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Three UK poor backhaul

Lucian

ULTIMATE Member
Hi,

Was just watching Peter's latest video about EE's first Ericsson streetworks monopole and at some point in the video you can see the backhaul equipment for both Three and EE and the striking difference in bandwidth (1Gbps vs 10Gbps).

Not saying all of Three's sites are like this, but judging by the experience of the people complaining in this forum, I'd say this is more of a pattern than not.

Sure, some sites do not require high bandwidth and it'd be a waste of resources to put them all on 10 Gbps+, but still, it's a nice example. It's 2020, if you make the effort to put up a new pole, uplink it properly...

I've linked the video at minute 3:44:

 
I've heard from a reliable source that Three do have a 'strategic' plan in that where possible backhaul will be 10Gbps.

Obviously that doesn't mean they'll all instantly be upgraded, and equally where there isn't the radio capacity for a given mast to deliver anywhere near 10Gbps those will be much lower priority in the plan.
 
"it'd be a waste of resources to put them all on 10 Gbps+"

It certainly wouldn't be when you come to install your 5g kit on that mast! Or 6g or 7g etc...... the problem is when it comes to future proofing for 5g is a 10gig backhaul even going to be enough? or are carriers just going to market the amazing speeds but not deliver them, ever?
 
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I presume this 1gig fiber in the box directs ALL traffic to and from that mast through three's network a solid 1gig per second? So it's not hard to expect this to be at capacity when you have just 10 people with home broadband all downloading the latest linux distro or updating their xbox modern warfare simultaneously. (I suspect its over 200 customers per mast at any given time in reality).

So the million dollar question, is this culprit causing the shortage of back-haul and slowing download speeds on Three?
 
If I understand correctly, that is the backhaul, isn't it? That router there and the VM 1Gbps circuit going to Three's core network is the backhaul, so there you go..
 
I guess for mobile phone data a 1gig back haul would be more than enough for bursty data access, but for a company offering stationary same-mast home 4g broadband, what planet are they on to think this is going to suffice?
 
1gbps is the standard for 4G and largely provides a high level of service when shared by EE and 3. If estimating backhaul requirements of a spectral configuration, it is necessary to be aware the typical spectral efficiency is far from peak.

10gbps is standard for 5G but it is not unknown for 5G (and the 4G bearers) to be deployed sharing several hundred mbps.

Peter
 
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So if this 1gbps pipe is actually shared by EE and Three, does that mean both carriers use the entire pipe between them across they're different networks?

Does this have some form of QOS in play Peter? And how does that work exactly?
 
I don't think that's what he meant, EE and Three clearly have very different uplink arrangements, as it can be seen in this video for example.
 
So do we think that Three's much discussed backhaul or backbone issues are mainly at the mast sites? If so that would explain why rural masts don't have so much of an issue, for example my mast only has Band 20 and two segments, so couldn't even saturate a 100 meg backhaul.

On the other hand in cities, with potentially a 5G cell on every other lamp post, if these are each back hauled at 10gig, won't that just move the bottleneck elsewhere?
 
I think the three issue with its back-haul is a complex issue because of different masts using kit of different manufacturers, all operating over the one core network. A lot of masts communicate over microwave bouncing signals across area's until it reaches nodes too. Some masts are upgraded, others are not, some masts have just band 3 and some have bands 1 and 20.

Mine home mast has bands 1 and 3, but its faster using just band 3 on its own, band 1 does nothing to increase the download speeds, so there is an existing mast tech born issue with limited bandwidth availability somewhere on mine.

I don't think its totally down to back-haul limitations, I think some of it is down to lower transmit power on three's masts compared to other carriers and number of users on masts causing major contention too.

The question is, do carriers generally increase bandwidth availability on contended masts or just pretend it doesn't exist?
 
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