Telecom first NZ telco to trial 4G over APT700 MHz band

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom first NZ telco to trial 4G over APT700 MHz band

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

cyril7

8950 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#1035240 2-May-2014 08:12

I think those complaining about the handsets not supporting APT700 also need to consider what this band is available for, the primary purpose is to suppliment or upgrade the 3G BB services off RBI and other rural cell towers to allow rural property owners to have access to decent speeds, most often via a suitable 4G router with external antenna rather than a handset. Its my understanding that this is why the Digital divide spectrum has been set aside.

Using the 700MHz band creates a decent long throw transport that 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz dont quite do so well and will be why they still remain the primary coverage for urban area.

Cyril

Pluralsight

Learn cloud, mobile, security, data and web technologies with Pluralsight (affiliate link).

hamish225

1391 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1035400 2-May-2014 12:48

cyril7: I think those complaining about the handsets not supporting APT700 also need to consider what this band is available for, the primary purpose is to suppliment or upgrade the 3G BB services off RBI and other rural cell towers to allow rural property owners to have access to decent speeds, most often via a suitable 4G router with external antenna rather than a handset. Its my understanding that this is why the Digital divide spectrum has been set aside.

Using the 700MHz band creates a decent long throw transport that 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz dont quite do so well and will be why they still remain the primary coverage for urban area.

Cyril

i thought they would use 700Mhz 4g like they use 850Mhz for 3g now?

sorry if i get this wrong but are you saying they're going to have complete coverage in the cities only on the higher frequancies?

wouldnt it be better to just use 2600Mhz etc for infill since in building reception would be terrible on that frequency?

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

old3eyes

8996 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1035499 2-May-2014 14:59

hamish225:
cyril7: I think those complaining about the handsets not supporting APT700 also need to consider what this band is available for, the primary purpose is to suppliment or upgrade the 3G BB services off RBI and other rural cell towers to allow rural property owners to have access to decent speeds, most often via a suitable 4G router with external antenna rather than a handset. Its my understanding that this is why the Digital divide spectrum has been set aside.

Using the 700MHz band creates a decent long throw transport that 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz dont quite do so well and will be why they still remain the primary coverage for urban area.

Cyril

i thought they would use 700Mhz 4g like they use 850Mhz for 3g now?

sorry if i get this wrong but are you saying they're going to have complete coverage in the cities only on the higher frequancies?

wouldnt it be better to just use 2600Mhz etc for infill since in building reception would be terrible on that frequency?

The higher the frequency the less the distance and building penetration. From tests I saw heard about with Sprint's WiMax deployed on the 2600 band it wouldn't get thru a wet paper bag and usually dropped off when you entered a building and I'm sure LTE at the same 2600 Meg frequency would be the same unless you had saturation of basestations ..

Regards,

Old3eyes

cyril7

8950 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Subscriber

#1035501 2-May-2014 15:03

Hi, it would be good to get some feed back from JohnR etal on how the industry is expecting to roll with the 700MHz plan, but I think you will find that urban will mainly rely on the existing bands, the 700 is primarily for Rural BB deployment.

Cyril

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1035535 2-May-2014 15:38

old3eyes:
hamish225:
cyril7: I think those complaining about the handsets not supporting APT700 also need to consider what this band is available for, the primary purpose is to suppliment or upgrade the 3G BB services off RBI and other rural cell towers to allow rural property owners to have access to decent speeds, most often via a suitable 4G router with external antenna rather than a handset. Its my understanding that this is why the Digital divide spectrum has been set aside.

Using the 700MHz band creates a decent long throw transport that 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz dont quite do so well and will be why they still remain the primary coverage for urban area.

Cyril

i thought they would use 700Mhz 4g like they use 850Mhz for 3g now?

sorry if i get this wrong but are you saying they're going to have complete coverage in the cities only on the higher frequancies?

wouldnt it be better to just use 2600Mhz etc for infill since in building reception would be terrible on that frequency?

The higher the frequency the less the distance and building penetration. From tests I saw heard about with Sprint's WiMax deployed on the 2600 band it wouldn't get thru a wet paper bag and usually dropped off when you entered a building and I'm sure LTE at the same 2600 Meg frequency would be the same unless you had saturation of basestations ..

As demand for mobile has grown the move has been towards smaller cells, something that's essential to overcome simple basic laws of physics (noise floor). This has meant a move towards sites covering smaller areas, and LTE is going to see an increasing use of small cells, and 2600mhz is the perfect frequency for this because it doesn't propagate well at all.

I expect we'll ultimately see 700Mhz in urban areas, but 1800 and 2600 forming the bulk of the LTE coverage in urban, simply because 700Mhz propagates too well.

alasta

6242 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#1035550 2-May-2014 15:51

sbiddle: As demand for mobile has grown the move has been towards smaller cells, something that's essential to overcome simple basic laws of physics (noise floor). This has meant a move towards sites covering smaller areas, and LTE is going to see an increasing use of small cells, and 2600mhz is the perfect frequency for this because it doesn't propagate well at all.

I expect we'll ultimately see 700Mhz in urban areas, but 1800 and 2600 forming the bulk of the LTE coverage in urban, simply because 700Mhz propagates too well.

Is 2600MHz typically supported on current 4G devices?

The iPhone specs list different 4G 'bands' that are supported rather than showing the frequencies. What bands are 700MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz?

Behodar

9249 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1035560 2-May-2014 15:59

700 is band 28
1800 is band 3
2600 is band 7

eXDee

4029 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1035578 2-May-2014 16:20

sbiddle: I expect we'll ultimately see 700Mhz in urban areas, but 1800 and 2600 forming the bulk of the LTE coverage in urban, simply because 700Mhz propagates too well.

How much would having fewer cells and lower transmit powers help mitigate some of this? Of course this is what's done as part of tuning a network, but in terms of managing the fact that the signal travels a long way, does this deal with this issue, or does it still present a problem?
And of course taking into account capacity becomes more and more of an issue the wider coverage footprint you give a single site.

Much like when deploying a large scale wifi network, you tend to disable 2.4 on certain APs and wind the transmit power back etc.

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1036216 3-May-2014 21:47

plambrechtsen:
sbiddle: I didn't make any assumptions about Tauranga having 4G - I said the iPhone5 supported the LTE bands that were in use in NZ at the time it was sold, and still in use now.

In all seriousness to the folks complaining that their x model phone doesn't support the APT LTE Band 28. There are no live networks running APT, the device selection is slim right now and primarily focused on Datacards (as it's a pure data service remember!).

My personal opinion is Telecom shouldn't even have to use that defense, the defense to "my phone will be outdated by this development in technology" is simply: "Were you told it won't be?" The elaboration then is the usual corporate spiel about how network operators don't reveal future plans, things are constantly changing, and plans are always up in the air until they are formally announced by marketing.

The only potentially valid complaint along the lines of "my phone will be outdated by this development in technology" that I can think of is: "but if Telecom deploy APT700 does this mean that the 4G my device currently supports will disappear?". I'm guessing, if history repeats, based on the TDMA->CDMA and CDMA->XT/WCDMA switchovers there will be a generous (~2 yr+) overlap (I think TDMA/CDMA had that long of an overlap), I'm just wondering if such a policy is documented anywhere.

eXDee

4029 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1036648 4-May-2014 21:53

nigelj: The only potentially valid complaint along the lines of "my phone will be outdated by this development in technology" that I can think of is: "but if Telecom deploy APT700 does this mean that the 4G my device currently supports will disappear?". I'm guessing, if history repeats, based on the TDMA->CDMA and CDMA->XT/WCDMA switchovers there will be a generous (~2 yr+) overlap (I think TDMA/CDMA had that long of an overlap), I'm just wondering if such a policy is documented anywhere.

There is an important distinction between the comparison you're drawing here, your previous examples are comparing generations, and the subsequent upgrade between them.

APT700 is not a different generation to the 1800 and 2600 4G being deployed presently. Its the same generation, and is designed to compliment the urban 4G offerings. APT700 is a challenge to deploy in urban spaces due to how far the signal travels (yes this is a problem), and 1800/2600 doesn't go far enough for out of city deployments.

A better comparison is when Vodafone just launched 3G in cities on 2100mhz. They subsequently then built the 3G Extended network outside of cities, on 900mhz for long range.
Numerous devices only supported 2100 and not 900, its a similar situation.

matisyahu

1585 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1037291 5-May-2014 19:59

sbiddle:
old3eyes:
hamish225:
cyril7: I think those complaining about the handsets not supporting APT700 also need to consider what this band is available for, the primary purpose is to suppliment or upgrade the 3G BB services off RBI and other rural cell towers to allow rural property owners to have access to decent speeds, most often via a suitable 4G router with external antenna rather than a handset. Its my understanding that this is why the Digital divide spectrum has been set aside.

Using the 700MHz band creates a decent long throw transport that 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz dont quite do so well and will be why they still remain the primary coverage for urban area.

Cyril

i thought they would use 700Mhz 4g like they use 850Mhz for 3g now?

sorry if i get this wrong but are you saying they're going to have complete coverage in the cities only on the higher frequancies?

wouldnt it be better to just use 2600Mhz etc for infill since in building reception would be terrible on that frequency?

The higher the frequency the less the distance and building penetration. From tests I saw heard about with Sprint's WiMax deployed on the 2600 band it wouldn't get thru a wet paper bag and usually dropped off when you entered a building and I'm sure LTE at the same 2600 Meg frequency would be the same unless you had saturation of basestations ..

As demand for mobile has grown the move has been towards smaller cells, something that's essential to overcome simple basic laws of physics (noise floor). This has meant a move towards sites covering smaller areas, and LTE is going to see an increasing use of small cells, and 2600mhz is the perfect frequency for this because it doesn't propagate well at all.

I expect we'll ultimately see 700Mhz in urban areas, but 1800 and 2600 forming the bulk of the LTE coverage in urban, simply because 700Mhz propagates too well.

Dear god I hope not because 2100Mhz is a useless in the Hutt Valley, Johnsonville or any place with terrain with an incline greater than a mole hill. I really sometimes wonder whether engineers go out of the main centres into the satellite towns to test their deployments because right the current 4G coverage is less than desirable. I'm 5km from Lower Hutt central and I can't get a 4G signal (from Telecom) to save myself and when I do get one (standing at the Naenae train station) I'm getting one dot on my iPhone 5S.

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

Laptop: MacBook Air (Apple M2, 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD)

Desktop: Apple Studio, Studio Display (Apple M1 Max, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD)

Phone: Nothing Phone (12GB RAM, 256GB Storage, Nothing OS 2.0.2), Google Workspace

Other: UniFi AP AC HD, UniFi Dream Machine, Apple TV 4K 128GB, Firefox

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#1037314 5-May-2014 20:37

kawaii:
sbiddle:
old3eyes:
hamish225:
cyril7: I think those complaining about the handsets not supporting APT700 also need to consider what this band is available for, the primary purpose is to suppliment or upgrade the 3G BB services off RBI and other rural cell towers to allow rural property owners to have access to decent speeds, most often via a suitable 4G router with external antenna rather than a handset. Its my understanding that this is why the Digital divide spectrum has been set aside.

Using the 700MHz band creates a decent long throw transport that 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz dont quite do so well and will be why they still remain the primary coverage for urban area.

Cyril

i thought they would use 700Mhz 4g like they use 850Mhz for 3g now?

sorry if i get this wrong but are you saying they're going to have complete coverage in the cities only on the higher frequancies?

wouldnt it be better to just use 2600Mhz etc for infill since in building reception would be terrible on that frequency?

The higher the frequency the less the distance and building penetration. From tests I saw heard about with Sprint's WiMax deployed on the 2600 band it wouldn't get thru a wet paper bag and usually dropped off when you entered a building and I'm sure LTE at the same 2600 Meg frequency would be the same unless you had saturation of basestations ..

As demand for mobile has grown the move has been towards smaller cells, something that's essential to overcome simple basic laws of physics (noise floor). This has meant a move towards sites covering smaller areas, and LTE is going to see an increasing use of small cells, and 2600mhz is the perfect frequency for this because it doesn't propagate well at all.

I expect we'll ultimately see 700Mhz in urban areas, but 1800 and 2600 forming the bulk of the LTE coverage in urban, simply because 700Mhz propagates too well.

Dear god I hope not because 2100Mhz is a useless in the Hutt Valley, Johnsonville or any place with terrain with an incline greater than a mole hill. I really sometimes wonder whether engineers go out of the main centres into the satellite towns to test their deployments because right the current 4G coverage is less than desirable. I'm 5km from Lower Hutt central and I can't get a 4G signal (from Telecom) to save myself and when I do get one (standing at the Naenae train station) I'm getting one dot on my iPhone 5S.

Frequency has nothing to do with this (and neither really does your location). Naenae station is about 200m from a Telecom cellsite - however that site hasn't been upgraded yet. Telecom don't have 4G coverage any further north in the Hutt Valley than the Waterloo Stn and VIC Cnr sites. Any coverage at Naenae station would be from the Waterloo Stn site.

coffeebaron

6075 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1041989 12-May-2014 09:48

So will Telecom have a live to public site at Fieldays this year?
https://twitter.com/TelecomNZ/status/465607018561015808

Perhaps Vodafone too? Then we can have some good PR speedtest rounds between the two of them hehe :)

Rural IT and Broadband support.

Broadband troubleshooting and master filter installs.
Starlink installer
Wi-Fi and networking
Cel-Fi supply and installer - boost your mobile phone coverage legally
Rural Broadband RBI installer for Ultimate Broadband and Full Flavour

Need help in Auckland, Waikato or BoP? Click my email button, or email me direct: [my user name] at geekzonemail dot com

1 | 2 | 3 | 4