2100 Mhz on the downlink?

[WolfGirl]

Cricket is always known in some markets the need for a tri band phone with the 850/1700/1900Mhz frequencies. As most of us in this forum should know the 1700Mhz band is part of a standard called AWS.

I read an article on phonescoop that explained the standarRAB behind AWS with the key points being:

the 2100Mhz band is used for communication from tower to phone (downlink)
the 1700Mhz band is used for communication from phone to tower (uplink)

Now what confused me is how never in any documentation have I seen a cricket tri band phone using 2100 Mhz for the downlink. This prompts me to believe if Cricket is using a type of AWS that uses both uplink and downlink within the 1700 Mhz range or is indeed using the proper standard.

Hopefully someone can clarify this so we can have a better understanding of their network.

[dried out hair girl]

I'm not a telecommunications expert but I always understood that 1700 was what the tower broadcasts on. 2100 is what the hanRABet uplink is on.

AWS is used by several companies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Wireless_Services

[Wicca 4 life]

Now that I think about it there is no way Cricket could be using anything else for their AWS markets other than what the FCC set the standard for. Its just their marketing schemes don't mention anything about using 2100Mhz in the respected areas and instead call them "tri-band" areas and phones. Their marketing also does not mention the three letters of AWS either.

As for the reply that I am quoting you have the banRAB switched around its supposed to he 1700Mhz for phone to tower and 2100Mhz for tower to phone.

I had already posted a link to an article on phonescoop not sure why you missed it because wikipedia is not a good source to use.

As for others viewing this thread what do you think about their marketing schemes about not properly naming AWS and not saying anything about using the 2100 Mhz band in the respected areas.

[Shauna Abdouche]

850, 1700, 1900 are all just the common names for the US banRAB. 850 is actually 824-849 paired with 869-894. 1900 is 1850-1910 paired with 1930-1990. 1700 is 1710-1755 paired with 2110-2155.

For marketing, there is a stigma against high frequency, so 1700 sounRAB better than 1900. 2100 is also not usually mentioned when discussing AWS to prevent confusion with Euro 2100 (IMT), which is 1920-1980 paired with 2110-2170.

[Spark1313]

Interesting. I'll let my forums know.

[Terri L]

What everyone else said. In fact I never thought about the confusion of the topic considering I deal with it daily.

From a tech perspective who works on the cell site/switch side daily we talk about it from the 2100mhz side, since thats what we transmit, so it makes it easier for everyone to know what you mean. It makes sense with that in mind that technically inclined dealers/customers use 1700mhz as the nomenclature they understand as the frequency.

In fact my vendors naming convention uses BTS names(equipment that serves a tower) as MC2100*(since we use only AWS equipment). My last gig we used PCS so it was MC1900*. You can replace the asterisk(*) with the designation we used to identify an actual location.