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Wireless Broadband questions

deanfourie

Casual Member
Hey guys, I have some questions regarding mobile broadband.

I have signed up for 2degrees mobile broadband, and they have supplied a router, the huawei B535. I have recently managed to get my hands on a Huawei B818-263, because I found this seems to be the only consumer grade router that ive managed to find that supports bridged mode.

I have installed the 818 but I seem to be getting much lower speeds. I am connecting to the tower which is about 4 kilometers away. Is this down to the router? Is the B818 better over the B535 as I heard it can support multiple bands rather then the 535.

The other question I have is regarding antennas. When I first got the connection and was sent the 535, I was getting 90mbps down. Super solid and great speeds but over time that has slowly deteriorated. Would I benefit from an antenna, The router says I have about 85 to 90% signal strength. Would I benefit from say a directional YAGI or is there no point?

Im just trying to get the most out of the connection. This seems to be permanent for us now, so I would like to benefit and get the best speeds possible.
 
2degrees? Hmm, looks like a NZ company. Is that where you're from?
This is predominantly a UK site and experience of most of the people here is gained in the UK.
Having said that, a mobile signal is a mobile signal wherever it's from. The B818 is a significantly better router than the B535 and can aggregate (join) mobile bands in more combinations. But also it may well be a little more sensitive and is picking up signals from further away. Sometimes this could be detrimental to download speeds so you might need a means to force the router to use preferential bands. Get hold of either LTE Inspecteur (note spelling) or LTE-H Monitor for PC or HUACTRL for Android. Then use them to play with different band combinations for the best speeds.
As to whether an external antenna would help you first need to establish why your speeds have gradually dropped. There's a possibility that your local tower is getting saturated as the mobile company has added users. Do a speed test after midnight or very early in the morning when there aren't many users. If speeds are back up where they were then saturation is the cause. Short of changing your mobile company there is little that you can do. However, do get one of the above monitors. It might be useful to check signal parameters and compare them to this chart. If RSRP and SNR are poor then you might get some gains with a separate antenna.
 

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Great reply thanks. I think it is throttled at certain times because after 12ish at night and early in the AM I am around 100 megs down, then during peak its 20 or below.

I had a play with HUACTRL but it did seem a bit buggy, router got stuck on a band I selected which obviously wasn't supported by me carrier and then wouldn't not connect, it then would not switch out of the band again using the app and I had to factory reset.

How can I check what bands are used in my area?

Thanks
 
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From what you're saying regarding late night speed compared to daytime it looks like your local mast is overloaded.
RSSI level isn't too great, RSRP is ok-ish but SNR keeps nosediving, possibly as more users pop in and out.
You might gain a little with an external antenna but there isn't much you can do to counter heavy usage. I would still try and work out which bands your B818 are using that cause the drop in performance and lock them out. Try LTE-H Monitor or LTE Inspecteur for PC. With either of these you can switch from auto to manual band selection then selectively disable one band at a time.
You can use Cellmapper (cellmapper.com) to find out which masts are in your area and what bands they use.
Also don't forget that mobile reception can be highly position sensitive. Try as many locations in your home that you can. Higher is usually better, but not always.
 
Ok thanks for the reply.

Im really having issues pinpointing what tower im connected to. Though I might have an idea based on distance, I cannot get a connection to say that its definitely the one.

In LTE-H Monitor, I hit find cell but they all return an error "Not Found!"

In my Huawei router, I have a CELL_ID of 1697286 but, using gis.geek.nz, I cannot find a CELL ID with this number.

Possibly this tower

Licence Details​


Band2100MHz
Frequency2155MHz <- 2162.5MHz -> 2170MHz
EIRP (dBW)40
Emission15M0W9WWC
TX Height19m
RegisteredTue 27th of Apr 2010 (11 years ago)
CommencedTue 27th of Apr 2010 (11 years ago)
ExpiresWed 31st of Mar 2021 (11 months ago)
RSM Licence ID137934
RSM Licence #223847
Band900MHz
Frequency935MHz <- 939.9MHz -> 944.8MHz
EIRP (dBW)38
Emission9M80X7W
TX Height19m
RegisteredFri 5th of Jun 2009 (12 years ago)
CommencedTue 18th of Sep 2012 (9 years ago)
ExpiresThu 24th of Nov 2022 (8 months from now)
RSM Licence ID129670
RSM Licence #219078
 
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Ok thanks for the reply.

Im really having issues pinpointing what tower im connected to. Though I might have an idea based on distance, I cannot get a connection to say that its definitely the one.

In LTE-H Monitor, I hit find cell but they all return an error "Not Found!"

In my Huawei router, I have a CELL_ID of 1697286 but, using gis.geek.nz, I cannot find a CELL ID with this number.

Possibly this tower

Licence Details​


Band2100MHz
Frequency2155MHz <- 2162.5MHz -> 2170MHz
EIRP (dBW)40
Emission15M0W9WWC
TX Height19m
RegisteredTue 27th of Apr 2010 (11 years ago)
CommencedTue 27th of Apr 2010 (11 years ago)
ExpiresWed 31st of Mar 2021 (11 months ago)
RSM Licence ID137934
RSM Licence #223847
Band900MHz
Frequency935MHz <- 939.9MHz -> 944.8MHz
EIRP (dBW)38
Emission9M80X7W
TX Height19m
RegisteredFri 5th of Jun 2009 (12 years ago)
CommencedTue 18th of Sep 2012 (9 years ago)
ExpiresThu 24th of Nov 2022 (8 months from now)
RSM Licence ID129670
RSM Licence #219078
CellID 1697286 translates to eNBID 6630 on 2degrees, and cellmapper shows it having B3 (1800mhz) only, however the data is stale and was last seen almost 1year ago.

If it's still applicable, eNBID 6630 is here: https://goo.gl/maps/1ypd6rPUn9ziZFpe7
 
There are a couple of towers in that region that have band 8, but their bandwidth is only 5mhz so aggregating that with b3 won't give you very much additional download speed. Nevertheless it's worth a try. Using LTEH Monitor select manual band selection then select bands 3 and 8 for download and either one for upload and see what that does. If it's worse, try b3 on its own.
If you use cellmapper ( I gave the wrong URL previously, it's cellmapper.net) to find that location Gavin gave you and try to work out where you have to place your router for the best signal, or maybe another location for one of the other masts. The fact that you got such differing signal parameters suggest that your router could be switching towers so you might need to be a bit more selective where you put your router.
 
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