4G Signal difference between phone and router

[Petewilks]

Hi,

New to the forum, currentley have Mobile Broadband with EE and get around 10-15mb download but we only get 64gb/m for our money and have to be careful about our usage, EE don't seem willing to offer a good deal now our contract is up so i'm looking to switch suppliers to 3 and their unlimited plan. If i place my phone in the same place as the router (Draytek Vigor 2860) my phone reieves speeds around 12-15mb which is more than adeqaute for what we need, my main issue is that if i place my phones sim (3 sim only contract with 30gb data) into the router it only just manages to connect and only inicates around 0.5mb on the speedtest. is this something to do with the sim ie not a data only sim or my equipment? I've tried the sim in my other older 4g router (tp link mr200) and that won't even connect even in places where my phones recieves good signal. Would an omni directional external aerial help solve these issues as we are currentley only using the ones provided with the router, i'm just a bit confused as to the speed and connection difference between the devices as i wouldnt have thought a phones internal aerial would be better than even the basic ones provided with a 4g router.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Mark.J]

You'd be surprised at how good some smartphone antennas / modems are at keeping a signal and there could be various reasons for why your router is struggling to perform at the same level (issue with the settings/APN, antenna design, modem capability for LTE-Advanced technology / carrier aggregation etc.).

As a general rule mobile broadband routers are usually best connected to an external (outdoor - as high up as possible) antenna so that you can rule out some of those issues and ensure signal isn't the problem, although not all routers include the necessary ports (SMA etc.) for those.

 

[Captain_Cretin]

Did you set all the router configs correctly, or are they autosetting??

It might be worth having a look at them to see if there are any obvious errors. I have the MR200 and it autoset perfectly, but in the past I have had other routers, including TPL models that completely screwed up and had to have all the info entered manually.

Last time I had 0.5Mbps, it was trying to go through the wrong network providers gateway - that was an ISP error though (VISPA)

 

[Petewilks]

Cheers for the replies, I've had a look at the router settings, all i can find is APN name and changing this doesn't seem to affect the connections with the EE sim or my phone sim. Looking at network status of the 2 sims, the EE sim is identified by network but the 3 one isn't but looking at the signal levels is should suggest that im receiving a stronger 4G signal than on EE.

Three sim
RSRP Signal -109dBm
RSSI Signal -81dBm

EE sim
RSRP Signal -120dBm
RSSI Signal -85dBm

3 sim on my phone, what im guessing is RSRP signal -113dBm

So i'm thinking it must be something to do with the settings of my phone sim in a router or there's some settings in the router i've missed.

 

[Verita]

Think this is possibly a SIM issue.

The current Three Homefi routers are set to an APN of 3internet, but some third party routers like my TP-Link default to three.co.uk

If you go for for a Three Unlimited SIM it should work out of the box in any recent 3G/4G router, older routers might need a firmware update.

Three Homefi SIM in a 2017 TP-Link MR400 router, with a manual APN set. Username and password are blank:

 

[Petewilks]

I tried putting the apn to that but it didn't affect it. Attached are the 2 speed tests, the one with 4mb upload is the router and the other in my phone 30s later.

Contacted 3 and they offer 14 days to cancel the contract and return the homefi router so tempted to see if that will receive a better signal than the draytek router we have.

 

[Petewilks]

Update: decided to take out a contract with 3 to try their data only sim, initial speeds were a bit quicker than my phone sim. As we currently have the router against a side window in the house I tried speed tests with my phone in different positions and found at the top of the window better, moved the router 6in higher with a box and now get 3.5mb dl. So my next question is will an external antenna gain me any more and which type should I get as the signal can only be coming up the valley.

Pete

 

[Bigyinuk]

I'd definitely try and get an outside antenna. With my router here (a Teltonika RUT950) the reported signal strengths were not that different when I switched to the external antenna but the download and upload speeds went up by about 300pc.

Where we live I have a choice of Vodafone, Three and EE, with Vodafone being the fastest. Speeds are: Vodafone 36mbps, EE 25mbps and Three 15mbps.

My router is dual SIM and I have a £20pm Three Unlimited SIM and a £20 Vodafone 100Gb SIM in the device.

 

[Petewilks]

I've contacted solwise and they will let me return it within 2 weeks aslong as it's in suitable condition to sell so I'll give their omi directional antenna a try I think.