[Outages-discussion] Question about cellular outages

[Rusty Dekema]

You are correct that within each "network type" (that is to say
GSM/GPRS/EDGE, UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+, and LTE), there is only one set of
equipment per cell sector.

There is *no* handset-vendor-specific equipment at any cell site. That
simply isn't how it works.

If you have any further questions, you are more than welcome to email me
off-list (or on-list, if it seems appropriate).

Cheers,
Rusty




On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 7:40 PM, <jrk1231-outml at nym.hush.com> wrote:

> All,
>
> Okay... this is probably not the best place to post this question, and it
> may be entirely inappropriate here... but I'm not sure where else to ask.
>
> I have AT&T for cellular (crapy, expensive service... but that's another
> issue) and I've had zero or one bar of signal on my phone at my house for
> weeks, if I have any signal at all. AT&T admits they "have an issue and
> we're working on it, need parts, and have no ETR." In the course of my
> "discussions" with AT&T regarding this issue, I have been told that they
> have problems in my area with 3 towers, where Apple devices can't make or
> receive calls, but data works okay. They said that one of those towers also
> has outages with Pantech and two of them have HTC outages, and a 4th tower
> has issues with Pantech and Motorola.
>
> So, this is my question: I thought all GSM cell phones used the same basic
> set of frequencies, etc. within a given 2G/3G/4G/LTE framework. However, it
> appears from my conversations with AT&T, they have to have device-vendor
> specific equipment on each tower for each vendor's handsets. That seems
> insane. Can someone clue me in here what is going on regarding why certain
> towers would have problems with certain vendor's handsets? Something just
> doesn't make sense or appears to be needlessly complex.
>
> I also gather that piled on top of the vendor-specific equipment issues
> are the issue of 2G vs. 3G vs. 4G/LTE equipment. If the cellular systems
> are as complex as AT&T is making this sound (and I've heard the same story
> from multiple AT&T tech support folks), it appears to be a miracle that
> anything ever works.
>
> Can someone please clue me in what is going on here?
>
> THANKS!
>
> Jon Kibler
> --
> Jon R. Kibler
> +001-843-813-2924
>
> People who are willing to sacrifice liberty for temporary security deserve
> neither liberty nor security
>   -- Ben Franklin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Outages-discussion mailing list
> Outages-discussion at outages.org
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/outages-discussion
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://puck.nether.net/pipermail/outages-discussion/attachments/20130723/32e4df3c/attachment.html>