Trip

Wouldn't surprise me, but I will say that the map looks accurate in terms of sites actually operating B41 gear, based on what I've seen. I was able to use it to add a number of sites I haven't visited yet based on the map. - Trip

Drove up US-15 again yesterday, and found that additional sites have been marked as keep sites. Basically, every site along 15 between Farmville and Culpeper that wasn't co-located with T-Mobile (or nearly so) is now running 312250. - Trip

They wouldn't need it. If they hold both A- and B-blocks, that's 25x25 total, and they could run Band 26 across 15x15 of that spectrum. Band 26 covers all of Band 5 plus the Sprint spectrum. - Trip

If you've rolled your eyes at claims that wireless facilities harm property values like I have, you might find this new study to be interesting: https://www.aglmediagroup.com/study-small-wireless-facilities/ It actually attempts to determine whether there's such harm, and finds no solid evidence. - Trip

No idea of the equipment vendor. I'm bad at that sort of thing. But I've seen the 300,000 and 600,000 offsets in certain places. In most of those places, it's now been shifted back to the normal GCI. - Trip

Verizon, in my experience, is very consistent, but their sector IDs are decimal. 1/2/3 is 700 12/22/32 AWS 13/23/33 AWS (second carrier) 14/24/34 PCS 15/25/35 PCS (second carrier) 16/26/36 850 17/27/37 850 ===== AT&T has a pattern for some bands, but newer bands don't have one. 01-04 B5 08-0B B2 0F-12 B12 16-19 B66 In between are a bunch of DAS reservations, basically repeats of the above sequence for various DAS or small cell configurations. 95-98 B30 Then anything else like B2 second carrier, B66 second carrier, or B14 are just sort of randomly tossed into the A0-FF range, varying market to market. ===== US Cellular had been using different GCIs for B5 and B12, offset by 0x2000, but has recently been upgrading sites to a single GCI following this pattern: 01-03 B12 0B-0D B5 15-17 B2 1F-21 B4 29-2B B66 - Trip

Some of the sector IDs are similar here in the DC/VA/MD/PA region. (All values hex.) B41 is 83-86/8D-90. B2 second carrier is 6F-72. B71 is 3D-40. The other three bands. Newer setups follow that pattern: 01-04 B66/0B-0E B2/15-18 B12 But older sites vary wildly. In some places, it's 01-03 B66/04-06 B12/07-09 B2. In others, where LTE was first deployed on B2, B66 and B2 are flipped. If B66/B2 were deployed long before B12, then B12 might be on 15-18 but B66/B2 on 01-03/07-09. 4-sector sites are more or less unpredictable. In some cases, it's 01-04 B66/05-08 B12/09-0C B2. In some areas, B66 and B2 are flipped, as above. In some places, it's the 3-sector pattern but with 0A, 0B, and 0C used for the fourth sector in no particular order. And then, of course, the site ID part of the GCIs are a trainwreck. Some sites have as many as 7 different GCIs, though most of those are being consolidated into fewer now. Most B41 sites are now on a single, separate GCI, though at first they were split across three. B71/B12 panels have their own GCIs. Band 66 can sometimes also have a separate GCI from Band 2, but that's pretty uncommon. Some 4-sector sites have separate GCIs on the fourth sector, as well. - Trip

The Shentel sale closed on 7/1, so they own it now. - Trip

When I'm out locating 312250 sites, I lock a T-Mobile phone on Band 26. Then the only thing it can possibly connect to is Sprint. T-Mobile has their Band 2 operations running MFBI as Band 25, so that option isn't great either. I sometimes manually adjust my Band 26 lock to include Band 25 near a site that I suspect is a 312250 site but which is B25-only. I've located a few of those. - Trip

As seen on one of my T-Mobile phones: https://imgur.com/a/Ya7dkOL - Trip

The earliest data in the Open Cell ID data is from mid June, so that would be consistent. - Trip

Verizon, in my experience, is pretty consistent. Not so for AT&T and T-Mobile. - Trip

Oh! In Gordonsville proper. Yeah, that area has no native T-Mobile service. But I believe they recently added the 312250 PLMN to the Gordonsville Shentel site, so it should work now, I would think. (I'll know for sure if they added 312250 on Friday.) - Trip

Today, I'm headed down to the Farmville area, and will be taking a route generally following US-522 to see which sites are 312250 (keep sites). On Friday or Saturday, I'll be headed back up a route generally following US-15, but meandering to try to cover most of the existing Shentel sites along the way. Where in Orange County are you having your issue? I only see 7-Eleven locations in Gordonsville and Orange proper. - Trip

I was under the impression that TNA meant you were on T-Mobile natively, like ROAMAHOME. I had that blocked on three of my lines. More evidence of T-Mobile's complete failure at transitioning in a clear manner is that I literally cannot figure out what their various things actually mean, and every time I think I understand it, it turns out to be wrong. - Trip

My wife's phone shows 312-530 frequently and it's definitely on Sprint. - Trip

Okay, then you are probably still Sprint-native. If you were T-Mobile native, you'd be seeing 311-490 or 312-250. - Trip

Are you generally on T-Mobile? That is, did they put you on ROAMAHOME or similar? - Trip

That's probably your device. I've heard some devices do show 310-120 in SCP instead of 312-250. None of mine do that. Thanks! Great to actually see it. EDIT: Looks like the T-Mobile coverage map shows it too, albeit as roaming. - Trip

You'd have to be on T-Mobile in order to see 312-250. That's the PLMN that T-Mobile is using to make select Sprint sites look like native T-Mobile. - Trip

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else seen any evidence of 312250 or 311490 in Shentel land as of yet? I've heard someone mention that T-Mobile PCIs have started showing up in the neighbor cells suddenly. I have to admit, I'm itching to make my way out there, but I'm at least a week from being there, and possibly closer to three weeks. If someone has a screenshot of SCP showing 312250 on a Shentel GCI, I for one would love to see it. - Trip

I'm not sure, but based on the pictures I found online of the Airspan, I believe so. I have a picture of one somewhere, but it's not handy. I know it's only a single B41 carrier though. Used to be on an EARFCN shared with one of the two values used for small cells here, but is now sitting on one of the macro EARFCNs. Small cells have been shrunk from 2x20 MHz to a single smaller-than-20 MHz carrier. - Trip

I'm reasonably sure I've never seen a T-Mobile small cell outside of Baltimore, where there's a bunch of stuff on poles for all the carriers. (I'm also not counting their Airave-equivalent in-home gear.) Sprint, by contrast, has tons of strand-mount around, which I assume they're counting, along with a handful of small cells. In some places around here, that strand-mount is the only service that either Sprint or T-Mobile has. - Trip

Next time I plan to be in Shentel territory is 6/30. (Possibly 6/19, but more likely 6/30.) I'll have to look. Exciting! - Trip

Here's the formal SEC filing press release for Shentel. https://www.shentel.com/news/2021/june/shentel and t-mobile enter into an asset purchase agreement - Trip