What are /r/cellmapper's favorite Products & Services?

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Where did you buy the A71 5G?

In order to be on 5G only you need a device that supports 5G SA. 5G NSA requires both 4G and 5G in order to work.

The T-Mobile variant of the A71 5G has supported 5G SA for a while and I think the other variants are supposed to get 5G SA with Android 11/OneUI 3.0.

T-Mobile also has a new SIM card, called the R15 SIM card. The R15 is recommended for 5G SA, although it is not required. In theory the only difference between the R15 and older SIMs is that the R15 supports better security features, however in practice a few people have reported that 5G SA was unstable with anything but the R15.

You might also try using Samsung Band Selection to lock to 5G only.

T-Mobile might not have 5G SA active in your area. T-Mobile only recently activated 5G SA in my city (Dallas TX), and they are slowly activating it in more and more places. T-Mobile is one of the only 2 carriers in the world that has 5G SA active, however many of their towers still don't have it active.

So it could be one of many things preventing you from successfully connecting to 5G SA only:

1. You have a variant of the A71 5G that does not yet support 5G SA.
2. You have a SIM card that doesn't support 5G SA.
3. T-Mobile might not have 5G SA active in your area yet.
4. Whatever method you are using to lock 5G SA isn't working.

You can probably pop in an unactivated T-Mobile sim and it'll work for CellMapper. You'll just need to lock to "LTE only" by dialing *#*#4636#*#*. If that doesn't work or you just prefer an app, this will be good.

If you're interested, I've been working on organizing which vendor each carrier uses in a certain market - I've got most of Sprint and AT&T, but still a mix on the other 2.

Here's a view-only link - feel free to drop me a PM with your email if you want edit access to this (and a few other unfinished projects in the airtable base) :)

It was put up at some point in 2017, I used to live across from this now site in 2008-13. Always had terrible reception with all carriers.

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Bing Maps (Use Bird's eye view)

Oh, very interesting! But wasn‘t GPS essential for 5G? I might remember that wrong tho. Still, even if it is, that doesn’t mean that it will work in android. However, using this as a replacement for the gplay services might actually fix something. Dunno. Just an idea.

I'm not sure what CellMapper's versioning scheme is, but it says 5.5.3 was released in August on apkmirror. I'd check in the Play Store to make sure you're on the beta, it should fix the issue you're seeing.

Just browse to here on your phone and click "Join Beta"

I don't know of a test app that can limit file sizes, but the FCC Speed Test app (Play Store) lets you toggle uploads and downloads only, as well as jitter and ping.

This app seems to report consistently slower overall speeds versus Ookla, DSL Reports or Netflix test sites, though.

I also have the A32 and you can download this app to band lock. It works for me. It basically pulls from that 2263 menu into a nicer UI.

I really don't mean to criticize but it's v easy to "search google for image"

Anyways, this is the app, it requires root and a Qualcomm SOC. (no mediateks/exynosies/kirins)

I'm an iPhone guy, so when I started with Cellmapper I got a used Samsung (SM-J337U) phone from a relative which had been on T-Mobile. With no SIM in the phone, it tracked and logged T-Mobile LTE well for a couple of days until I got it added to my AT&T account.

But after two months of AT&T data collection, I canceled that line and my testing today confirms your experience.

But, I just downloaded the 4G switcher app (link to google store) and it will force the phone to LTE. For several minutes the phone switched frequently between Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile before settling on Verizon LTE Band 2. This is with or without a SIM in the phone. I need to drive around to see if it sticks with Verizon or jumps to something else.

So, I'm not sure why it worked consistently with T-Mobile while SIMless before I activated on AT&T, but not now.

I'd like to be able to do more mapping, especially of the other carriers, but can't really afford lines on multiple carriers just for that.

I can't comment on the quality long term, but I have been using this generic 6 port USB charger in my car. It works fine and fast charges 4 devices if I wanted.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0779D7DFG/

Sprint uses Ericsson in all of Florida; you'd need to travel a while to get into ALU territory. Check out this spreadsheet for list of vendors in each carrier/state.

This shows vendor by state and was made by u/thisisausername190 I believe

https://airtable.com/shrzwFZSnQs1nTtQF/tbl510ItqjreOjBNA

That's pretty much all I have, unfortunately. Someone else can chime in with something better maybe. A lot of it for me is just seeing stuff over and over in here and slowly I've started memorizing it.

>I have a multi-carrier view at this link as well,

I just looked at that again and it suddenly only shows 14 markets, did some data get accidentally deleted?

Thank you for this map! It's a very useful resource for T-Mobile and helped me flesh out my understanding of T-Mobile's market area boundaries.

I have a multi-carrier view at this link as well, but it's not complete yet (nor is it nearly as intuitive as the OP). If anyone has any information that I'm missing (especially for Verizon), please let me know.

Sure! I missed linking it in my comment above (though I've linked it before on this subreddit) - here's my (incomplete) list of RAN vendors (RRUs + baseband) by carrier / state.

Florida and Georgia are switching from Nokia to Ericsson equipment (the transition is being referred to as Project Excalibur) - but they're continuing to use the CommScope FFHH-65C-R3 and FFVV-65C-R3 (versus the RFS APX antennas used in other Ericsson markets). That's what I meant by the unique combination.

You can see my (not fully complete) list of vendors in each state state here.

Personally, I just keep them in a ziploc bag - but if you swap on the go frequently, you could use something like this (not an endorsement, I just found it online).

Those small cells are a mix - not sure exactly who, since I don't have a ton of experience IDing those.

TMo is doing pretty well for capacity in this area - looks like it is an AIR3246 (which u/mystica5555 pointed out in the photo and u/raccoon_cast pointed out from the sector numbering).

There are a few more of those scattered on different sites around the city (ex. here and here).

On the tower in your OP (top to bottom):

1. Sprint, B25/B26/B41.
2. Verizon; Ericsson AIR 6449 B77D Rev A for C-Band, and CommScope or JMA equipment for 2/5/13/66 in the middle. Another CommScope or Amphenol antenna on the right.
3. DISH Wireless - JMA MX06FRO840-20/21 (n26/29/66/70/71)

As for the cell antennas on the electrical line, [FAA records] indicate that it's MCI, who at some point was acquired by Verizon. Given how close it is to the other site, it's entirely possible that Verizon didn't keep this site, and instead just left the antennas there. Aerial imagery doesn't show the antennas clearly enough to get a visual ID.

I don't see any cellular antennas on the second one - if they are there, it's definitely nothing modern.

Reposted without Google Photos links:

> I don't know the model of those antennas, but I've seen Verizon use large antennas like that a few times before, including on another few sites in Shrewsbury. Ex: Behind Home Depot

> AT&T (and Sprint) are on the Lincoln Park Tower building just over the bridge.

I think this is just a legacy setup, and it's probably no longer online - they have a modern 4-sector setup on top of the Shrewsbury Towers building down the street (eNB 59001).

T-Mobile is on that rooftop as well, in the fiberglass box above the VZW setup. Metro had a separate setup up there as well, but T-Mobile took that down a few years ago.

Foxborough does have a permit search, but unfortunately it doesn't have this permit listed (and for most of the ones that are listed, it's throwing out HTTP 500 errors).

On a separate note, I did see a cool ATT Long Lines tower last time I was driving through Foxborough - you don't see those too often anymore! I didn't get any photos from behind the wheel (traffic safety and all), but here's some aerial imagery. You can see it from route 1, about 10 minutes south of the site in your OP.

If I remember, I'll check the site in the OP next time I'm in Foxboro - I might be back through there in the next couple weeks.

One possibility, which you may consider to be too much effort...

Join OpenStreetMap. When you figure out where a tower is, add it to OSM using the aerial imagery available to OSM. Then with the OSM layer of cellmapper you can easily figure out where to move the tower. E.g. this tower.

Downside: it's more work. Upside: you get to improve OSM and maybe gain an additional hobby.

"Larger amounts of data density" What do you mean by that?

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One of the nice things about basing it on OpenStreetMap is that, if you have an OSM account, you can add masts to the underlying map. Like https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=52.09003&mlon=-4.64528#map=19/52.09003/-4.64528

You can also try it with nPerf

example:

https://www.nperf.com/en/map/US/-/2420.ATT-Mobility/signal/?ll=33.847179923191746&lg=-84.22805786132812&zoom=13

>Firefox is even still listed on this page, which is frustrating. Hopefully they eventually add the feature back - they can't [refer people to Mozilla Stumbler anymore], so I don't know what alternative they have.

Mozilla does not currently have any official tool for mapping MLS, they do allow 3rd party developers to create their own tools for integrating with MLS however that's the best there is.

When they retired Mozilla Stumbler they said that they do recommend this tool, however that's about the best we've got unfortunately.

Ugh, it helps to get the right MCC-MNC. 312-250, not 312-530. You're right, it does say that. I'm a dope. Thank for correcting me on that.

SCP = Signal Checker Pro. SCP does report the 312-250 MCC-MNC when it connects to a Sprint Keep when using my Pixel 2XL on a T-Mobile SIM. CM does not. I also have LTE-Only enabled or it would never connect to any Keep site and drop down to 3G/2G or no service.

Oo! Wireless charging, thanks for reminding me. I didn't think I'd care about it either but I got these little stand ones that have fans in them off of Amazon which solves my only issue with wireless charging which is overheating the battery.

It doesn't really show Carrier Aggregation - just guessing from neighbor cells. It even show 4G+ some devices what doesn't support Carrier Aggregation.

There is one app what really show Carrier Aggregation and it's Network Signal Guru but it require root and works only with Qualcomm modem: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qtrun.QuickTest&hl=en .

Try installing Network Signal Guru, that should let you do it if you're willing to root.

image of LTE band lock settings

Network Signal Guru

Yep, mapping 5G traces even on NSA, at least you'll know where the signals are. Cellmapper said they won't update the 5G map until SA devices are used. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nperf.tester