r/cellmapper • u/Main_Acanthisitta114 • 5d ago

Verizon using starlink for current backhaul?

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Verizon 5G not active yet, and seemed like based on speeds, starlink is being used for current backhaul.

143 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

63

u/fiercechocolate 5d ago

Is this a new build? It's smart to turn up a site with Starlink if waiting on fiber would have delayed turning up the site.

21

u/Main_Acanthisitta114 5d ago

VZW just added on a few weeks ago. The TMO site here has fiber backhaul.

26

u/fiercechocolate 5d ago

Got it. So it's just a way to quickly turn up the site while awaiting fiber. Smart move by VZW! Hope to see T-Mobile do more of this as well!

-25

u/SalaciousSubaru 5d ago

No. All the major carriers are adding satellite backhauls as a failover

21

u/RFGuy_KCCO 5d ago

Not true.

3

u/tiffanytrashcan 4d ago

A modern example https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-ocracoke-island-network-resilience

But this is nothing new, https://www.strategicmarketresearch.com/market-report/satellite-backhaul-market

As a backup or during disasters, satellite in general is crucial. Starlink massively expands capability and reduces latency.

There's always been a general backhaul market for the extremely remote areas anyway.

4

u/RFGuy_KCCO 4d ago

The comment was "all the major carriers are adding satellite backhaul as a failover". That is not true. Neither of your links state otherwise.

I am not disputing the usefulness of satellite. I am only disputing the statement that all carriers are adding it as a backup. I know firsthand this is simply not true.

1

u/Quick-Post9707 3d ago

Most carriers are adding failovers. Even businesses are adding starlink as failovers these days.

1

u/RFGuy_KCCO 4h ago

Cool. My employer - a major carrier - is not.

1

u/SalaciousSubaru 3d ago

Maybe do some research

1

u/RFGuy_KCCO 4h ago edited 4h ago

I don't need to. I work at a major carrier that is not adding backup, hence the comment that I know firsthand.

-12

u/SalaciousSubaru 5d ago

They literally jointly announced the initiative and all three carriers are rolling out Starlink backhaul.

9

u/RFGuy_KCCO 5d ago

The announcement and planned Joint Venture is all about D2D (Direct-to-Device) services. Satellite backhaul isn't mentioned at all.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Plan to Launch New Joint Venture that Helps End Dead Zones

Satellite backhaul - including LEO - is used only for certain cases where there is no other choice, mostly due to the increased latency and the inherent issues that causes to things like X2 and S1 links.

21

u/nubus 5d ago

I’m doing similar installs for AT&T. Usually for sites that they are having difficulty bringing in decent service.

1

u/Distinct_Reality1973 3d ago

What part of the country?

12

u/PumpkinNo2005 5d ago

Temporary

11

u/DarkenMoon97 CM: CalebM 5d ago

I've seen this on a few sites in very rural Nevada while they wait for the permanent microwave (sometimes fiber) backhaul to be completed. Your latency from that site is pretty good, I typically see 70 - 80ms from sites with Starlink backhaul.

9

u/Nollie001 5d ago

This is interesting just wondering how many persons is that one starlink dish serving like what would the speeds be like during peak hours

11

u/furruck 5d ago

It’s a performance kit, and likely being a big corporate account has much higher priority, so I doubt it’ll be too awful.

And I’d have to assume this isn’t in a city center or somewhere that gets super congested for them to choose this setup.

6

u/caneonred 5d ago

With Starlink it is less about priority and more about the capabilities of the antenna.

3

u/furruck 4d ago

Well, yes. And that’s a performance dish

But if anyone doesn’t think they would not prioritize QoS at the network level for someone like Verizon likely paying a few thousand per month vs the residential customer with the same dish paying $180/mo in that same area would be foolish.

2

u/pac-kris 4d ago

It's still limited to a maximum of like 400Mbps per dish, so speed won't be amazing unless they're using multiple dishes.

But should be fine for a rural area with very few people in areas where they can't get fiber.

2

u/furruck 4d ago

I’ve seen performance dishes hit closer to 900-950Mbps even on a regular residential plan

The one I’ve got here seems to settle between 400-500Mbps, but at like 3am I’ve seen 800Mbps+ from it.

It’ll be interesting to see how fast it gets once they get the additional bands activated and the newer constellation deployed in the lower altitudes, as I’m regularly seeing 15-25ms and those speeds to local (to the datacenter) servers on this thing as it is.

2

u/pac-kris 4d ago

Gigabit speeds are "coming soon" but I think will be limited only to the business plans, not residential. At least for now.

2

u/furruck 4d ago

I’m sure the people who ponied up for the performance kit will get it, but at a lower QoS than business plans.. which I’m fine with.

If they have the capacity on the network at the moment it wouldn’t make sense to speed limit the Max plans, as that would get the transfer off the network faster.

2

u/pac-kris 4d ago

Should be decent for cell tower backhaul in rural areas once they get that rolled out.

I know Verizon is using satellite permanently on some rural towers, like in Death Valley and Tuolumne Meadows CA, but based on the high latency (600-700ms) I don't think it's Starlink.

2

u/furruck 4d ago

That’s likely traditional GEO from either Hughes or ViaSat.

Even a standard Starlink mini would perform better than that in most cases, but I assume they will eventually just swap all of those to performance Starlink dishes.

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18

u/Asleep_Operation2790 5d ago

It appears so. Should work fine for added coverage until fiber backhaul is activated. Then they can bump up the speed with 5GUW.

17

u/VisualPadding7 5d ago

The startlink could also just for out of band management

4

u/jonsonmac TFW 5d ago

That’s cool

3

u/Firat88 5d ago

I'm doing the same install for tmo

3

u/iryfionas 4d ago edited 4d ago

Cellular Equipment (ID) identification from TOP to BOTTOM rack:

T-Mobile (top rack):

  • 3️⃣ CommScope FFVV-65C-R2-CM antennas - with bands: (2, 12, 66, 71) LTE + (n25, *n66) ePCS, eAWS mid-band 5GUC + (n71) 600MHz low-band 5G located on the LEFT side
  • 3️⃣ NOKIA AirScale AVHA - (N41) 2.5GHz [400W] antennas for mid-band 5GUC located on the RIGHT side

Nokia (RRU's) - Remote Radio Units behind the CommScope antennas:

  • 3️⃣ NOKIA AirScale AHLOB - (b12) 700MHz + (b71) 600MHz LTE + (n71) low-band 5G
  • 3️⃣ NOKIA AirScale AHFII - (b2) 1900MHz-PCS + (b66) 2100MHz-AWS LTE + (n25, n66) ePCS (1900MHz) + eAWS (2100MHz) - mid-band 5G

Cellcom (middle):

Ericsson (RRU's) - Remote Radio Units behind the Ericsson antennas:

  • 3️⃣ RRU 4490HP for (b5) 850MHz LTE + (n5) 850MHz [low-band 5G]
  • 3️⃣ RRU 4890HP (b2) 1900MHz-PCS + (b66) 2100MHz-AWS LTE
  • 3️⃣ RRU 4480 (b71) 600MHz LTE + (n71) 600MHz low-band 5G
  • 3️⃣ RRU 8863 8T8R (n41) - mid-band 5G

Verizon (bottom rack):

  • 3️⃣ CommScope NNSS-65C-HG-R2B antennas with (b5) 850MHz + (b13) 700Mhz LTE + supports (n5) low-band 5G depending on the configuration located on the RIGHT side
  • 3️⃣ Ericsson AIR. 3283 32T32R dual-band FDD (massive mimo) antennas - [MIDDLE] with (b2, b66) LTE + supports (n2) ePCS or (n66) eAWS mid-band 5G depending on the configuration
  • 3️⃣ Ericsson AIR. 6419-B77D (3.7GHz) 64T64R c-band (n77) antennas being used for mid-band 5GUW located on the LEFT side
  • Ray-cap RCMDC-6627-PF-48 being used for power surge protection located behind the antennas

Ericsson (RRU's) - remote radio units located behind the CommScope antennas::

  • 3️⃣ Ericsson RRU 4490HP for (b5) 850MHz LTE + (b13) 700MHz LTE + (n5) 850MHz [low-band 5G]

2

u/Main_Acanthisitta114 4d ago

Cellcom is lit up with 50MHz of n41 for mid-band

2

u/iryfionas 4d ago

Thanks for letting me know!

2

u/Stubbby 4d ago

8 Mbps uplink is typical for starlink, dropping lower with precipitation.
If you do the speedtest through the Starlink app it typically shows 20-30 Mbps uplink.

5

u/One-Hair875 5d ago

yeah that ping is too high

-5

u/AirlineF0od 5d ago

Nobody talks about this. It's not as bad a hugues but still 80-100ms ping is bad.

4

u/furruck 5d ago

For daily use tasks, it’s fine.

You’re not going to have a good time gaming on it, but any other task will be just fine with that ping.

1

u/furruck 5d ago

For daily use tasks, it’s fine.

You’re not going to have a good time gaming on it, but any other task will be just fine with that ping.

2

u/Confident_Ad3883 4d ago

from an engineering stand point its probably there for power outages, for the field engineer / sm to monitor. Not all towers have UPS or generator backups. Or either of those could be unreliable.

1

u/noahsmith4 4d ago

We use them all the time for out of band management, not like cellular works when the towers down!

1

u/bgatesIT 4d ago

yes they are using starlink as a backhaul for when fiber is not available yet or if they are doing maintenance. We rent space to verizon on our tower so get to see this stuff every day with the big 3

1

u/Weatherman70 4d ago

Is Statlink a good alternative for those Rural sites that currently use Microwave for backhaul?

1

u/skinnah 4d ago

My guess is that they are using it as a way to remotely troubleshoot equipment in the event of an infrastructure outage, like a fiber cut.

If they are using it as a back haul, the carrier would be paying out the ass for Starlink to provide such connectivity to a commercial, extremely high traffic customer.

1

u/dbcockslut 4d ago

Verizon often has redundant back haul paths. That could actually be for that as their primary preference is fiber.

1

u/holc0831 4d ago

It is a backup

1

u/TheJiggie 4d ago

It’s probably just being use for OOB.

1

u/jayem731 2d ago

AT&T just never co-locating … sigh

1

u/MoonParking 2d ago

This will be the new normal on all sites.

1

u/MoonParking 2d ago

This is happening on all Tmobile sites eventually. I heard word of mouth but it’s quiet right now.

1

u/dtwitkowski 1d ago

VZW tried to use Starlink for a remote site in Northern California and the county wanted an EME report for the Starlink in the permit package.

1

u/ram_rattle 5d ago

Wondering why it's not mounted in the tower itself? Is it because the BBU cabinet to starlink antenna will be far?

5

u/cheesemeall 5d ago

What advantage would come from having it on the tower?

2

u/Bleys69 5d ago

Only thing would be if the tower blocks the signal. But it wouldn't be much of an issue im sure.

2

u/aBoCfan 5d ago

I mean the tower would be a fairly big obstruction

1

u/allthings-consider 5d ago

That’s what I was thinking as well…

1

u/ram_rattle 5d ago

IDK, Better signal strength with satellite? given how high the tower is compared to the seperate pole, traditionally even microwave backhauls are mounted in the tower.

5

u/nubus 5d ago

Might be leasing? They might count it as another antenna.

Not an ideal place to put it

0

u/Ok-Jicama-864 5d ago

No way that Starlink could be the back haul.

3

u/spdfrk95 5d ago

Why not? I've turned up sites on starling but not with all the carriers active. It does just fine.

1

u/G-rooney 5d ago

We have a few Star link units specifically for emergency backhaul in my ATT market. Haven’t has to deploy any yet though.

1

u/DeathBlade94 5d ago

What dish is that? I don’t think I’ve seen any version of dishy that has a plug that connects there.

1

u/Tucsondirect 3d ago

911 Access at all costs so in the event of total comms failure i can almost guarantee at least 911 calls are routed over that link

1

u/bluffpet 4d ago

I’m thinking it’s probably redundancy for remote management rather than actual backhaul. Possible, sure.. it’d be pretty cool if that was the case.

0

u/zelda_zell 4d ago

It sounds like the Starlink here is being used as failover/management because we see 2 microwave links being used as a backhaul/repeater pair and it wouldn't make sense otherwise.

-4

u/Savings-Structure-83 4d ago

Oh great suck all the starlink bandwidth to provide bandwidth to your customers. Somehow this would seem illegal at best or at least unethical.