xmx1024

12 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Those are usually left over from the initial AWS deployment, so all run B13/B66 with support for BC0/BC1 (although that’s been shut off on most sites). No NR.

Sites with the later Ericsson radios got an OTA update and broadcast B2. On those sites, a B5 OTA update was also available (and tested), but ultimately rolled back. Putting up all that power/spectrum severely degraded the B13 output. 

The site atop Crystal Mountain is another story and uses the same setup as the site on the ridge near Neilton. These antennas were selected for their vertical beamwidth.

Most modern directional antennas have small vertical beamwidths and would require extreme downtilt to cover the road next to a steep ridge. Thus, they would have a severely limited coverage footprint beyond the road. Omnis can be a better choice in these instances, especially when there’s LoS to the coverage objective (since they’ll generally have lower gain figures).

Omnis also don’t run in to the horizontal sector edge problem, which can be difficult to optimize for with directional antennas that have complex or irregular 3D gain profiles. That’s why on a lot of sites on mountains, you’ll see wider antennas used. For example, the Verizon site on Joyce Ridge has three sectors with 80-degree HBW antennas. 

It’s a neat and seemingly valid / effective strategy that, at least from my understanding, is only really used by VZW

16 hours ago, RAvirani said:

The same equipment is up on a site in Newcastle and a site in the Laurelhurst neighborhood. Both the Crystal Mountain sites are old-fashioned omnis as well. 

Do you know what RAN is behind those Omni's? LTE (bands?) are they pushing any NR through them? Very curious

edit: I guess I could check cellmapper etc but you might know more nuance!

The site located on Mesquite Elementary school has been upgraded to multigig backhaul

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

5 hours ago, S4GRU said:

It's great to see Southern Arizona.  Good to see the thread active and good to see you again.  It's exciting to see all that progress. This is a market the Sprint often overlooked and was last to the party.  And now Tmo has gone from the worst provider to the best.  

Robert

TMO has gobbled up many Sprint convert sites here and many dense areas have solid capacity and coverage due to this. Rita Ranch, which is a challenging tract home development type area, has solid low band coverage throughout due to the sites located at A Family Storage, atop Mesquite Elementary, Empire High School and the site behind Ace Hardware. Much of this I can attribute to NR and SA as it is not this way when handsets are set to LTE only. 
 

I believe Tucson is part of the PHX market (sites are PHX*****) and it seems that engineers have a pretty solid grasp on the market and how to best cover these areas. 

Okay, this thread is pretty behind and while I am tempted to bring it totally up to speed, I wanted to first start by sharing about my contributions to coveragemap.com - though I reside on the East side, I have contributed thousands of speed tests from all over Tucson and the surrounding areas to this site.

https://map.coveragemap.com/ 

If you select T-Mobile & filter results >800Mbps, you get a pretty good idea of the sites that have been upgraded to Gig+ which is a surprising amount! They're really picking up the pace here. You'll have to view while zoomed in a bit more than I would like, else the colored cells vanish and clump together strangely. 

18 hours ago, RAvirani said:

Those sites are from T-Mobile’s partnership with Rock Island Communications. 

They use T-Mobile’s spectrum to provide fixed wireless home internet (and avoid upgrading their wireline network). In exchange, T-Mobile gets a super dense network on the islands. Win-win. 

Do you have more info about these sites? That’s a pretty cool partnership.

gNB 1863006 NR 4CA via iP15 x70

near Tucson International Airport.

Worth mentioning, TUS also has a fantastic newer DAS with n41 pushing 740mbps or so consistently.

T-Mobile could greatly benefit from deploying a healthy small cell footprint in specific areas, such as the foothills and the side streets between Speedway and Grant near the University of Arizona (UofA). AT&T and Verizon both have a significant presence with small cells in these regions with Verizon having mmWave, LAA, licensed midband. By deploying NR 66, 25, and 41 on small cells in these locations, T-Mobile could significantly improve coverage and alleviate congestion issues. This would also reduce the load on nearby macro towers.

The challenges in the areas mentioned likely stem from factors like SINR issues due to macro tower density, sector arrangement, high population density, and surface clutter. Unfortunately, T-Mobile’s capacity in these areas is lacking, leading to latency issues of several hundred milliseconds and speeds below 3 Mbps on the mentioned side streets near UofA.

T-Mobile does have licenses for mmWave in this area and I may speculate they’ll address these areas with mmWave and midband NR once capex tapers off, especially considering the 12yr agreement T-Mobile has made to deploy a record deal of small cells with Crown Castle.

Speedway and Harrison

there’s two other gig+ sites east of Houghton, namely the site on Old Rocking K neighborhood (Valencia & Old Spanish Trail) and at Old Vail Middle School. I presume TMO prioritizes g+ on sites with higher than average HINT load. 
 

I can’t reference many others from memory but you can use the coveragemap URL to set filter >800mbps to find ‘em  

Not even sure where to begin to catch this thread up. 
 

A surprising number of Gig+ sites in Tucson.

I’ve uploaded a ton of speed test data to https://map.coveragemap.com

On 3/11/2023 at 5:19 PM, Paynefanbro said:

Switched to the promotional $25 "Unlimited" Boost Mobile plan so that I can test AT&T's performance more frequently.

I also switched to a $5 Tello plan to map T-Mobile's network because my inactive T-Mobile SIM has been kind of finicky. It was a business SIM so it had access to Verizon's network via roaming and I found that it would frequently push me over to VZW and get stuck on their network in areas with weaker signal, the same areas where my iPhone would show 1-2 bars. I also realized that recently the T-Mobile SIM would get stuck on 2G and not move me over to LTE until I restarted the device. Super annoying.

— — — — —

As much as I love AT&T's excessive use of small cells citywide, I've also noticed that it's no substitute for macro density (at least on the midband 5G side of things). Take a look at these speed tests in Downton Brooklyn, taken on Bridge St btwn Fulton and Willoughby. This isn't really a fair comparison considering there is a T-Mobile site pointing straight down the street but it's more to illustrate the point about AT&T.

Three things about AT&T here:

1. No C-band. No amount of toggling airplane mode could connect me to C-band. This is in spite of the two nearest macros having C-band antennas installed. 
2. My phone connected to the macro for n5 but connected to a small cell (eNB 117207-49) for the the LTE side of things with a -70dBm signal, so pretty strong on the LTE side.
3. AT&T's ping is great so I'm assuming capacity isn't an issue thanks to all of those small cells but they still struggle on the throughput side in comparison to VZW and TMUS who both have greater macro density.

FYI boost infinite sim seems to perform abysmally compared to postpaid / first party

Is there a map of current n77 deployments? I know all are test sites but just curious.

35 minutes ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

I would say just give it time. Initially on Android, it was really really random if you didn't have a phone that could band lock. Overtime, as TMO debugged things, the phones started preferring SA.

I imagine more ubiquitous VONR will be the final nudge to having SA connections be primary

Updated to 16.4 beta which brings expanded NR support and SA CA to iPhone. Does anyone know the conditions / requirements that must be met in order for the handset to be connected to NR over NSA? seems at random and I can’t seem to trigger or influence it manually.

On 1/22/2023 at 12:09 PM, S4GRU said:

Drove down through Grays Harbor, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties yesterday. Discovered the new site at Copalis Beach is now live. T-mobile service in North Grays Harbor is quite decent these days. Seabrook is pretty well covered by the Pacific Beach and Copalis sites. This used to be a dead zone.  Now I can get a signal on my favorite Washington beach...Roosevelt.

I was also able to map from Aberdeen, down through Artic and Raymond/South Bend.  Then along Willapa Bay on both sides. Down the peninsula through Ilwaco, Long Beach, Ocean Park, Oysterville, all the way to the state park at the end.

Then I came home along the Columbia River, past the Astoria Bridge, through Cathlamet and Longview/ Kelso.  Up I-5 home. 

I've put 32,000 miles on my little Ford Maverick pickup in a year. I wonder how many of them were mapping?  

Robert

Those trucks are great. Is yours the AWD or FWD? I imagine AWD. Nice mapping

Wondering if Apple will finally enable n41 SA, NR CA, n25 etc. on iPhone before my trip up there in mid January. iPhone still relies on NSA with midband LTE anchor. I feel like my Pixel and Android counterparts are experiencing a slightly different T-Mobile... 

On 12/13/2022 at 10:31 PM, IrwinshereAgain said:

You are correct, it clearly says nationwide.   I might have misread the article that I saw.  Thank you. 

All good! Wasn’t necessarily targeted at you, just wanted to answer that question for others who might be scrolling  

On 12/13/2022 at 12:23 PM, Dkoellerwx said:

I know they have nationwide PCS holdings, just questioning whether they can say they have deployed n25 nationwide.

nationwide = 200m pops

18 hours ago, IrwinshereAgain said:

Not sure they are claiming that it is deployed nationwide yet.   The way I read it,  was that they are starting to deploy it as part of the 3ca ... nationwide. 

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/network/t-mobile-expands-leading-5g-network-with-additional-coverage-and-capacity

On 11/17/2022 at 12:20 AM, RAvirani said:

I cleared a bunch of stuff out of my imgur…I can remake propagation maps if desired. 

Ahh! It’s always sad stumbling upon an old resourceful forum thread that reference an image or other resource & it is missing. 
 

On 7/13/2021 at 10:03 AM, RAvirani said:

PCS Coverage:

PCS Sectors:

PCS SNR:

Is there anything we can do as a community to keep images/attachments like these from disappearing?

6 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

I think I copied the wrong permit, I will see if can figure out which one I intended to copy. 

Found it: https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/WCF2022-32542/Bothell 

Technically the same parcel but not really. The tower is the green one in the center, located here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/16001+124th+Ave+NE,+Woodinville,+WA+98072/@47.7431505,-122.1749793,3a,75y,297.03h,107.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1fgQXLYWWxmA3Zb2r00DaA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x54900dda6f2be3cb:0x31061dfdc68aa722!8m2!3d47.7438019!4d-122.1753217

Ahhh! Thanks - I totally didn't see this one. This is near a friends place and I will be visiting in January which has a couple of older sites nearby that can create funky performance issues.

On 11/1/2022 at 1:00 PM, PedroDaGr8 said:

Site 2: https://permitsearch.mybuildingpermit.com/PermitDetails/WCF2022-32251/Bothell

This one seems to be an upgrade
 

Quote

E22-44230, WA6327 5GNR-CBAND 2023, Removing (6) antennas, (18) Diplexers, and (12) Quadplexers. adding (6) antennas, (12) Diplexers, adding (1) DC9 surge suppressor, and ancillary equipment to the existing facility.

Also, it's been a while since I have been up there but I am having trouble locating it on Google Maps street view. The only site visible appears to be an AT&T site due to the raycap visible just above the fence line & gate signage.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/16001+124th+Ave+NE,+Woodinville,+WA+98072/@47.7437861,-122.1749942,3a,19.2y,224.2h,80.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sT9h59Sj7l0YRZH8PxCBWqA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x54900dda6f2be3cb:0x31061dfdc68aa722!8m2!3d47.7438019!4d-122.1753217


 

On 10/28/2022 at 11:13 AM, tybo31316 said:

So does T-Mobile run their sites at lower power than other carriers. T-Mobile seem to drop from 5G to LTE quicker than my AT&T line even when they on the same site. 

It is in a network operator's best interest to make sure your handset is connected in the most efficient manner possible. Having your phone hang onto a distant or noisy signal eating up disproportionately more airtime due to being at a lower modulation rate is a poor experience for the user & inefficient use of network resources. 

11 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

On another strange site, the B66 only site at Grass Lawn Park was upgraded to add B2. Strangely, B2 was added via a totally separate eNB 236113. Also strange was that they didn't add B12 to the site either, it is ONLY B2/B66 now. 

I wonder if they could not get permit approved to swap the antennas?