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created an account just for this: i spend a lot of time in airports, one of my conversation starters is 'tell me something about your work i can't find on goog

by jdod 8y ago

created an account just for this: i spend a lot of time in airports, one of my conversation starters is 'tell me something about your work i can't find on google'. i said this to a person who inspects/installs cell towers. this person told me that a few years ago instead of installing new or upgrading towers for 4G LTE, on a lot of the towers the company had them install a chip that makes it look like users have 4g LTE signal but it's only 4g or 3g and not LTE. i'm sure someone will come along in the comments and tell me this person lied and this is impossible, and that may be true, just throwing my two pennies out there.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
If AT&T can rebrand LTE as 5GE then I’m sure this could be true.
- cbhl 8y ago
  During the transition to LTE, T-mobile did something similar -- they updated phones to report HDSPA+ as "4G".
  - joecool1029 8y ago
    AT&T (with HSUPA) spearheaded that, T-Mobile followed but was better able to actually argue it as their HSPA+ implementation was faster due to use of DC-HSPA+ (42mbits). ITU relaxed their definition of 4G to allow for "significant upgrades to 3G technology", so blame them for everyone jumping on the bandwagon: https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-problem.aspx https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-pro...
markdown 8y ago
AT&T will put a fake 5G logo on its 4G LTE phones https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolutio...
joecool1029 8y ago
>the company had them install a chip Yeah no. As the other posts said below, AT&T has had a history of pushing minor changes in early technology as a new generation of that technology. The most recent is their 5Ge nonsense. Back in the early 2010's they pushed an update to iOS to change HSPA+ 3G to display as 4G. It's not, but the behavior carried over to other carriers. T-Mobile was closest to being able to argue it as 4G as they deployed DC-HSPA+ which could provide 42mbit in ideal conditions. It's possible that there was something lost in translation between the installer and you that there was a radio component upgrade on the antenna that allowed HSPA+ to be used over the older UMTS and HSPA. Now most towers have the radios and antennas integrated as one component, but on weak towers and older installs the radios and the antennas were separate. I know a bit more about T-Mobile USA, and one of the things they did a few years back to bring up 2G-only regions was get better backhaul in then plug LTE radios into the 2G antennas, making the sites broadcast 2G and LTE on band 2, 1900mhz. Later on they would add band 12 LTE by hooking in an antenna that could be tuned for 700mhz.

by jdod 8y ago

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

If AT&T can rebrand LTE as 5GE then I’m sure this could be true.

cbhl 8y ago
During the transition to LTE, T-mobile did something similar -- they updated phones to report HDSPA+ as "4G".
- joecool1029 8y ago
  AT&T (with HSUPA) spearheaded that, T-Mobile followed but was better able to actually argue it as their HSPA+ implementation was faster due to use of DC-HSPA+ (42mbits). ITU relaxed their definition of 4G to allow for "significant upgrades to 3G technology", so blame them for everyone jumping on the bandwagon: https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-problem.aspx https://fcw.com/blogs/mobileplatform/2011/03/att-hspa-4g-pro...

markdown 8y ago

AT&T will put a fake 5G logo on its 4G LTE phones https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolution-logo-rollout-fake-network https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18151764/att-5g-evolutio...

joecool1029 8y ago

>the company had them install a chip Yeah no. As the other posts said below, AT&T has had a history of pushing minor changes in early technology as a new generation of that technology. The most recent is their 5Ge nonsense. Back in the early 2010's they pushed an update to iOS to change HSPA+ 3G to display as 4G. It's not, but the behavior carried over to other carriers. T-Mobile was closest to being able to argue it as 4G as they deployed DC-HSPA+ which could provide 42mbit in ideal conditions. It's possible that there was something lost in translation between the installer and you that there was a radio component upgrade on the antenna that allowed HSPA+ to be used over the older UMTS and HSPA. Now most towers have the radios and antennas integrated as one component, but on weak towers and older installs the radios and the antennas were separate. I know a bit more about T-Mobile USA, and one of the things they did a few years back to bring up 2G-only regions was get better backhaul in then plug LTE radios into the 2G antennas, making the sites broadcast 2G and LTE on band 2, 1900mhz. Later on they would add band 12 LTE by hooking in an antenna that could be tuned for 700mhz.