The base stations are all managed by the Tower Company. Why are the signals of the three major operators sometimes very different?

I came uninvited and have been engaged in the communication industry for more than ten years. Let me talk about my understanding.

First of all, not all the towers are owned by the tower company. Generally, the iron tower in the core area is still in the hands of the three operators themselves, which is related to the establishment time of the iron tower company. At the beginning of the establishment of the Tower Company, all three operators actually had their own small plans to hand over suburban or remote towers to the Tower Company. However, in the urban core area and some competitive core areas, they are all fragmented, and the towers in these areas have not been handed over to the tower company. Therefore, the signal is good in some places and weak in others.

Secondly, the problem of frequency band, the lower the frequency band, the smaller the attenuation in air propagation, and the higher the frequency band, the greater the attenuation. This means that some operators can cover the same area with a small number of base stations, while others need a large number of base stations to cover it. Now the prime frequency band should be in the hands of radio and television, and the highest frequency band should be mobile. This will lead to the same investment, and radio and television signals will be better than mobile.

Finally, there are all kinds of attributes and all kinds of ignorance obstacles. For example, if a community collectively refuses to let an operator enter, then the community will collectively lack the signal of this operator. Among them, China Unicom and China Mobile are the most difficult. Telecom and radio and television generally consider these two companies when planning their own communities. However, China Mobile and China Unicom usually enter the construction site in the later period after the residential area is built, which will actually increase the cost invisibly. If someone deliberately obstructs or deliberately raises the admission fee, it is likely to exceed the operator's budget and give up, which is also one of the reasons for the uneven signal.

The above superficial views are for reference only. In fact, the signals of the three companies are almost the same now, and the people should also increase their understanding of the base station. Radiation does not exceed the standard as soon as there is a base station, especially the indoor sub-base station in the community. In fact, the radiation is not as strong as your rice cooker, so there is no need to make trouble unreasonably.

Tower Company was established by three major telecom operators, with China Mobile holding the largest share and China Unicom holding the same share.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Tower Company, in principle, the towers of the three major operators were handed over to the Tower Company, which was responsible for the maintenance of existing towers and the construction of new towers. However, in fact, due to the differences in the number of towers owned by the three operators, each operator still retains a certain number of towers and operates on its own, which has an impact on the signal strength to some extent. However, this is not the main factor, the real reason lies in the relationship between the tower company and the three major operators.

The original intention of Tower Company is to reduce the repeated investment of communication base stations and reduce the infrastructure cost of operators. Although repeated investment has decreased so far, according to the cost analysis of the three major operators, the investment in base stations has increased. The reason is that the Tower Company is a monopoly supplier relative to the three major operators. The tower of the Tower Company is leased by the Tower Company to three major operators, and the three major operators install base station equipment by themselves. As the Tower Company has just been established, although it has received some towers and personnel, it is a new stove after all, and the upfront cost is very high. The cost of renting the tower will naturally not be very low, but it is in a monopoly position, and the three major operators are helpless. This has caused the three major operators to consider the cost when installing base stations. If you have money, you can install more base stations, and the mobile signal coverage is still wide, so you can't install more cash! Just like a house, if you have money, you can buy one, or a family can live in one, but if you have no money, a small house of 60 square meters can only accommodate 7 or 8 people. The Tower Company is a big landlord. If the mobile company can afford the rent of 100 iron towers, it can install 100 base station equipment. Unicom Telecom can only afford the rent of 20 towers, so it can only install 20 base stations!

In addition, there is another reason. In terms of 4g, China Unicom's signal system is the same as that of telecom, with higher frequency, while the mobile one is different from them, with lower frequency. The higher the frequency, the stronger the signal, but the shorter the propagation distance. Therefore, while maintaining the same stability, China Unicom should need more base stations than mobile stations. In fact, due to lack of money, the number of towers is less and the signal coverage is worse!

This problem is explained as follows:

First, the background of the establishment of the Tower Company:

Before the establishment of the Tower Company, the three operators independently built their own communication base stations. In Fiona Fang, 1-2km, there are many towers, which wastes state-owned assets, which will not happen abroad. The country also saw the waste of state-owned assets and set up a company called Tower Company.

Second, the function of the tower:

The Tower Company is responsible for leasing, building and maintaining the communication facilities such as the tower and computer room of the operator.

Third, the relationship between the Tower Company and the three major operators:

After the Tower Company acquired the towers of three operators, the three operators leased the base stations and supporting facilities of the Tower Company, and the Tower became the landlord. It is said that the annual rent is relatively high.

Fourth, the signal problem:

1. There are three operators' signal equipment on a tower. Because the three major operators have different frequency bands, different transmission frequencies and different coverage areas.

2. Not all three operators rent signal equipment for some transmission towers due to the lease fees.

Generally speaking, the signal differences among the three operators are briefly expounded.

Invited to answer questions in this industry.

As far as this issue is concerned, in fact, many people have misunderstood what the Tower Company does, so they have this wrong idea.

Tower Company was established to prevent the three major operators from repeatedly investing in infrastructure. However, Tower Company is not responsible for the base station itself, but for the supporting facilities of the base station and the construction of the computer room, tower and indoor distribution system.

As the base station equipment for signal transmission, the three major operators build and maintain it themselves. As far as the base station is concerned, it is mainly composed of BBU, RRU and antenna feed system.

Take the 4G base station as an example. Among the three major operators, China Mobile has built 2.6 million 4G base stations, China Telecom has built 6.5438+0.52 million 4G base stations, and China Unicom has built 6.5438+0.35 million 4G base stations.

The number and distribution of base stations of the three major operators are different. Therefore, the computer room built by the Tower Company and every point above the Tower are not three facilities.

The base stations of the three major operators are all China Mobile, and there are many base stations of China Unicom in the North and China Telecom in the South.

As far as the communication system of 4G is concerned, the coverage ability of FDD-LTE is stronger than that of TD-LTE.

As far as the working frequency of 4G is concerned, the higher the frequency, the weaker the coverage ability, and the lower the frequency, the stronger the coverage ability.

In contrast, B5 4G base station of Telecom has the strongest coverage ability.

However, now that China Mobile has the license of FDD-LTE, it has also started to build B3/B8 FDD-LTE base stations, and China Unicom is also building B8 frequency band FDD-LTE base stations. Although the coverage capacity of B8 is worse than that of B5, the gap is not so big.

The tower of the tower company has multiple platforms. The higher the antenna suspension height, the farther the base station signal coverage, the lower the antenna suspension height and the closer the base station signal coverage.

The power configuration of the base station RRU, some optimized parameters configuration of the base station, azimuth and deflection angle of the antenna, the type of the selected antenna and other factors will also affect the coverage distance of the base station.

In a word, although Tower Company is responsible for the construction of computer rooms, towers and other facilities, and three base stations are built by itself, the wireless signals among the three operators are different due to various reasons such as base station distribution, base station frequency and base station antenna configuration.

The base station belongs to the iron tower company. Why is the gap between the three major operators so big? This kind of problem, the base station is not an iron tower with the same distance as the power supply department, but can be completed, and its concept and function are completely different. The tower of a base station cannot be defined by straight lines with equal distances. The setting or design of base stations is vertical and horizontal, and the effective distance between them is generally about 200-300 meters. Moreover, all three operators have to undergo effective tests, and each has its own plans, that is, each has its own interests, and even each has its own investment to build a base station. On the other hand, the tower company also has costs. To make a profit, sometimes it is more cost-effective to build your own base station. The capital investment of the other three major operators is also closely related to the cable optical broadband investment. Without these two major investments, there will be a certain gap.

Now, except for the micro-stations, sub-stations and a few self-built macro-stations of operators, most other sub-stations have been built and managed by Tower Company, but Tower Company is only responsible for the construction and management of infrastructure such as computer room, power distribution and tower, and the main equipment, transmission equipment and antenna feed system of base stations are still maintained and managed by operators themselves. The signal difference between the three operators is caused by many factors, and it is also related to the management of the base station by the Tower Company, but it is not the main reason.

Under the leadership of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, China Tower Co., Ltd. was established in July, 2065438+2004 by three major operators and Guo Xin Holdings. The reason why the Tower Company was established is that the three major operators have built quite a number of computer rooms and towers, which occupy a lot of urban space resources and waste a lot of money by repeated construction. The establishment of the Tower Company is conducive to the integration of resources and the reduction of investment costs; In the past, it cost three times to rent a venue, build a computer room and build an iron tower, but after the establishment of the iron tower company, it only needs to rent a venue, build a computer room and related supporting facilities. In the case that the location of base stations is becoming more and more difficult, the original operator's computer room, tower and other resources are merged into the tower company to realize * * *, which not only reduces the cost, but also alleviates the problem of difficult location of new stations.

After the establishment of the Tower Company, it is mainly responsible for the construction and maintenance of the base station site selection, power distribution, computer room, tower and other infrastructure. After the tower company builds the infrastructure such as the computer room, it rents it to the operator, who is responsible for the construction and installation of the base station main equipment, transmission equipment and antenna feed system. In the subsequent maintenance work, the three major operators also need to maintain their own installed equipment, and the rest of the infrastructure is handed over to the tower company.

After the establishment of Tower Company, although it can reduce the cost of base station construction for operators, operators are also facing some new problems.

The operator's base station construction needs should be submitted to the Tower Company for approval. In addition to the cumbersome and time-consuming approval process, there are often cases where operators and tower companies disagree and eventually reject the construction needs of operators. The main reason is that the purpose of the operator's base station construction is more to improve the network coverage, and the tower company may mainly consider the construction investment cost. In the case that the two opinions cannot reach an agreement, only the operator can be injured. Therefore, in some areas where the signal is not good and customers complain for a long time, it is not that operators don't want to build base stations to solve the problem. In fact, operators are dumb and can't tell the pain;

In addition, most of the mobile 3G networks have been disconnected, and each operator has at least three networks of 2G/3G/4G. Counting some transmission equipment, there are many equipments in the whole computer room, which brings some pressure to the DC distribution system. When the mains power is cut off, it is difficult for the battery to supply power for a long time, and it is likely that the networks of the three operators will be interrupted at the same time in a short time.

In addition, when several standard networks are on the network at the same time, each operator's own 2G/3G/4G standard network antenna needs to keep a certain distance from other operators' standard network antennas, otherwise it will cause mutual interference, and the space for erecting antennas on the tower is limited, so it is still difficult to avoid some network interference problems.

Figure: Base station antenna

What the Tower Company can do is to provide the three major operators with computer rooms and tower resources to ensure the power supply of the computer rooms. However, the signal coverage is also affected by many factors, such as frequency band, network equipment operation, antenna hanging height, base station parameter configuration and so on, so the signal coverage is naturally different.

In fact, most areas have operators' network signal coverage, and the overall coverage difference is relatively small, mainly because the network experience in some special areas will be very different, such as some remote rural areas, basements and other areas, and individual operators feel that these areas are unprofitable. Considering that building a base station may not even recover the cost of electricity, the willingness to invest in building a base station is not strong;

In addition, there are some hidden scenes such as villages in the city and office buildings. Even if there are macro stations around them, the indoor signal is still very weak. At this time, operators can only rely on their own construction of micro-stations or indoor distribution systems to strengthen coverage. However, each operator considers different issues and attaches different importance to them. It is not always possible to build micro-stations and indoor distribution systems for coverage, so the coverage effect of these areas will be very different.

Figure: Indoor distribution system antenna

In a word, Tower Company only unified the construction and management of infrastructure such as computer room and tower. Besides objective factors such as equipment failure and frequency band level, there are also subjective factors such as operator's attention and network optimization.

The base station is not managed by the Tower Company. Communication base stations are still managed by the three major operators, and Tower Company only undertakes a certain range of communication engineering construction and maintenance business.

20 14 China Tower Company is composed of three major operators * * *, aiming at deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises and promoting the sharing of resources in the communication industry. It is worth noting that the Tower Company is not only engaged in tower construction, but also includes supporting infrastructure such as base stations, communication transmission lines and indoor distribution systems. At the same time, it has gradually penetrated into the field of communication technology maintenance and support.

Due to the differences in investment in base station construction among the three major operators, the number of base stations differs by hundreds of thousands, which directly determines the network coverage effect. At the same time, base station coverage also has regional characteristics, such as north-south differences, urban-rural differences, regional investment differences and so on. In addition, due to the different actual business strategies of the three major operators, there are obvious differences in the network investment of each branch, which fundamentally determines the difference in network coverage. Therefore, the signal effects of operators in different cities and regions are definitely different.

The difference of network maintenance level affects the signal coverage effect. Due to the differences between operators in management level, technical strength, capital investment, mobile network optimization, and the ability to maintain partners, it will greatly affect the related indicators such as base station withdrawal, communication quality, coverage, etc., thus causing differences in network signal experience.

Therefore, the signal coverage and quality of operators are related to the tower company, but not the key factor.

I hope the author's point of view is helpful to you!

Tower Company is only responsible for the construction and maintenance of supporting equipment such as computer room, tower and power supply. Tower Company was established to prevent the three major operators from repeatedly investing in infrastructure. However, Tower Company is not responsible for the base station itself, but for the supporting facilities of the base station and the construction of the computer room, tower and indoor distribution system. As the base station equipment for signal transmission, the three major operators build and maintain it themselves. As far as the base station is concerned, it is mainly composed of BBU, RRU and antenna feed system.