Shrinking LTE?

[Trocks797]

Hey all. Since the second round of Big Red's LTE rollout, I have been mapping the changes in coverage to see how the network is progressing. Over the past few months, I have noticed LTE coverage, while on a whole expanding rapidly, is shrinking in many places. I am wondering if the network is truly shrinking or if this is just a map bug. I will post some examples below. If you live in any of these places and can shed some light on whether or not the reported coverage is true or not, that would be great. I am just trying to see if Verizon is deactivating some sites, and then we can speculate as to why. Thanks!

First up is my stomping grounds: Louisville and Lexington, KY (November vs. today):



I can tell you that all of the coverage that appears to be lost in Lexington still exists today.


Jonesboro, Arkansas (November vs. today):



El Paso, TX (September vs. today):



Jackson, Dyersburg and Martin, Tennessee (November vs. today):




Boise, Idaho (August vs. today):




Winston-Salem & Raleigh area, North Carolina (November vs. today):




Albequrque, New Mexico (October vs. today):



Some of these may be chalked up to Verizon adjusting their expectations of extended LTE, but for others like El Paso, Boise and the cities in NC, it appears Verizon has deactivated entire cell sites for whatever reason. These are just some of the examples I have noticed. What gives? Any ideas? Any real-world change in coverage?

[kupe]

It's all those black, horn-rimmed glasses guys going around testing the network and reporting back on real-world coverage versus theoretical coverage based on propagation simulations with DTED terrain data. Nice to see they're still heavily testing the network.

[Yankees368]

Verizon one put up a huge LTE coverage area for Bay City Michigan that did not exist. They took that down in the next update, too.

[sc4fpse]

Verizon one put up a huge LTE coverage area for Bay City Michigan that did not exist. They took that down in the next update, too.

I was just about to mention this. Huge was an understatement. Mt. Pleasant was also included, then removed, and only just recently received official coverage.

[dalbrich]

Just tangentially related to your post, since the maps are often woefully inaccurate anyway.

LTE uses CDMA for its air interface (as does UMTS). CDMA coverage does shrink (it "breathes") depending on use. i.e. if you have only one user, they can be further away. If you have multiple simultaneous users, then the users closest to the tower win. This is the reason fringe CDMA areas are fine during non-peak usage times, but unusable during peak times.

GSM typically uses TDMA for its air interface (or FDMA), but either way, coverage area doesn't change with usage. It's less spectrally efficient so the TDMA air interface didn't win.

[fraydog]

Just tangentially related to your post, since the maps are often woefully inaccurate anyway.

LTE uses CDMA for its air interface (as does UMTS). CDMA coverage does shrink (it "breathes") depending on use. i.e. if you have only one user, they can be further away. If you have multiple simultaneous users, then the users closest to the tower win. This is the reason fringe CDMA areas are fine during non-peak usage times, but unusable during peak times.

GSM typically uses TDMA for its air interface (or FDMA), but either way, coverage area doesn't change with usage. It's less spectrally efficient so the TDMA air interface didn't win.

LTE uses OFMDA instead of CDMA on the downstream and SC-FDMA on the upstream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution

[dalbrich]

LTE uses OFMDA instead of CDMA on the downstream and SC-FDMA on the upstream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution

Sorry for the mis-information on my part. I presumed they continued with the WCDMA used for UMTS.

[Tyler Cameron]

How do you know what towers were live and which weren't? Lucky guessing? You're a network engineer? Some magical app? I'm a cell tower nerd (wtf?) and this really peaks my interest!(:

[Trocks797]

How do you know what towers were live and which weren't? Lucky guessing? You're a network engineer? Some magical app? I'm a cell tower nerd (wtf?) and this really peaks my interest!(:

Nah, I just read the dB numbers for LTE under certain towers. That combined with 60+mbps speeds tells me there are active towers not depicted in the maps.

[Tyler Cameron]

Nah, I just read the dB numbers for LTE under certain towers. That combined with 60+mbps speeds tells me there are active towers not depicted in the maps.

I suspect here in Virginia Beach, Verizon isn't running the LTE towers at nearly as much power as they (legally) could because the range sucks.

On my way home from school, at this turn for the road (and the entrance to the neighborhood being about... 300 feet from that turn). At the stoplight before the turn, I was pulling 4-6mbps down and 2-8mbps up. This was on -105dBm

Now we make that turn and speeds automatically get worse. No more than 1-3mbps down/0.5-3mbps up. You can easily see the difference in the results tab in the speedtest app (if you want a screenshot lol, doubt you care that much)

and in my house.. no more than 1000 feet from the neighborhood entrance, 1.65mbps down/0.54mbps up. Wtf? Why is such a small difference... not only in signal but distance as well having such a massive affect on speeds?

Now recently, I've been noticing better signal all around. Much more green in my battery stats lol. But the speeds are no better. What does this mean? And yesterday just before the turn I was talking about, I pulled a (very strange) 2mbps down/13mbps up. The network is EXTREMELY wonky here and always has been. I wish I just knew why lol.

[carcarx]

What kind of obstructions/reflective surfaces are there in the affected area? Do you have an AM radio?
If so, turn it on and tune it to the lowest frequency that doesn't have a station. What kind of noise do you hear? Does it vary by direction? Multipath degrades OFDMA performance.

[Tyler Cameron]

What kind of obstructions/reflective surfaces are there in the affected area? Do you have an AM radio?
If so, turn it on and tune it to the lowest frequency that doesn't have a station. What kind of noise do you hear? Does it vary by direction? Multipath degrades OFDMA performance.

This is in my neighbor's backyard. Sorry about it being dark, I took it a long time ago during a storm (duh) and don't have another picture of it on me. I'm in school right now haha. I asked my papa what kind of antennas they are and he said he thinks they're for CB radio. But he's no radio engineer/expert

[Tyler Cameron]

^ Would those antennas have any affect on OFDMA performance?

[Wireless Junkie]

^ Would those antennas have any affect on OFDMA performance?

They shouldn't, its not really as much about the technology as it is about the frequency. Those antenna's look like HAM radio or TV antenna's and shouldn't have any effect on LTE.

What Verizon does during an LTE upgrade is replace or add one panel per sector of the cell site, it could be the way they placed the LTE panel, you could be on the edge of the sector beam, but are able to pick up CDMA/EV because the antenna covers a wider degree.

It also could be they don't have LTE on every site yet. What phone do you have? That plays a big role in the service you receive as well.

[Tyler Cameron]

Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
So what you're saying is when they put LTE on a tower, they don't put antennas all around?