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Comments on news posted 2014-01-13 17:06:37: AT&T is planning to spend much of this year focused on deploying small cells to high traffic locations such as malls, stadiums and large urban parks, in order to ease congestion and improve wireless network performance. ..

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tkdslr
join:2004-04-24
Pompano Beach, FL

tkdslr

Member

I don't care for AT&T's wayyyy overpriced wireless data plans..

And it will be a cold day H*ll before I sign up with them..

At&t tortured me for several years with an overpriced, steadily deteriorating aDSL connection as they deployed more and more Uverse customers upstream from my drop.
(crosstalk, interference, what was a reliable 2.2Mb/sec turned into a unreliable 384kb/sec.

No thanks at&t you've burned your bridges with me. I even had them take down my ancient phone line drops to the pole. They served no purpose anymore.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Makes sense

This kind of thing makes sense. Rather than continuing to add spectrum, reuse what you have in smaller geographic areas. This especially makes sense in places like stadiums, where you absolutely have to have multiple sites. You don't want those 100,000 people's usage to affect sites for miles around if you can at all help it.

stevennb
Ok, But, Thats The Last Straw.
Premium Member
join:2001-05-08
Wayne, NJ

stevennb

Premium Member

I wonder..

What T Mobiles response will be? Perhaps a pithy comment from John Legeres?
swarto112
Premium Member
join:2004-02-17
El Dorado Hills, CA

swarto112

Premium Member

makes sense

I can see now why they sold their towers other than for a tax break...they wont be need the giant towers as much when they roll out these cells. I've got one of their MicroCells...not because I truly needed it but I did a lot of business via cell and wanted the clearest and strongest signal. I moved a few times since then and found it to be very useful either on the road in a small outta the way place or just boosting the signal in the basement when lots of people are over. I watch my data it barely makes a dent.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

silbaco

Premium Member

At&t

Forget the small cells. At&t has so many holes in their network around here that it's just plain sad. You are lucky if you can even get 2G in many places.

rit56
join:2000-12-01
New York, NY

rit56 to stevennb

Member

to stevennb

Re: I wonder..

Well I think that when Verizon inevitably follows AT&T and starts charging companies for a "fast" lane and turns "their" internet into a cable tv model that's when I and most people finally defect to T-Mobile. If T-Mobile never does that how many people here will stay with AT&T and Verizon? None? Regulated internet is bad... They will pay dearly.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

2 recommendations

silbaco

Premium Member

Leave? People are not going to leave. These are the same people who are willing to pay $15 per GB in the first place and have continuously welcomed caps with open arms. If anything they will tweet about how awesome At&t is for offering what they believe to be free data.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Holyoke Mall

Holyoke Mall at Ingleside could use an AT&T small cell. When I had AT&T, I always had a hard time making calls or establishing a data connection at Holyoke Mall, especially when the mall is crowded. During the Christmas shopping season, forget it use a pay phone instead. This was occurring even though you had enough signal strength. Their tower near the mall could not handle the load.

Verizon does not have that issue.

whamel
Premium Member
join:2002-05-09
Evergreen Park, IL
·AT&T FTTP

whamel

Premium Member

SMALL cells are UGLY....

Matt7
join:2001-01-02
Columbus, OH

Matt7

Member

I've started to see these around Columbus OH -- There is one up near St Anne's Hospital in Westerville and I found one mounted to a wooden pole on the west side near a freeway interchange-- I wonder if these are using cable company's backbone for back haul? The ones here are mounted very very close to TWC Trunks.
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

Crookshanks to IowaCowboy

Member

to IowaCowboy

Re: Holyoke Mall

said by IowaCowboy:

Verizon does not have that issue.

Come to the Broome County Arena during an AHL game and try making that statement. The LTE network drops to less than 200kbit/s, if you're lucky, sometimes you can't even open Google's homepage to do a search. Same story in bigger cities, I had the privilege of going to the Superdome to see a Saints game back in December and couldn't even send an MMS, let alone surf. I had the theory that it was a small-medium sized city issue but the Superdome experience torpedoed that. If the Superdome doesn't rate picocells which venue does?

I've never seen Verizon have issues with voice or SMS (whereas I have seen those issues on other carriers) in such situations, so there's that at least, but the data network grinds to a halt more often than not. Doesn't annoy me TOO bad, I didn't go to the Superdome to play with my phone, but it's still kind of sad.....

zephyrpete12
@comcast.net

zephyrpete12 to whamel

Anon

to whamel

Re: SMALL cells are UGLY....

What provider is using the small cell?

whamel
Premium Member
join:2002-05-09
Evergreen Park, IL

whamel to Matt7

Premium Member

to Matt7
The small cells by me use AT&T fiber backhauls that were originally deployed for U-Verse. I see the fiber run to the U-Verse VRAD cabinets.
jades
join:2013-04-01
New York, NY

jades to whamel

Member

to whamel
Who cares! Consider yourself lucky, many people can't get decent cell service in their house

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy to Crookshanks

Premium Member

to Crookshanks

Re: Holyoke Mall

Try the Big E (state fair type event), even VZ can't handle the load.

whamel
Premium Member
join:2002-05-09
Evergreen Park, IL

whamel to zephyrpete12

Premium Member

to zephyrpete12

Re: SMALL cells are UGLY....

said by zephyrpete12 :

What provider is using the small cell?

AT&T, hence the article's headline has AT&T named in it as well as in the story.

David0417
Premium Member
join:2001-02-22
Clover, SC

1 recommendation

David0417 to IowaCowboy

Premium Member

to IowaCowboy

Re: Holyoke Mall

Payphone? they still have payphones at that mall? haven't seen one in any malls around here for 10 years now.

ilikeme
Premium Member
join:2002-08-27
Stafford, TX

ilikeme to Matt7

Premium Member

to Matt7

Re: SMALL cells are UGLY....

said by Matt7:

I wonder if these are using cable company's backbone for back haul? The ones here are mounted very very close to TWC Trunks.

Depends on the provider and who they have agreements with. Around Houston At&t uses their own fiber and T-Mobile uses Comcast. Not sure about the others, but I think Verizon might use Level 3 and other leased fiber, don't know about Sprint.

NoEyesore
@comcast.net

NoEyesore to whamel

Anon

to whamel
Worse looking than the telephone pole and all those wires? I think not.
hydnar19665
join:2006-05-23
Martinsville, VA

hydnar19665 to jades

Member

to jades
Amen to that!

tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium Member
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO

tiger72 to stevennb

Premium Member

to stevennb

Re: I wonder..

said by stevennb:

What T Mobiles response will be? Perhaps a pithy comment from John Legeres?

huh? This isn't something unique to ATT. The whole industry has been talking about HetNets driven by small cells for years now. Looks like ATT feels it will help them by giving them a needed capacity boost. Good for them.
As for T-Mobile, they already benefit from having higher frequency spectrum for the capacity boost that ATT is looking for. Smaller macrocells means greater capacity, so T-Mobile doesn't exactly need picocells/microcells at the moment. Their focus is obviously macrocell coverage expansion.
TBBroadband
join:2012-10-26
Fremont, OH

TBBroadband to IowaCowboy

Member

to IowaCowboy

Re: Holyoke Mall

VZ offers events like this COWs to handle those events if they think they'll need them for visitors. I'm not sure if AT&T has them but I'm pretty sure they did. They're pricy, but yes they are possible.
TBBroadband

TBBroadband to David0417

Member

to David0417
Probably required for the lottery

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx

Premium Member

AT&T needs small cells in SoCal's ski resorts, badly....

AT&T cell phones are useless at both Mt. High and Bear Mtn. You can get signal at the top of the mountain, but if you're at the base where everyone else is, forget it!

K3SGM
- -... ...- -
Premium Member
join:2006-01-17
Columbia, PA

K3SGM to whamel

Premium Member

to whamel

Re: SMALL cells are UGLY....

You're kidding right??

Towers are ugly, then Microcells are ugly, then people bitch that their phone doesn't have service everywhere.

There are a lot of people that think that the telephone poles are ugly, just to start with.

Where in the hell are they supposed to put the cells, if everyone want's perfect coverage, speed, and capacity, but nobody wants to see any of them??

They can't just build 150' tall flagpoles and fake-looking metal trees on every other street corner, and you can't bury the cell antennas under the ground either.

Got a better idea???
K3SGM

K3SGM to tiger72

Premium Member

to tiger72

Re: I wonder..

said by tiger72:

Smaller macrocells means greater capacity, so T-Mobile doesn't exactly need picocells/microcells at the moment. Their focus is obviously macrocell coverage expansion.

Actually, T-Mobile is using THOUSANDS of Small Cells already, they inherited many of them when they acquired MetroPCS.

It's a mix of pole-top microcells, and DAS(Distributed Antenna Systems), but they are rapidly switching their network over to utilize MetroPCS's existing small cell network.

whamel
Premium Member
join:2002-05-09
Evergreen Park, IL

whamel to K3SGM

Premium Member

to K3SGM

Re: SMALL cells are UGLY....

THEY SHOULD do what other carriers do....put antennas on water towers, or other appropriate places. NOT on telephone poles like this. There is a perfectly suitable water tower a few hundred feet away where they could have deployed antennas.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy to David0417

Premium Member

to David0417

Re: Holyoke Mall

They still do have pay phones at Holyoke Mall. I once in a blue moon see people using them now and then. My mother used one once because she forgot her cell phone.

I'm surprised pay phones don't pick up the slack for dead cell phone batteries and forgotten cell phones.

K3SGM
- -... ...- -
Premium Member
join:2006-01-17
Columbia, PA

K3SGM to whamel

Premium Member

to whamel

Re: SMALL cells are UGLY....

It's probably TOO TALL, or the municipal authority doesn't want antennas on it's nice looking water tower..

Microcells take advantage of low heights, short range "targeted" coverage, and frequency re-use.

Oh, and using a lot more of them as well, maybe 20 or 25 micro-cells, instead of a few 170' tall "boomer" towers.

Sorry that they're not too photogenic for people that stare at telephone poles all day, but at least the photos can be taken with your cell phone, and you have really good signal around there to upload them to the Internet.

Maybe the POCO could just put some big can transformers up there instead, would that look any better??
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

Crookshanks to IowaCowboy

Member

to IowaCowboy

Re: Holyoke Mall

I've never seen VZW have an issue with voice, with the exception of a natural disaster (floods in 2011) wherein they lost several cell sites.

The biggest event I've ever personally taken my phone to was the first inauguration of Barack Obama and my VZW phone worked flawlessly. Of course it was just voice and data, didn't have a smartphone then, but I was ahead of my friends with the other three carriers who couldn't even get texts out.

I've seen COWs at some events (every year when the PGA Seniors Tour comes to town), though I'm not sure if they're still voice/sms only or if they use them to supplement data nowadays.
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