completely replacing that site.

eNB 42102 is an interesting site in that one of the sectors utilizes standard macro-style antennas.

That said, this site was the bane of my existence for a full year. It doesn't provide good coverage or speeds either on or under the bridge, and it services far too large and dense an area for anything but standard macro-style antennas to be a option. Practically all the buildings on Sands Street, west of the bridge, are a dead zone.

Found a Sprint keep site out in Bushwick, eNB 839191. I think this might be an oDAS node, but not entirely sure.

Spotted this interesting setup in Williamsburg, around 200 Meserole St. Based on Streetview, it seems to have been installed back in mid-2019. It doesn't appear in the DOITT database, so I'm guessing it's not standard cellular. Anyone know what it might be?

NYC DOITT database was updated about a month ago. Imported all the new oDAS node locations into my map. Haven't yet spotted anything with the new design in my travels through Williamsburg & Bushwick. Almost 1400 newly proposed nodes (since 3/5/21) is pretty incredible, though.

Made my way up to Harlem and City College this past week. The site (eNB 55893) covering the north side of the campus STILL hasn't been upgraded from B2/B66 (dual APX16s). Pulled ~70Mb/s down on what is essentially an empty campus. Wish I knew what the deal is with that site. I almost wonder if it might be easier to work with the school and keep the Sprint site on top of the engineering building (Steinman Hall, across the street from their current site), instead.

n41 was bumped up to 80MHz in Brooklyn (Williamsburg) overnight. Not noticing an increase in average speeds on my local site, either in the downlink or uplink.

8 hours ago, T-MoblieUser207 said:

I think 2660.2 carrier is gone from Sprint macros, dropping Sprint from 40 to 20 MHz B41. Checking 2 macros isn't enough data to confirm this IMO, so I'm asking if anyone else has seen the same thing.

I'm seeing the same thing. I'll see if I can't check out a few more sites today.

22 minutes ago, ingenium said:

Sprint sites broadcast 5-6 PLMNs typically. All have 310-120 and 311-490 (and 312-530). Which your phone connects to depends on a few things, but honestly I wouldn't read too much into it. The Android API will also return a mixture of the PLMNs depending on which API method is used, if you have TNA, etc. Sometimes it will report the SIMs native PLMN, sometimes it'll report the PLMN that the cell is broadcasting, etc. On Sprint these are often different. For example, with TNA, it will report 311-490 for the SIM's native PLMN, but the LTE17 API (what the connected cell is broadcasting itself as) will be 310-120.

I've found that the sites in NYC that have B41 deployed on 311-940 won't have B41 broadcasting on any other PLMN, whereas B25/B26 from the site will be broadcasted on all PLMNs (310-120, 312-530, 311-490, etc). It's kinda annoying as a T-Mobile customer because it means I don't have access to B41 on these sites.

Super happy to see continued n41 rollout/densification in NYC. This site (eNB 128041) was upgraded within the last week. Unfortunately B41 isn't yet live, so couldn't map, but pulled some very healthy speeds on NSA n41. 

Across the street from this is one of the few Sprint sites I've found with B25/B26 deployed on 310-120 but B41 deployed on 311-940. Does anyone know what is up with these? I feel like I am totally out of the loop as to why they still have sites configured like this.

45 minutes ago, AirlineFlyer said:

There are tons of these types of installs throughout NYC, I've just never seen it integrated directly into a new build like this. It's very smart.

There's quite a few in midtown! Check out 494 8th Ave or 461 8th Ave, for example. Definitely cool stuff, though I gotta say it does make identification a real PITA, haha.

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

My best guess is that it's a combination of the correct equipment not being available to support all of T-Mobile's mmWave bands and n41 taking precedence over mmWave deployment nationwide.

It kinda just blows my mind that it's been almost a year and a half since start of auction and there still isn't a band designation. Why spend almost a billion dollars (T-Mobile's $873 million plus Sprint's $114 million) if you can't even get around to working something like that out with the 3GPP? I pray there's something going on behind the scenes, but I'm not too hopeful seeing as the only other owner of the band is DISH, haha. 

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

It'll be interesting to see whether T-Mobile decides to make mmWave a citywide thing like Verizon (that they'll aggregate with n41 for gigabit speeds in more places) or if they'll just deploy it in stadiums, airports, and convention centers. 

I'd be shocked if T-Mobile doesn't keep a strong mmWave presence in lower/mid-Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn with their 5G small-cell rollout. That's key use case. But I agree, it'll definitely be interesting to see what they do outside of that area. You gotta imagine that Verizon played a pretty big part in how the nodes were designed, and Verizon typically loads their small cells up with every mid/high-band tech they've got. So it shouldn't be a matter of if the nodes support the tech, just if T-Mobile deploys the radios. IMO, T-Mobile's mmWave strategy (for both macros and small cells) kinda comes down to if T-Mobile is open to exploring the possibility of mmWave-based Home Internet in NYC.

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

When T-Mobile acquired Metro, they retained pretty much all of their DAS sites. If they retain all of Sprint's small cells, they'd have a small cell network easily rivaling Verizon and could have an extremely dense mmWave/LAA/CBRS footprint to compliment their already dense (in most places) macro network.

I really hope they do keep them. Even if they aren't immediately upgraded to 5G, they'd be a big benefit for the network in general. Plus, fiber is already run, permits are already signed, sites are already built. Hopefully the neutral-nature of the nodes makes conversion easy. 

I haven't spotted any nodes broadcasting the keep PLMN, but I'm not all that surprised about that.

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

I completely missed that thread but reading over it, so many people are very confused about the mmWave situation in NYC and T-Mobile's network here as a whole. It's pretty sad how people completely disregarded OP immediately.

Agreed. There are one or two redditors (who shall not be named) who love to spread questionable info, especially when it comes to NYC. Every carrier has Manhattan blanketed with mmWave! You can get FIOS at any address! T-Mobile has mmWave on every site and it's fast! T-Mobile has the densest small-cell network! Every site has 5gb/s backhaul (or if it doesn't, it's "just about to be upgraded")! It's really weird. Subreddit used to be so much better before it blew up and a handful of great contributors left.

On 5/12/2021 at 9:43 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Hopefully the next phase of upgrades will include T-Mobile replacing their mmWave antennas with ones that support all of their mmWave spectrum and also C-band antennas.

It'll definitely be interesting to see what they do, especially considering there's now a lot more money in the pipeline!

Personally, I'm most excited to see what they'll be doing with the new 5G small cells - this should be an opportunity for them to get a super dense n41, LTE-LAA, mmWave, and maybe even CBRS (there is 80MHz of GAA available...) infill. Can't wait to see what they'll be doing with these.

This also brings up the question of how they'll be addressing mmWave in the future - have they been holding off on upgrades due to their n41 rollout, or because they're waiting for these small cells to be available? Reminds me of how they paused their LTE-LAA macro rollout, but then began to equip their existing LTE oDAS nodes with LTE-LAA.

I am curious about their plans for C-Band, but I'm kinda of the impression that it's a very low priority for them. I doubt we'll be seeing any C-Band rollout for at least another year or so, T-Mobile's spectrum isn't available for deployment until Dec 2023.

All that said, their n41 rollout does leave them with a ton of capacity to work with. Makes me wonder if upgrades (besides spectrum reallocation) in NYC will be put on the backburner for a little while. Lots of non-NYC Sprint sites to convert, and I've even spotted some recent Greenfield rural buildout upstate (if you can believe that).

On another note, very amusing to see the T-Mobile subreddit respond to that NYC mmWave speedtest the other day.

48 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Someone posted a photo of another site in Brooklyn that seems to have been upgraded recently with the same setup as I was describing. I can't tell if they're doing this because the rack size itself is pretty small and seems to only fit the 3 antennas or if it's indicative of a growing trend. Personally, if I were T-Mobile I would just set up all of my sites like this.

 

I'm a little confused as to why they're leaving up old hardware, as well. As far as I know, they should be able to broadcast LTE (B2/B66), HSPA+, and EDGE via the new RFS APX antennas they're using. I figured they were using the legacy antennas for HSPA+/EDGE, but I've since seen a few instances on Reddit where they're left up (and are still hooked up) on sites that don't broadcast legacy RAN. So who knows. Maybe something to do with prepping for shutting down Sprint sites? None of these antennas list OBW/IBW, but maybe there's some sort of limitation?

On 2/24/2021 at 12:46 PM, thisischuck01 said:

Did a bit of mapping in the Greenpoint area, as well. Only two of the five sites between Nassau Ave and Newtown Creek have been upgraded with n41, so still a bit of work that needs to be done. Unfortunately, the Sprint site on Ash Ave doesn't seem to be designated as a keep site.

Stopped by this area again. STILL doesn't look like this is going to be a keep site. 

Not really sure what T-Mobile is thinking here. Lots of new high rise development on both sides of the creek and T-Mobile service is total crap. 

T-Mobile:

n41 is on the closest site, though I don't believe it's on the serving site (across the creek). This test was taken outside, which likely means that even if n41 was deployed you'd either get a very poor signal or no n41 signal indoors. Upload test failed.

Sprint:

Locked to a single 20MHz B41 carrier.

On 4/26/2021 at 11:16 AM, Paynefanbro said:

Just saw a crew working on eNB 40400 in Brooklyn. The site already had n41 so I wonder what work they’re doing?

Spot anything new?

13 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Awesome NR aggregation! That site usually has very spotty speeds. Sometimes I connect and get over 300Mbps and other times I connect and it struggles to go over 100Mbps. So the speeds you got given that you were a few blocks away are pretty impressive. Were pings noticeably lower?

14ms, so about what I typically get on n71 SA (or n41 NSA). I wonder if it might have been better if n41 was the PCC...

eNB 44643. Don't think this is too far from you, @Paynefanbro. Speeds were okay (248/18.6), but I was a couple blocks away from the site.

n66 SA live in Jersey. Engineering mode seems to be a bit buggy, so might not actually be 20MHz. Source.

n66/n41 SA CA live in Vegas. Source.

On another note, I'm curious about the upgrade path for the Transit Wireless DAS. I know additional connectivity was on the docket for the incoming R211 trains, but I don't believe anything came out of that. Additionally, I don't think that whatever was considered/planned for the L-train renovation actually came to fruition.

Regardless, that system hasn't been touched in forever. I believe the last upgrade was a B2-add back in 2018. T-Mobile never even got around to adding B12, which they promised back in Dec 2015.

Also, I've noticed that the B2 refarm hasn't affected spectrum allocation underground. I presume that's because Sprint is only broadcasting B25/B26? Either way, would be nice to see some upgrades down there, even if it isn't a full 5G overhaul.

14 hours ago, T-MoblieUser207 said:

100 Mhz n41 is now live on Long Island. Judging from the B2 PCI, its probably eNB 45883.
 

 

Anddd updated to the correct location. Jeez, that area was a mess on CellMapper.

The April update seems to have enabled n66 on my T-Mo S21U. 

12 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

What spectrum blocks were used by public safety? I wonder if that was preventing T-Mobile from expanding n41 to 60MHz beyond a few areas in the Lower East Side early last year. 

More info here.