5G Ultra Wideband Speed Test Thread

[Jack Hagar]

Precisely what you said. I live in a market where, like much of AT&T in Florida, Verizon has CLR A and B.

For simplicity’s sake (and because I’m too lazy to go look up the paired UL EARFCNs), I just listed the DL EARFCNs in use. But if you look at the DL EARFCNs I posted above, Verizon wedged two 10x10 B5 carriers next to each other and is using the remaining space from 889 to 894 MHz downlink (and 844-849 MHz uplink) for legacy CDMA/1x carriers that are due to be shut down at the end of the year.

Once those are gone, Verizon could, in theory, replace the 10x10 B5 carrier running at DL EARFCN 2560 with a 15x15 n5 carrier from 879-894 MHz (DL)/834-849 MHz (UL), while leaving the remaining 10x10 B5 carrier in place at DL EARFCN 2450 to retain some additional low-band LTE capacity besides B13.

That does nothing for places( which is most ) where they have ONE block. The extra 1.5-2.5 MHz is useless. The cellular band needs to be re-banded. Make one block 10/10 MHz the other 15/15 MHz

[blkballoon925]

n13 just now became an official thing with release 17 in September. There are ZERO devices that support it. No need to deploy it when there will be minimum amount of devices that will have it over the next few years. And it's more useful for LTE for now. But if Verizon want lowband 5G they really need to work with att in swapping areas where both have both blocks of 850 MHz. Unless they don't care that pretty much the east coast of Florida, lots of Texas, Milwaukee and other paces don't have any access to lowband 5G

Likewise, why doesn’t AT&T seem to care that they have no 850 in some larger markets like Phoenix and Cleveland? Sure, they have B12 just like Verizon has B13, but that measly 10x10 spectrum gets congested quickly. Because of the current legacy CLR band configuration, I kind of feel like it makes more sense for one carrier to hold CLR A+B these days so that that none of that precious spectrum goes unused or wasted. But it also creates huge imbalances of low-band holdings for whoever holds all of it, and that’s not good for competition. I often wish I lived in an area where AT&T could be more competitive, but they have the worst cell density and spectrum holdings of the “Big Three” carriers.

As far as Verizon’s B13, I agree that it makes more sense to keep it LTE-only, at least in most markets where they have 10x10 n5 running. That was the band they started with when building their LTE network, and that will likely be the last band to support LTE as they prepare to sunset it many years from now. Their LTE network will lose capacity as B66 and B2 are transitioned to NR, but keeping B13 around will at least guarantee ubiquitous coverage for their LTE network until it is shut down.

DSS on B13 would just sacrifice efficiency for minimal gains, given how many millions of devices are already out in the world that will never be able to use n13. In most markets, 10x10 n5 will be a good enough replacement for a lack of 700 MHz band NR on Verizon’s network.

That does nothing for places( which is most ) where they have ONE block. The extra 1.5-2.5 MHz is useless. The cellular band needs to be re-banded. Make one block 10/10 MHz the other 15/15 MHz

I agree. It’s long overdue, and should have been initiated when major CLR license holders like AT&T, Verizon, and USCC all committed to a transition to LTE. The alignment of the licenses was workable in the AMPS (and CDMA, since it was largely built around the American band plan) days when 30 kHz and 1.25 MHz channels were the norm. Given how limited and valuable that sub-1 GHz spectrum is and with 5 MHz channels being the smallest supported with NR and efficiencies increasing with larger bandwidths, I’m surprised that AT&T and Verizon haven’t put forward a joint proposal to the FCC to rework that spectrum for everybody’s benefit.

I’d really like to see an effort to do a more comprehensive spectrum swap including CLR, but also the lower mid-band where PCS and AWS could be realigned for each of the major carriers to align their non-contiguous holdings, too. It’s silly that AT&T has 25 MHz of PCS and 20 MHz of AWS in my market, yet it’s so fragmented that they can only run 10x10 carriers, except for one 15x15. No 20x20 at all anywhere in the sub-6 spectrum. Much of that fragmentation is the result of the industry consolidation that has largely stalled with only 3 major carriers left, and bears no benefit to any one particular carrier nationally. There’s just no reason anymore to continuing wasting valuable spectrum that could be put to more efficient use.

[Jack Hagar]

I’d really like to see an effort to do a more comprehensive spectrum swap including CLR, but also the lower mid-band where PCS and AWS could be realigned for each of the major carriers to align their non-contiguous holdings, too. It’s silly that AT&T has 25 MHz of PCS and 20 MHz of AWS in my market, yet it’s so fragmented that they can only run 10x10 carriers, except for one 15x15. No 20x20 at all anywhere in the sub-6 spectrum. Much of that fragmentation is the result of the industry consolidation that has largely stalled with only 3 major carriers left, and bears no benefit to any one particular carrier nationally. There’s just no reason anymore to continuing wasting valuable spectrum that could be put to more efficient use.

Verizon could swap their PCS for AWS in markets with att or t-mobile. If Verizon could get 40X40 MHz contiguous is AWS they wouldn't need any PCS. In my area they have 7.5X7.5 MHz of PCS which effectively means only 5X5 MHz. This block is right next to a 7.5X7.5 MHz block t-mobile owns. Verizon could swap that for T-Mobile's 5X5 MHz AWS-3 block which is right next to 10X10 MHz block Verizon already owns and maybe some other spectrum elsewhere to even out the deal. It's win/win for both

[chris4434]

5GUW test in Kennesaw, Georgia (Barrett Parkway) with an iPhone 14 Pro Max on the 5G Get More plan. Although Verizon has had c band deployed here for a while, it’s doing nothing to fix the data problems in the area because their macro tower density is awful and they have zero small cells here. This test was taken outside, but as soon as you step foot in any building the signal drops to 1 bar of completely unusable LTE. AT&T on the other hand, has installed small cells around every half mile in this area. I’ve counted 13 AT&T small cells in about a two mile radius on top of AT&T having more macro sites. Verizon’s network was already stretched too thin with low band LTE and it’s never going to improve with c band until they heavily densify.

[blkballoon925]

Ideally, they would do more to add density. It's interesting hearing that AT&T has so many small cells, because in my region it is the opposite experience where Verizon has small cells everywhere and AT&T has virtually none.

Keep in mind that as more people upgrade to 5G-capable phones, more data will be able to be offloaded to C-band. In addition, there's still another 80-160 MHz of n77 (depending on which licenses Verizon acquired in that area) yet to come online once C-band is fully cleared. That's a lot of capacity that can still be turned on with nothing more than a configuration update once the spectrum is available for Verizon's use.

[chris4434]

Ideally, they would do more to add density. It's interesting hearing that AT&T has so many small cells, because in my region it is the opposite experience where Verizon has small cells everywhere and AT&T has virtually none.

Keep in mind that as more people upgrade to 5G-capable phones, more data will be able to be offloaded to C-band. In addition, there's still another 80-160 MHz of n77 (depending on which licenses Verizon acquired in that area) yet to come online once C-band is fully cleared. That's a lot of capacity that can still be turned on with nothing more than a configuration update once the spectrum is available for Verizon's use.

AT&T is the only carrier that’s really deploying small cells in the metro Atlanta area which is bizarre to me, because Verizon desperately needs them to fill in major coverage gaps. Verizon has some (in the city of Atlanta) but none in the metro area that I’ve seen other than some mostly useless mmWave nodes that lose signal as soon as you’re 200 feet from it.

[VVivian]

Good thing Verizon is currently deploying a 100 MHz n77 channel in the Atlanta market.

[Jack Hagar]

other than some mostly useless mmWave nodes that lose signal as soon as you’re 200 feet from it.

me: rolls eyes

[VVivian]

If mmWave is useless, then why has it offloaded half of Verizon’s data traffic in the parts of Chicago it’s been deployed?

[cisco115]

AT&T is the only carrier that’s really deploying small cells in the metro Atlanta area which is bizarre to me, because Verizon desperately needs them to fill in major coverage gaps. Verizon has some (in the city of Atlanta) but none in the metro area that I’ve seen other than some mostly useless mmWave nodes that lose signal as soon as you’re 200 feet from it.

Switch to another carrier (I did), you'll be happier. No reason to pay a premium bill to sit on a congested network.

[zspa710]

100Mhz of N77 is live in Fort Wayne IN, PEA 086! I did not expect it this year but am very happy to see it.
Here is my work tower this morning.
https://imgur.com/a/e3rkVnO

[ecs0013]

100Mhz of N77 is live in Fort Wayne IN, PEA 086! I did not expect it this year but am very happy to see it.
Here is my work tower this morning.
https://imgur.com/a/e3rkVnO

Nice! I'm surprised to see them lighting it up in Fort Wayne, but it'll probably complement the mmWave sites all over town. Is that along 469 (didn't want to put you on the spot for the specific location)? I'll have to keep an eye out next time I'm up there.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think AT&T has done much other than n5 in that area yet.

[blkballoon925]

100Mhz of N77 is live in Fort Wayne IN, PEA 086! I did not expect it this year but am very happy to see it.
Here is my work tower this morning.
https://imgur.com/a/e3rkVnO

Is it me, or did they mount the CBRS antenna backwards facing into the tower?

[Jack Hagar]

Is it me, or did they mount the CBRS antenna backwards facing into the tower?

That's not a CBRS radio. You actually think they were be that much of difference in size between CBRS and n77 they are right next to each other. And you can see on the other sector to the right you see other similarly sized box facing "backwards"

[10mm]

Is it me, or did they mount the CBRS antenna backwards facing into the tower?

They did. That is a CBRS radio because it's not a TMA and it is probably plugged into another panel which is why it's facing inwards.