schooling
I Have Opinions, Too
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IMO. Your numbers are off. Just thinking about the size of the student population who likely all have cell phones and the fact that they have D1 sports (a lot of people in a single area) tells me that the numbers are way off.My thoughts about predicting the defense case are that it's really a case about the limitations of cellular infrastructure.
Most cell towers can only handle about 60 voice calls at the same time for 4G, which was predominant in 2022.
Capacity In The Cell Signal Oriented World
Remember, it isn’t always about cell tower reach, cell tower capacity is also a key factor.It seems that all the cellular carriers have really been pushing this “friends and family” focused method of data/plan sharing. I was recently at my local carrier store upgrading my phone when the...surecall.com
MOO
Note: Hoping this can stay up as I believe that it's on topic. As I'm starting to see a lot about the limitations of cell towers. I am not an expert. Everything I say below is cited by a link to research papers and authoriative news sources.
IMO. The article you're citing as a source is incentivized to sell people cell phone signal boosters. So I'm not surprised they failed to make the distinction between 4G/4G LTE and 4G LTE with VoLTE support. They also failed to mention the fact that cell towers have multiple sectors. And each cell sector can support X number of calls (more on that linked below). So their 60 number is an underestimation even at the time it was posted. And since carriers weren't using 4G for phone calls at all back then because of those limitations. The 60 number is totally disingenuous.
They probably realized this just a few years later so here's another article from them circa 2019 that cites the numbers to be as high as "1,000 simultaneous users". And those numbers are even low (more on that cited below)
AT&T Cell Signal Coverage Map
See how you expand the AT&T coverage map! Get all the information you need to get better AT&T service in your car, RV, home, or office.
surecall.com
Why the changes? IMO it was because "Voice Over LTE" (VoLTE) was almost fully rolled out by 2019. It supports 1000s of simultaneous users. Here's AT&T in 2014 announcing that it was starting to roll out VoLTE nationwide.
And by the time the iPhone 6 was released in 2015 (How To Enable HD Voice on your iPhone 6 | Digital Trends) voice over LTE (HD voice in the article) was already supported by enough networks that you could turn it on.
Up until that point phones were relying on 3G for phone calls and 4G for data for the reasons that your article cited. Anyone who remembers having a phone back then you couldn't simultaneously talk and browse the web at the same with (without Wifi) until VoLTE was rolled out.
Here's a How Stuff Works article about LTE/VoLTE and it's capabilities, including it being able to handle 300 to 400 of simultaneous calls.
How 4G Works
These days, more people are glued to their mobile devices -- and increasingly impatient about slow download speeds. 4G networks promise to deliver all the speedy data we could wish for, but do they?
electronics.howstuffworks.com
And since that How Stuff Works Article is also likely only accounting for a single sector pointed in a single direction MOO...here goes 2 more published reviewed research papers.
One from 2014 citing that some 4G towers were already handling over 2,000 users
And another 2018 research article that goes into the potential capacity of VoLTE being as high as 6,000 uses per tower. Which IMO we are likely already at since we are at the tail end of 4G LTE technology with 5G coming.
I have a lot more on the above but most of them are from forums and other places that don't seem like authoriative sources and I'd really like this info to stay up.
Here's a map of LTE coverage showing that AT&T current most advanced 4G LTE network is supported in the area.
Mobile LTE Coverage Map
This map shows the 4G LTE mobile coverage areas of the nation’s four largest mobile wireless carriers: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile, UScellular, and Verizon. Specifically, it shows where customers can expect to receive 4G LTE broadband service at a minimum user download speed of five megabits per...
www.fcc.gov
Lastly, a typical cell tower has 3-6 sectors with multiple antennas each. So if we were using the number of "60" from your article it would actually be 60 in 3 different directions. Which means 180. With VoLTE that's how we get to those big numbers from the research I posted above.
Look at the FBI documentation here that refers to "Cell Towers AND sectors"
Document Detail
propertyofthepeople.org
And here is more on towers and sectors
4G LTE Cells, Sectors and Antenna Beamforming - 4G LTE Networks
Terminology of cells and sectors are changing as the industry deploys new antenna technology for systems like LTE, 4G, 5G and beyond
www.4g-lte.net
MOO
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