We are in the process of providing dark fiber to multiple cell towers in our rural area. Most are new towers and a couple are existing towers with a new tenant going on. These towers definitely do not have any diverse fiber connections. They do have a aggressive SLA in place. Some of the towers do also have a microwave link. I am not sure if this is temporary while the fiber route is being completed or will remain as a permanent backup, but it just links back to another nearby cell tower. From a fiber standpoint, a cut in one spot would take out the majority of the towers for one carrier in this area. I am aware of some cell towers in this area which do have a fiber ring connecting them, they are all late 1990s original Alltel towers and the fiber ring that hits them was CenturyTel and now owned by Lumen, and runs in a large ring across several counties just hitting the old Alltell towers. The new build towers just get one fiber feed from whoever bid the best price.
On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 7:26 PM Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote: > > We’re in a semi rural area. Nearly every celltower I’ve checked out has > either a licensed microwave feed or a single fiber feed. They might daisy > chain a tower via microwave to another tower that is fiber fed. And as they > upgrade towers to fiber, I assume the old microwave link stays in place and > could be a redundant path. > > > > I’ve never seen a tower in our area with redundant fiber feeds. I mean, they > probably have multiple live strands, but one duct, which goes miles and miles > down the road. It seems the fiber routes can daisy chain from tower to tower > just like the microwave links did before them. > > > > From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett > Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 6:17 PM > To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a celltower is offline > > > > I would assume the cell towers are on a ring, or otherwise have a physically > diverse back up. I don’t know about the others, but AT&T has strict > connectivity requirements. You don’t give them an SLA they give you the SLA > and you agree to it or you can’t sell them the backhaul. > > > > …., But you know what they say about assuming > > > > Get Outlook for iOS > > ________________________________ > > From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 11:30:35 AM > To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a celltower is offline > > > > I’m mainly trying to understand what happens now that many people are > switching to T-Mobile and Verizon home Internet (because it’s priced at $35 > to $50). I’ve started to see social media reports of outages. > > > > So I’m thinking the hotspot feature on their phones should still work, or > maybe not? And maybe then they could roam to a different carrier? Or maybe > not? > > > > I was speculating that 5G Home Internet is more like conventional FWA in that > each customer is qualified based on celltower capacity and distance, so maybe > they wouldn’t allow it to just switch to a different tower. > > > > And adding to the mystery, one of the companies around here that puts in > fiber to celltowers has a subsidiary that is doing FTTH. So if VZHI is down > because of a fiber cut, will fiber in town also be down? > > > > I also wonder what happens to TMHI and VZHI when they upgrade everything on a > tower, as happened with the transition from 4G/LTE to 5G. We saw Verizon > strip everything off some towers, new RRUs and cables, and then screw around > with crews coming out for months because evidently it didn’t go smoothly. > I’m assuming mobile users would switch to another tower, perhaps at lower > speeds, but what about home Internet? > > > > From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Trey Scarborough > Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 10:10 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] mobile and 5G Home Internet when a celltower is offline > > > > As Adam stated if the site gets disconnected it it will drop all the > connections. Home internet is less likely to connect to another tower. Most > will prefer the higher frequency bands and in many cases are depending on > small cells to provide coverage. With that being the case it is often that it > will not fail over to the lower frequency. > > If your looking for phone service that will fail over to multiple carriers US > Mobile is probably the best solution. You can get service that will run on > multiple carriers for a nominal monthly charge. > > > > On 8/12/25 1:36 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote: > > Who here knows more than I do about how cellular networks work during a > celltower outage? > > > > Would I be correct to assume that if, for example, a Verizon tower is > offline, your mobile phone would connect to another nearby Verizon tower? > And that you could not only make voice calls and send text messages, but also > use your phone as a hotspot for Internet? > > > > And that if there was no other Verizon tower in range, your phone would roam > to a T-Mobile or AT&T tower? And in that case, could you still use the > hotspot feature? > > > > Now, what about Home Internet service? Would I be correct to assume no > roaming and probably not even another Verizon tower? If your designated > tower is down, no home Internet? > > > > One last question, if the tower has power and all the electronics is running > but the backhaul to the tower is down (like a fiber cut), do phones still > connect to the tower but have no service? Or will they move to another tower? > > > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
