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Vodafone 4G+ Carrier Aggregation Settings?

johnf

Regular Member
I have already locked my B525 into 2600 mhz (B7) using LTEInspecteur v 1.6.10 which gives me pretty good speeds and stops it changing to a stronger yet slower band.

But so far all my tests to try and get it to aggregate bands for even greater speeds fails. When in Automatic band mode I have seen 4G+ appear on my router control panel so I know its available in my area.

Does anyone know the correct settings to make this work for Voda?
 
Apologies if you know this,

I am on Three but for Vodafone you should be able to use LTEInspecteur, for Network select 4G, then click on Aggregation and select your single upload band and your download bands then click the green tick box. Once LTEInspecteur has done its thing you should then see it report 2 IP addresses under Network, which could be different or identical. Your B525 home webpage will still then show only 4G until a few seconds after you start a download that needs higher speeds and then 4G+ should show until the fast download stops.

Note that the mast may not support CA all the time, I get weekly outages of CA for a few hours. LTEI should report this in the bottom right hand as 'cannot select frequency' but it does not say which frequency is the issue.
 
Apologies if you know this,

I am on Three but for Vodafone you should be able to use LTEInspecteur, for Network select 4G, then click on Aggregation and select your single upload band and your download bands then click the green tick box. Once LTEInspecteur has done its thing you should then see it report 2 IP addresses under Network, which could be different or identical. Your B525 home webpage will still then show only 4G until a few seconds after you start a download that needs higher speeds and then 4G+ should show until the fast download stops.

Note that the mast may not support CA all the time, I get weekly outages of CA for a few hours. LTEI should report this in the bottom right hand as 'cannot select frequency' but it does not say which frequency is the issue.

I have tried much of this. Though some of what you have said does not match what I have read elsewhere.

Supposedly if this works it should say 4G+ all the time, as you have locked in aggregation rather than its default which is only doing it when like you say you download something that needs it.

In my tests, when I am on auto band and I see 4G+ it doesn't show anything different on LTEInspecteur.


Ive done a bit more Googling and found this about Vodafone "4.5G"

"The 4.5G service is delivered through carrier aggregation on the 800Mhz and 2.6GHz spectrum frequency bands, which the operator claims are particularly well suited for the technology, saying the lower frequency is good for indoor coverage, whereas the higher frequency ensures peak speeds and capacity. "

So Ive tried aggregating those two bands (7 and 20), and my speed is no faster than when just on 20 nor does 4G+ show on the control panel - as default or when downloading.


Edit.

I just put it manually onto band 20 (800 mhz) and only get 3-4 Mbs. i wonder if thats why it doesnt seem any faster as the difference is tiny. Just on 7 (2600 mhz) I get 30-40 Mbs generally and sometimes even more early in the morning.
 
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Supposedly if this works it should say 4G+ all the time, as you have locked in aggregation rather than its default which is only doing it when like you say you download something that needs it.

No, it only says 4G+ when it kicks in, that is decided by Vodafone not the router, as long as LTEI is showing 2 ip addresses then its linked on 2 frequencies, how the router can take advantage of this is decided by Vodafone.

As to which combination works you can only do by testing, in your case I would CA with band 7 ticked on UL and DL, band 20 on DL only. You can only pick one band for UL and I get best with the higher downloading band set as UL and DL but that is with Three. Note that Vodafone control 4G+ on the mast, they may have configured it wrongly and also how fast the download is on a frequency is set by the bandwidth Mhz, 5 , 10, 15 or 20. On Three I get much higher downloads on the 15mhz Band 3 than the 5mhz band 20. Voda's mhz is different, believe its 10mhz on band 20 but it depends on the mast, if you look at the B525 ? webpage it tells you the frequency and the mhz.
 
The app is Huawei Manager which I have on my phone, it tells me I am connected to 800 and 1800 but shows 4G until I start a speedtest and then as per the B525 home page it flicks 4G+ on and then off as the download stops. So the poster was incorrect on constant 4g+, but it will show the 2 frequencies even with just 4G showing.
 
The app is Huawei Manager which I have on my phone, it tells me I am connected to 800 and 1800 but shows 4G until I start a speedtest and then as per the B525 home page it flicks 4G+ on and then off as the download stops. So the poster was incorrect on constant 4g+, but it will show the 2 frequencies even with just 4G showing.

It maybe irrelevant anyway. As I only get a few Mbs on 800 and 30- 40 Mbs, sometimes more when on 2600. So adding the two together probably is worthless in my case. Its a shame, but I'm still loving it compared to ADSL2.
 
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With L band coming on Voda at some point then once its installed then you can CA on band 32 on your B525 if it has the same bands as mine. Might be a long wait.
 
With L band coming on Voda at some point then once its installed then you can CA on band 32 on your B525 if it has the same bands as mine. Might be a long wait.

Assuming its as good as its press I'll be getting 5g as soon as its available - and assuming its not going to cost £500 for a 5g router.
 
Watch out and test first, 5G is going to use higher frequencies at least initially so distance will kill the speeds. I expect 5G is years away from me as I am rural and 3 to 4 km away from all the local masts, so only low frequency 5G will work for me.
 
I know what you are saying, but its gonna be quite hard to test 5g without committing to buying a 5g device. I'm in a city centre, so fingers crossed.
 
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Is band 1 (2100mhz) not available? This band is found in most places that 2600mhz is available.
As other posters have said, CA bands are decided by the serving cell usually not the device but might be worth trying anyway
 
Yes i can confirm band 1 is available. I can connect just on that, and am getting around 10 -14 Mbs.

However selecting both band 1 and 7 does not increase speed. But I am not seeing 4G+ in the B525 web interface. I still get better speed just being set on 7.
 
Yes i can confirm band 1 is available. I can connect just on that, and am getting around 10 -14 Mbs.

However selecting both band 1 and 7 does not increase speed. But I am not seeing 4G+ in the B525 web interface. I still get better speed just being set on 7.

I've tried Three, Vodaphone, o2 and EE on our B525. I was able to change bands on Three but not on the others, I just got an error on LTE Inspecteur.

I found Three would aggregate on 800mhz and 2100mhz if I forced it, but when the upload was on 800mhz I would only get those speeds and I never got faster speeds or 4g+ appear. I needed to select the upload of the 2100mhz band to get aggregation to work, and then it was quite a bit faster than if you addded the single bands together (I have no answer).

Where I live we had a resonable signal with Three, but there is so much demand on the network the speeds would vary from 5mbps to 35mbps, ping and jitter included. With EE we consistently get 20-40mbps with a stable ping and jitter, with marginaly better signal from the same mast as Three
 
I'm thinking I'm going to try that 1p mobile network to replace my Three sim, as its cheaper, and using a much better network.

I might regret it if 5g actually is great, but seems along way off.
 
@johnf I couldn't see 1p offering any data tariffs? Just 1p/MB?
Perhaps that is ok for you, but for my data volumes costs would be huge

The other option to 3 & Smarty is Voxi (vodafone) though depends on your coverage. I did try fixing bands on 3 and always seemed to do worse than the default.. so I've reset to redefaults!
 
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@planetf1

I have two requirements really. Plentiful fast data at home. For which I use a Vodafone sim. And cheap data (no contract) for me to use on the move on my phone.

I got my 1p PAYG sim, and its testing about 20 Mbps, compared to 2-3 on Three. Given its the same 1p a MB as Three PAYG its fine.
 
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