strange 3G/4G footprint in eastern New Mexico

[WiWavelength]

Compass shows that T-Mobile has deployed 3G/4G W-CDMA coverage across some exceedingly rural areas in eastern New Mexico. Oddly, the footprint is limited to the most rural areas does not extend to larger cities/towns nor Interstate highways in that part of the state. See the attached coverage map from Compass. Anyone have any insight?

AJ

[zowwie85]

Odd. When I saw it I thought it would match up with Indian reservations, but it doesn't.

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[E_tron]

There is a strange footprint in Louisiana as well... maybe they are not real.

[PowderToastMan]

It's bigger now.

[danska]

Only thing i can think of is the more rural areas don't need as many towers as the more urban areas. One cell tower in the middle of a field can go a long way versus one in the middle of a mid sized town. (I'm just curious how they got decent broadband lines out in the middle of nowhere! Their excuse for gprs in Illinois was the lack of data access)

[jarrodpd]

I think they are doing it so they can leverage At&t into a roaming agreement by being like we have service here are you don't, that and they appear to want to put a end to off network funtime XD

Compass shows that T-Mobile has deployed 3G/4G W-CDMA coverage across some exceedingly rural areas in eastern New Mexico. Oddly, the footprint is limited to the most rural areas does not extend to larger cities/towns nor Interstate highways in that part of the state. See the attached coverage map from Compass. Anyone have any insight?

AJ

[ggore]

This baffled me when I saw these maps the other day. Those areas north and south of I-40 are absolutely barren, NO population at all. And the straight edges are strange, as cellphone signals don't radiate from tower locations like that. Something strange is going on.

[elimcgrubber]

This baffled me when I saw these maps the other day. Those areas north and south of I-40 are absolutely barren, NO population at all. And the straight edges are strange, as cellphone signals don't radiate from tower locations like that. Something strange is going on.

It could be that they are trying to get a head start on there nationwide 4G before LTE.

[jarrodpd]

Hopefully that is where they are going because they need a really big nation wide network to compete with At&T and Verizon. Plus it would be nice to have a native 3G connection when I visit my grand parents in WestVirginia.

[brad15]

This baffled me when I saw these maps the other day. Those areas north and south of I-40 are absolutely barren, NO population at all. And the straight edges are strange, as cellphone signals don't radiate from tower locations like that. Something strange is going on.

those "straight edges" represent where the license used to provide the coverage ends or turns into another block, it most likely bleeds past that but for FCC mapping purposes they can only "Guarantee" that it work there.

I imagine they're picking these way out of the way places to test and play with how they can push the network in rural areas and see how the performance is at an edge of a cell site and such, instead of doing the testing on live customers they're most likely doing it there so it wont affect many people

[elimcgrubber]

those "straight edges" represent where the license used to provide the coverage ends or turns into another block, it most likely bleeds past that but for FCC mapping purposes they can only "Guarantee" that it work there.

I imagine they're picking these way out of the way places to test and play with how they can push the network in rural areas and see how the performance is at an edge of a cell site and such, instead of doing the testing on live customers they're most likely doing it there so it wont affect many people

That sounds smart... And thats what my money is on for a explanation.

[jarrodpd]

The same thing is happening to north Texas past Amarillo. There is a town called dal hart and they have 3G coverage now but roaming on voice quality and it appears to be a huge area like the one in east NM. The weird thing is that it doesn't show up on compass but on the actual coverage map on tmobile.com coverage section.

[louderxxnow]

The same thing is happening to north Texas past Amarillo. There is a town called dal hart and they have 3G coverage now but roaming on voice quality and it appears to be a huge area like the one in east NM. The weird thing is that it doesn't show up on compass but on the actual coverage map on tmobile.com coverage section.

If you look north of Amarillo by Exell, they're building a completely new tower in a roaming only area!

[jarrodpd]

If you look north of Amarillo by Exell, they're building a completely new tower in a roaming only area!

I wish I was the network manager, I would force them to roll out backhaul fast enough to support either HSPA+42 or LTE 72. I don't understand why they only went for HSPA 7.2 so far in the new areas in NM, they should have went ahead and deployed the newest within the means of spectrum of course. And even if it were to cost a ton of money to lay fibre or get microwave they should just go ahead and invest so when it comes a time and they have to do upgrades to their network it's a go.

[danska]

I wish I was the network manager, I would force them to roll out backhaul fast enough to support either HSPA+42 or LTE 72. I don't understand why they only went for HSPA 7.2 so far in the new areas in NM, they should have went ahead and deployed the newest within the means of spectrum of course. And even if it were to cost a ton of money to lay fibre or get microwave they should just go ahead and invest so when it comes a time and they have to do upgrades to their network it's a go.

That's what just about all new areas get when they first get 3g/4g but I've seen HSPA+ speeds on my amaze in clearly listed 3g only areas. Give it time.