I have a cell site sitting on the building right across the street and two years ago I had a post here with some pictures of how the site has changed over the past 10 years. On average, changes are done every two years. So I guess it was time again when things were once … Continue reading Base Station Changes Over The Years
When LTE was launched a decade ago, setting up measurements was a simple thing. When a connection is established, the network typically instructs the mobile device to measure the signal strength of the currently serving cell and the signal strength of neighboring cells. The result is either reported periodically or when predefined events occur. When … Continue reading LTE Event A6 for Carrier Aggregation
5G is slowly making its way into Cologne with incredible date rates. Recently, however, I discovered just what it means to have a simple insulating window between you and the network outside.
Happy New Year 2020 to all of you! It’s the time of the year again when it makes sense to take a look back at the last 12 months of 2019 to see which tech things and events ‘have moved me’ during the course of the year. Like in the previous years, it is once … Continue reading Things That Moved Me in 2019
Recently, I attended a huge fair with 10.000 people crammed into a 16.000 m2 hall that had indoor LTE coverage from 3 network operators and little Wifi for public use. From a mobile network point of view it doesn’t get much ‘worse’ than this so I spent some time to have a look how one … Continue reading LTE Congestion Behavior – Part 2
When I’m looking into the specs to get some details on basic LTE features, I tend to look at ‘old’ 3GPP specification documents as more often than not, things are much easier to find there than in the latest and greatest versions of the same document. Here’s an interesting example: 3GPP 36.133 on LTE Radio … Continue reading 3GPP Specification Bloat
Unfortunately I could not come to cccamp#19 so I missed a lot of fun. Fortunately, people shared a lot of technical details online so I was able to pull together a number of interesting details about the different microwave backhaul links that were put in place for the event as a backup to the cross … Continue reading State of Microwave Backhaul – Part 1
A few weeks ago, two US network operators have launched 5G in the Chicago area, just when I happened to be there for a week. While I don’t have a 5G device that supports US deployments yet, I expected that, perhaps as a side effect, there would also be a significant LTE deployment. However, I … Continue reading A Look At LTE Deployment North of Chicago – Part 1
When I was recently asked what the power consumption of a typical cell site is I had general idea but decided to find out some more details and to set things into perspective. According to sources here and here, a typical 3 sector base station site with several LTE carriers on air draws anywhere between … Continue reading Cell Site Power Consumption
Back in 2016 I noted on this site that one German network operator had by that time deployed 50 MHz worth of LTE in the center of Cologne where I live. I was impressed! Others have also not been idle since then and when I was in Paris recently, I noticed that Orange also has … Continue reading The State of Carrier Aggregation in Paris