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An accurate way to see which 4g mast you're connecting to

Darsuke

Pro Member
I'm using a Three sim in a Huawei 535 router and trying to locate which mast it's connecting to.

The router displays the cellid. I've used various websites and android apps to see this mast. They all provide the cellid but none of them match the router connection.

Any tips to get something more accurate?

I'm also trying to understand CA on the mast. I can manually connect to Band 20 with slow speeds or Band 3 with faster speeds. The cellid changes for each of those so obviously different masts I presume. The router always states a 4g connection. If I put an EE sim in there the connection shows 4g+

In simple terms does 4g+ mean I'm using CA?
 
4G+ = CA, could be 4G+ is not enabled on the Three mast, not all are.

Mast data is troublesome as the databases are not updated for some years, there are not many near me so I could do it by a process of elimination.
 
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Interesting. I tried Hmanager on my B535 and every time I try to change bands the cyan connection light blinks red, the 5 signal lights go out then it returns to band 3, cyan light returns and it goes back to 5 lights.

My best guess is i'm connected to one mast about a mile away without any CA, as mostly I get 20-40Mb/s, but off peak 90Mb/s.
 
I believe, to find your (4g) mast, you need to take the CellID as found on your router info page and plug it into the eNB ID calculator here https://www.cellmapper.net/enbid.
E.g. CellID 2082561 = eNB ID 8135.

Then, with the calculated eNB ID that is then searchable in the cellmapper 'map' under the 'Tower Search' and *should* give you a location of the tower you're connected to (assuming someone has mapped that tower previously).

Note: you do need to pre-select your Provider (EE/Three/etc) and Network (4G) on the map first, before doing the tower search.
 
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So now I know the mast I'm connecting to uses the Three bands 3 & 20.

Does this also mean the mast uses CA?
 
I would assume that but the opaque nature of 4g provision means it stays an assumption, even if it is CA then you need good signals on both bands, one band is good for long distances other not.
 
I would assume that but the opaque nature of 4g provision means it stays an assumption, even if it is CA then you need good signals on both bands, one band is good for long distances other not.
I need to do some tests then. This mast is two streets away and can be seen from the upstairs window.

Borrowed a laptop to see if I can make lteinspector see the B535 and try that.
 
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While Three does/can provide CA on Band 3+20, it depends on a number of factors, such as: if the mast is enabled for it and if the device (router/phone) connecting has the appropriate configuration within it

Also, with Three only having 5mhz of bandwith for B20 it can only provide ~37.5Mbps down speed for the area it covers (and B20 can go quite far). Eeffectively that speed is then shared across all users using it.

Realistically, if you did get CA for B3+20 the increase in speed over B3 alone will be small - for Three, B20 is more about coverage (geographic and in-building) than speed.

Edit: if you do get CA then I think the 3G/4G indicator on the router webpage will turn to '4G+'.
Edit 2: you might find that 4G+ will only show up when actually downloading/streaming something.
 
When I get CA on my B525 the 4G becomes 4G+. As I force the connection to Band 3 the extra Band 20 is not really worth it, its the future upgrade on Three of the download only Band 32 at 20mhz where CA will make sense.
 
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The spec for my B525-23c lists band 32, but I noticed it only supports 4g+ if it has band 20 available on the same mast. At least that's how I interpret it.

From specifications document:
LTE: B1/3/7/8/20/32/38
Intra-band contiguous: B3+B3, B7+B7, B38+B38
Inter-band: B3+B7, B3+B20, B7+B20, B7+B8, B3+B8, B1+B20, B1+B8, B20+B32
 
Just for reference, my local mast 300ft from my home just does band 3 on its own. The only way I can get band 20 is to disable band 3 and then it connects to a mast 5-6 miles away in Sherwood forest. Normally it just connects to band 3 only and never connects to the other one.
 
The spec for my B525-23c lists band 32, but I noticed it only supports 4g+ if it has band 20 available on the same mast. At least that's how I interpret it.

From specifications document:
LTE: B1/3/7/8/20/32/38
Intra-band contiguous: B3+B3, B7+B7, B38+B38
Inter-band: B3+B7, B3+B20, B7+B20, B7+B8, B3+B8, B1+B20, B1+B8, B20+B32

My mast currently has B3 and B20, I can get CA but it does not add much if any bandwidth based on my tests over B3 alone, as I now have a B715-23a the CA potential than on a B525-23a is better if B32 gets activated.

2CA: CA_1A-3A,CA_1A-7A,CA_1A-8A,CA_1A-20A,CA_1A-28A,CA_1A-38A,CA_1C,CA_3A-7A,CA_3A-8A,CA_3A-20A,CA_3A-28A,CA_3A-32A,CA_3A-38A,CA_3C,CA_7A-7A,CA_7A-8A,CA_7A-20A,CA_7A-28A,CA_7A-32A,CA_7C,CA_20A-32A,CA_20A-38A,CA_38C

CA_1A-3A-7A,CA_1A-3A-8A,CA_1A-3A-20A,CA_1A-3C,CA_1A-7A-20A,CA_1A-7C,CA_3A-7A-8A,CA_3A-7A-20A,CA_3A-7A-28A,CA_3A-7A-38A,CA_3A-20A-32A,CA_3C-7A,CA_3C-20A,CA_7A-20A-38A
 
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