cooltech6597

Been finding a ton more planned T-Mobile colocations on American Tower sites. I plotted the ones I have found so far on this map https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?mid=1j1yez8HvoZDWCt9AIhYkfdM1V7ddtGg&usp=sharing

Just went through all of the UP and found 4 more, which brings the colocation count up to 6

Found another American Tower new colocation for T-Mobile. This one does not appear to be active yet

26 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

GCI is 063865 so it follows the pattern. May have been installed for a while but was definitely activated recently given that GCI. (Change the enb settings to Hex on Cellmapper, it makes it a little easier to follow).

Wouldn't that be just the same as looking at the eNB? (since its just a base 10 to hex translation) 

In most of the midwest the first few numbers of an eNB are based on when the site was assigned an eNB to my observation... from earliest to latest it goes: 2xxxx, 3xxxx, 10xxxx, 11-12xxxx, 505xxx (eventually replaced by 384 and 405/407), 384xxx, 405xxx, 407xxx. Generally newer sites are mostly 384, 405, and 407 now however there are still some 12xxxx sites popping up. 

Happened to come across a new T-Mobile colocation in Dafter, Michigan (upper peninsula). Seems to not have n41 installed according to this American Tower site brochure photo, and looking at the filename it seems to have been installed sometime around September 2021. It also appears T-mobile is using either AT&T or Peninsula Fiber Networks for backhaul (AT&T is on this site as well, so it would make sense AT&T is using their own fiber, and T-Mobile is using Peninsula Fiber Networks). Might go through some other areas in the upper peninsula on the American Tower site locator to see if there are any more T-mobile new colocations. These rural builds are very exciting!

4 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

That's a decent number of new sites. Nebraska is likely the oddest market in the country, as T-Mobile didn't exist here until a few years ago. Until last summer, their footprint didn't really extend much out of Omaha, Sprint had a much larger footprint. But I'd like to think that their aggressive expansion here is a signal that they intend to follow through on their rural expansion plans. Given the number of American Tower sites that we know they are targeting across NE, KS, MO, IA, AR and IL, it does seem that they have an expansion plan ready to go. Unfortunately we haven't done any digging for the OH area so I don't have any details there for you.

Where do you get new tower plans for American Tower? Do they show on the American Tower Site Locator map? 

Also, here’s a map of permits across Northwest Ohio (Lucas County) if anyone’s interested 😁

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?mid=1-qgOcMVOnqW4b9-HhUDc7AGxbRLqn48&usp=sharing

21 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

There's a lot of colors here, but the teal and purple sites are expansion. Currently we have 50 tracked, with at least 17 more permitted. Based on the latest coverage map update, I believe I need to add a few more expansion sites.

We've also had 121 Sprint conversions, with over a dozen still permitted, though we're not sure if those will come to fruition.

Here are the new sites in the Toledo area from the last few years. All of these are Sprint conversions, and they still have a few more Sprint sites to convert 

This is kind of an old thread but I thought it would be good to post this here… I just realized US carriers have somewhat detailed intl roaming maps, and its surprising to see the amount of coverage that relies on 2G in China, at least according to these US carrier maps. Anyone know if these are accurate at all? Also, it seems like Cellmapper isn’t very popular in China… 

https://imgur.com/a/JBMlK6W 

On 2/5/2023 at 8:28 AM, Dkoellerwx said:

T-Mobile has been building out new rural sites for the last 6-8 months. It may not be as noticeable elsewhere, but we have had 40+ new sites come online in Nebraska. There have been new builds in Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri as well.

If you change the site data to display hex values on Cellmapper, look for sites that begin with 05D, or 062 - 063. Those are new sites in the last 6 months.

So far I’ve only found 1 new T-Mobile colocation in Ohio and I’ve seen a couple brand new builds on cellmapper but most of the new sites here come from Sprint since they had good rural coverage. I wish T-Mobile would put up some new colocations in some weak spots where Sprint also sucked. 

New Vertical Bridge site built for Tmobile near Red River Gorge area.  Maybe T-Mobile is starting to build out new sites and colos in rural areas now...

https://imgur.com/a/Tv3Ge0w

Still waiting for december on U1 😡

Just hit this on my home site! Too bad it’s below the tree line so it drops to low band half a mile away… 

5 hours ago, PedroDaGr8 said:

That's pretty impressive! T-Mobile is so horribly backhaul limited in most areas. I really wish they would get to upgrading back haul on a bunch of their urban/suburban sites. 

I’ve heard they scale backhaul according to how many home internet users are in the area, and it makes a lot of sense a bunch of sites here have upgraded backhaul because we have a horrible local cable monopoly (Buckeye Broadband) and no one likes them… they’re rolling out fiber right now but the prices are still horrible (https://www.buckeyebroadband.com/sites/default/files/2022-11/ratecard010123.pdf)

I’ve found 6 gig+ sites in the greater toledo area (5 are on this map, 1 is a certain tower that happens to serve my home)

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1HbGFtjv6cblda17OCE7k_73928zncy0&ll=41.62869080014765%2C-83.53590555996206&z=11

On 12/5/2022 at 8:30 AM, clbowens said:

November security update is downloading now, just in time for December.  🙂

Still on October with U1 😂

I got the October update on September 30th and I don't have N25 SA enabled... weird

Got the U1 August update a while ago, and my N41 SA still isn't back. I'll try re-flashing my phone back to U TMB firmware and see if that works.

4 hours ago, clbowens said:

The August update just downloaded to my phone.

Are you running T-Mobile firmware? I'm on unlocked (U1) and still haven't gotten July

Didn't realize there were 2 convert sites lol

Shentel handoff is just too good 😁https://imgur.com/a/Cf7oR5k

Spotted a Shentel to T-Mobile convert site in Hinton, WV. 5G doesn't seem to be turned on right now. Currently it seems to have b2 5mhz, b66 10mhz, b71 5mhz enabled. https://imgur.com/a/Fnox8Uf

I'm in WV for vacation right now, and the place I'm staying at has a Sprint/VZ site on the mountain next to me 0.5 miles away. When I arrived, the site seemed to be off since I couldn't connect to it even when very close to it. I took a walk in the area a few hours later and my phone connected to the Sprint site briefly, but switched back to US Cellular roaming when I returned to where I was staying. Not sure what is going on with the site, but I'll see if I can check it out sometime soon.

N41 SA disappeared from the *#2263# menu with this June update. Although LTE + n71 + n41 still works, standalone n71 + n41 no longer works.... I tried enabling all bands using HiddenMenuTools and the *#73# menu, but n41 SA is nowhere to be seen. I can no longer get 200mbps using NR CA at my house and instead I get 30mbps on n71 15mhz SA (LTE is 5mbps at my place)

I also took a trip to Put-In-Bay near the end of June and T-Mobile is running b2,66 on a monopole (eNB 34001) for covering the southern part of the island and roaming on Sprint for coverage on the north part of the island (eNB 697136). For some reason when I arrived there in the morning at 11am my phone defaulted to Sprint band 41 and I had no internet connectivity. I tried airplane mode reset, turning off dual sim, etc, but Sprint band 41 did not have any throughput whatsoever. I forced band 25 and I had a data connection. Then later in the day Sprint band 41 started working again. Not sure what was going on when I first got there...

I'm starting to find gig+ sites around this area... here are the 2 I found in my area:

- my home tower (a specific tower in west Toledo)

            It used to be 12/66 but got upgraded sometime in June with all the regular modernized bands, but I really didn't expect it to get gigabit backhaul since the tower's midband range is really bad, and I'm willing to bet there is barely any traffic on the tower (I usually get 120mbps pre-upgrades on b66 20mhz + b12 5mhz at -100 rsrp). Here is a speedtest.

- A tower along the highway near Perrysburg (eNB 23139)

            This site got upgraded sometime last year, and it would always cap out at 250mbps on n41 100mhz until sometime last fall, where I could consistently hit 600+mbps on it. Now it can hit more than 1000mbps, given you have good signal. This site serves some neighborhoods and some busy shopping areas, so it makes sense T-Mobile upped the backhaul for this one. Here is a speedtest.

I'm glad its coming to this area, hopefully I can find more of these sites... I have plotted these sites on this Google Mymaps if anyone is interested: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?mid=1HbGFtjv6cblda17OCE7k_73928zncy0&usp=sharing