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More on SA cell towers
- Thread starter Azimuth
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- alandicks antenna cell tower lte
Great! Please do post if you can contribute.
Jcheek and I have personally identified Powerwave and Huawei equipment. As for the others, I've yet to see the labels. Admittedly my 300mm lens can only 'see' so far!
Isn't that tied to their WiMAX offering? Or do they have WiMAX and LTE?
Nice find by the way, completely under the radar. I do wish they'd have more success and have a solid consumer offering.
Edit: Post # 1 amended.
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jcheek
Expert Member
See MyBB link added to the original post.
I gather they are using some 1800MHz spectrum, presumably also with FDD ?
"In a statement accompanying the launch, Neotel confirmed that it would start its commercial offering in a concentrated area of Gauteng with 50 base stations, using spectrum on the 1,800MHz band."
Yeah, I agree - with 50 base stations in Gauteng and R1 800 for 5Mbps, I can't really see it going anywhere all that fast ...
This is the site I established LOS to for an LTE installation here.
I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't take in the whole tower...zoomed all the way out to 75mm and I was still too close! I've learnt my lesson to cart my 17-55mm with next time.
This particular base station is based off Robert Boom Drive at a Total garage in Noordheuwel. MTN also hosts Cell C and Telkom Mobile at the site.
Quite a mix of antennas plus microwave. I see a real small directional panel antenna as well.
A closer look...
I don't know if it's just me but the cabling is rather messy on this tower.
Powerwave label visible. The microwave dish is pretty small - is this the standard size? Any way to tell if this is for backhaul or to feed other cells?
I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't take in the whole tower...zoomed all the way out to 75mm and I was still too close! I've learnt my lesson to cart my 17-55mm with next time.
This particular base station is based off Robert Boom Drive at a Total garage in Noordheuwel. MTN also hosts Cell C and Telkom Mobile at the site.
Quite a mix of antennas plus microwave. I see a real small directional panel antenna as well.
A closer look...
I don't know if it's just me but the cabling is rather messy on this tower.
Powerwave label visible. The microwave dish is pretty small - is this the standard size? Any way to tell if this is for backhaul or to feed other cells?
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My lens is just a bit short of reach to read the labels; perhaps I should have used my tripod to stabilise and make the writing clearer. In any event, the images here obviously are short of resolution compared to the originals.
Looking up into the belly of the beast.
Cell C signage.
Huawei RRU.
Ericsson combiner/splitter.
If I'm not mistaken the label has fallen off here. Powerwave I think? Lower down is the RF Combiner/Splitter. This boosts the signal going up. It's either RRU or TMA or RF Combiner/Splitter.
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This was the cell operator I was ultimately looking for on the day.
Cell ID is 202.At the previous shoot, there was no TM signage in sight. SA seems to be unique in displaying operator signage with Site No's. In the US there's nothing to go on.
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jcheek
Expert Member
It's been quite interesting to watch how base stations have been getting more crowded over the years, as network operators add more hardware, and as other operators move in to share the site infrastructure.
These are some pics of an MTN base station near me.
Originally, in 2009, it looked like this:
Just what looks like 3 main sector antennas, a single microwave link, and some other smaller bits & pieces.
Now, 5 years later, another operator (Telkom) has moved onto the same site. 3G, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+ and LTE have all happened as well.
It looks quite a bit busier now!
There's a fair amount of the ubiquitous Huawei equipment up here :
Along with some from a much older name - Kathrein:
From what I can gather, that Kathrein "Remote Control Unit" inline box plugged into the right-hand port might have something to do with allowing the antennas to be tilted remotely ... ?
For those more interested, the Kathrein site linked above has a few downloadable PDF catalogues which give quite nice overviews of some of their stuff.
These are some pics of an MTN base station near me.
Originally, in 2009, it looked like this:
Just what looks like 3 main sector antennas, a single microwave link, and some other smaller bits & pieces.
Now, 5 years later, another operator (Telkom) has moved onto the same site. 3G, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+ and LTE have all happened as well.
It looks quite a bit busier now!
There's a fair amount of the ubiquitous Huawei equipment up here :
Along with some from a much older name - Kathrein:
From what I can gather, that Kathrein "Remote Control Unit" inline box plugged into the right-hand port might have something to do with allowing the antennas to be tilted remotely ... ?
For those more interested, the Kathrein site linked above has a few downloadable PDF catalogues which give quite nice overviews of some of their stuff.
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Nice one! You've been photographing these things for quite a while...
Remote tilt!? How would that work? Instead of adjusting elevation, isn't azimuth adjustment the important one? (I'm only speculating here)
Remote tilt!? How would that work? Instead of adjusting elevation, isn't azimuth adjustment the important one? (I'm only speculating here)
jcheek
Expert Member
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jcheek
Expert Member
Here's another pic which is kinda interesting ... it relates to the same base-station as in this post.
Cell C were one of the subsequent "shares" on this original Vodacom site and their gear is interesting because it's relatively compact - all the other players have containers or enclosures - and it's also mounted on a pole out in the open :
More Kathrein equipment. This time it's one of their triple-band combiners/triplexers. Here's a right-way-up close-up :
If you look closely you can see what seem to be the "input" ports for GSM900 (Port1), GSM1800 (Port2) and UMTS/3G (Port3), all being combined and going out on one output port (Port4). Perhaps this feeds up into some sort of Tower-Mounted Amplifier and thence to some sector antennas ?
Maybe someone else in the industry can chip in with more detail ?
Cell C were one of the subsequent "shares" on this original Vodacom site and their gear is interesting because it's relatively compact - all the other players have containers or enclosures - and it's also mounted on a pole out in the open :
More Kathrein equipment. This time it's one of their triple-band combiners/triplexers. Here's a right-way-up close-up :
If you look closely you can see what seem to be the "input" ports for GSM900 (Port1), GSM1800 (Port2) and UMTS/3G (Port3), all being combined and going out on one output port (Port4). Perhaps this feeds up into some sort of Tower-Mounted Amplifier and thence to some sector antennas ?
Maybe someone else in the industry can chip in with more detail ?
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Captain Beer
Executive Member
Is there a directory where one can put in their Cell ID and see which tower they are receiving from?
Haven't seen or heard of this myself to be honest. I only know of phone signal performance with it being vertical rather than horizontal.
We'd all love that. Maybe if ATC ran all sites in SA they'd give us this. Until then, it's pie in the sky.
SauRoNZA
Honorary Master
Quite a mix of antennas plus microwave. I see a real small directional panel antenna as well.
?
What's that square one pointing towards the right?
Almost looks like a satellite based M2M antenna but the angle is a bit off for that.