Comment on Mike Dano's post on T-Mobile mmWave licenses
#ejlwireless #mmwave #5g #FWA
This is a long comment (as we exceeded the total allowed in the comments section for the original post from Mike Dano .
EJL Wireless surveyed many cities at the beginning of this ill-fated strategy for mmWave 1.0 back in 2019-2020. We mapped out nearly every location, equipment type, pole type, azimuth direction for each small cell site over 7 markets across the west, central and east coast of the US for Verizon Wireless.
It remains a problem if you are thinking mobility with mmWave however, Verizon's recent reboot and using mmWave 2.0 for FWA on a macrosite has the following benefits:
1] Reduces the number of sites significantly
2] Leverages existing macrosites to reach MDUs from above and not below through the treeline
3] Allows for greater passing of potential FWA subscribers
With that said, it is still not cheap or easy. You need a higher power mmWave radio (+70dBm EIRP) compared with the lower power ones (~+56dBm EIRP) on a light pole/utility pole and you still need a reliable self install for the CPE and to get through that annoying e-glass.
But cherry picking the donut hole and leaving the donut sets a bad precedent for the FCC and license holders to "gerrymander" the geographical licenses to only serve only the highest ARPU areas like all mobile operators tend to do.
What is the ultimate fix and solution for mmWave? Create a million "hexbins" of mmWave licenses across each PEA??? Contact us to learn more about what we analyzed about the radios in these markets and the teardowns on these radios.