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Mikrotik SXT LTE6 vs Huawei B310

SA20

ULTIMATE Member
I have been using a Mikrotik SXT LTE6 with a Quectel cat 6 modem as a dish feed for a few months now and have been happy with it. Yesterday afternoon it had some sort of brain fart and started doing all sorts of weird things. In desperation it got pulled off the dish and replaced with an old Three B310 router.

The SXT is back to its normal self today so I did some back to back tests using both as a dish feed. the results surprised me.

SXT speed: 18 down 8 up. RSSI -74dBm, RSRP -108dBm, SINR 0dB, RSRQ -11dB

B310 speed 32 down 7 up. RSSI -83dBm, RSRP -105dBm, SINR 6dB, RSRQ -5dB

In short, the old B310 is wiping the floor with the SXT. Last night it was giving speeds of 42 down. Now I'm torn. The SXT has all the features: weatherproofing, POE and configurability that I like, but the B310 performs better but will need work to make it suitable for outdoor use. Plus, the user interface is basic in the extreme.
 
I have been using a Mikrotik SXT LTE6 with a Quectel cat 6 modem as a dish feed for a few months now and have been happy with it. Yesterday afternoon it had some sort of brain fart and started doing all sorts of weird things. In desperation it got pulled off the dish and replaced with an old Three B310 router.

The SXT is back to its normal self today so I did some back to back tests using both as a dish feed. the results surprised me.

SXT speed: 18 down 8 up. RSSI -74dBm, RSRP -108dBm, SINR 0dB, RSRQ -11dB

B310 speed 32 down 7 up. RSSI -83dBm, RSRP -105dBm, SINR 6dB, RSRQ -5dB

In short, the old B310 is wiping the floor with the SXT. Last night it was giving speeds of 42 down. Now I'm torn. The SXT has all the features: weatherproofing, POE and configurability that I like, but the B310 performs better but will need work to make it suitable for outdoor use. Plus, the user interface is basic in the extreme.
Are they connected to the same mast/cell? Same bands?
Have you checked for water ingress? That SINR is....
 
I can’t check which mast the 310 is connected to. However, as the dish orientation hasn’t been changed, I’m pretty certain both are looking at the same mast. It’s the only one that I have been able to see in the past. It’s band 20 only around here.

The SINR on the B310 has improved since I posted. Currently 13dB. RSRQ -4dB.

The SXT is dry inside now. But even if it’s issues were caused by damp yesterday the most I have ever got out of it is 25 down.

IMG_0558.jpeg
 
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Which B310:
* Huawei B310s-927: B1/B3/B8/B40
* Huawei B310As-852: B3/B7/B8/B38/B39/B40/B41
* Huawei B310s-22: B1/B3/B7/B8/B20
* Huawei B310s-518: B1/B2/B4/B5/B7/B28

EP06:
-E (EMEA/Australia/Brazil)
LTE-FDD: B1/3/5/7/8/20/28/321 ;
LTE-TDD: B38/40/41;
Up to 2 × CA: B1+B1/5/8/20/28; B3+B3/5/7/8/20/28; B7+B5/7/8/20/28; B20+B32 ; B38+B38; B40+B40; B41+B41;
WCDMA: B1/3/5/8

I've got a strange feeling that if you are still using vodafone, that your B310 is connecting to B8 CAT4 with it's 10 mhz bandwidth.
 
I think there’s some French software for monitoring Huawei routers. I can’t remember the name of it. Can anybody help?
 
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if you lock the SXT to B8 only, what speeds do you get?

I don’t know. I’ll give it a go and report back later.

These are the local masts. 11278 is the one the SXT is definitely using. I take back what I said about B20 being the only band available. It’s the only band I have seen. However, I would have to swing the dish 45 degrees one way and 90 the other to point at the nearest B8 masts.

IMG_0559.webp
 
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I am baffled I've swapped the Talkmobile sim from the B310 to the SXT and it's back to playing silly buggers. 3G only just like yesterday.

Odd because the Talkmobile sim was working fine in the B310 and the SXT was fine with the Lebara sim in it.

All of a sudden the SXT has taken a disliking to to Talkmobile.

SXT_may4.JPG


I'm guessing this is a modem problem. When I get back home I'll swap the Quectel over with the Mikrotik and see if it cures the problem.
 
The SXT was back to playing silly buggers again this morning. 3G only.

However, it seems to be a problem with RouterOS V 7.9 and the SXT rather than the modem. I upgraded from 7.8 to 7.9 two days ago. Upgrading to 7.10 beta 5 has fixed it. 4G is back.

Thanks to meritez and dazmatic for mentioning 7.10 in the NL952-EAU thread.

It's still way slower than the B310 though.
 
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@SA20 Mikrotik fixed the rbsxtlte3-7 default configuration in 7.10, as that is the original 4G SXT that Tik offered, I'm not surprised breaking that in 7.9 broke other SXT devices.

sadly mine is in Scotland so I have no chance to identify what has gone wrong.
 
@SA20 Mikrotik fixed the rbsxtlte3-7 default configuration in 7.10, as that is the original 4G SXT that Tik offered, I'm not surprised breaking that in 7.9 broke other SXT devices.

sadly mine is in Scotland so I have no chance to identify what has gone wrong.
What a lovely place for it to be meritez. ;)
 
The SXT is still playing up even with 7.10. 3G only. I know there is a 4G signal because I held my iPhone in front of the reflector and the signal went from zero to two bars of 4G. 22 download speed.

Regressing to 7.9 sorted it temporarily, but switched to 3G only overnight, even with 3G specifically deselected in the config.

I’ll take it back to 7.8 and see if that makes a difference. If not, I’ll try switching the Quectel modem for the Mikrotik one when I get home.
 
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Thanks for that.

It appears that the B310 is using B8. Locking it to B20, if that is what is actually happening, knocks the current download speed from 20 on B8 to just 5. I can’t tell what cell is being used.
 
It does doesn’t it. The mystery is why the SXT doesn’t want to know and keeps switching to 3G.

It’s a pain in the bum that I forgot to bring the LHGG with me.
 
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