Locating mast my dongle is using?

hjr

Hi there,

Just wondering if there is any way I can find out which mobile mast my dongle connect to?
I am currently testing a 3 dongle from a friend for the weekend to see how good it is?

Speed below
Thanks

Chriscl1

hjr wrote: »

Hi there,

Just wondering if there is any way I can find out which mobile mast my dongle connect to?
I am currently testing a 3 dongle from a friend for the weekend to see how good it is?

Speed below
Thanks

thats not bad compared to mine, im in d6

watty

You need special software.

Also depending on exact location, which side of house and traffic on masts, you could be on any one of 3 or 4 masts.

Also if a few more regular users join a specific mast in a few weeks after you sign up and you are only near one mast, your spped can drop from 3Mbps to 0.05Mbps.

Its a mobile phone system designed for short term mobile use, not for fixed users in home or an office.

hjr

Hi Watty,
Can't argue with your logic on the speed dropping, tho I currently have satellite broadband and can't get anymore than 0.5-0.7Mbs at quiet times like 6am! Hopefully only a few people in my area sign up for this!!

Hopefully the speeds keep up for a while anyway! Its nice to be able to browse properly for a while.


Any idea how many people are meant to be on each mast?

niallb

siteviewer.ie is useful even if it's not kept that up to date.
It'll just tell you what's around, but can be very useful particularly in rural areas.
Special software may be required as watty says to easily tell which mast you're using,
but you can get some information using hyperterminal or minicom which if you find somebody helpful in tech support can be used to positively identify the mast.
Exact instructions depend on your operating system and the model of your modem,
but it's not difficult - just a little bit into unfamiliar territory!

watty

hjr wrote: »

Any idea how many people are meant to be on each mast?

They can't control where people are. Most masts have 3 sectors which only partially overlap, each sector is separate.

Typically the sector has a PEAK speed with PERFECT signal of 3.6Mbps, 7.2Mbps, 14Mbps or even 21Mbps. Each higher speed needs nearly twice the signal strength, which is a 1/4 of the distance from mast each time.

Beyond the 3.6Mbps distance (still quite close to mast) the speed for a SINGLE user drops to a 1/4 with every double of distance!

So if you are at a distance that allows 1Mbps, then that part of mast supports ONE user to get 1Mbps. Two other users could be in other "pizza slice" sectors and won't interfere with you.

So "typically" a mast can support 3 to 6 users with simultaneous downloads and nearly entry level dsl speed (< 1Mbps). Of course web browsing rather than streaming video you could have 60 users as on average most are reading the page.

Typically a mast supports about 1/20th the number of data users as it can support voice call users.

IF typically at peak times only 1/10th of the customers use the Internet for watching video then maybe you could have 10 to 30 customers on a mast.

see http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/img0.html

Especially:

See http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/img3.html


The capacity of Mobile Phone network for Internet is really really poor. The quoted speeds are so misleading as they quote the total peak sector speed for a single user only with perfect signal. This would be like eircom, Digiweb or UPC quoting their backhaul or total system speed for a group of users (100Mbps to 10,000Mbps).


I didn't really answer the question as it is so dependent on what sort of users they are and how good a signal they get. Note that 5 users with poor signal reduce the Perfect 14Mbps for one person to about 1Mbps due to the sharing. The poor signal people get maybe 50kbps (0.05Mbps) each.

The only thing the operator can do is limit contention by reducing Cap (users on average over the month can be connected less time) and by simply refusing connection if it would reduce existing connections below 120kbps.

This is why the the alleged 1.2Mbps minimum for NBS is fantasy. They would have to have about 100 times as many masts as normal to have very small cells and a maximum of two users per sector (6 spread around the mast).

HSPA Code table vs % distance of cell

(from http://www.radioway.info/comparewireless/img0.html )
HSPA+ Code table

SNR dB  bps/hz  Mbps/5MHz  QAM FEC Codes Metres 	Mbps
-12 	0.0313 	0.1565 	QPSK 	1/4 	1 	2000 	0.12
-9 	0.0626 	0.313 	QPSK 	2/4 	1 	1414 	0.24
-6 	0.125 	0.625 	16QAM 	2/4 	1 	1000 	0.48
-3 	0.25 	1.25 	QPSK 	2/4 	5 	707 	1.2
0 	0.5 	2.5 	16QAM 	2/4 	5 	500 	2.4
3 	1 	5 	16QAM 	4/4 	5 	353 	4.8
6 	1.5 	7.5 	16QAM 	3/4 	10 	250 	7.2
12 	3.5 	17.5 	64QAM 	3/4 	15 	177 	16
18 	4.8 	24 	64QAM 	4/4 	15 	125 	21

(from http://www.techtir.ie/comms/fixed-wireless-broadband-better )