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Carrier Aggregation and signal values?

BFG

Regular Member
I'm trying to learn more about this. Using LTE-Monitor and HAUCTRL app I've been trying to improve the reliability of my LTE broadband with Three* on B535 router, with poynting external directional MIMO.

My best bandwidth comes from locking my connection to band 3. But, my signal changes from 4G+ to 4G.
Am I correct in thinking that CA works by combining connections at the mast?
Re these values,
RSRQ -9.0 dB
RSRP -93.0 dBm
RSSI -67.0 dBm
SINR 14.0 dB

If there is CA, how do I interpret them? Are they an average of all the frequencies in use?
They certainly change if I lock to a particular band.

Any guidance or links welcome. Thanks.





* I'm aware of Three's core issues. Separate thread :)
 
You can see the signal strength figures separately in LTEH monitor on the home page in realtime to some degree.

For me I find band 3 is the strongest signal and band 1 (which you'd expect to be the stronger signal is slightly less (SINR 15 on Band 1 and a SINR of 20 on band 3.) But looking at those readings I don't believe that its slower with CA because of the mast to router communications.

Back when I joined three last year around this time I got over 100Mbps all day long on 4g alone, so I see no reason why I shouldn't get the same now on band 3 or even higher speeds on 4g+ now they've upgraded my local mast.

Personally I think the reason why I get consistently slower speeds when connecting to bands 1 and 3 and getting 4g+ is because Three has limited back-haul from my mast to its core. This coupled with mast contention and a severely limited amount of available bandwidth across the core itself produces slower speeds than 4g alone (without the +).

I did consider it could be down to interference increasing when using CA, but its totally different frequencies so that seems unlikely.

This is also probably the reason when you see it slow down in the evening, rebooting the router, reconnecting to the mast, assigning you a new IP etc always produces an increase in speeds.
 
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@BFG locking to a single band will lost carrier aggregation (4G+) so that's expected. If it gives you a faster or more reliable connection then doesn't really matter - at least it wouldn't to me.
The metrics you have posted look pretty good, so the radio connection should be good.

@Buggerlugz just to correct you - providing everything else is the same, you'd expect B3 to report a better signal metrics than B1, since it operates at a lower frequency.
 
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@Buggerlugz just to correct you - providing everything else is the same, you'd expect B3 to report a better signal metrics than B1, since it operates at a lower frequency.

But in my instance 15 SINR for band 1 and 20 SINR for band 3 I would expect using B1 with B3 would be beneficial, but it just isn't I consistently get 30-50% slower download speeds using 4g+ over regular 4g.
 
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I was only commenting on the signal metrics of the frequencies - not the speeds they achieve. I still can't explain why your CA gives poorer speeds than a single band, it really doesn't make sense.
 
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If your CA is based on Band 20 and Band 3 and Band 20 is the upload band then it will perform worse than Band 3 on its own. If you can do Band 3 and Band 20 where 3 is the upload then that performs the same as Band 3 alone so not worth the bother. When my local mast either acquires band 1 or band 32 then CA may be worth it on 3,
 
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If your CA is based on Band 20 and Band 3 and Band 20 is the upload band then it will perform worse than Band 3 on its own. If you can do Band 3 and Band 20 where 3 is the upload then that performs the same as Band 3 alone so not worth the bother. When my local mast either acquires band 1 or band 32 then CA may be worth it on 3,

I can only get bands 1 and 3 on my local mast, band 20 can only be accessed if I disable the other bands and this is some 7 miles away in the middle of Sherwood forest.
 
Not sure if anyone here can help. This is the graph that I get from LTE-H Monitor with my Hauwei 618 connected to Three. What is causing the spike?
Loss of signal 1.GIF


I have had so much trouble with Three that I am changing to Vodafone even though my contract runs for another 8 months. The only way I can get three to work now is with Express VPN enabled on the router.

Stay safe everyone. Regards, Chris.
 
Have you looked at the raw data itself? Perhaps it's Hmonitor's graph just badly/failing to report some values.

If I remember correctly I think you're able to export the current data (for free) but to record/keep historical data between executions of the program you need to have bought a licence.
 
When my LTE-H graph shows the same it's because the connection to the mast was down, even when connected your stats do not look good.
 
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OK, I have now changed from Three to Vodafone. Vast improvement. SINR now 0, RSRQ -10, RSRP -87 and RSSI -63. I now have 5 bars as opposed to 3 with Three and seemingly as stable connection that works. Spent all day trying to get through to Three support without any joy. Given up with them.
 
"Spent all day trying to get through to Three support without any joy. Given up with them."

Which is why they lock us into 24 month contracts, so they don't have to answer the phone.
 
In fairness to Three I’ve had my fair share of issues as we all have and have managed to somewhat easily get out of the contracts over the phone with them. Typical rule for all of them was either send the router back or pay 40% of your early termination fees.
 
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