Cell phone tower carrier?

[serge2k]

Are cell phone towers specific to one cell phone provider or can they shared them? Theres this cell phone tower that was built in my town since like last year, but i dont think it is working cuz it was put behind a "Old people's center" and i think that they opposed it and its been sitting there since.. Well i dont know that for a fact but if it is i know its not T-moblies or nextel cuz me and one of my friend have nextel and we both have bad reception.... any thoughts??

[discjoker]

It is very common for wireless providers to co-locate their cell sites on a single tower. You can tell the number of providers by the number of antennas on the tower.

[Scalici26]

Not always. Sometimes carriers will place several antenna's on a tower.

[discjoker]

Originally posted by: Scalici26
Not always. Sometimes carriers will place several antenna's on a tower.

Interesting...why would they do that? Are you sure you aren't refering to bays/panels? A single antenna will usually have several bays or panels.

[njsvrzncdma]

yes some carriers will have several panels but usually not more than one antenna..why put two on one antenna when you can put that second one somewhere else ?

[bobolito]

Carriers install a site per tower and normally they do not own the tower. They rent the space from a tower leasing company such as American Towers, Subcarrier Communications, 3G Solutions, etc. Sprint is the only carrier I know that owns its own towers because they created a division called Sprint Sites USA. However, they rent most of their spaces from other companies since they can't always build a tower where they need it and prefer to rent the space from someone else. If you see more than one site in a single tower, then there's more than one carrier for that tower. A site consists of three sectors, aimed 120 degrees apart, each covering 120 degrees of the horizon. Each sector is called a "cell" which has its own control channel. Therefore, each site normally has three independent sectors using different channels/frequencies, so if you are in one side of the tower and move to the other side, you call will switch channels. I am not sure why some sectors have 4 panels/antennas, or sometimes 3, or 2, but for what I've noticed CDMA sites normally have 2 panels per sector, while TDMA/GSM/IDEN sites will have 4 panels per sector at most. It probably has to do with how well they need the signal to penetrate through obstacles.

However, I've seen some exceptions. I've seen a single carrier with two sites in the same tower/monopole and sites with 4 sectors instead of three, each 90 degrees apart. These are normally seen on roof tops because building usually have 4 external walls. However, I've seen 4-sector sites on monopoles as well.

It all depends on the need for it, the approvals, and most importantly, the budget.

[nyisles]

One way you can easily find out who is on that cell phone tower is just go into your town hall and goto the Zoning Board's office and ask them. I did that, found out we had almost everyone (Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, Tmobile, Nextel) and ATT was all set to add their stuff as well. Also found out that there was another tower that is going to be added in the next couple of months on the other side of town, so it was a worthwhile trip.