this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Cellmapper Unofficial Lemmy Community

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We're the unofficial Lemmy community for all things Cellmapper, an app to record and display mobile network information & quality. This Lemmy community is based on the r/Cellmapper subreddit.

In addition to content related to the Cellmapper app, the r/Cellmapper subreddit is also frequently used for general cell tower equipment identification, which will also be allowed in this community.

Any moderator of r/Cellmapper that would like moderator access here feel free to send me a message.

Rules (currently copied from the Cellmapper subreddit):

  1. Don't be rude or disruptive

We're happy to give people some slack but we want to maintain the community as an inclusive and supportive one that's open to people of all levels of knowledge about mobile networks.

Examples of rude / disruptive behaviour include but aren't limited to: Excessive Swearing / Directed Swearing at an individual as an insult, showing huge levels of disdain to someone with less knowledge than yourself, hounding users about irrelevant points, just generally being a bit of a knob.

  1. Don't reveal the location of other users

Fairly simply rule I think, considering the nature of Cellmapper we store a lot of information that is geotagged. If you have knowledge about someone that isn't public, don't be a knob and reveal it to the world unless they want to. It's just basic manners to be honest.

  1. Please try and keep complaints constructive

We get it. Cellmapper sometimes doesn't work as well as it should or sometimes is just a bit frustrating. We know! We use it ourselves and find it just as annoying. We're a small group of people and it's all done on a voluntary basis when we have free time, we're not commercial like some of the other sites but we do try. If you've got feedback, constructive criticism or anything like this get in touch with us, we'd love to hear it and we love speaking to users, but please don't be too rude!

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Verizon + T-Mobile? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by adlr to c/cellmapper
 

Can folks confirm this is Verizon (utility pole) and T-Mobile (building)? This is located at https://maps.app.goo.gl/9Q5ahxojr7wpJz6RA

Thanks very much!

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[–] thegoodnamesaregone6 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The utility pole setup is hard to confirm as I've seen setups similar to that from a lot of carriers. However I've seen it most often from Verizon and AT&T so if Verizon has a good signal around there it is probably Verizon.

The building setup does look like T-Mobile, although not a particularly recent setup. Center antenna looks like LTE band 12, outer antennas are likely bands 2 and 4/66. Possibly 5G n25 (I've seen equipment as old as 2012 get FCC approval to have 5G capabilities added through software, although the performance isn't a whole lot better than with 4G because in those cases the hardware isn't designed to take advantage of 5G's capabilities).

[–] adlr 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, thanks! I've seen a lot of these utility pole setups for Verizon in Evanston, measured with my phone. My main question was the T-Mobile, since I'm definitely no expert, but the antenna setup does look different than a lot of more recent T-Mobile deployments.

Really appreciate it, and tbh I was a bit surprised to get any reply on such a new platform. Thank you!

[–] thegoodnamesaregone6 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've seen a lot of these utility pole setups for Verizon in Evanston, measured with my phone.

In that case it probably is Verizon.

My main question was the T-Mobile, since I'm definitely no expert, but the antenna setup does look different than a lot of more recent T-Mobile deployments.

A tall and skinny antenna in the center with 2 or 3 shorter (and still somewhat narrow) antennas around it was a pretty common T-Mobile setup for a few years.

T-Mobile started deploying that setup when they obtained their band 12 licenses (which for several years were T-Mobile's main long range licenses).

Once T-Mobile bought their band 71 licenses (which are now T-Mobile's main long range licenses) they stopped deploying that setup and instead used a big antenna that not only supported their new band 71 licenses, but also was able to squeeze theoretically double the capacity out of each of T-Mobile's long range licenses and on more recent equipment (~2019+) could even integrate some medium range license support into the same antenna panel (meaning less pieces of equipment are needed now).

Really appreciate it, and tbh I was a bit surprised to get any reply on such a new platform. Thank you!

Welcome to this community!

I am hopeful that this community gains some popularity. Currently the main Cellmapper communities are on Reddit (which I wouldn't be here if I was still happy with them) and Telegram (which IMO is not a good format for these kinds of content), which is why I created this Lemmy community.

[–] adlr 2 points 1 year ago

Well thanks for starting this! Yeah, so I looked up the T-Mobile tower on CellMapper and sure enough, it's a b2/66/12 setup. Looks like it all checks out here!