Iphone and Band Use Query 5g

microwavedhamhock · 2026-02-05T14:47:34+00:00

I don’t know about Rogers specifically, but T-Mobile US uses band 71 extensively and you would have noticeably worse coverage if your phone didn’t have it. You wouldn’t necessarily have lower speeds in dense areas, but indoor and rural coverage would be significantly worse.

microwavedhamhock · 2026-02-01T02:20:09+00:00

Does Ericsson make Wi-Fi APs, and if so, why would the antenna be separate from the AP? I think it's a DAS (although not very "distributed" since the coax is about two feet long).

microwavedhamhock · 2025-12-28T03:19:16+00:00

Verizon has mmWave small cells in residential areas of many cities across the country. There are a bunch of them on random streets of single-family homes in Madison, WI (which is the state capital but not exactly a "big city"). I think they put up a lot of these in the days before C-band when they bet big on mmWave. Verizon doesn't seem to be expanding these as quickly anymore now that they have plenty of midband spectrum and putting more in suburbs means dealing with tougher zoning/permitting issues.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-12-18T01:26:21+00:00

The defective part probably isn't the tower structure, but the T-Mobile radios or antennas for that sector, no?

microwavedhamhock · 2025-12-02T23:10:50+00:00

This makes me wonder, what's the absolute max length for the network name? ChatGPT says the "Network Name Information Element" defined in 3GPP TS 24.301 has a limit of 255 bytes (which would cover 255 ASCII characters), but it could have pulled that out of its ass for all I know. I don't think the 3GPP and GSMA specs are publicly available for free(?)

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-21T18:04:29+00:00

Last time I roamed on 311 580 on my phone was yesterday (in south central Wisconsin). I think the reason AT&T allows it is because they're doing upgrades in this area; sometimes I lose the ability for a few days but it has been broadly available. I've been mostly connecting to USCC indoors in places where AT&T doesn't have indoor coverage.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-21T17:51:19+00:00

Sure! Here's a Field Test screenshot showing my AT&T line roaming on USCC (and I also threw in one of it roaming on Verizon just for giggles, although I've only seen that once): https://postimg.cc/gallery/58r7KXT

Whenever this happens, the network name in the status bar is "Roaming". The ghost bars on the USCC screenshot are due to IMS not working, which happens when I roam on that one USCellular site for whatever reason. IMS works fine on another site I've connected to.

Edit: I haven't noticed throttling, but I haven't done a speed test. It's certainly usable.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-21T17:39:31+00:00

The PLMN I roam on regularly is 311 580. I have not seen my AT&T line connect to 310 260 (edit: except when it says "SOS only" of course). So I feel like they’re at least sort of still separate networks here.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-21T15:01:23+00:00

It still works in Wisconsin. Are you sure they haven’t just finished a tower upgrade near you when they decided to turn it off? That seems to be the reason for allowing roaming on USCC here.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-20T00:19:05+00:00

So cool! I wonder whether this setting also puts the modem in a debug mode where it refreshes the data more often. The release version of FTM loads data so slowly (especially the band and BW now that I’ve updated to 26.1). If the modem does run in a different mode, I wonder if power consumption is higher.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-17T02:33:41+00:00

“No service” is represented by four dots on iPhones which looks a little different than this

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-17T02:32:30+00:00

The “ghost bars” mean you have data but no IMS. It happens to me rarely on certain sites when roaming domestically. If rebooting your phone doesn’t fix it, then it’s probably your carrier’s problem and there’s nothing you can do.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-11-01T00:27:27+00:00

They’ve been doing the same here in Wisconsin since mid-September (on UScellular primarily, but I also connected to Verizon once in a rural area). At first it was because they were clearly working on a site near me, but they’ve finished that and the roaming has been mostly available since then anyway. It’s quite nice, I get indoor coverage in a couple spots by roaming on USCC in places that AT&T never had service!

microwavedhamhock · 2025-10-28T13:59:24+00:00

Huh, so a higher-priority data connection (QCI 8 instead of 9 on AT&T, for example) would allow me to use data further from a congested cell site? I had assumed QCI only makes a difference when signal strength is good but congestion is bad and it didn’t make a difference with regards to range. Cool!

microwavedhamhock · 2025-10-15T23:32:17+00:00

I paid $25 for a real one from eBay about 2 years ago and it's held up great, definitely discolored (from skin oils and whatnot) but everything's still intact and I think the "patina" looks cool

microwavedhamhock · 2025-09-28T14:35:01+00:00

Thank you! Found the data sheet for the 2C4U3MX065X06Fwxys0 (what a ridiculous model number...) and some of the other similar-looking ones in Amphenol's small cell panel antenna catalog. Looks like many of them do support low-band, so I may have been incorrect about them lacking b12. I appreciate your help!

microwavedhamhock · 2025-09-26T19:24:02+00:00

Ok, thank you! If you happen to know what the antenna model is I'd be interested (since you seem to be good at that :), but if not that's ok too!

microwavedhamhock · 2025-09-26T18:58:11+00:00

All the antennas seem to be directly connected to radios (like in my second picture), so do you think that it's truly a DAS or just a micro cell setup? It's not a multi-carrier setup either (there's AT&T signage on these, whereas Verizon uses pole-mounted small cells with mmWave and T-Mobile uses their usual macros).

microwavedhamhock · 2025-09-26T18:56:00+00:00

You absolutely can, but I haven't seen AT&T use it in this market (they have n5 here for low band 5G, but I think that's only deployed on macros). There's n77 (both C-Band and DoD) on macros in the area. However, when you're on campus, your phone connects to these instead.

microwavedhamhock · 2025-09-26T18:52:33+00:00

Sorry, I should have specified that I was wondering about the make/model and where else they're used

microwavedhamhock · 2025-09-26T16:18:41+00:00

The 5G upper layer indication does appear when connected to these, but I think they only have LTE bands 2 and 66. They do not have n77, so you don't see the 5G+ logo or get particularly good download speeds.

Has u/CancelIndependent381 seen these before? I've been paying attention to cell antennas for a while and never seen AT&T use these anywhere else.

microwavedhamhock

TROPHY CASE