LTE bands in Vancouver

[bryanbreguet]

I switched to PM two weeks ago and I love it (coming from Wind...). However, while I have LTE virtually everywhere I go, I noticed that Telus/PM mostly uses bands 2 and 4 in Vancouver for LTE (I checked on my phone and I looked online at cellmapper). Those two bands are high frequencies, similar to what Wind has for 3G. It means poor building penetration. My phone (Alcatel Idol 3) has all the bands Telus/PM use. The reception of the phone isn't the best though. I usually get 1 or 2 bars and the reception is often at -115dBm. Speed is fast, no problem there.

According to wikipedia though, Telus/PM should also have some bands 5 (850 Mhz) and 17 (700 Mhz) but I haven't seen those bands being used so far where I go. These bands would be much better for building penetration.

My question is thus: do you guys know where Telus/PM use these low frequencies bands for LTE in Vancouver?

[srlawren]

@bryanbreguet interesting.  I wonder if the power on HF was possibly mistaken?  Or possibly there is an order of preference for the bands, set either by your phone's manufacturer, or by Telus somehow?  For example, I'm thinking as long as you have a signal of some kind in band 2 or 4, maybe it doesn't even try band 5?  I have no idea if this is the case, it's purely speculation.  But maybe the order is something like try 4 first, then 2, then (some others?), then 5, then (some others?).  

[bryanbreguet]

Thanks for the reply. I'm indeed using LTE discovery. The app does indeed work randomly at times. Sometimes it tells me the band (usually 4 or 2) and sometimes it doesn't (even though I'm at the same location; Sometimes it literally stops displaying the band if I restart the app).

But at least the info I get from the app is consistent with what I see on CellMapper. The reception I'm getting is also usually consistent with the band being high frequency.

And no, it's not an issue at all, I'm very happy with the service. I was really mostly curious (also, I wanted to make sure my phone was fully working). I read a post on Howard Forum regarding Telus having band 5 everywhere... and yet I've never been on it.

[srlawren]

@bryanbreguet what app are you using to see what band you're on?  I've tried out LTE Discovery and it only ever seems to tell me when I'm on band 4.  Any other time it just says it's an unknown band.  Is there a better app for this info? I've never bothered looking further, but I'd be happy to try the app you use. I'm in the greater Vancouver area too, and travel a good chunk of the mainland by skytrain every day to work in Yaletown area, so I'm all over the place.  🙂  

EDIT: regarding the wikipedia info, that info isn't really region-specific. If I had to guess, you might see more band 5 or some of the other bands back east where Telus largely uses Bell towers (while Bell largely uses Telus towers in the west).  I'm betting you'd see more bands in Toronto and Montreal, perhaps.  Maybe Calgary too.

EDIT 2:  one final thought here--you mentioned speed is fine even when your bars and/or dB reading show lower than you'd like.  As long as the speed is fine, is there really an issue?

[NDesai]

Sorry i can't answer your Qs as i don't really pay attention to what band my phone is currently on. If it works fine, i really don't care. No one can really tell you why Telus/Bell using those bands and not other. 

[bryanbreguet]

Thanks for the reply. I had taken at look at this post.

My question is really more: do you guys find that band 5 is really used a lot (as indicated on Howard forums) or not? because personally, I mostly see bands 2 and 5 in Vancouver. So I was curious if it was just a question of where I live and where I often go.

[NDesai]

This post might help you little bit: http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/Telus-using-LTE-Band-2-4-5-amp-7-in-BC...