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Help with 4G Router

benparker

Super Pro Member
Hello I hope some experts can help here.
So after moving properties and having to pay a hefty cancellation fee to Hyperoptic (landlord issues) I've decided against to try a 4G sim and router combo. Just over a year ago I bought an unlimited data Smarty SIM and the TP-Link Archer MR200 router. Not sure why chose it over a Huawei. For the duration up until a few days ago, I would get 10mb down but if I switch to 3G its about 20mb but upload speeds drops.

So apparently some spots in the house give better speeds. It turns out another room was giving just about 40mb but not that consistent but definitely seeing more than 20mb. So after checking the whole house I found the best spot and the router is now hanging high up on the wall lol. I don't really want another contact and I'm not a heavy downloader as I was before but thinking of getting Netflix or maybe IPTV (are we allowed to discuss about that here?)

I bought an XPol 1 and connected to the mr200 and it seems to be worse. Even tried hanging outside window but still bad. Does it support xpols?

I also bought a Huawei B535 router and surprisingly it does worse than the mr200, this is with the bunny ears antenna and XPol 1 connected. I even set it to use external antenna. I moved to different rooms but no luck.

Back to the mr200 and it's so sensitive, I placed it in same position and the antenna and speeds dramatically dropped. Guess I have to fiddle around again with the antenna position.

I also read that you can change bands on the B535 but I can't find that setting anywhere. Im using a Smarty sim.

Any help is appreciated as this is really depressing.
 
Have you tried the B535 using its own internal antennas? What kind of signal (not speed) do you get?
 
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The B535 is a cat 6 router, whereas the MR200 is cat 4, so without the ears set your B535 to internal aerials and you should get a better connection to the mast.

With 4g literally "everything" is hyper sensitive to your connection.

Just putting your router in an upstairs window in direct line of sight to your mast will not necessarily produce the best signal and performance. Interference from other masts, transformers, trees, weather, seasons, mountains and homes, your neighbours microwave and most importantly how many other customers on your carrier are currently connecting to your local mast will ALL affect the speed of your connection. (Both down and up).

This is why external aerials are often no improvement over the internal ones inside the routers. Other variables are normally greater.

Also don't expect you will get a solid high speed download all of the time, no one does. (Trust me, it took me months to accept this fact!)

If you want to do it properly you need to try your router in different locations and check the device information page at each location in the advanced router page. This way you can see your RSSI, RSSQ, RSRP and SNR. The first three need to be as low as possible, the SNR as high as possible. So with the RSSI , RSSQ and RSRP -50dbm is better than -60Dbm and with SNR 20db is better than 15db. The SNR is the most important one by far.

My B535 sweet spot is in the corner of my room by the chimney breast on my computer desk. On the floor or on the ceiling it reports worse readings. Literally 6 inches to the left it reports and SNR of Zero. Like voodoo, Its about maximising the reflective capabilities of your house to bounce the signal into your router.

I'm currently seeing.

RSRQ -10.0dB
RSRP -87dBm
RSSI -59dBm
SINR 20dB

I'm currently seeing 60 Mbps on the Xbox one downloading red-dead-redemption 2 on gamepass today!. (Had 50gb this morning so I'm sure my neighbours on Three broadband must asbolutely love me!)

As the day goes on this will inevitably drop to 20-30mb and in the evening less than 20mb. But I've come to accept that this is the real world of using 4g for home broadband.

So do your testing early in the morning when less people are awake and using it!

Hope this helps!
 
I use "Huawei Monitor" a French piece of software, to allow access to hidden (by 3 ?) B535 configuration options including band selection and show graphs of radio statistics. This was very recently updated to v3.10 but the site has recently disappeared. It requires a licence ($20) to enable setting of any options, but Paypal no longer recognises the vendor’s site. I hope this is temporary and will be back soon, as it’s a great tool.

Logic does not seem to work on figuring out best aerial position. It’s hard to find one that beats the internal one. At least in my location, the mast is half a km away at the end of the street but over a slight hill. Best position is Sellotaped to bottom of my front window glass. I use a Panorama (black X) antenna (DMM-7-27-2TS9 ebay £30) hanging on the same window to allow me to have a neater installation. Signal to noise ratio (SINR) fluctuates continually from -2db to 13db as the signal bounces up the street from house to house. I tried an aerial on my chimney which is line of sight to the mast that gave me a consistent -2db to 0db SINR, however speed test were rubbish compared to window.
 
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Hello Buggerlugz, I have given up moving it round the house, wasted too many days. Have settled for current result 10Mbps up/down most of the time as its mainly a backup. Unfortunately have ordered another external ariel but its lost in the post...
 
Ok some good news. Got Vodafone sim and straight away it shot upto 50-60Mbps.

Now removed the black caps next to the male wire connector on the XPol and was able to screw it in firmly. Using the B535 and stuck atenna outside with my hand it went to 115Mbps! Indoors it's a little less when right next to window.

Now using it on mr200 with wires a little stretched and it's about 70+Mbps and 80+ when hanging outside window. So I curled up the wires reasonably with antenna stuck on inside windows with suction pads and the speeds are 30Mbps :/ I'm wondering is this because of coiling the wires?

One thing to note is that the B535 can show 4G+ wheras I don't think the mr200 supports 4G+

I'm gonna try stretching the wires again later in the day and see how that goes. Although I paid £130 for the B535 from Amazon, clearly it's not new as it has scratches on it so it will go back.
 
So after 12am upto 5am it was 25Mbps then went up. Now just had a look and it's gone back down to 25Mbps even though it shows 4+
:(


Is this some next kind of throttling?
 
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Mast location, carrier spectrum available and contention are the most important variables. A close mast does not mean you'll get a great download speed. A close mast on a carrier with low interference with a low number of customers currently using your carrier on your mast will get you 100Mbps.

The same mast next week on that very same carrier may get the complete opposite however if they happen to sign up ten bandwidth hungry customers on your street.
 
Ok so I decided to try on my mr200 and for the past couple of hours it's maxing out at 30Mbps. The router config page doesn't even tell me if it's 4G+ or not.
 
Well looks like after midnight it connects to band frequency 800 and just 4G
When it's 4G+ it's on frequency 2100. Just confirmed using network signal info app.
 
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I bought the MR600 router two days ago and I already made a request to send it back because the router doesn't support dual band with three sim card. It only supports dual band for 3 and 7 when you choose ee for e.g. Theee is using 1 and 3 for dual band, I am guessing this MR200 is a dual band router too?
 
After getting a Huawei router I wouldn't touch anything else, being able to set which bands I want and see all the signal info is a must have imo.

Generally the internal antennas will be best unless you can mount an external directional antenna high up aimed at the correct tower.

Also the XPOL1 is omni directional so I am not surprised it didn't help.
 
Generally the internal antennas will be best unless you can mount an external directional antenna high up aimed at the correct tower.

Also the XPOL1 is omni directional so I am not surprised it didn't help.

How would you know which tower is which?

Omni directional is a bad thing?
 
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