Site Tracking

Splitpair

Tracking sites and networks is becoming increasingly difficult due to way the networks are being managed nowadays with technologies such as edge networking.

tiredrunner

Splitpair Cell towers nowadays act like stretched repeaters between each other. The transport and routing logic sits behind a core router likely at a regional hub.

To more accurately track them, you'd best rely on the assigned FCC ID's reported when your cellular radio attaches to it.

VerizonLover

tiredrunner

And how do you get the FCC ID as reported by the baseband radio of an Android phone?

Splitpair

tiredrunner Cell towers nowadays act like stretched repeaters between each other. The transport and routing logic sits behind a core router likely at a regional hub.

Untrue all of that is being pushed closer to the edge.

tiredrunner

VerizonLover You can start by looking up the TAC-ECI.

InternetJeff

VerizonLover And how do you get the FCC ID as reported by the baseband radio of an Android phone?

If I understand what you’re asking, there are various apps that can identify cell tower IDs. One that I use is Macrodroid (an Android automation app), and it has a cell tower ID identification functionality. I use it in a macro to detect the cell tower(s) in the vicinity of home, work, etc., turn on WiFi and switch off the cellular radio when arriving at a location. When leaving a location that has a WiFi access point(s) that I use, another macro detects disconnecting from the AP, turning off WiFi, and turning on the cellular radio.

xpxp2002

Splitpair Yep. At one time when T-carrier and microwave links were the norm, sites were often connected in a hub-and-spoke configuration with a hub site typically using T3 circuits to bring everything back to the MSC.

Nowadays, pervasive dark fiber and PON deployments stretching fiber closer to the edge are enabling less expensive connectivity for denser macro grids and small cells. Combine that with L2.5 protocols like EoMPLS, and you can virtually connect the BTS (or should I say eNB these days) into the network core directly over an already-built wireline infrastructure without utilizing dedicated end-to-end circuits.

Splitpair

xpxp2002 Yep. At one time when T-carrier and microwave links were the norm, sites were often connected in a hub-and-spoke configuration with a hub site typically using T3 circuits to bring everything back to the MSC.

In SFL AT&T Wireless/BellSouth Mobility used tons of T1’s back to the MTSO, VZ loved microwave which emulated DS3’s.

A couple of decades back in Broward I was put on a project titled fiber to the cell, at the time the only competitor was FP&L fiber which leased dark fiber from us and did their own backhaul using OPGW strung atop of their high voltage transmission towers.

The project had two purposes lower O&M and more bandwidth for the release of 3G, the conversion of all sites AT&T, T-Mobile, Metro took us almost 3 years.

Everything was based on 2 fibers transmit/receive back to our CO’s where it would be transported to each carrier.

It worked so well the trouble load dropped by 60% resulting in a technological force imbalance ,a fancy way of saying a lot of techs could take a buyout while those who remained behind where shuffled around to backfill the retires.

It was a time of turmoil combined with tranquility, a lot less OT., a lot less rotted copper work and for those of us who had volunteered to be trained in fiber, a lot more job security.

I can still remember a number of old hats claiming that fiber stuff and wireless is not for me, no sir it’s, never going to work because copper is king and always will be.

They found out the hard way they where totally wrong as they left the work center for the last time heading into the sunset for retirement.

Now it didn’t happen overnight Randal Stevenson named it Project 2000, the year he predicted copper would totally go away, well copper is still hanging on but the amount is so small it can barely be measured and when it needs to be maintained the company has discovered they have very few techs left who know how to repair it.

For AT&T fiber and wireless has become the new king of communications and there will be no looking back.

Heck I am not sure if we have MTSO’s with #4 switch’s in them anymore I think they have all gone IP based.

tiredrunner

Splitpair Glad to hear carriers came back to their senses and are placing routing/switching logic closer to the edge.

xDSL technology was breakthrough at the turn of the century. Today, it’s a museum piece.

The only constant in telecom and network engineering is the purpose served; transport. If you don’t evolve with it, you will become a dinosaur.

Man-of-Leisure

Splitpair Why would they have planned to get rid of copper by 2000?

Copper was plenty fast for 2G networks, which were only a few hundred kbps.

T1 backhaul remained very common on AT&T until 2008 when the iPhone 3G crushed their network lol

After that, they started upgrading everything to Ethernet backhaul, and upgrading 3G from 3.6Mb to 7.2, 14.4, and eventually 21Mb HSPA.

Verizon didn’t really upgrade from T1 to Ethernet until 2010 when they launched 4G.

Same with Sprint, they were still on T1s until they moved to 4G.

Splitpair

Man-of-Leisure After that, they started upgrading everything to Ethernet backhaul, and upgrading 3G from 3.6Mb to 7.2, 14.4, and eventually 21Mb HSPA.

I know, I was part of that fiber to the cell project.

Man-of-Leisure

Splitpair Amazing how far we’ve come too.

When Verizon first launched 4G in 2010, they said they were only using 50Mb Ethernet backhaul.

That probably seemed blazing fast compared to T1 lines, but now they’re using 10Gb fiber to their 5G towers.

Splitpair

Man-of-Leisure That probably seemed blazing fast compared to T1 lines, but now they’re using 10Gb fiber to their 5G towers.

Actually on many areas they are still using microwave for backhaul, I know of at least 4 sites in Broward that have links feeding to and from AT&T’s West Hollywood CO where their microwave system finally connects to fiber.

Man-of-Leisure

Splitpair Yeah, but microwave can still do several Gbps now. They generally prefer fiber to the tower, though.

Splitpair

Man-of-Leisure Yeah, but microwave can still do several Gbps now. They generally prefer fiber to the tower, though.

Not the Harris Farion radios they are still using, they max out as DS3’s.

Man-of-Leisure

Splitpair Who? AT&T?

Splitpair

Man-of-Leisure Who? AT&T?

VZ.

Man-of-Leisure

Splitpair Sounds like an issue of just old hardware and needing to replace it.

Splitpair

Man-of-Leisure Sounds like an issue of just old hardware and needing to replace it.

For some reason they never did that until 2014 or so when AT&T finally pushed fiber south to those sites in West Palm Beach.

The antennas and radios are still in the racks, well most of it as VZ contract techs have cannibalized the cards out of the radios, apparently those 10 GHZ X-Band radios are still in service somewhere nearby.

Another oddball is a AT&T SLC-96 radio site that delivered POTS to the Seminole reservation west out off the alley, that system was still in service when I retired from AT&T Wireless the first time in 2011/2012. we didn’t maintain that system that was up to DEG who to the best of my knowledge didn’t have anyone left who understood how that site worked or how to maintain it.

Man-of-Leisure

Splitpair They definitely still have some pretty old tech out there.

All of Yosemite National Park is still 10Mb AT&T DSL and POTS which are carried out of the park by microwave dishes, apparently the NPS won’t let them run fiber.