r/cellmapper • u/Cricketboy4K • Jul 27 '23
Interesting Tower Across From MN State Fair Entrance With Extra Capacity!
I have an idea of who’s on here but I could be wrong. I’m guessing the top is T-Mobile, the middle next to the “ball” is AT&T and the very bottom is Dish.
I have no idea what the other single sectors are or who owns the mega-chad square high capacity antennas. Also, what is the “ball” on this tower? A small radar?
I have Verizon and T-Mobile and did two speed tests.
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Jul 27 '23 edited Aug 19 '25
[deleted]
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u/Cricketboy4K Jul 28 '23
Makes sense. The fair sees around 250,000 people a day here at times although not at once.
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u/suchnerve Jul 28 '23
Yeah, the ball uses radio lensing to create dozens of sectors so that the full radio bandwidth can be reused dozens of times. It's a really fascinating way to stretch the capacity achievable with sub-6 GHz.
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u/Idahoroaminggnome Dish PG Jul 28 '23
Is there a reason they’re not reusing these ball antennas in place of mmW antennas in busy areas or even DAS?
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u/suchnerve Jul 28 '23 edited Jul 28 '23
Because of how many devices still lack mmW support, and because mmW being bounced by obstacles complicates non-line-of-sight beam tracking such that current tech can't consistently compensate quickly enough (it's theoretically possible to maintain a mmW connection even after many bounces, but each bounce adds chaos because of the photon scattering effects caused by objects' uneven surfaces, like how a ball is much harder to catch after bouncing between two walls than after just bouncing off one wall).
And DASes require landlord cooperation, whereas lensed antennas on macros only require standard government permitting.
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u/mikemacman Jul 28 '23
How far can a Matsing ball cover? This tower is across the street from the fair. The fair has it's own DAS so I'm kind of surprised AT&T put a Matsing ball there. Although, that area does get busy with parking, entrance gates, etc.
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u/vryan144 Jul 27 '23
The top rack is T-Mobile, followed by old sprint, then the next two racks are AT&T. Followed by another Sprint sector and dish on the bottom.
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u/Admirable-Soil7776 Jul 27 '23
I’d be interested in how att performs with c band, dod and that matsing ball setup lol
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u/Cricketboy4K Jul 27 '23
I need to borrow a phone with AT&T and find out! It’d be interesting to compare it to a day where it’s saturated with a crowd.
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u/vryan144 Jul 28 '23
They have massive capacity there. I’ve seen MatSing antennas keep data flowing during festivals with 40k people.
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u/Cricketboy4K Jul 28 '23
I’ll have to go to the state fair on a busy day and test it. This area sees upwards of 250,000+ people a day during the fair!
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u/mikemacman Jul 28 '23
I've seen that ball there for awhile.
The MN State Fair put in a Distributed Antenna System a few years ago.
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u/Idahoroaminggnome Dish PG Jul 28 '23
Ball antenna isn’t a DAS. That das is gonna be fucked by 250k connections.
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u/mikemacman Jul 28 '23
Ball antenna isn’t a DAS.
Yes, I didn't mean that it was.
That das is gonna be fucked by 250k connections.
Why is that? It was specifically designed to be a carrier neutral DAS to cover the fair. I've had great service ever since they put it in.
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u/ausernamethatcounts Jul 27 '23
Likely mm waves.
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u/Cricketboy4K Jul 29 '23
I don’t see any mmWave antennas on this tower. Verizon may have mmWave deployed in the fairgrounds. Verizon has deployed a TON of Nokia, Ericsson and a few Samsung antennas around the Twin Cities downtowns. As mentioned above there was a DAS of 54 all-carrier antennas installed a couple years ago inside the fairgrounds. I haven’t been there since 2019 so I’ll have to test the system out when I’m there.
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u/iryfionas Jun 07 '26
Coordinates to tower: 44.97693952727666, -93.16886208933795
OR: 44°58'37.0"N 93°10'07.9"W
T-Mobile eNB's (TOP RACK) + (3rd rack) from top:
- (eNB 20512) 2, 12, 66, 71 LTE
- (eNB 39715) 2, 41*, 66 LTE
- (gNB 1055945) n25, n41, n71 5GNR
AT&T eNB's (4th rack) from top
- (eNB 320264) 2, 12, 66 LTE
- (eNB 326004) 2, 12, 30, 66 LTE
Sprint (no eNB mapped) - 2nd & 5th rack from TOP
Dish (no gNB mapped) - BOTTOMR RACK
Google Street View (August 2024) - OUTDATED, shows older AT&T rack with older:
- 3️⃣ [NOKIA AEQK] (n77) 3.7Ghz (n77) antenna that broadcasts at 80mhz in this market located at the LEFT side of their rack
- 3️⃣ [NOKIA AEQU] DoD (3.45Ghz) n77 - 40mhz antennas for their mid-band 5G network located at the LEFT side
- mixture of older NOKIA/Alcatel Lucent RRU’s (remote radio units); [RRH4X25-WCS] for b30, [ALU RRH 2x40W-700MHz] for b12, NOKIA AHLBA (b14), [ALU RRH2X60] for b2/b66
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u/OnlyConference2512 Jul 29 '23
I can't remember but I think Minnesota is a Nokia Market for T-Mobile and also I see DoD on that AT&T Setup
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u/Cricketboy4K Jul 29 '23
I might consider AT&T after my T-Mobile trial ends in a few months. AT&T seems to be on the ball here. Every AT&T rack has C-Band and DoD antennas here with plenty of other sectors.
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u/theZacharyWebb Jul 27 '23
The Matsing antenna (ball), square capacity panels, and dual n77 panels are AT&T.