Lte v 3g signal strength and coverage

snaps

Im just wondering if this makes sense. Is lte that is transmitted from the same mast by the same isp (mobile phone company) weaker in signal or strength than the 3g service transmitted?
Reason why i ask is that near the mast i get super lte signal, but as i move away lte disappears and only 3g is available (from the same mast).

editorsean

From my house, I pick up both Meteor and Three from the same mast going by Comreg's site viewer. When the mast recently went down for two days, my phone only displayed Vodafone in the network search. There is a hill between me and the mast, so I don't have clear line of sight with it.

As Three is the only network with LTE here and uses that same mast for 2G/3G/4G, these are the signal readings I get in Network Signal Info Pro standing outside with nothing other than that hill obstructing my view. I kept my phone in the same spot for each reading:

Phone set to GSM (2G) only:



Phone set to WCDMA (3G) only:



Phone set to LTE (4G) only:



The network operator can set signal (and distance) thresholds on the cell towers to determine which mode to send the user's device to. Meteor seems to have it set quite severe as once I see the 4G signal bar fall to about 3/4, I end up on H+ or even straight to Edge! In the above case, when I set my phone's network selection to auto, it goes into H+ mode in that spot.

Although a weak to moderate LTE signal can provide faster performance than HSPA and especially Edge, the weaker the signal, the less inefficient the coding scheme gets that the eNodeB (mast) must use to reliably deliver data. So sending let's say 2Mbps video stream could require two to three times more resource blocks (transmission airtime) with a weak LTE signal than someone else with a stronger LTE signal streaming the same video. By handing the user over to HSPA, this frees up the LTE spectrum for those with a stronger signal.

ED E

Also depends on bands. Lower freqs attenuate much slower so 900Mhz 3G will go significantly further than 1800Mhz 4G.

editorsean

That's also true - With the mast I tested above, Three operates on the 900MHz band for both 2G and 3G and the 800MHz band for 4G.

snaps

Great replies. I sometimes get faster HSPA+ speeds than LTE.