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Moving House....a little advice please.

The clue is in the name - LTE H-Monitor - the software is really only for 4G configuration.
3G, being so old, was never designed to be as configurable as 4G is in terms of controlling/setting modem parameters etc.

3G is a whole different kettle of fish compared to 4G, and I have much less experience with it.

I just tested my old-old Moto G phone with Smarty forced to 3G only and speeds are a consistent ~12mbps down ~4Mbps up.
My mast has undergone Three's 3G-to-4G refarming on 2100mhz (B1 in 4G terms) so I know the amount of spectrum assigned to 3G is just 5mhz (from 15mhz before the refarm).
I see in NSG that 3G is only running in HSPA+ mode and there is no DC-HSDPA (3G carrier aggregation) occurring - thats expected because Three have only left the single 5mhz carrier after the refarm.

Given what I see, I am making the assumption that the mast you're connected to for 3G hasn't yet been refarmed (your first post does mention its a B3+20 mast). You're likely seeing DC-HSDPA which is helping with the speeds at the moment... however I would caution you to be prepared for your 3G speed to drop when the refarm does eventually happen for you.
 
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The clue is in the name - LTE H-Monitor - the software is really only for 4G configuration.
3G, being so old, was never designed to be as configurable as 4G is in terms of controlling/setting modem parameters etc.

3G is a whole different kettle of fish compared to 4G, and I have much less experience with it.

I just tested my old-old Moto G phone with Smarty forced to 3G only and speeds are a consistent ~12mbps down ~4Mbps up.
My mast has undergone Three's 3G-to-4G refarming on 2100mhz (B1 in 4G terms) so I know the amount of spectrum assigned to 3G is just 5mhz (from 15mhz before the refarm).
I see in NSG that 3G is only running in HSPA+ mode and there is no DC-HSDPA (3G carrier aggregation) occurring - thats expected because Three have only left the single 5mhz carrier after the refarm.

Given what I see, I am making the assumption that the mast you're connected to for 3G hasn't yet been refarmed (your first post does mention its a B3+20 mast). You're likely seeing DC-HSDPA which is helping with the speeds at the moment... however I would caution you to be prepared for your 3G speed to drop when the refarm does eventually happen for you.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, it is much appreciated.
Out of interest, I took a walk down to the sea front, where one of the masts is situated on a large hotel. On my iPhone, I was able to get around 70 mbps down and 20 up! The same was achieved outside the main post office, which is also host to a myriad of masts. A walk back to my home is up-hill, but the speeds fall dramatically. I’m just wondering if a poynting mast on the same pole as the tv aerial, will help. It is not a direct line of sight (I can’t see the mast) but I can aim it in the right direction. Does “ line of sight” literally mean you can see it unobscured?
 
It can work even without actual sight, but it's highly dependent on how much the signal gets scattered. Worth a try.
 
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High up masts generally have their antennas pointed down a bit (known as down-tilt) to best cover the streets below. If your house is up hill, and is higher than the antennas then it definitely won't be optimal. Additionally it depends if any of those antennas are facing your direction too, if your mid-way between sectors then that's not great either.

Edit: also, those speeds might be achievable on the sector your were connected to at the time. But if your house lies within a different sector then speeds might be different there depending on population/current users. I can imagine high streets are pretty quiet places right now whereas homes are more populated.
By all means give it a go, but just keep expectations in check!
 
High up masts generally have their antennas pointed down a bit (known as down-tilt) to best cover the streets below. If your house is up hill, and is higher than the antennas then it definitely won't be optimal. Additionally it depends if any of those antennas are facing your direction too, if your mid-way between sectors then that's not great either.

Edit: also, those speeds might be achievable on the sector your were connected to at the time. But if your house lies within a different sector then speeds might be different there depending on population/current users. I can imagine high streets are pretty quiet places right now whereas homes are more populated.
By all means give it a go, but just keep expectations in check!
Thank you for your advice.
 
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Hi

Just a quick update to say that I have spent £115 on the Poynting AXPOL 0002 V2, only to find the it makes NO difference whatsoever! I thought it would at least gain slightly in signal strength...but zippo. It's about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

At least now I have an expensive, yet cheap looking door-stop with a 5 metre cable. ☹️
 
I'd have expected a change in at least some/one of the metrics with an antenna. Did you confirm that the router detected an external antenna connected (perhaps its a manual setting to tell it what type?). What were the metrics before, and after? Did you confirm the same cell was being connected to? If the cell changes, then perhaps you were connected to one band before (with a given set of metrics) but a different band afterwards (but with similar metric values).
 
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At least now I have an expensive, yet cheap looking door-stop with a 5 metre cable. ☹️

Just return it to Amazon.. it's what everybody does, that's why they have a lot of used ones; high return rate as LTE performance is so varied.

That said, did you double check the external antenna is enabled in the router settings and did you try moving the antenna around and measure rsrq etc?
 
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Did you confirm that the router detected an external antenna connected (perhaps its a manual setting to tell it what type?).
Yes, I went into the setting and changed the antenna to external....with no difference.

I spent yesterday, on the roof trying out all different positions/angles with the antenna. There were some spots when the reading from the router, looked very good, but typically, within a few minutes, they would either raise or lower significantly. As someone said in a previous post, "sometimes higher up is not better", and I found this to be true.
One thing I was able to do was to pick up band1 , which I could not do before. However, the download speed was around 1.5Mbps, yet the upload was in the late 20's, so not much use, and as I have the B525 it will not aggregate with Band 3.

I will carry-on today with more testing, but I have found recent results with the antenna to be disa-Poynting!
 
Just return it to Amazon.. it's what everybody does, that's why they have a lot of used ones; high return rate as LTE performance is so varied.

That said, did you double check the external antenna is enabled in the router settings and did you try moving the antenna around and measure rsrq etc?
A return may be the next step. I did alter the antenna settings, with little difference.
 
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If you're seeing very poor download speeds on B1 but good upload then that suggests the network is saturated in your area.
Saying that, I think we'd identified that your local masts aren't B1 4G enabled (yet), so I guess it was from a more distant mast.
 
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If you're seeing very poor download speeds on B1 but good upload then that suggests the network is saturated in your area.
Saying that, I think we'd identified that your local masts aren't B1 4G enabled (yet), so I guess it was from a more distant mast.
I agree with the saturation of the network in this area. I was up very early hours and tried a Speedtest, which was very good. This had dropped to a crawl come 9:30am.
Three have five masts within a two mile radius. Three of these are just bands 3 & 20 the other two are 1,3 & 20 and it would seem that all these are saturated, as I have picked most of them up yesterday, with similar results.
 
Kind of sounds like you don't have much option with Three then, if the speeds aren't sufficient for your requirements.
It feels like you may have to consider other providers, or a hardwire provided internet connection until Three get around to developing the network in your area.
 
Over the last couple of weeks I have been trying different sims and masts in order to get some decent speeds. At the top of the road from me is a mast for both O2 and Vodafone. Cellmapper list this mast as B20 only. I have not concerned myself much with this mast, as the GiffGaff sim I have been trialing, connects to a mast further away at Band 3, which has given me an improvement over the Smarty/Three sim I currently use. A couple of days ago, my brother said that he had been at the top of the road (he is on Voxi) and he had managed to get speeds of nearly 60mbps!! How is this possible? I was under the impression that band 20 was not capable of such speeds. Anyway, I will get a Voxi sim and give this a go. Hopefully, I will be able to get some similar results.

Cheers
 
Over the last couple of weeks I have been trying different sims and masts in order to get some decent speeds. At the top of the road from me is a mast for both O2 and Vodafone. Cellmapper list this mast as B20 only. I have not concerned myself much with this mast, as the GiffGaff sim I have been trialing, connects to a mast further away at Band 3, which has given me an improvement over the Smarty/Three sim I currently use. A couple of days ago, my brother said that he had been at the top of the road (he is on Voxi) and he had managed to get speeds of nearly 60mbps!! How is this possible? I was under the impression that band 20 was not capable of such speeds. Anyway, I will get a Voxi sim and give this a go. Hopefully, I will be able to get some similar results.

Cheers

What device was your brother using?
I consistently get much higher speeds on my iphone 11 (cat 19) using my vodafone sim card than when I pop it in three supplied b535 which is category 7. Probably down to band aggregation Id have thought?
 
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What device was your brother using?
I consistently get much higher speeds on my iphone 11 (cat 19) using my vodafone sim card than when I pop it in three supplied b535 which is category 7. Probably down to band aggregation Id have thought?
Thanks for the reply.
He was using an iPhone 6S+ which is the same phone that I have. I asked him if he was sure that it was the mast at the top of my road, and he says it was. Incidentally, according to cellmapper, all the vodafone masts in my town are all listed as Band 20, so even if he was not connected to the mast at the top of my road, he would not be connected to one with any greater speed, surely?
 
Did he open the cell test mode on the iphone and find the eNB ID of the mast and bands etc?
I wouldnt 100% trust the information cell mapper gives to you in regards to masts and their bands - the vodafone one I connect to doesn't show up on cellmapper and but has the same enb ID as an o2 mast when I go check it out in my router. Also it connects on band 3 rather than 1 or 20 like the vodafone masts futher away from me that do show up for vodafone on cellmapper.

It might help to try to add your own data to cellmapper. You can sign up the cellmapper site, put the cell mapper app on a phone (android phone only), fit your vodafone sim to that, open the app and sign in. Then either walk or drive around your area and see if it can attempt to pin point the mast a little better. I found this very effective when trying to pin down where the three mast was for me locally
 
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Its not the band itself that drives the potential capacity, its how much of the band the provider owns.

Vodafone (and O2) own 2x as much (10mhz slice) as either Three or EE (5mhz slice each) in Band 20 (800mhz).
Theoretical download speeds for Vodafone B20 are 75Mbps, whereas its 37.5Mbps for Three/EE.

Vodafone use B20 as as their primary 4G carrier so is very widely deployed on lots/all masts, unlike Three and EE who really only have it on certain (tactical) sites.
As such, the site density for Vodafone B20 is much higher than Three/EE's B20 site density - as a user of B20 on Three/EE you'd be getting a much smaller share of capacity from a mast thats likely a fair distance away than if you were a Vodafone B20 user with a mast closer to you.

Conversely, Vodafone and O2 both only own 5Mhz slice in B3 and use it for 4G, where Three own 15Mhz and use it for 4G. EE own 45Mhz and deploy up to 40Mhz of that for 4G use.
Peter has the spectrum allocations shown here:
 
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Did he open the cell test mode on the iphone and find the eNB ID of the mast and bands etc?
I wouldnt 100% trust the information cell mapper gives to you in regards to masts and their bands - the vodafone one I connect to doesn't show up on cellmapper and but has the same enb ID as an o2 mast when I go check it out in my router. Also it connects on band 3 rather than 1 or 20 like the vodafone masts futher away from me that do show up for vodafone on cellmapper.

It might help to try to add your own data to cellmapper. You can sign up the cellmapper site, put the cell mapper app on a phone (android phone only), fit your vodafone sim to that, open the app and sign in. Then either walk or drive around your area and see if it can attempt to pin point the mast a little better. I found this very effective when trying to pin down where the three mast was for me locally
No he didn't, but has said he will revisit tomorrow and check on this. Thanks for the advice.
 
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