2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

That's a lot of towers in a small area again (4th, 8th, and 12th) but here the capacity makes a bit more sense 

Lots of downtilt here - they’re doing a pretty good job of containing coverage to prevent sector overlap here. 

Looks like the Sprint site at 8th & 405 in downtown Bellevue has been converted. Huge coverage and capacity improvement. 

56 minutes ago, Paynefanbro said:

Las Vegas leavings: Dish's first 5G network tests are in

https://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/las-vegas-leavings-dishs-first-5g-network-tests-are-in/d/d-id/774160

 

There have been issues with the virtualized 5GC too. Definitely a few bugs to sort out there still. 

The top rack is a Sprint KMW 16=port antenna and a Samsung M-MIMO unit.  The bottom is an AT&T Firstnet setup.  The AT&T sector facing the mall has dual split-beam antennas for capacity. The microwave dishes at the bottom are from an abandoned Clearwire setup.  

T-Mobile is set to hop off of the SnoPUD transmission tower and onto the Sprint rack in the "nearish" future.  Dish will be joining in early 2022 as well.  Verizon is also colocating onto that site (I think this is forecasted past Q2 2022 though)...

1 hour ago, JWMaloney said:

T-Mobile native network will instruct my device to complete an intra-LTE handoff to the Sprint native network. My device will complete the handoff successfully, and it lands on PLMN 312-250. Attachment and SIM validation occur successfully. Then a hard drop occurs.

T-Mobile native network will send an rrcConnectionRelease without a destination. Hard drop occurs.

An RRC connection release without a destination is relatively weird. Have you tried getting a new SIM? If your SIM is damaged and misreading even a bit, that could be cause for the network to be shoving you off like that. 

2 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

It appears T-Mobile is pushing forward with upgrading the Totem Lake Motel 6 site SMDH. I really hoped they would change their mind and scrap that site.

Permit to replace the hardware:

https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/BNR21-09062/Kirkland

Permit to upgrade the site:

https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/WIR21-00584/Kirkland

 

Oh boy. Let me see if I can pull the azimuths. 

On 12/6/2021 at 12:49 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

You would think they would have done extensive planning in advance when selecting to keep a site. Maybe that's being presumptuous.

On 12/6/2021 at 1:10 PM, dkyeager said:

I don't think they knew how Sprint customers would behave.  Nor Boost Mobile customers.  Especially down to the cell site level.

When planning to close a coverage hole, network teams use a “search ring” methodology. Upon selecting a site that falls inside the ring, they will choose azimuths and mechanical downtilts that satisfy the coverage objective.

While softwares like Atoll/Planet/Asset (these are the three big ones) can provide very accurate propagation models, the models are only as good as the clutter data and clutter loss parameters (the DEM/DTM data is usually good enough to not worry about these days). For simulations (e.g. Monte-Carlo load simulations), you also need accurate traffic maps. As a result, some level of real-world testing is usually necessary to close out the electrical downtilts, exact RS ERPE per port, connection release/handoff parameters, etc.

After that, there’s a good bit of testing (call/integration/etc) that takes time too. On occasion, sites may also be delayed because they don’t have back haul or permanent power. This is more often the case in rural areas than urban/suburban areas. 

16 minutes ago, xmx1024 said:

Fair, and that can be tough in a more urban environment. All the conversion sites in my area in southern AZ were online within a week, and it seems all (if not most) in WA have not been turned on, even after multiple months.

The team down there might have done more planning before site builds or they may take a more ANR-focused approach when it comes to neighbor relations.  You'd be surprised how differently teams in different regions operate.  

58 minutes ago, xmx1024 said:

I have heard this a lot about the SEA market - I moved away in January, but been hearing conversion sites are not online yet. Seriously wonder why. I cannot think of a reason myself. @RAvirani I saw earlier in the thread you had a email thread going on with someone at T-Mobile? Probably the regional network manager? Might you reach out to him?

There’s a good bit of complexity to bringing sites online, even conversions.

Integration/etc takes time because they don’t just affect the conversion site, but every site around said conversion. Surrounding sites’ electrical downtilts need to be edited, handoff parameters need to be optimized, CA needs to be configured, neighbor lists have to be updated, PCIs/PRACH RSIs need to be carefully chosen, etc; and that’s barely scratching the surface. 

2 hours ago, Paynefanbro said:

NY SMSA is definitely Verizon from what I'm seeing online.

SMSA is usually the name Verizon uses for site acquisition. 

On 11/11/2021 at 2:40 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

It is apparently cell tower week in Woodinville as Verizon has joined in on the fun, upgrading their DT Woodinville site.

I stopped by this site and was surprised to see that they disabled lowband carrier aggregation after the upgrade (midband was moved to the 300,000 offset eNB). I thought that site’s lowband and midband footprints almost entirely overlapped. 

I wonder if they’re anticipating increased lowband load from n5 usage…

Looks like the old CC and ATC towers at the end of 520 in Redmond are gone. There’s a new tower very close to the old ATC location with all three carriers. 

32 minutes ago, jf15219 said:

 

The core networks are pretty much merged now, so market teams have started adding Sprint sites to T-Mobile sites’ neighbor lists and vice versa. This allows for smooth roaming without a total loss of signal. You’ll frequently see PCIs shaken up to avoid collisions in these areas. 

4 minutes ago, chamb said:

As for the QCI tables, about 2 years ago, my phone started latching onto signals of -130 and holding on no matter what.  It was totally not usable at that level.  Shentel had done this either on purpose or accidentally. Anyway after some time, it stopped doing that. 

This sounds more like a Qrxlevmin/Qqualmin config issue to me. I’ve seen T6 perform adequately below -125 dBm on a not super-clean signal. 

9 minutes ago, chamb said:

I have seen mention of TM trying to use signals at a -130 level.   Maybe better phones and base station equipment will allow it, but it did not work in the past.bring on MIMO on all bands.

Diversity and lower modulation can do this today. The cost of switching to one of those tables (even 3 or 5) is reduced data speeds for users with strong signal strengths. As always, everything in wireless is a trade off.

On 11/16/2021 at 7:25 AM, dkyeager said:

The problem is from a basic call coverage aspect 1x800 is very hard to beat.  I have gotten usable signal 50 miles from a site.  T- Mobile may be attempting to emulate that with widespread 600MHz coverage so thin that it may only work for voice. Does this notion match what you are seeing?  

There was talk of this close to the merger - with the CDMA shutdown, Sprint employees had pitched the idea of switching up MCS tables to push lowband LTE range closer to 1x range. E.g., Table 6 has a spectral efficiency of just 0.0034 for MCS 1 which allows engineer to push LTE range a lot, since the airlink is still very usable at low signal strengths. But, IIRC T-Mobile decided against it.

I believe they’re running table 2 on lowband in most places which bottoms out at 0.1523 efficiency. 

2 hours ago, T-MoblieUser207 said:

NR CA

That’s already live in many major markets. 

1 hour ago, Paynefanbro said:

In their presentations that they made when arguing for their merger with Sprint, they often showed that they do have plans for covering Nebraska natively with lowband 5G and especially with n41. No one knows if they'll follow through or when that'll happen though. They just plan for it to happen by 2024.

Last I heard that is still the plan.

The seemingly overkill n41 coverage is due to the fact they own almost no other spectrum in the area. 

1 hour ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Are you sure about that? When I drove by this morning, it looks like they are done on the tower. They have basically installed all new  antennas on that tower and even added three Ericsson 6488 n48 CBRS panel. Seems strange to so that upgrade now is they will just be moving in the not too distant future.

Oh no - they will be keeping both locations.

Azimuths on the existing Verizon tower needed to be adjusted to keep the noise floor low, since the T-Mobile tower is relatively close by. That Verizon tower was also way overdue for 4x MIMO and highband given the demand for data in that area. 

10 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

It is apparently cell tower week in Woodinville as Verizon has joined in on the fun, upgrading their DT Woodinville site.

That’s likely because Verizon is colocating onto the T-Mobile/Clearwire downtown site.

10 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

As of today, they have increased the height of the Warehouse district tower in about about jankiest way possible, by bolting an extension to the top. I'm sure it is structurally sound but it sure looks cheap at this stage: 

 

 

This is actually pretty standard for height increases but I agree - it does look a bit funny.

4 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Was at my companies site in the Warehouse district today when my Sprint signal cutoff. I get zero T-Mobile signal in the lab so it was very obvious. Anyways, when I left work, I drove by the Warehouse district tower and it was decapitated:

https://imgur.com/a/rpX07lU

Also, the Sprint site down by the Woodinville Slough (SE35XC004) has been fully converted but isn't live yet. Not a trace of Sprint on the site anymore from what I can see. 

Ooh - good progress! I’m interested to see what the azimuths are for the Woodinville warehouse district tower. 

What equipment is on the Valley Industrial site?

37 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

I'm not sure it is the message from the web server because I have received longer messages before without issue. It's just the close button isn't there. 

Mike and I talked about this - the close button is hidden because the content in the pop up window overflows off the bottom of the screen. 

A shorter message isn’t a permanent fix, but it will allow more clusters’ messages to be displayed before the issue crops up.

I think Mike is working on changing the way the pop up window is displayed. That will permanently fix the issue. 

27 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Add me to that list. It just happened for me as well (first time ever). I can confirm your workaround (clearing it from recent apps) works.

I forgot about this - I’ll trim down the message from the web server right now. 

2 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Yes, really about damn time. Verizon has already rolled out mmWave through out all of DT Kirkland (and what looks like maybe C-Band in a couple places).

Yeah - Verizon has got a lot of mmWave small cells in that area.

That being said, they still have the poorest indoor coverage since they’ve only got one macro at the marina (SEA Moss Bay). SEA Feriton (on 6th by the Google campus) helps, but not a ton. 

4 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

Kirkland Urban tower finally got the B41 upgrade. 

Great news and long overdue!

3 hours ago, mikejeep said:

Sorry, I missed this post earlier -- most mobile providers are now displaying a "5G" logo in the system bar when you are connected to a site that has 5G-NR capabilities, but it does not mean that you have an active 5G-NR connection. It's very misleading, but it seems like all of the major companies are doing it now. 

The 5G icon is controlled by a parameter called upperLayerIndication, which is a part of system information block 2 of LTE. A value of true just means that LTE carrier/channel supports ENDC (aka it could be the LTE anchor for NSA 5G). Without looking at engineering screens or using an app like SignalCheck, you can’t actually tell if you’re connected to a 5G radio bearer.