Omnipoint VoiceStream T-Mobile USA

License(s)

Comments

T-Mobile USA is a collection of GSM only PCS carriers in the U.S. that consisted of VoiceStream and the companies that VoiceStream purchased (Omnipoint, Aerial1, PowerTel, DigiPh PCS). Coverage in the Commonwealth of Virginia from Stafford County southward dates to mid-2002. Coverage in the western portion of the Commonwealth is due to the acquisition of the former Devon Mobile Communications (Adelphia Wireless) tower sites. Coverage in the Washington/Baltimore market is descended from Sprint Spectrum and originally looked like a dog bone providing coverage in the DC and Baltimore metro areas with coverage along the major corridors between the two areas. North of Baltimore, Delaware and parts north was originally built out by Omnipoint.

As it stands there is only one MSC, the old Sprint Spectrum switch in Beltsville outside of Washington, D.C. Virginia, NE North Carolina only have field engineering offices.

Antenna

In Virginia and NE North Carolina VoiceStream makes almost exclusive use of EMS Wireless antenna. Most sites deploy six antenna in the classic 2 x 3 PCS configuration (Fig. 1-1). High capacity sites and sites located on top of electrical transmission structures use nine antenna in a 3 x 3 configuration (Fig. 1-2). In the Washington/Baltimore region VoiceStream uses PCS antenna from various vendors in addition a growing deployment of antenna from EMS (Fig. 1-3). In some areas of the Washington/Baltimore region antenna are shared with Sprint PCS via splitters. These are mostly former Sprint Spectrum sites. In Delware, EMS Wireless antenna are also becoming more common place; like the Washington/Baltimore region there are still a great many sites the utilize generic looking PCS antenna from unknown vendors (probably Andrew). Additionally, many sites utilize only one antenna per sector in a 1 x 3 configuration. This is possibly due to the heavy use of DP&L electrical monopoles found along most major highways.

Other carriers have also started to use EMS Wireless antenna (most notably Sprint PCS in the Norfolk market) and AT&T Wireless (Cingular Blue). However, VoiceStream is the only carrier to mount Ericsson RBS amplifiers directly behind or near the antenna (see the boxes behind the antenna in Fig. 1-1).

Figure 1-1: EMS Wireless 2x3

Figure 1-2: EMS Wireless 3x3

Base station(s)

All cell sites use electronics from the Ericsson RBS 210x product line. The brunt of VoiceStream's network rides ontop of the RBS 2102 BTS which comes in three types of flavors. The first type is hard to find but distinctive with its all green color scheme (Fig. 2-1). The second incarnation of the RBS 2102 is more common in former Omnipoint areas and looks very similar to the green RBS 2102 except it is white not green. The third and by far most common RBS 2102 variation is a later model cabinet with black trim at the bottom (Fig. 2-3). This is the current "RBS 2102" cabinet and is found at the majority of VoiceStream cell sites. On the other hand several sites are being upgraded to Ericsson RBS 2106 cabinet (Fig. 2-4). Sometimes the 2106 is paired with a pre-existing 2102 cabinet (Fig. 2-5). This is normally a temporary situation as the 2106 cabinet ends up having a ''box'' attached to it (Fig. 2-6) and eventually the 2102 cabinet and attached box are removed from service. It is unknown what the ''box'' is used for.

Figure 2-2: Ericsson RBS 2102 (W)

Figure 2-3: Ericsson RBS 2102

Figure 2-4: Ericsson RBS 2106

Figure 2-5: Ericsson RBS 2106 & 2102

Figure 2-6: ''box''

Signage

Singage takes two main forms depending on the market. In the Norfolk/Richmond markets sites are only markets by power meter tags or stickers on the compound fence lock (all of which is inconsistent). Power meter tagging takes one of two forms, a VoiceStream sticker (Fig. 3-1) or a T-Mobile sticker normally placed over a VoiceStream sticker (Fig. 3-2).

In the Washington/Baltimore market the signage consists of a red and white sticker afixed to the main electronics cabinet (Fig. 3-3). This sticker normally provides the sites main wirelines circuit id and the VoiceStream site id. The site id is normally composed of a three leter region or group code (such as WAW for WAshington West) and a three digit number (usually part of the GSM Cell ID). Signage in the Philadelphia market has a similar format to the site id stickers in the Washington/Baltimore, alphabetic prefix with numeric suffix (Fig. 3-4). The prefix normally consists of two characters representing the county the site is located in (NC for New Castle County, etc.) and a number that is all or part of the sites GSM Cell ID. Some sites have a numeric prefix. It is unknown what the prefix is for.

Figure 3-1: VoiceStream meter tag

Figure 3-2: T-Mobile meter tag