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T-Mobile Moving Into 5 GHz Wi-Fi Band In NYC

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thiggins

Mr. Easy
Staff member
This PC Mag article says T-Mobile has an LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) node up in New York City. This technology operates in the same 5 GHz unlicensed band that has been predominantly used by Wi-Fi , until now.

The LAA cell covers only around 4 blocks and is said to be providing average download throughput of just over 500 Mbps and 40 Mbps upload.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's time to read LTE-U vs. Wi-Fi: What You Need To Know.

The article is a bit of a promotion piece since an Ookla guy did the testing and both PC Mag and Ookla are owned by Ziff Davis.

The other interesting info in the piece is that it named the following phones that support LAA:
 
Milan from Ookla posted a cell phone service mode screen. I looked up the EARFCNs and it looks like they are using WiFi channels 36, 40 and 44. What a coincidence that the dynamic mechanism chose the three lowest frequency channels. At least T-Mobile is providing a service many may use as opposed to all the WiFi interference from SSID "xfinitywifi" which is likely not in use by anyone. If you lived in that NYC neighborhood, I'm not sure how you would know not to use these channels in use by LAA for your WiFi. Perhaps the Noise measurement shown in Asuswrt-Merlin. I would guess that the potential disruption of DFS channels would inhibit use by LAA, so if also not in use by local military and weather radar, then you are likely to have DFS channels all to yourself, nice in urban environments and apartment buildings.
https://twitter.com/saschasegan/status/970694774083768326
 
Wi-Fi devices that don't support LAA can't detect LAA activity. Devices that do, like the smartphones named in the article, obviously can. But I don't know whether the Android API has been changed so that makers of Wi-Fi scanner apps can add LAA detection.

Note the article said there was no evidence of the nearby NYC hotspot interfering with LAA, not the other way around. It also didn't say whether the equipment T-Mobile is using passed the WFA Coexistence test plan.
 
I was really hoping they would move to the 3.5 GHz spectrum....
 

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