Trip

Observed yesterday, via roaming on my S21FE.

https://imgur.com/a/VYP1iyi

Looked for it at several other sites and picked it up at two of them.  It's running in Charlotte Court House, Keysville, and Pamplin.  Didn't observe it at the three sites I passed in Farmville or any of the rural sites I went by.

Signal strength seems to be about 20 dB weaker than the B66 carrier, even with line of sight.

My current US Cellular phone (a Moto One 5G Ace) doesn't support B48, so I might need to figure out a way to shuffle my phones a bit.

- Trip

Mike,

Until yesterday, I hadn't locked my newest phone, the Moto Edge 2022, to an LTE band.  I'd only ever used it on NR, where it works basically fine for logging purposes other than the modem reset issue I flagged in the thread I made on the Motorola forum, which is entirely unrelated to SCP.  (For the record, it happened once yesterday about 25 minutes into our outing, and then not again the rest of the day.)

I was out and about and had it looked to n41 and B41 for the first time, and encountered something new on it.  Sometimes, when changing sectors or going in/out of service on the LTE side, where other phones would give bad GCIs with no TAC or something, this phone apparently flashes the previously-seen GCI/TAC but with an RSRP of -44 and an RSRP of -3.  You can guess what this did to the log.  I tried to screenshot it but it was too fast to catch; here's a picture of what the log looks like sorted by last_time:

https://imgur.com/a/LBehfrW

Much as I hate to ask you for another work-around, it would be nice have an option to be able to tell SCP not to log in that circumstance, much like how it has an option to not log when the TAC is missing. 

Separately, it also has a bad TA value that the checkbox only partially fixes.  I'm going to do more investigation on that and see if I can figure out what the proper correction factor should be for this device.  It may be necessary to consider providing multiple options for adjusting the TA.  That said, I can already tell that won't completely help as it shows 0 TA a lot longer than my other devices do.  I'm almost wondering if it's off by a constant rather than a coefficient, if that makes sense; I'll follow up on this after some investigation.

- Trip

The real problem is that the statute is not entirely clear in cases like this.  Suppose the FCC decides to act based on its non-auction authority to find the obviously-auction-related petition from AT&T is without merit and issue the licenses.  Does AT&T then sue claiming the agency violated the Anti-Deficiency Act?  Does a court agree with AT&T?  Does that court ruling then land the staff involved with criminal charges for violating the Anti-Deficiency Act?

Seems like a big risk, one that could easily be eliminated if Congress would just pass a bill restoring auction authority--or even a targeted bill saying that auction authority is extended for the sole purpose of resolving issues related to auctions that are already completed. 

EDIT:  Here's a link to Chairwoman Rosenworcel's response, which says basically the same thing.  https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-396632A2.pdf

- Trip

I think people are forgetting that AT&T filed an objection to T-Mobile's winning bids.  Unless I missed it, that has yet to be resolved.  The FCC literally can't grant the licenses until they rule on the objection, and without auction authority, they can't pay people to work on auction-related tasks. 

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/att-urges-fcc-not-grant-t-mobiles-latest-25-ghz-licenses

Further, if people work on such things without pay, that risks violating the Anti-Deficiency Act, which is a criminal statute.  That's how government shut-downs are enforced. 

- Trip

2 hours ago, S4GRU said:

That's frustrating.  Especially when mapping and you're moving Freeway speeds in traffic. For two reasons.  One, you may not notice and arrive at your destination and you missed mapping what you planned.  Or worse, you notice while you're driving and it's a big frustrating distraction.

Robert

For me, it's been the latter, as this phone is used as my n41 phone and thus has a spot on the dash. 

- Trip

Follow-up:  I'm not going to standardize on this phone.  It's unfortunate, as I love pretty much everything about it, but there's a show-stopper that I'm not sure I can get around.  (And, of course, if it ends up not getting Android 14, that would prevent use of TA values, so I wouldn't standardize on it anyway.)

Every so often, the phone resets the modem.  I've not yet identified a pattern, but essentially what happens is that every so often, the phone suddenly acts like the SIM was popped out and back in, and when that happens, the band locks get unset and I have to set them again.  It seems to happen most frequently about 15-20 minutes after leaving from the phone screen being off.  We went to the beach in August and it did it once on the beltway about 15-20 minutes out, and then didn't do it again the whole trip.  On Saturday around town, however, it did it about 15-20 minutes after leaving my second stop of the day, and then did it two more times within the next 15-20 minutes, and was fine the rest of the day. 

It's particularly frustrating because it resets and Network Signal Guru has to be closed and reopened in order for it to work at band locking 2G/3G/4G again once the modem resets, and then I have to disable n2/n25/n71 one-by-one in the dialer screen since Network Signal Guru apparently doesn't support NR band locking. 

In any case, it's not something I am able to manage across multiple devices, and even one doing it is frustrating.  I don't know if it's a common problem with the MediaTek chipset or something specific to this phone, but I'm considering avoiding the MediaTek chipset in the future. 

- Trip

9 hours ago, jasonsteele said:

I'm in Phoenix, seems like all of the very few Sprint sites left that are not converted or decommissioned are broadcasting B26. There is one of them about a mile and a half from my house, once every month or two between 9pm and midnight the T-Mo site two blocks away goes down and the Sprint B26 is all that works. 

Yeah, it's still running on keep sites I've encountered in this area as well, but in places where all the Sprint sites are gone, they've started running B26 on a small handful of T-Mobile sites.

- Trip

They're running B26 on a handful of protection sites, essentially.  I'm not sure that they don't need extra equipment to pull that off.  I've only confirmed four T-Mobile sites running B26 total.

- Trip

13 hours ago, RedSpark said:

Damn. It's sad to see things going this way now....

I mean, all of this was predictable the day the merger was announced.  Literally nobody can pretend to be even a little bit surprised, as price increases are always what happens after consolidation. 

It's why I've never understood all the people cheering on the merger. 

- Trip

There are areas, including areas I've been to recently, where only US Cellular and AT&T have service.  Allowing that buyout in full would create a monopoly in those areas.  There are other areas where Verizon and US Cellular are it.

I'd expect a sale to AT&T or Verizon to look more like the Alltel buyout, where some pieces of the customer base and network end up going to someone else. 

- Trip

Yes, and I saw at least one analyst suggest that any buyer would just turn off the US Cellular network.  I certainly hope not!  I was a Sprint customer specifically because of roaming on that network!

Got myself a Moto Edge 2022 to replace a Moto One 5G Ace that I dropped and the glass smashed.  First time I've done that.  Anyway, I'd seen on Reddit that the Moto Edge 2022 looked good for this, so I ended up spending more than I'd hoped for one to replace it.

And let me say, for the purposes of band locking and logging with Signal Check, this phone is gunning to be the one I standardize on.  I made a post about it on Reddit earlier:

I rooted mine with the intent to use Network Signal Guru for band locking and to ensure that I could use the modem reset function within Signal Check.  As it turns out, the free version of Network Signal Guru does not, apparently, support band locking on 5G-NR.  Not entirely sure why they've done that, but that seems to be an issue.  However, not all is lost, because this phone has a built-in utility for it!  Steps:

1)  *#*#4636#*#*

2)  Tap on "5G/LTE Debugging Information"

3)  Three dots at the top right, then choose "NR options" and "Enable/Disable NR SA band."

4)  Enter the band number to Enable/Disable, then click the appropriate button.

It's that simple.  You do have to do it band by band, which could be annoying, except that Network Signal Guru does still work for 2G/3G/4G, so I could disable all those bands in one fell swoop, then I only had to remove the NR bands I didn't want it connecting to.  It also does not persist through a reboot, but I don't reboot often anyway, so hopefully I won't run into it often.  (I've not yet done any testing with Cellular Pro beyond installing it.  I'm wondering if that may allow it to be done outside the phone's own menu.)

As I said at the beginning, I paid more than I wanted here.  I try to keep my logging phones under $100, and until this one, I don't think I'd paid more than $130 for one before tax.  This one was $180, and I spent it because I didn't want to buy something else as an experiment when I knew I wanted to try this one, and my smashed phone forced my hand earlier than expected.  But hopefully it'll come down some more over the next year or two, as it becomes necessary to replace other devices. 

And I want to note that it supports pretty much every band outside of mmWave worth having in the US, including n77/n78 generally and n26 and n70 for Dish.  It also appears to support the AT&T bands and the T-Mobile bands in one device, which is an improvement over the e5 Play I'd standardized on in the LTE days since I had to buy the separate AT&T-compatible version of it for use on AT&T.

With any luck, it will get upgraded to Android 14, which will add Timing Advance to the NR API, which as long as band locking remains possible and the Timing Advance functionality actually makes it into the API output, would make it the perfect device for my use case, and definitely would be what I would standardize on going forward.  Time will tell!

- Trip

Mike,

Got myself a Moto Edge 2022 which I am in love with for logging.  Supports every feature as far as I can tell, including band locking without any external apps!  More on that on Reddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Dish5G/comments/15h46le/comment/juyssk6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 ) and I'm about to cross-post in the Motorola forum here.

One question, though, is whether or not it's possible to get a System Shortcut (and thus the lightning icon) to the *#*#4636*#*# menu, which is labeled "Testing," or the sub-menu that actually does the band locking.  I briefly tried to find a shortcut to it with a shortcut app and didn't immediately find it.  If there's something specific that might help in tracking it down, let me know.  (And I know it may not be possible to get a shortcut, but the Radio Info one does work, just that it's not the screen I want to be on...)

- Trip

6 hours ago, dkyeager said:

I assume you meant USC owns some Band 41 licenses.

Yes, of course.  D'oh.  I'll edit my post...

- Trip

I would like to point out that US Cellular also owns some Band 41 licenses.  Not a ton, but some.  I would have to imagine that spectrum will ultimately end up with T-Mobile regardless of buyer as well, similar to 600 MHz.

- Trip

3 hours ago, iansltx said:

Oh, and USCC owns a bit more than 4k towers. Betting Crown Castle or American Tower would happily take those off their hands. Though my guess is Dish won't be terribly happy with that transaction, as it sounds like Dish is renting site space from USCC in a number of places.

Most of Dish's network build is on towers owned by ATC, CC, and SBA, so I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes.

Separately, it's possible they continue to own the towers as they are.  That's what Shentel did when T-Mobile bought out the Shentel network; they separated the tower part of the business out and hung onto it.  I know Dish is on a dozen or so Shentel-owned towers.

- Trip

What's interesting is that given how widespread roaming on US Cellular is (T-Mo and AT&T these days, as far as I know), a purchase will likely spur further improvements from the others. 

A buy by T-Mobile or Verizon would mean AT&T would need to either do a roaming deal with one or both of them for FirstNet, or they'd have to build out more there.  A buy by Verizon or AT&T would mean T-Mobile would either need to expand the roaming deal with AT&T, sign a new one with Verizon, or build out more. 

I've been told that some of the areas without native service aren't built because US Cellular roaming is so cheap that it's not worth it.  But if that goes away...

- Trip

57 minutes ago, iansltx said:

It's not a full price phone though. $400 for the Edge+ is pretty solid as that's easily a flagship. Same league as as a Galaxy S23+ but $200 cheaper at retail.

I've never paid more than $150 for any of my "logger phones," and have tried to stay under $100.  $400 is way too much, especially since I have no idea if it's rootable or otherwise able to be band locked.

That said, I'd still consider paying it if the service were cheaper.  The most I pay for service on any given device is $10/mo for US Cellular prepaid, which I only pay for as needed.

- Trip

3 minutes ago, S4GRU said:

I really should get a DISH account and start tracking.  I feel like I'm missing out on something.  LOL

Robert

All they have to do is make it cheaper to do.  I'd already have one if it wasn't a full price phone and $25 or $30/mo!

- Trip

1 minute ago, Paynefanbro said:

Looks like Project Genesis is available in my area now too which is a plus. I don’t feel like dropping $400 on a Motorola Edge though lol. 

This is my problem.  I see no reason why I should have to spend a mint on a high-end phone and expensive service just to test it.  I want to get like a Samsung A23 or a Motorola that I can bootloader unlock, I'm even willing to buy them full price, and the $100/year Boost service.  Cheap and easy.  Given how much they're depending on AT&T and T-Mobile to support their operations, you'd think they'd want people who are using relatively small amount of data to live on their own network.

- Trip

I imagine running fiber to specific locations is a lot quicker and easier than wiring entire residential neighborhoods, and I say this as someone who has Verizon FiOS.

- Trip

I was trying with my A52 or A32, I don't remember which.  But even after I changed the CSC, it would immediately detect the SIM in it and reboot to switch the CSC back.

- Trip

Do you happen to have a link for how to disable the CSC switch when you put a SIM in?  I haven't successfully found any steps for that, and not for lack of searching.  I must be using the wrong search terms or something.  I really need to stop one of my devices from doing that.

I'm just looking to map stuff, but without spending a bunch of money on a monthly service plan.  The most I spend on any given "mapping device" is $10/mo for US Cellular, which I only have to put money on when I'm actually using it.  The rest are $5/mo or less (some are free).  I'd love to get the Boost $100/year plan but I hear that one can't be activated on the Rainbow SIM.  Very frustrating.

I'm hoping that if I can somehow get my hands on an unactivated Rainbow SIM, that will make it possible to map.  Problem, at this point, is actually getting one of those.

- Trip

Out of curiosity:

1) What did you spend on it?

2) How were you connecting it?  Boost Rainbow SIM on a service plan, or something else?

I'm still trying to work out how to track the Dish wireless network and it's being a real pain.

- Trip

The big problem with someone buying them, in my mind, is that US Cellular doesn't neatly fit into anyone's existing network.  Where I grew up, they'd be an ideal fit for AT&T, and less so for T-Mobile, but not really for Verizon.  In other places, the only competing network available at a similar scale is AT&T, with Verizon being the one that would benefit most.  And I'm sure there are places I've not seen where it's [still] T-Mobile which would fit best. 

I feel like it almost has to be split geographically before being sold.  I'm wondering if the FCC or the Justice Department would even allow a sale to a single carrier, or if it'd have to be split across two of them.

Ultimately, US Cellular's primary problem, at least where I go, is lack of density.  They depend on in-market roaming quite a bit in some areas.  The CDMA service was and still is very good, but LTE just doesn't do the job as well, and they've failed to add sites to compensate.  Meanwhile, in places where they've had to add density due to lack of spectrum, they've ended up spending money to build towers in rural areas that I'm not sure are actually needed coverage-wise if only they'd had enough spectrum.  And even in those areas, I hear complaints about hand-offs.

I'm guessing they'll end up selling at some point.  Only question is what it looks like.

- Trip