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I've been wondering about remote cell towers as well. When I'm out in rural areas I'll regularly get 'LTE', but my downloads will be considerably slower than wh
by xur17 7y ago
I've been wondering about remote cell towers as well. When I'm out in rural areas I'll regularly get 'LTE', but my downloads will be considerably slower than when I'm in a city (despite a much lower population density). My assumption is that it's very expensive to get highspeed internet out to these locations.
This should enable cell phone companies to place a tower as long as they can run power to it (and solar panels might be an option for really remote towers).
- mchristen 7y agoIn a lot of rural areas the cell towers are linked together using some sort of wireless tech, usually microwave links or similar line of sight technology. So in effect all those towers share their Internet bandwidth.
- mutt2016 7y agoIt's not likely this. Microwave transport is fast. The real difference in rural sites is a combination of spectrum (ie. 5mz of 850) vs 20mhz of 1700/2100. 850 has better propagation, hence its usage in rural. The other factor is antenna patterns and site sectors. Many rural sites have an omni antenna, and with no tilt. In cities you may see 6+ sectors on a site with 12 degree tilts. So your site has more bandwidth(20+ mhz), and way more capacity. Long story short.. They give you less of the interwebs in rural because it's cheaper