Facebook reveals 'SuperCell' tower to increase connectivity in rural areas
Lost interest when I read:<p>&gt;The test location had a rocky desert topology with minimal foliage, and tests were conducted using LTE Band 41 (2,500 MHz).<p>T-Mobile&#x2F;Sprint use this band. I have a lot of experience with it because I am located in a semi-rural and hilly area and I use LTE exclusively for internet access.<p>For B41, I have one tower that&#x27;s approx 2 miles away and 600ft or so down from me in a valley, close to line-of-sight. This signal is only usable if I install an antenna outdoors or use next to a window facing the tower. My real-world speedtests are around 75mbit down, and 2mbit up on a good day. Indoors not in front of a window I cannot force any of the devices I own to connect to this band.<p>I&#x27;m also going to mention: Uplink&#x2F;transmit power on most cellular devices is limited to 200mW (class 1) unless you use a device that supports Sprint&#x27;s Class 2 High Performance User Equipment (HPUE) at 400mW or you have a router&#x2F;device that does class 3 High Power User Equipment (also HPUE) at 1.25W. Only class 3 devices have a shot in hell at communicating back to this tower if there&#x27;s even a small number of trees or a single wall between you and it.<p>Finally, this B41 TD-LTE tends to work worse the further you get outside the cell, since it relies on precise timing of all equipment inside it. Installing cell relay equipment works poorly outside of a mile or so of the transmitting antenna, again due to precise timing issues. (personal experience with a Sprint Magic Box).<p>Ignoring all the other social&#x2F;anticompetitive issues there is with Facebook proposing this, it stinks like a scam to get a tax writeoff or jump onto the same sort of FCC rural internet grant money Starlink is bilking taxpayers out of. You can&#x27;t scale a midband macro like this even using a dumb amount of spectrum. Oh totally forgot, there&#x27;s an &#x27;educational&#x27; use case for use of BRS (2500mhz) spectrum that I&#x27;ll bet Facebook will also try to get their hands on.<p>EDIT: Note on power class, you have certify through the FCC initially to use higher classes, can&#x27;t just enable it later on without recertification. Also, higher transmit power = less battery life. This is why in urban areas it usually makes more sense to use cell network to save battery (better scheduling&#x2F;sleep modes, low transmit power) than it does in rural areas where the cell radio is cranked up to its limits and it makes more sense to use a low power radio like wifi broadcasting all the time.