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Band selection utility for Huawei CPE Pro H112-370

GazzaSat

Regular Member
Hi all,

I have been lurking for a while and appreciated the info on here so decided to put out my first post. Some context first ..

In the background I have been working on taming my Huawei CPE Pro (H112-370) which is ex-Three but now unlocked to all networks.

The firmware version is locked in and could not change it so looked for plan B.

I have been testing a script utility based on the work of MioNonno (seriously check out his youtube channel for great info) which allows me to fix the 4G bands on the router to help control which cell towers to lock-on to for best performance.

On this router the other utilities such as LTEHMonitor did not work for me as the firmware does not let you login via the normal API and so I was stuck. Frustration got the better of me so did some research...

Left to its own devices it drops off the new 3 'Pole of Wonder' across the way in favour of older slower masts which are closer on Band 1 and Band 3. Locking the 4G bands to help steer to the new 3 PoW which has the 5G ENDC anchors ( also uniquely in the vicinity B20, B28 and B32 ) helps the box stick to the right tower for 5G :)

I am getting a reliable 400MBps down and 60-70MBps up of of my SMARTY 5G enabled SIM now it locks on to B28 with a really good SINR to boot.

Also added is the unhiding of the hidden DNS server override so you can set your own DNS entries which is disabled for some reason by default.

I have stuck this up on github with some better documentation.
Search github.com for project gazzasat/huawei-cpe
[Edit: the direct link is here https://github.com/gazzasat/huawei-cpe]

It is a work in progress but I have been using it for a bit with great results so though I would post it publicly. If you want to give it a go and let me know some feedback or go ahead and modify it yourself if it is useful to you.

Please Note: As always use it at your own risk but hopefully does not do anything which can brick your box. It might require a factory reset if it does not do what you expected.
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Thanks very much for the code you wrote on this and the information you have provided on Github. I've spent the best part of the morning messing about with our H112-370 (Pro 5G) trying to force it to use a tower that doesn't have 5G.

We are in a rural location and get messy 5G signal, but believe we will get strong stable 4G. Unfortunately the 'Network Search Mode' is disabled. I've been trying to use your code / tool to force it onto a cell tower that doesn't have 5G, but it appears the two we can receive both transmit 5G.

I've no idea what I'm doing but have been watching the fella on YT you suggested and have been removing the word "hide" from the script to make toggles appear...but that's about all I have managed.

Do you have any more advice that i could use to enable me to force it in to 4g only mode? I'm on the verge of sticking it on ebay and buying a CPE Pro 4G, which is a ridiculous thing to have to do for the sake of a missing selection in a menu!!

Cheers very much again for the tool you have provided
 
Hi @kimmersandryan,

LOL people usually try to do the exact opposite and lock bands just to get 5G. I guess you have one of the ex-Three versions of the CPE Pro like me and it is frustrating that some of the menu functions have been removed... I have done some of the java script hacking in the console to enable menus but mostly it didn't work as the firmware would not let you save anything to make the changes.

If you can pick-up 5G from these towers it is maybe worth persevering to see if there is a position that could get you a better signal and more download performance. That you are getting 5G at all means you are also getting 4G which is probably not going to improve things. I have one of the Poynting 5G directional antennas on my box which helps if your levels are weaker.

If you take a look at the towers you can pick up you might see that not all bands have the 5G ENDC signal enabled so you could be selective.

The external antenna connections are for 5G only so you could try setting the antenna to external with nothing connected which might nobble just the 5G as a test.

Advanced->System->System Settings->Antenna Settings

Maybe you can share some details of which bands you can receive, which provider you are using and what the signal levels are. (Check in the System Information page)

Let us know how you get on m8
 
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Hi, cheers for the reply.

We tried disconnecting the aerial after learning that this only works for 5G, unfortunately the box then just picked up a really poor quality signal of the unstable 5G!

We've actually had success!! By deleting various "hide" text we ended up bringing up the 'Save' button, for most settings it said 'saving...failed'. We had success with the 5G network type though, instructing it to search for the "SA" type only allowed us to save and because our signal is NSA it no longer finds 5G!!!

We now have a ping of 30-100 and a DL of 20-30. Happy with that if it's stable!!

I'll post up the code lines later in case they are of use to others. Cheers again

edit: the 5G signal strength with the aerial fitting is (was) 100%, but it was unstable so would drop out regularly. Trying to play online games with it meant terrible lag spikes, I ended up swapping to my 3 sim card which was picking up poor 4G only and it was significantly better
 
Hi,

Thanks very much for the code you wrote on this and the information you have provided on Github. I've spent the best part of the morning messing about with our H112-370 (Pro 5G) trying to force it to use a tower that doesn't have 5G.

We are in a rural location and get messy 5G signal, but believe we will get strong stable 4G. Unfortunately the 'Network Search Mode' is disabled. I've been trying to use your code / tool to force it onto a cell tower that doesn't have 5G, but it appears the two we can receive both transmit 5G.

I've no idea what I'm doing but have been watching the fella on YT you suggested and have been removing the word "hide" from the script to make toggles appear...but that's about all I have managed.

Do you have any more advice that i could use to enable me to force it in to 4g only mode? I'm on the verge of sticking it on ebay and buying a CPE Pro 4G, which is a ridiculous thing to have to do for the sake of a missing selection in a menu!!

Cheers very much again for the tool you have provided
This (No 5G) option is within the Network Selection on normal Firmware but if yours is locked down Firmware, one of the easiest methods (assuming LTEManager doesn't work) is to use HuaCTRL Android App, either the Free or Paid for versions will do this, the Free Version does not show and 5G Signal or Stats info, but by clicking it to 4G Only will work and force 5G to be Off, to allow 3/4/5G again (which is not an visible option on the Free Version) just click the Auto (Top Left) as this will put it back to the normal Network Hunt State and do the same job.
 
Hi @GazzaSat Thanks for all your efforts and the github code, all works nicely on my ex3 CPE Pro (with Smarty SIM). I suspect mine is jumping around between 5G and 4G and with your code I should be able to fix the 4G band. What I don't know is how to work out which 4G band/bands I should be using to lock into the best 5G signal. Is that info available within the router or should I use some other method. Cheers
 
Hi @GazzaSat Thanks for all your efforts and the github code, all works nicely on my ex3 CPE Pro (with Smarty SIM). I suspect mine is jumping around between 5G and 4G and with your code I should be able to fix the 4G band. What I don't know is how to work out which 4G band/bands I should be using to lock into the best 5G signal. Is that info available within the router or should I use some other method. Cheers
This info is in the footnotes of the GitHub page he posted. You have to go to cellmapper.net and use the map to figure out which one is ‘your’ tower. Then read off the Band of that tower. We found that all the towers in the area are all transmitting 5G, so choosing a different tower didn’t help us. Also most of them were using the same Band 20
 
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This (No 5G) option is within the Network Selection on normal Firmware but if yours is locked down Firmware, one of the easiest methods (assuming LTEManager doesn't work) is to use HuaCTRL Android App, either the Free or Paid for versions will do this, the Free Version does not show and 5G Signal or Stats info, but by clicking it to 4G Only will work and force 5G to be Off, to allow 3/4/5G again (which is not an visible option on the Free Version) just click the Auto (Top Left) as this will put it back to the normal Network Hunt State and do the same job.
Thanks for this, had no idea it could be so simple, had been scouring the internet for an answer as simple as this; though we don’t have a android device on tbe house. We have bodged it by modifying the scrip on the webpage in any case, so fixed on 4G now; until they improve the 5G signal
 
This info is in the footnotes of the GitHub page he posted. You have to go to cellmapper.net and use the map to figure out which one is ‘your’ tower. Then read off the Band of that tower. We found that all the towers in the area are all transmitting 5G, so choosing a different tower didn’t help us. Also most of them were using the same Band 20
 
This info is in the footnotes of the GitHub page he posted. You have to go to cellmapper.net and use the map to figure out which one is ‘your’ tower. Then read off the Band of that tower. We found that all the towers in the area are all transmitting 5G, so choosing a different tower didn’t help us. Also most of them were using the same Band 20
Thanks, I will check out the github page further, must have missed the relevant bits. Also will revisit cellmapper, last time I looked it didn't have any 5G info for my local tower, 5G is fairly new to the tower and last time I looked at cellmapper there was no mention of 5G. The tower definitely has 5G as its shown on the 3 coverage map and I have seen just over 500MB speeds. What I have noticed is the 5G light on the router keeps turning off but dtrangely if I go to the router login page the 5G light comes back on even without login in. All a bit strange so thinking it could be a band issue and would be nice to see what happens if I lock the bands.
 
Hi @ModemMan,

It is a bit trial and error with band selection however as you see for CellMapper it does not have the 5G towers plotted on the map. You should see that there are some 4G towers and bands which carry the 5G ENDC signal and those are the ones to target.

All my local towers had older band 3 and not upgraded, mostly without ENDC so for my setup on Smarty / Three I filter this out eg: 1+20+28+32

CellMapper uses crowd sourced data so not always 100% accurate on position but pretty good in the whole.

My local 3PoW tower has band 32 enabled and on 4G it will ONLY CA with band 20 or 28 to give 100Mbps+ download 10Mbps up but as soon as you add band 1 or band 3 back in it doesn't CA with band 32 and dowload throughput drops.

Some combination of careful router positioning and some band filtering allows you to get you a more stable and optimal performance. It takes a bit of effort to figure out what your local towers are offering and of course you need to keep on top of it as the providers change stuff all the time... it is worth the effort and admittedly good fun
 
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Thanks @ GazzaSat,

I revisited cellmapper and it looks like it has been updated with 5G ENDC available but that currently only listed on Cell 0 (which is in the opposite direction to me), as I'm getting 5G on other cells I was thinking I should probably post my findings to cellmapper but want to be 100% certain of my facts before I do that.

My tower transmits on Bands 1, 3 & 20 and I have tried locking to each of those individually and seem to get similar speeds from each band (around 200 to 300 Mb average download) so I assume they are all 5G anchors
This is what I have seen so far -
If lock to Band 3 it uses Cell 1 which has the same frequency as the 5G ENDC Cell 0 so I assume Cell 0 & Cell 1 are effectively the same 5G anchor but pointing in opposite directions.

The band/cell info is -
B1(Cell 72) Bandwidth = 10 MHz, Uplink Freq = 1929.9 MHz & Downlink Freq = 2119.9 MHz
B3 (Cell1): Bandwidth = 15 MHz, Uplink Freq = 1729.2 MHz & Downlink Freq= 1824.2 MHz
B20 (Cell 7) Bandwidth = 5 MHz, Uplink Freq =834.5 MHz & Downlink Freq =793.5 MHz

Out of the three bands Band 20 covers the greatest area on cellmapper which I guess is down its lower link frequencies and looking at the stats & bar graphs (from your code insert) it appears to give me the best LTE signal -
llte_rsrp : -80dBm and lte_rsrq: -8dBmm (strangely it jumps between -10 & -5)

All three bands appear to give me similar nr_rsrp around -110dBm,

For me, changing bands doesn’t seem to make much difference but I would be interested to know if anyone has any experience with the effects of the different bands and frequencies etc as I have a few questions -

I have found the lower freq are better for LTE but what does that mean in practice, is it simply that the 4G anchor is used solely for upload and the 5G used for download, or are the speeds up/down due to a combination of both the 4G & 5G signals?

Am I correct in assuming that if the router shows a 5G signal it is anchored as 5G or can it show a 5G signal but only be connected as 4G? I wouldn't want to declare a cell as 5G ENDC if it really is just a 4G
 
Asuming that if the router shows a 5G signal it is anchored as 5G or can it show a 5G signal but only be connected as 4G? I wouldn't want to declare a cell as 5G ENDC if it really is just a 4G
It is possible for a 5G Device to show a 5G Signal but not actually be connected (use) the 5G Layer, this can happen for a number of reasons, you can sometimes pull in the 5G Connection by doing a heavy Data Download ie, Speed Test or Stream a Download whilst monitoring the Connection.

The other thing to bear in mind is some Networks use Multi Site ENDC so your 5G Signal could be coming from a different Mast location to your 4G Connected Site and some of the 4G Sectors on that Site may not be ENDC enabled if the Sectors are covering further away from the 5G coverage, EE are a good example here. Another thing on EE is they sometimes use Band 20 as extended Coverage, so there is a good chance if you Band Lock to B20 only you will not get 5G with it.
 
It is possible for a 5G Device to show a 5G Signal but not actually be connected (use) the 5G Layer, this can happen for a number of reasons, you can sometimes pull in the 5G Connection by doing a heavy Data Download ie, Speed Test or Stream a Download whilst monitoring the Connection.
Thanks for your reply EssexBoy,
Its interesting what you say about pulling in 5G, could that explain what I have seen with some of my speed tests that appear to go up round 50 to 70 Mb and then ramp up to 200 Mb ?

Is that how the 5G system normally works effectively starting in 4G and pulling in 5G if required. Or are there other types of 5G connection where 4G and 5G are both connected and 5G is used for downliad regardles of demand?

Bearing that in mind, what is the best way to confirm a 4G cell is definitely a 5G ENDC anchor?
 
I came across this thread by accident while trying to find some utilities for my B535-333. I've been using the MioNonno version and thought that I'd give this a try. I use the bookmark approach which does work, although this version of the code does work on my router, it's clearly better on 5G devices which it was intended for.
Nice work!
 
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The github linked version in the first post.
https://github.com/gazzasat/huawei-cpe
Glad it is useful. It does work on my old B525 too.

I have been meaning to revisit this and tidy up a few things like hiding the 5G stuff when it does not apply on a 4G only router. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions...

I tried to format the script so it is human readable so feel free to modify it yourself if you fancy it
 
I have been meaning to revisit this and tidy up a few things like hiding the 5G stuff when it does not apply on a 4G only router. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions...

I tried to format the script so it is human readable so feel free to modify it yourself if you fancy it

I had a look at the code but to be honest it makes little sense to me. For some reason the DNS changes on the B535-333 do not stick but for me it's no real issue as I use a different DHCP server.
The one thing that I'm missing is how to properly calculate the eNB ID as the B535-333 comes up with somehow non standard Cell ID's that won't convert properly using CellMapper.
Some suggestions, none are really show stoppers, but would be interesting to see if they can be added.
The original code has a link to an Italian web site to show the towers, so if there was a request, it would be for integration with CellMapper.
I'm not sure if the following have been disabled or are simply missing from the menus, in the same way as changing the DNS server.
A nice to have would be enabling the VOIP port on the router, Three have disabled.
Lastly, Bridge Mode, again disabled by Three.
 
Cheers for the feedback. A lot of this stuff may not be simple but will deffo take a look.

Some of the underlying API calls have been disabled in firmware like being able to add a new APN on my ex-3 CPE Pro box.

I did look at the CellID eNB lookup against CellMapper but it is tricky due to cross-site scripting blockers in Chrome browsers etc (these are a good thing for web security...) but worth some more investigation. The CellMapper website also gives dire copyright warning for people trying to repurpose their APIs - not unreasonably! They have to fund the website efforts somehow
 
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