Microsoft Data Center Technician Salary 2026: $23.65 to $56.54/hr

Those are Microsoft’s own numbers. Every band on this page was read off a live posting on Microsoft’s careers site on September 2, 2026, across all 28 open United States postings in its Data Center Technicians, Critical Environment Ops and Logistics Technician job families.

You will find figures around $79,500 on crowd-sourced sites. Those come from anonymous submissions. Microsoft prints the real range at the bottom of every United States job posting, along with the internal pay band the job sits at, and almost nobody quotes it.

This guide covers the three technician bands and what separates them, the senior technician jump, the Critical Environment Technician track, the logistics track, where Microsoft is hiring right now, and how Microsoft pay compares against Google, Amazon and Meta.

Microsoft data center technician salary: the key numbers

Microsoft prints the pay band on every job posting

Near the bottom of every United States Microsoft job description sits a line that most candidates scroll straight past. It reads like this, word for word:

Two things are in that line. The pay range, which is what Microsoft will actually pay. And “ATR-B,” which is the internal pay band the job sits at.

Most large employers hide the internal level. Microsoft prints it. Once you know the three band names, you can read any Microsoft data center posting and know exactly where it sits on the ladder before you apply.

Every posting also carries a second range for two markets. Microsoft states a separate band for the San Francisco Bay area and the New York City metro, and one nationwide band for everywhere else. Cheyenne, Boydton, Fayetteville and Mount Pleasant all carry the same published range.

For a read on how Microsoft compares against the market as a whole, see the national data center technician salary guide.

Microsoft data center technician pay bands in 2026

Every band below came off a live Microsoft posting. No row is an estimate. Annual figures multiply the posted hourly rate by 2,080 hours and are arithmetic, not a Microsoft figure.

Posted title	Band	US hourly range	Bay Area and NYC	Annualized at 2,080 hrs	What the posting asks for
Data Center Technician	ATR-B	$23.65–$37.07	$31.54–$40.91	$49,192–$77,106	High school diploma or GED and basic knowledge of computer hardware
Data Center Technician	ATR-C	$27.45–$48.03	$38.27–$53.70	$57,096–$99,902	Same posting, higher slot. Preferred: 2+ years supporting IT equipment
Senior Data Center Technician	ATR-D	$34.13–$56.54	$45.24–$63.61	$70,990–$117,603	2+ years supporting IT equipment. Preferred: associate’s degree and 5+ years
Critical Environment Technician	ATR-B	$23.65–$37.07	$31.54–$40.91	$49,192–$77,106	High school diploma or GED. Preferred: trade certification or 1+ year technical services
Senior Critical Environment Technician	ATR-D	$34.13–$56.54	$45.24–$63.61	$70,990–$117,603	3+ years mission critical work and 1+ year mechanical, electrical or controls
Logistics Technician	ATR-B	$23.22–$32.36	$27.64–$34.66	$48,298–$67,309	High school diploma and 6 months inventory, retail or warehouse experience
Senior Data Center Logistics Technician	ATR-D	$27.16–$43.27	$34.57–$47.74	$56,493–$90,002	Inventory and asset management, plus a clearance on cleared roles
Data Center Technician Manager	M3	$75,400–$167,900 a year	$105,800–$185,300 a year	Posted as an annual salary	2+ years leading a technical workforce of up to ten people
Critical Environment Technician Manager	M3	$75,400–$167,900 a year	$105,800–$185,300 a year	Posted as an annual salary	1+ year people management and 1+ year mechanical, electrical or controls
Data Center Operations Specialist	IC3	$84,400–$168,800 a year	$118,800–$186,600 a year	Posted as an annual salary	Corporate operations track, not a floor role

One posting can carry two bands

Three of the five open Data Center Technician postings list both an ATR-B and an ATR-C range in the same job description.

Microsoft is telling you it will hire the same job at either band depending on how you interview. The gap between the two floors is $3.80 an hour, about $7,900 a year, and it is decided at offer, not at application.

That makes one question worth asking every recruiter: which band is this requisition posted at, and what moves it up a band?

Critical environment work pays the same as server work

Critical Environment Ops ATR-B is $23.65 to $37.07. Data Center Technicians ATR-B is $23.65 to $37.07. Identical.

Microsoft prices the person keeping the power and cooling alive exactly the same as the person swapping drives, at both the entry and the senior band. Anyone choosing between the two tracks should choose on the work, not the money.

Logistics is the cheapest door in

Logistics Technician ATR-B starts at $23.22 against $23.65 for the technician bands, a gap of 43 cents an hour, about $900 a year. The posting asks for six months of inventory, retail or warehouse experience instead of hardware knowledge.

The gap widens at the top: $32.36 against $37.07, about $9,800 a year. Logistics is the lowest bar Microsoft sets for a badge on a data center floor, and that is the price of taking it.

Senior data center technician salary at Microsoft

A Senior Data Center Technician at Microsoft sits at ATR-D and is paid $34.13 to $56.54 an hour across the United States, or $45.24 to $63.61 in the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metro. At 2,080 hours that is $70,990 to $117,603 a year, before overtime.

The jump from technician to senior technician is the largest single step in the whole ladder. The ATR-B floor is $23.65. The ATR-D floor is $34.13. That is $10.48 an hour, about $21,798 a year, for one promotion.

What Microsoft asks for. The Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin senior posting requires a high school diploma or GED plus two years supporting IT equipment. Preferred qualifications go further: an associate’s degree, five years supporting IT equipment, two years in a live 24x7x365 data center, and certifications from a named list including CompTIA A+, Server+ and Network+, Basic Structure Cabling, the Data Center Foundation Certification and Microsoft Certified Professional.

Read that list again. Two years and a high school diploma gets you in the door at ATR-D. Everything else is preferred, which in Microsoft’s posting language moves you up inside the band rather than gating the application.

The senior critical environment version pays identically. Senior Critical Environment Technician is also ATR-D at $34.13 to $56.54, and the West Des Moines night shift posting carries the same band as the day roles. Microsoft asks that track for three years of mission critical work and one year in a specialized mechanical, electrical or controls field, so the entry requirement is heavier while the pay is the same.

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Microsoft Critical Environment Technician (CET) salary

Critical Environment Technician, shortened to CET on the inside, is Microsoft’s facilities-side technician. The job family on the posting is Critical Environment Ops, and the work is power, cooling, controls and the safety system around them rather than servers.

The pay. CET at ATR-B is $23.65 to $37.07 an hour. Senior CET at ATR-D is $34.13 to $56.54. Critical Environment Technician Manager is salaried at M3, $75,400 to $167,900 a year. Both technician bands match the server-side technician exactly.

What the job is. The responsibilities on the West Des Moines posting open with safety, not equipment: job hazard assessments, toolbox talks, recognizing safe versus unsafe working conditions, stopping or pausing a task, standing down a vendor when needed, and escalating immediately when something is unsafe. Work has to satisfy the local Authority Having Jurisdiction, the code official with legal say over the site.

How you get in. A high school diploma or GED is the only required qualification on the entry CET posting. Preferred is an associate’s degree or a technical trade certification, including military training, or one year of technical services experience in a high-availability environment.

That last line is the whole reason this job exists as a career path. Microsoft names military trade training as a preferred qualification on an entry posting that pays up to $37.07 an hour and asks for no degree.

For the wider market on this track, see the critical facilities engineer salary guide.

Microsoft datacenter logistics technician salary

Logistics Technician is a separate Microsoft job family with its own bands: $23.22 to $32.36 an hour at ATR-B, $23.85 to $37.79 at ATR-C, and $27.16 to $43.27 for a Senior Data Center Logistics Technician at ATR-D.

The work is inventory and asset management: receiving, tracking, staging and shipping hardware, measured on ticket accuracy against Microsoft’s supplier contracts. Microsoft also posts the same work in some regions as Datacenter Inventory and Asset Technician.

The entry posting asks for a high school diploma and six months in inventory, retail or warehouse work. That makes it the easiest Microsoft data center job to get and the lowest paid, and it puts you inside the building with an internal transfer path to the technician bands.

Does Microsoft use L1 to L6 for data center technicians?

No. Amazon runs L1 to L6 and Google runs a Roman-numeral technician ladder, so candidates arrive at Microsoft expecting the same thing and search for a “Microsoft L3 data center technician salary” that does not exist.

Microsoft uses lettered pay bands instead:

• ATR-B, ATR-C and ATR-D for hourly technician roles, in that order from lowest to highest
• M3 for the first people-manager rung, which is salaried rather than hourly
• IC3 for corporate individual contributor roles such as Data Center Operations Specialist

If a recruiter refers to a “Level 3 Microsoft data center technician,” they are borrowing Amazon’s language. Ask which ATR band the requisition is posted at, then read the pay line on the posting to confirm it.

Microsoft vs Google, Amazon and Meta technician pay

Employer	Title the employer actually posts	Published band	Annualized at 2,080 hrs	Midpoint	Source and date read
Microsoft, entry	Data Center Technician (ATR-B)	$23.65–$37.07 / hr	$49,192–$77,106	$63,100	Microsoft careers, Sept 2, 2026
Equinix, Dallas TX	Data Center Customer Operations IV, night shift	$53,600–$80,400 / yr	Salaried	$67,000	Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026
QTS, Ashburn VA	Critical Operations Technician I	$27.29–$41.73 / hr	$56,763–$86,798	$71,800	QTS careers, Sept 2, 2026
CoreWeave, eight US markets	Data Center Technician	$65,000–$83,000 / yr	Salaried	$74,000	CoreWeave careers, Sept 5, 2026
CoreWeave, Ellendale ND	Data Center Technician	$65,000–$85,000 / yr	Salaried	$75,000	CoreWeave careers, Sept 5, 2026
Amazon, server track, Canton and Vicksburg MS	Data Center Technician	$27.83–$48.75 / hr	$57,886–$101,400	$79,600	amazon.jobs posting 10440148, Sept 6, 2026
Digital Realty, Ashburn VA	Site Engineer I	$37.50–$41.00 / hr	$78,000–$85,280	$81,600	Digital Realty careers, Sept 2, 2026
Meta, Aurora IL	Data Center Production Operations Engineer	$33.17–$47.60 / hr	$68,994–$99,008	$84,000	Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026
Equinix, Ashburn VA	Data Center Critical Facilities IV	$67,400–$101,000 / yr	Salaried	$84,200	Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026
Oracle, Allen TX	Data Center Technician 2	$27.07–$54.13 / hr	$56,300–$112,600	$84,400	Oracle posting 38545974, Sept 3, 2026
Amazon, server track, NC, NV, OR and TX	Data Center Technician, posted in some markets as DCO Tech	$30.91–$54.18 / hr	$64,293–$112,694	$88,500	amazon.jobs posting 10440148, Sept 6, 2026
Equinix, Silicon Valley	Data Center Critical Facilities Technician	$73,400–$110,200 / yr	Salaried	$91,800	Equinix careers, Sept 3, 2026
QTS, Manassas VA	Critical Operations Technician I	$35.47–$54.25 / hr	$73,778–$112,840	$93,300	QTS careers, Sept 2, 2026
Microsoft, senior	Senior Data Center Technician (ATR-D)	$34.13–$56.54 / hr	$70,990–$117,603	$94,300	Microsoft careers, Sept 2, 2026
Google, entry	Data Center Technician II	$86,000–$118,000 / yr	Salaried	$102,000	careers.google.com, Sept 2, 2026
Meta, Mesa AZ and Los Lunas NM	Data Center Production Operations Engineer	$83,990–$130,000 / yr	Salaried	$107,000	Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026
Amazon, facilities track, Northern Virginia and Frederick MD	Data Center Engineering Operations Technician	$37.64–$65.91 / hr	$78,291–$137,093	$107,700	amazon.jobs posting 3146851, Sept 6, 2026
Digital Realty, Ashburn and Sterling VA	Lead Engineer	$52.73–$54.80 / hr	$109,678–$113,984	$111,800	Digital Realty careers, Sept 2, 2026
Meta, Reynoldsburg OH	Data Center Production Operations Engineer	$51.92–$74.04 / hr	$107,994–$154,003	$131,000	Meta posting text, Sept 6, 2026
Google, senior	Data Center Technician, IV	$122,000–$173,000 / yr	Salaried	$147,500	careers.google.com, Sept 2, 2026
OpenAI	No data center technician postings. Its sites are staffed by the companies that build and run them	Not published	Not published	Not published	openai.com/careers, Sept 3, 2026

Every band was read off that employer’s own careers board on the date in the last column. The Amazon and Meta rows were re-read on September 6, 2026.

Four companies, four different deals for what looks like the same job.

Google pays salary and treats the technician as a career with a numbered ladder. Its entry band of $86,000 is higher than Microsoft’s senior technician floor of about $70,990, and Google adds a 15% bonus target on top.

Amazon pays hourly like Microsoft and prices by market, so the same title moves several dollars an hour between Northern Virginia and Mississippi. Its lowest server-track floor of $27.83 sits $4.18 above Microsoft’s $23.65, and its highest server-track ceiling of $54.18 sits $2.36 below Microsoft’s senior ceiling of $56.54. Amazon clears Microsoft only on the facilities track, where the Northern Virginia band runs to $65.91.

Meta does not hire technicians at all. It hires the engineers and leads who direct a contracted technician workforce, and prices those jobs like engineering roles.

Microsoft is the most transparent of the four and the cheapest at the entry rung. It prints the band name, the national range and the high-cost-metro range on every posting, so you can see where an offer sits before you apply. What it does not do is start you anywhere near Google.

Full detail on each sits in the Google data center technician salary guide, the Amazon data center technician salary guide and the Meta data center technician salary guide.

Microsoft data center jobs by location in 2026

These are the markets Microsoft was hiring technicians in on September 2, 2026, counted from its own careers site.

State	Open technician-family postings	Sites named on the postings
Georgia	9	Atlanta, Fayetteville, Lithia Springs, Palmetto, East Point. Technician, senior technician, CET and both manager roles
Virginia	6	Boydton, Dulles, Manassas, Fauquier County. Several are cleared roles
Wyoming	3	Cheyenne. Standard and cleared technician roles
California	2	Santa Clara, priced on the Bay Area band, the highest published range in the country
Wisconsin	2	Mount Pleasant. The posting notes the site is 30 miles from Milwaukee
Texas	2	San Antonio, cleared logistics roles
Iowa	2	West Des Moines. CET and senior CET on night shift
Arizona	1	Phoenix, logistics technician on the PHX East campus
Maryland	1	Annapolis Junction, cleared CET

Georgia is where the jobs are

Nine of the 28 open United States technician-family postings sat in Georgia, more than any other state and half again as many as Virginia. Metro Atlanta is the first place to look if you want to start at Microsoft and are willing to move.

The band does not move with the city, except twice

Microsoft publishes one nationwide range and one separate range for the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metro. Cheyenne, Boydton, Fayetteville and Mount Pleasant all carry the same published band.

That is the opposite of how Amazon prices the same job, and it means a Microsoft technician offer in a low-cost market is worth materially more in purchasing power than the identical offer in Santa Clara. The cost of living breakdown does that math across the major markets.

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What Microsoft publishes about pay, benefits and shift

Base pay. Microsoft states that individual base pay depends on primary work location, the complexity and responsibility of the role, job duties and requirements, and relevant experience and skills, and that base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year.

On top of base. Microsoft says eligible roles may receive merit increases, an annual bonus and stock. It does not publish a bonus target or a grant size for technician roles, so any specific dollar figure you read for a Microsoft technician stock grant is somebody’s estimate.

401(k), the number nobody quotes. Microsoft matches 50% of every pre-tax or Roth dollar contributed, up to the IRS annual basic deferral limit, and the match vests immediately. At the 2026 limit of $24,500 that is up to $12,250 a year.

For a technician earning $60,000, a maxed contribution pulls a match worth roughly a fifth of base pay. That is the most valuable published benefit on this list, and it is far more generous than the “50% up to 6% of base” formula most large employers use.

Benefits and time off. Medical, dental and vision, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, up to 10 scheduled paid holidays and up to 80 hours of Holistic Health Time Off. Hourly employees accrue vacation. Salaried employees get Discretionary Time Off instead, which is a real difference between a technician role and the manager role above it.

Shift. Microsoft’s technician postings state 12-hour shifts, including assignments during evenings, nights, weekends and holidays, and business travel to support other metros 0% to 25% of the time.

Microsoft publishes no shift differential. The Senior Critical Environment Technician (Night Shift) posting in West Des Moines carries the same ATR-D band as every day-shift senior role, so treat any specific night premium you read online as unverified. Overtime follows the law for hourly employees rather than a published Microsoft policy.

Background check. Every posting requires passing the Microsoft Cloud background check on hire and every two years after. Roles tagged CTJ require an active United States government security clearance and, on some postings, citizenship verification with a valid passport. None of these roles are eligible for visa sponsorship.

The Microsoft Datacenter Academy

The Datacenter Academy is Microsoft’s community skilling program. Its Workforce Development team partners with community and technical colleges in the towns where it operates data centers, across more than 20 United States community and technical colleges plus partners in Australia, Singapore, Brazil and eight European countries.

The program runs on five pillars: curriculum alignment with the college, a data center lab on campus, mentorship, work experience, and scholarships or grants. Internships in the Americas typically run 16 weeks. Students earn credentials tied to their college’s program, commonly CompTIA certifications.

Microsoft is careful about one thing and this page will be too: work experience does not guarantee employment. Students who finish are encouraged to apply for open positions in the industry, which is not the same as a job offer. Meta’s LevelUp program places graduates with a contractor after four weeks. The Datacenter Academy is a longer college-based route with no placement promise attached.

Microsoft data center technician salary in India and outside the US

Microsoft publishes pay ranges on United States postings only.

Its open India data center posting on September 2, 2026, a Datacenter Inventory and Asset Technician role in Hyderabad, carried no salary range at all. Neither did its postings in the Netherlands, Canada or Italy.

Any rupee figure you find for a Microsoft data center technician comes from a third-party estimate rather than from Microsoft. The same is true of the pound and euro figures quoted for a Microsoft data centre technician in the United Kingdom and Europe.

How to find and negotiate a Microsoft data center job

Search more than one title. Microsoft posts the same kind of work as Data Center Technician, Senior Data Center Technician, Critical Environment Technician, Critical Environment Ops Technician, Logistics Technician and Datacenter Inventory and Asset Technician. A search for one of them misses the others.

Read the pay line before anything else. It sits at the bottom of every United States posting and it tells you the level of the job in one glance. ATR-B is the entry rung, ATR-C is the higher slot on the same job, ATR-D is senior.

Ask which band the requisition is posted at. On a posting carrying both ATR-B and ATR-C, that single question is worth $3.80 an hour at the floor, about $7,900 a year, for the same job in the same building.

Anchor to a specific number inside the published range. You already know the floor and the ceiling before the recruiter calls, so the conversation is about where inside the band you land. A counter of “$31.50 an hour” backed by three years of hands-on work beats “somewhere in the upper half.”

Check whether a senior opening exists at the same site. The distance from the ATR-B floor to the ATR-D floor is $10.48 an hour. Applying to the right requisition is worth more than any negotiation inside the wrong one.

Bring a competing band, not a competing feeling. A live Google or Amazon posting with its own published range is a stronger lever than any crowd-sourced average.

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What this means for your career

Microsoft has the lowest published entry floor of the major hyperscalers and the most honest published ladder. You can read the band off the posting, know what the next rung pays, and see the exact requirement that separates them.

The move that matters most is the one from ATR-B to ATR-D. It is worth about $21,798 a year at the floor, and Microsoft’s own posting says the requirement is two years supporting IT equipment plus a high school diploma. That is a shorter road than most people assume.

Above the technician bands, the ladder changes shape rather than continuing. M3 is salaried, runs to $167,900, and asks for people management rather than deeper technical skill. The data center career path guide maps what comes after.

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Common FAQs about Microsoft data center technician salary

How much does a Microsoft data center technician make?

Microsoft pays technicians hourly. Its published United States band for a Data Center Technician is $23.65 to $37.07 an hour, about $49,192 to $77,106 a year at 2,080 hours. The San Francisco Bay area and New York City band is $31.54 to $40.91.

How much does a senior data center technician make at Microsoft?

A Senior Data Center Technician sits at Microsoft’s ATR-D band and is paid $34.13 to $56.54 an hour across the United States, or $45.24 to $63.61 in the Bay area and New York City. Annualized at 2,080 hours that is $70,990 to $117,603.

What is a Microsoft Critical Environment Technician salary?

A Critical Environment Technician, or CET, is paid on the same bands as a data center technician: $23.65 to $37.07 an hour at ATR-B and $34.13 to $56.54 at ATR-D for senior roles. CET work covers power, cooling, controls and site safety rather than servers.

Does Microsoft use L1 to L6 levels for data center technicians?

No. Microsoft uses lettered pay bands printed on each posting: ATR-B, ATR-C and ATR-D for hourly technicians, M3 for technician managers and IC3 for corporate operations roles. L1 to L6 is Amazon’s ladder. Ask a Microsoft recruiter which ATR band the requisition sits at.

What does DCT stand for at Microsoft?

DCT is Microsoft’s abbreviation for Data Center Technician, used in its own job descriptions. The team is Cloud Operations and Innovation, shortened to CO+I, which runs Microsoft’s global portfolio of more than 200 data centers across 32 countries.

Does Microsoft pay a night shift differential to data center technicians?

Microsoft does not publish one. Its Senior Critical Environment Technician night shift posting in West Des Moines carries the same ATR-D band of $34.13 to $56.54 an hour as the day shift senior roles. Postings state 12-hour shifts including nights, weekends and holidays.

What does a Microsoft data center technician manager make?

Data Center Technician Manager and Critical Environment Technician Manager both sit at the M3 salaried band, $75,400 to $167,900 a year across the United States and $105,800 to $185,300 in the Bay area and New York City. Microsoft asks for one to two years of people management.

How much does a Microsoft datacenter logistics technician make?

Logistics Technician is a separate family with lower bands: $23.22 to $32.36 an hour at ATR-B, $23.85 to $37.79 at ATR-C, and $27.16 to $43.27 for a Senior Data Center Logistics Technician. The entry posting asks for six months of inventory, retail or warehouse experience.

What is the Microsoft data center technician salary in India?

Microsoft does not publish it. Pay ranges appear on United States postings only, and its open Hyderabad data center posting on September 2, 2026 carried no salary range. Any rupee figure for a Microsoft data center technician comes from a third-party estimate, not from Microsoft.

Where is Microsoft hiring data center technicians right now?

Open United States technician-family postings on September 2, 2026 covered metro Atlanta and Fayetteville Georgia, Cheyenne Wyoming, Santa Clara California, Mount Pleasant Wisconsin, Boydton Virginia, West Des Moines Iowa, San Antonio Texas, Dulles and Manassas Virginia, Annapolis Junction Maryland, and Phoenix Arizona. Georgia carried the most.

Sources and how we collected this data

Postings read for this guide include Data Center Technician roles in Cheyenne Wyoming, Santa Clara California, Boydton Virginia, and Fayetteville and Atlanta Georgia; Senior Data Center Technician roles in Mount Pleasant Wisconsin and across Lithia Springs, Palmetto, East Point and Atlanta Georgia; Critical Environment Technician roles in West Des Moines Iowa, Boydton and Dulles Virginia, and Mount Pleasant Wisconsin; Senior Critical Environment Technician roles in West Des Moines and Atlanta; Logistics Technician roles in Phoenix Arizona, Cheyenne Wyoming, Manassas Virginia and San Antonio Texas; and the Data Center Technician Manager, Critical Environment Technician Manager and Data Center Operations Specialist postings.

Benefits and pay-setting details come from Microsoft’s own United States corporate pay page and its 401(k) Savings Plan benefits page, both read on September 2, 2026. Program details for the Datacenter Academy come from Microsoft’s careers site on the same date.

Competitor bands come from each employer’s own pay statement on their postings: Google on careers.google.com and Meta on metacareers.com, read September 2, 2026, and Amazon on amazon.jobs, read September 1, 2026. Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, ZipRecruiter and Salary.com figures do not appear anywhere on this page, because Microsoft publishes the real numbers itself.

No other page has assembled Microsoft’s own posted ATR bands for the whole data center technician ladder in one table. That is what the band table above is.

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