How to compare towers

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tanihera

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#223239 20-Sep-2017 13:45

I'm near Thames and want to test RBI reception quality at my house, and although the new cell tower at Te Puru (10km north of Thames) is only 3 km away, is not quite line-of-sight. I'm told the tower was installed by Vodafone engineers and my mobile carrier is 2Deg/Warehouse, so it should be a no-brainer to test signal with my mobile phone running an app like Network Cell Info, and a yagi aerial, yes?

But the Te Puru tower shows up on cell-tower map sites like gis.geek.nz as being a Spark tower:

Spark TE PURU RBI CELLSITE

RSM Location height: 168M
Transmitters: 2

Transmitter 1: 700MHz
Centre: 768.000MHz
ERIP: 40
Registered: Thu, Dec 3, 2015 11:00 AM
Commenced: Thu, Dec 3, 2015
Expires: Wed, Mar 11, 2020
RSM License: 251860

Transmitter 2: 850MHz
Centre: 877.500MHz
ERIP: 40
Registered: Fri, Nov 27, 2015 3:40 PM
Commenced: Fri, Aug 18, 2017
Expires: Fri, Nov 28, 2031
RSM License: 251751

And aren't these Spark frequencies, the same as Orere Pt 25Km away across the Firth? Vodafone is anxious to sell me their RBI, but insist only the Orere Pt tower is suitable. Spark say they have no RBI service to sell me. WirelessNation say the Te Puru tower will "probably" give better service.

What gives, and how come? Is it simple to check signal strength and quality of both towers, and do I need a Spark SIM? Can anybody comment on this?

knoydart

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#1869373 20-Sep-2017 13:48

Looks like Vodafone are also at the site according the Register of Radio Frequencies

Behodar

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#1869374 20-Sep-2017 13:54

knoydart: the Register of Radio Frequencies

Which, for those unaware, is at http://www.rsm.govt.nz/smart.

ANglEAUT

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#1869387 20-Sep-2017 14:08

@Behodar:
@knoydart: the Register of Radio Frequencies
Which, for those unaware, is at http://www.rsm.govt.nz/smart.

Thank you Behodar. Having small things like this in the post make visiting GZ a pleasure.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

BarTender

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#1869399 20-Sep-2017 14:17

Or if you want to do local searches you can download Spectrum Search Lite with the Access Database. Then I use mdb-sqlite to convert it to sqlite.

tanihera

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#1869548 20-Sep-2017 16:18

Sweet! Many thanks bro.

I couldn't see how the gis.geek.nz info might be wrong, but it never occurred to me that it might be incomplete. It probably also explains why the all the tower/transmitter ID numbers the Network Cell Info app is giving me don't correspond with any tower based on the gis.geek.nz markers.

Is that Register of Radio Frequencies accessible by me? Is there a URL for it?

knoydart

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#1869557 20-Sep-2017 16:26

Yes the Register of Radio Frequencies is here - no need to register just to see current and planned licences.

There are user guides on the RSM website but if you have any specific questions, feel free to start a new thread or PM me

Edit link is posted above too

tanihera

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#1869696 20-Sep-2017 19:38

Oops....in addition to Knoydart, many thanks to Behodar, Icl, and Bartender too.

Seems weird that Spark can't offer any RBI service with their two towers within range. I'm told it's something about Chorus and Vodafone getting the RBI contract, not Spark.

Is there a difference between tower 2G, 3G, and 4G transmissions to cellphones, and RBI transmissions? Will my bog-average android Huawei phone running a signal strength app actually inform me about RBI signal strength at the carrier level?

By that I mean finding exactly where best to point my RBI yagi. I'm half expecting cellphone modulation & comms protocols to be different and exclusive, but will my Huawei tell me anything useful about RBI strength at all?

I'll check out the frequencies register and spectrum database and report back - again many thanks guys.

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knoydart

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#1869785 20-Sep-2017 20:42

Spark do have a rural wireless broadband product. Whist its not an official RBI product, I believe it is comparable to the Vodafone RBI offering you have already looked at.

tanihera

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#1870508 21-Sep-2017 21:12

I'm still struggling with this. The cell tower info -if that's what it is - my Huawei running CellInfoLite tells me looks like this: LAC-UCID: 22207-269915 and RNC-CID: 4-77771. There's also ASU=4, see pic.

I've found no way to search either Spectrum Search or the Register for these IDs, probably because I don't know what they mean or refer to, except LAC is about location.

Knoydart, if your table includes the LAC or RNC ids, it's probably what I want. How precisely did you create that table? Or should I start a new thread?

BarTender

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#1870512 21-Sep-2017 21:16

The LAC is an internal number that the mobile network allocates. RSM has no idea of what that number is.

coffeebaron

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#1870553 21-Sep-2017 23:06

Have you got a Vodafone SIM card you can temp install and give the above screenshot?

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tanihera

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#1870733 22-Sep-2017 09:41

@coffeebaron - hmmm, never thought of that. Good idea.

I'd assumed that Vodo, 2Deg, and Warehouse would have the RF side of things totally in common, with the data being split out to the various service providers at a much higher level - at the tcp/ip level even.

I'm a curiosity junkie tho, I might go buy a Vodo SIM just to find out - anyone else have an opinion on this?

BarTender

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#1870844 22-Sep-2017 10:37

The core network is a single resource for Spark/Vodafone/2Degrees no matter which MVNO (Warehouse/Skinny/...) uses it.

OpenSignal "collects" the LACs but hasn't really done the job to match up the LAC to the RSM Location as it's all crowd sourced data.

GMon lets you load in the LAC to GPS Coordinates via a GLF file but there isn't a single public resource matching that data up. Each carrier will have their own list but it's certainly not public.