JSHarris
Super Pro Member
With the impending shutdown of the PSTN, and as we're not getting fibre here for some years (earliest 2030 I've been told) I need to try and sort out a reliable VOIP phone (we can't get a signal on a mobile in the house or outside at ground level). The problem is that we get a lot of power cuts, the FTTC cabinet stops working after about half an hour (and Openreach say that's OK), we have backup power to deal with the power cuts, but will need a reliable emergency phone for when the PSTN shuts down.
After playing around with Cellmapper I discovered that a mast about 3 miles away is used by O2, 3, Vodafone and EE. By trial and error (playing with a iPhone whilst at the top of a ladder right up at the ridge of the house) I discovered that we can get a barely usable Band 20 signal here from EE and a slightly better signal from O2 and Vodafone, so I assumed that 3 on Band 20 should be no worse.
Noting that all four operators use Band 20, and all have sector antennas that cover our area (we're smack in the middle of the angle of coverage for all of them), I opted to buy an A&A data SIM (uses 3), largely because the the crowdsourced data on Cellmapper showed that the max RSRP from 3 was better than Vodafone (-59dBm versus -67dBm) and a lot better than the max RSRP from 02 or EE (-86dBm and -90dBm respectively).
I've bought a second hand 4G Cat 4 router plus a directional double antenna (2X MIMO) to play with (may change this in the light of experience, I didn't want to make a big investment if I can't get this to work and need to fall back to something like Starlink).
I can't get the router to work with the A&A data SIM, it sits there trying to connect forever. A&A say the SIM is activated and I've confirmed this with their control panel. I have the router set up according to their instructions.
To check the router (being second hand it may have been duff) I swapped the SIM for the Lebara one from my phone (uses Vodafone). This works fine, the router stats are certainly plenty good enough for making VOIP calls, with an RSRP of -81dBm, although the SINR isn't great (between 13 and 17).
Could Cellmapper be wrong about there being Band 20 LTE coverage here from 3?
I'm at the stage of binning the A&A SIM and getting a Vodafone data SIM, but am at a loss to understand why the supposedly stronger 3 Band 20 service here won't work. Unfortunately I can't try the A&A data SIM in my phone as I'd need to cut it down with scissors (it's not punched for a nano SIM) and that might make it challenging to clip back into a full sized SIM cutout for the router.
Sorry this is a bit of a long first post - I'm hoping someone may be able to shed some light on what the problem may be. I can't help thinking that I'm missing something very obvious.
After playing around with Cellmapper I discovered that a mast about 3 miles away is used by O2, 3, Vodafone and EE. By trial and error (playing with a iPhone whilst at the top of a ladder right up at the ridge of the house) I discovered that we can get a barely usable Band 20 signal here from EE and a slightly better signal from O2 and Vodafone, so I assumed that 3 on Band 20 should be no worse.
Noting that all four operators use Band 20, and all have sector antennas that cover our area (we're smack in the middle of the angle of coverage for all of them), I opted to buy an A&A data SIM (uses 3), largely because the the crowdsourced data on Cellmapper showed that the max RSRP from 3 was better than Vodafone (-59dBm versus -67dBm) and a lot better than the max RSRP from 02 or EE (-86dBm and -90dBm respectively).
I've bought a second hand 4G Cat 4 router plus a directional double antenna (2X MIMO) to play with (may change this in the light of experience, I didn't want to make a big investment if I can't get this to work and need to fall back to something like Starlink).
I can't get the router to work with the A&A data SIM, it sits there trying to connect forever. A&A say the SIM is activated and I've confirmed this with their control panel. I have the router set up according to their instructions.
To check the router (being second hand it may have been duff) I swapped the SIM for the Lebara one from my phone (uses Vodafone). This works fine, the router stats are certainly plenty good enough for making VOIP calls, with an RSRP of -81dBm, although the SINR isn't great (between 13 and 17).
Could Cellmapper be wrong about there being Band 20 LTE coverage here from 3?
I'm at the stage of binning the A&A SIM and getting a Vodafone data SIM, but am at a loss to understand why the supposedly stronger 3 Band 20 service here won't work. Unfortunately I can't try the A&A data SIM in my phone as I'd need to cut it down with scissors (it's not punched for a nano SIM) and that might make it challenging to clip back into a full sized SIM cutout for the router.
Sorry this is a bit of a long first post - I'm hoping someone may be able to shed some light on what the problem may be. I can't help thinking that I'm missing something very obvious.























