3Q 2006 Wireless Carrier Results

SMS wrote:
> Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions, there is
> no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not approve it for the
> wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.

The current landscape (pardon the pun) is that is cannot be denied
for alleged heath issues or cosmetic reasons. It can be denied under
historic preservation reasons, so they go with excluded pubic
easments.

---

› See More: 3Q 2006 Wireless Carrier Results

decaturtxcowboy wrote:
> SMS wrote:
>> Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions, there
>> is no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not approve it for
>> the wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.
>
> The current landscape (pardon the pun) is that is cannot be denied
> for alleged heath issues or cosmetic reasons. It can be denied under
> historic preservation reasons, so they go with excluded pubic
> easments.


Hmm, what section of the TCA lists cosmetic reasons?

I found the RF section, "Title 47 of the United States Code, Section
332, (7)(B)(iv) states that, "No state or local government or
instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and
modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the
environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that
such facilities comply with the Commission's regulations concerning such
emissions."

In an case, there is wide leeway in the definition of "cosmetic." If a
municipality is too restrictive, then the carrier may be able to seek
relief through the courts, but the carriers typically don't want to go
that far, as it is bad for their business and for their image.

It's important for neighborhoods that are seeking to block towers, to
not bring up the RF issue in their arguments against the towers, so the
carrier can not challenge the decision in court.

On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 00:52:00 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> It think the point John Navas may be making (or, perhaps,
>> misinterpreting!) is that in most metro areas this is largely irrelevant,
>> since so many "extra" towers are needed to support the capacity load that
>> the propagation loss caused by distance of each individual tower is
>> generally moot.
>
>Perhaps, but this is demonstrably untrue in suburban areas, where the
>tower placement is to cover a geographic area, and the capacity is not
>the issue.

[sigh] Again:

Claiming that over and over doesn't make it any more true. What is
true is that you've never cited any real authorities to support your
wild contention that "1900 Mhz requires 4x to 5x the number of base
stations as 800 Mhz".

<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.cellular.cingular/msg/8f125ddd3224b9a1>
Do you have any? Or are you just making this up (like so many other
things)?

I see you've now dropped the "4x to 5x" claim. Apparently you now
realize how patently wrong that was.

Maximum power in the 800 band is 3 watts.
Maximum power in the 1900 band is 2 watts.

It's not intuitively obvious, but that's only about 18% less range
for 1900, or a maximum of about 20% more towers along a flat rural
highway strip, or a maximum of 50% more towers in area coverage, and
then only when range is limited only by maximum power, which is
rarely the case in metro areas. Tower spacing is only near maximum
in flat rural areas (and current small handsets don't come close to
maximum power levels), so your claim about metro areas is patently
bogus.

>T-Mobile is great how their web site lets you go down to a specific
>address, ...

Likewise Cingular. <http://onlinecare.cingular.com/coverageviewer/>

>I don't think that anyone argues that 1900 MHz has as much range or as
>much penetration as 800 MHz. Not even Navas would claim something like
>that.

Again:

It's not that simple. While 1900 penetrates walls less well than
800/850, it does a better job of penetrating small openings (e.g.,
windows). Overall the difference is usually relatively small, with
800/850 better in some buildings, 1900 better in other buildings.

Authoritative articles support this. For a solid technical assessment
of the issues, see CS 294-7: Radio Propagation by Prof. Randy H. Katz,
CS Division, University of California, Berkeley
<http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/1propagation.pdf>. Those interested will
find that frequency isn't an issue in outdoor range, and is a relatively
minor issue in indoor penetration.

>The rule of thumb has always been 2x the distance, mathematically
>it's more than 2x, but their are other factors (geologic features,
>buildings, etc.) that make the increase in range less than ideal.

Nonsense. See above.

>> Obviously in rural areas the 800MHz carriers have an advantage where
>> capacity isn't an issue, and distance is the limiting factor.
>>
>> I remember in the late 80's a rural Nebraska cellular carrier (aptly
>> named "Nebraska Cellular") managed to provide excellent cellular service
>> along I-80 through almost the entire state with a minimal number of
>> towers thanks to 800MHz propagation and some VERY flat terrain!
>
>Yes, this is the big advantage of AMPS, at 800 MHz. The hope is that if
>AMPS ever gets turned off in those rural areas, that something will take
>its place, maybe something like Australia did with CDMA.

More nonsense. The advantage with AMPS was/is high-power "bag" phones,
which have more range than small micro-power handsets, but that's a
function of power, not of band (800/850 vs 1900) or technology (AMPS vs
digital).

>> Off topic, but interesting, one of their head honchos told me (back then)
>> that they made half of their total revenue from roamers (this was back
>> in the old $3/day + $1/minute roaming days) so highway coverage was more
>> important to them than covering the towns they serviced!

Yep.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 02:41:05 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> (I realize it's not a frequency thing, I just find it funny that the
>> nation's two largest carriers can't get a signal to my neighborhood but
>> everyone else does...)
>
>When Cingular was 1900 MHz only in my area, they were trying to put in a
>tower near my house. About five years later, T-Mobile now has the site,
>and they still have been turned down by the city to install a tower.
>Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions, there is
>no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not approve it for the
>wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.

Wrong on both counts. Take the time to actually read Section 704 of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

SMS wrote:
> decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>> SMS wrote:
>>> Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions, there
>>> is no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not approve it
>>> for the wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.
>>
>> The current landscape (pardon the pun) is that is cannot be denied
>> for alleged heath issues or cosmetic reasons. It can be denied under
>> historic preservation reasons, so they go with excluded pubic
>> easments.
>
>
> Hmm, what section of the TCA lists cosmetic reasons?

As in communities can't block a tower for the sole reason that it
doesn't look good or fit in with the neighborhood. That's why there
is a growing business in camouflaging the towers.

Radio Mobile Times magazine had a good write up on this and how
the carriers are fighting back. Communities learned they can't
play the radiation health issues and look to see if the tower
site might visually impact a designated historic area.

I say "visually impact" as the carriers know it would be a hard
fight to place a tower within such an area, so communities try
it from the other direction. Case in point, there was an historic
area within sight of a planned tower site - the FCC determined
to visually see the tower from the historic aera, it required
looking through trees and power lines. Tower site was approved.

Todd Allcock wrote:
> Obviously in rural areas the 800MHz carriers have an advantage where
> capacity isn't an issue, and distance is the limiting factor.

We had the opportunity to test coverage once for the fun of it.

Tower had a 1900 MHz AT&T at top and 800 MHz Cingular right below
it. We took two Nokia 61xx phones running in field diagnostics mode
which displays signal level in one dB increments. In a rural
environment and walking into small business, open road in a truck,
on foot...both phones had similar coverage.

Yakov Chiu wrote:
> decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>
>> Getting approval is pretty much a trivial task now. Planning
>> commissions and home owners have no more recourses to deny an
>> application.
>
>
> What the planning commission can't do, is to deny a cell tower permit on
> the basis of the alleged _health effects_. That's all that the
> Telecommunications Act of 1996 states. There are plenty of other reasons
> to deny a permit, including asthetics, that are still fair game for
> denying a permit.

One healt effect, for example, was one family in the Chautauqua County,
NY town of Kiantone tried to block American Tower from putting up a 250'
free-standing cell tower, claiming their child's cochlear implants would
squeal and be otherwise painful. The court allowed the tower to go up
anyway, like they were supposed to.

I think of _Star Trek II_ logic here: "The needs of the many [who drive
around and may have a breakdown] outweigh the needs of the few [who have
ear implants]."

I was driving in the area some time ago and noticed VZW had a nice
strong signal off the tower.
--
Curtis R. Anderson, Co-creator of "Gleepy the Hen", still
"In Heaven there is no beer / That's why we drink it here ..."
http://www.gleepy.net/ mailto:[email protected]
mailto:[email protected] (and others) Yahoo!: gleepythehen

On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 09:37:13 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>> SMS wrote:
>>> Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions, there
>>> is no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not approve it for
>>> the wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.
>>
>> The current landscape (pardon the pun) is that is cannot be denied
>> for alleged heath issues or cosmetic reasons. It can be denied under
>> historic preservation reasons, so they go with excluded pubic
>> easments.
>
>Hmm, what section of the TCA lists cosmetic reasons?
>
>I found the RF section, "Title 47 of the United States Code, Section
>332, (7)(B)(iv) states that, "No state or local government or
>instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and
>modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the
>environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that
>such facilities comply with the Commission's regulations concerning such
>emissions."
>
>In an case, there is wide leeway in the definition of "cosmetic." If a
>municipality is too restrictive, then the carrier may be able to seek
>relief through the courts, but the carriers typically don't want to go
>that far, as it is bad for their business and for their image.
>
>It's important for neighborhoods that are seeking to block towers, to
>not bring up the RF issue in their arguments against the towers, so the
>carrier can not challenge the decision in court.

You need to look a bit harder. Key language:

`(B) LIMITATIONS-

`(i) The regulation of the placement, construction, and modification
of personal wireless service facilities by any State or local
government or instrumentality thereof--

`(I) SHALL NOT UNREASONABLY DISCRIMINATE AMONG PROVIDERS OF
FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT SERVICES; AND

`(II) SHALL NOT PROHIBIT OR HAVE THE EFFECT OF PROHIBITING THE
PROVISION OF PERSONAL WIRELESS SERVICES.

`(ii) A State or local government or instrumentality thereof shall
act on any request for authorization to place, construct, or modify
personal wireless service facilities within a reasonable period of
time after the request is duly filed with such government or
instrumentality, taking into account the nature and scope of such
request.

`(iii) Any decision by a State or local government or
instrumentality thereof to deny a request to place, construct, or
modify personal wireless service facilities shall be in writing and
supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.

`(iv) No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may
regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal
wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental
effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such
facilities comply with the Commission's regulations concerning such
emissions.

`(v) Any person adversely affected by any final action or failure to
act by a State or local government or any instrumentality thereof
that is inconsistent with this subparagraph may, within 30 days
after such action or failure to act, commence an action in any court
of competent jurisdiction. The court shall hear and decide such
action on an expedited basis. Any person adversely affected by an
act or failure to act by a State or local government or any
instrumentality thereof that is inconsistent with clause (iv) may
petition the Commission for relief.

[emphasis added]

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

decaturtxcowboy wrote:

> Tower had a 1900 MHz AT&T at top and 800 MHz Cingular right below
> it. We took two Nokia 61xx phones running in field diagnostics mode
> which displays signal level in one dB increments. In a rural
> environment and walking into small business, open road in a truck,
> on foot...both phones had similar coverage.

That's a tough comparison to make accurately both because of the
absolute accuracy of the RSSI built into the phones and because of the
variability due to propagation. Still, an interesting one to attempt!

Further on the topic of 850/1900 frequency dependent propagation
differences...


At the risk of hearing more "nonsense" responses I'd like to submit that
there truly is a frequency term in outdoor propagation models and that
for typical scenarios, there indeed is a significant difference between
850 MHz and 1900 MHz, attributable to the difference of transmission
through real impairments, like buildings and foliage as well as to the
differences in diffraction between the different wavelengths. The
article that John Navas suggested as relevant:

http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/1propagation.pdf

is mostly discussing frequency selective fading and multi-path
impairments rather than mechanisms for attenuation. Slide 8 does show
curves for urban, suburban, rural and LOS but there is no detail
showing the derivation of the model and is not relevant to this discussion.

For a relevant comparison, I would suggest the COST231 propagation model
with Hata extensions. COST231/Hata applies to path lengths generally of
1 km or longer and beyond the LOS region discussed in the paper above.
The Hata extensions extend the useful frequency range of the model. One
can Google for Matlab implementations of the model if desired.

Applying this model to 850 and 1900 MHz scenarios, one really does see a
significant difference in attenuation due only to frequency. The precise
difference depends upon the transmitter and receiver antenna heights
selected and on the particular subset of the model. However, differences
in the area of 6-12 dB region are common. As an example, for 20
meter/1 meter antenna heights in a suburban environment, at 1 km the
model gives

radiosuburban_atten(850e6,1000) = -107.37
radiosuburban_atten(1900e6,1000) = -114.42

for a difference of about 7 dB.

If antenna/frequency effects can be avoided (something not necessarily
done in your walk-around test, by the way), by using constant physical
aperture on one antenna and constant electrical aperture on the second.
Doing this assures constant ERP and constant receive aperture so that
wavelength falls out of the freespace portion of the result. What
remains shows the frequency dependent effect in the model.

While one can argue which model is most correct or useful, the
experiential result is still a very significant difference between
propagation in the two bands in typical environments.

The above example is just one scenario but were complete coverage
required, the 1900 MHz scenario would require reducing the maximum radio
path by more than a factor of two. As a result of that reduction, over
an area the number of base stations would have to more than quadruple,
for equivalent coverage.

g

decaturtxcowboy wrote:
> SMS wrote:
>> decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>>> SMS wrote:
>>>> Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions,
>>>> there is no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not
>>>> approve it for the wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.
>>>
>>> The current landscape (pardon the pun) is that is cannot be denied
>>> for alleged heath issues or cosmetic reasons. It can be denied under
>>> historic preservation reasons, so they go with excluded pubic
>>> easments.
>>
>>
>> Hmm, what section of the TCA lists cosmetic reasons?
>
> As in communities can't block a tower for the sole reason that it
> doesn't look good or fit in with the neighborhood. That's why there
> is a growing business in camouflaging the towers.

That makes no sense. If you can't block a tower because it doesn't look
good, why are carriers bothering to camouflage the towers. I could not
find any section in the TCA that talks about anything other than
forbidding banning towers due to EMI issues.

On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 17:49:14 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>> SMS wrote:
>>> decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>>>> SMS wrote:
>>>>> Contrary to what the carriers try to tell planning commissions,
>>>>> there is no requirement to approve a tower, but you can't not
>>>>> approve it for the wrong reasons, it has to be the right reasons.
>>>>
>>>> The current landscape (pardon the pun) is that is cannot be denied
>>>> for alleged heath issues or cosmetic reasons. It can be denied under
>>>> historic preservation reasons, so they go with excluded pubic
>>>> easments.
>>>
>>>
>>> Hmm, what section of the TCA lists cosmetic reasons?
>>
>> As in communities can't block a tower for the sole reason that it
>> doesn't look good or fit in with the neighborhood. That's why there
>> is a growing business in camouflaging the towers.
>
>That makes no sense. If you can't block a tower because it doesn't look
>good, why are carriers bothering to camouflage the towers. I could not
>find any section in the TCA that talks about anything other than
>forbidding banning towers due to EMI issues.

You're obviously not paying attention.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

g wrote:
> decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>
>> Tower had a 1900 MHz AT&T at top and 800 MHz Cingular right below
>> it. We took two Nokia 61xx phones running in field diagnostics mode
>> which displays signal level in one dB increments. In a rural
>> environment and walking into small business, open road in a truck,
>> on foot...both phones had similar coverage.
>
> That's a tough comparison to make accurately both because of the
> absolute accuracy of the RSSI built into the phones and because of the
> variability due to propagation. Still, an interesting one to attempt!

Actually, reading the dB scale wasn't necessary. Most importantly we
did a side by side comparison from same cell tower location and similar
preforming phones. So the only significant variable would be the
propagation difference of the two bands (assuming similar radio
performance).

SMS wrote:
>> As in communities can't block a tower for the sole reason that it
>> doesn't look good or fit in with the neighborhood. That's why there
>> is a growing business in camouflaging the towers.
>
> That makes no sense. If you can't block a tower because it doesn't look
> good, why are carriers bothering to camouflage the towers.

To head off fruitless litigation. If the carrier proposes a hidden tower,
the communities will often go along with them. Thus avoiding legal tangles.

decaturtxcowboy wrote:

> Actually, reading the dB scale wasn't necessary. Most importantly we
> did a side by side comparison from same cell tower location and similar
> preforming phones. So the only significant variable would be the
> propagation difference of the two bands (assuming similar radio
> performance).

Yes, the real test is to see where communications stops, since power
control and a host of other things get into the act and make it very
hard to decipher what is truly going on as you are anything less than
last-gasp comms.

Do recognize though that this still isn't a propagation comparison until
you are sure that you know the ERP of each site (in the pilot or
whatever is being measured by 'bars') and the effective aperture of each
handset antenna.

We should note also that there is an implicit assumption of the same
noise+interference level here as well.

Effectively then you are still making an absolute power measurement
by comparing the point at which the Carrier/Noise ratio falls below that
required for the modulation scheme, with the assumption of constant,
known noise floor (KTB).

All in all this is a pretty rough way to determine frequency related
propagation differences. It's a lot more accurate and ultimately easier
to do it with a specialized system, which is what the better models reflect.

g

You also have to add in receiver senseivity/antenna gain on each band.
Your test is still good because it is testing the raw coverage for that
phone model to a single tower over two bands. It may be that the
phone is optimized for 1900 Mhz and will give equal results on both
bands.

The other Bill

"g" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> decaturtxcowboy wrote:
>
>> Actually, reading the dB scale wasn't necessary. Most importantly we
>> did a side by side comparison from same cell tower location and similar
>> preforming phones. So the only significant variable would be the
>> propagation difference of the two bands (assuming similar radio
>> performance).
>
> Yes, the real test is to see where communications stops, since power
> control and a host of other things get into the act and make it very hard
> to decipher what is truly going on as you are anything less than last-gasp
> comms.
>
> Do recognize though that this still isn't a propagation comparison until
> you are sure that you know the ERP of each site (in the pilot or whatever
> is being measured by 'bars') and the effective aperture of each handset
> antenna.
>
> We should note also that there is an implicit assumption of the same
> noise+interference level here as well.
>
> Effectively then you are still making an absolute power measurement by
> comparing the point at which the Carrier/Noise ratio falls below that
> required for the modulation scheme, with the assumption of constant, known
> noise floor (KTB).
>
> All in all this is a pretty rough way to determine frequency related
> propagation differences. It's a lot more accurate and ultimately easier to
> do it with a specialized system, which is what the better models reflect.
>
> g