What's an acceptable download speed??

smuggler.ie

fennor72 wrote: »

Intermittently I can get 15 - 20 mb down pointing at that mast but the signal doesn't last and goes back down to 1mb.

Once Three saw you on this speed intermittently - no chance they would let you go free...


This could indicate that, intermittently, you connecting to "good" mast/cell.
What router you operate off? B525 show cell ID - take note once on bad and once on "good" speed. Are those numbers differ significant(9870012 vs 5671234) or only by last few digits(9870012 vs 9870015)?
What antenna you have? If directional, double check masts/cells i your vicinity - try to point to next nearest with LOS

shaveAbullock

shaveAbullock wrote: »

The National Broadband Plan should be in place already but of course the government made a balls of it

Anyone who can't get a broadband connection these days have only themselves to blame for building so remotely.

Every town and village in Ireland has broadband and often extend out the main roads from the centre

shaveAbullock

So the housing shortage was a make believe situation?
Most people are not in the situation where they can sell a cheap house in a rural location and buy a much more expensive one in an urban location. People who bought a house decade ago can't be expected to know that working from home would become so popular. Even a few months ago people who now work from home never imagined it being a reality.

Thanks to technologies like GPON providing fast internet to rural locations is viable. Especially with initiatives like the NBP that was announced in 2012.

ED E

salonfire wrote: »

Anyone who can't get a broadband connection these days have only themselves to blame for building so remotely.

Every town and village in Ireland has broadband and often extend out the main roads from the centre

Thats quite ignorant to the reality of things. Areas of D12, D14, D4 that have sweet feck all (poor ADSL) due to legacy cabling. Parts of Dublin1/2 can be a disaster unless you can afford €1000/mo for a corp grade connection.

fennor72

salonfire wrote:

Anyone who can't get a broadband connection these days have only themselves to blame for building so remotely.

salonfire wrote:

Every town and village in Ireland has broadband and often extend out the main roads from the centre

Thank for the great vote of sympathy, for your information I'm only a few miles away from a main town so I don't consider myself remotely rural.

orm0nd

fennor72 wrote: »

Thanks for that, I know where my nearest mast is, it's actually only a couple of miles away, the problem being I'm situated at the bottom of a large hill which is between me and the mast.
Intermittently I can get 15 - 20 mb down pointing at that mast but the signal doesn't last and goes back down to 1mb.
Do.you think that type of aerial would help with that problem.

I'm using these here with excellent results , but it's critical that they are set up correctly, i.e stacked at correct distance and pointing at correct angle

A lot of these so called aerials are nothing more than a bit of tin foil in a plastic box. they can work in cases but often the loss on the cable outplay the benefit.

https://www.wimo.com/en/antennas/gsm-lte-mobile-phone-antennas/antennas-for-4g-lte/60072

ednwireland

salonfire wrote: »

Anyone who can't get a broadband connection these days have only themselves to blame for building so remotely.

Every town and village in Ireland has broadband and often extend out the main roads from the centre

my house is over 150 years old..........

less than 2 miles from the town boundary eir stopped fibre 200 yds away . glad you have great broadband

fennor72

orm0nd wrote:

I'm using these here with excellent results , but it's critical that they are set up correctly, i.e stacked at correct distance and pointing at correct angle

For any set up like what you have, I presume line of sight is critical, Ive no Los in any direction even the closest mast is obstructed by a hill.
I spent the last couple of evenings trying to get a stable speed with the existing antenna, I managed to find a good spot giving me up to 30mbps down over the last 24hrs, which is an unbelievable speed for me. The signal dropped a couple of hours ago back to around 2mbps, which is disappointing but I'll leave it there and keep monitoring it.

shaveAbullock

So the signal is unstable and changes even with the antenna in the same location?

Or are there times of day when more people are connected to the mast? And the real issue is too many people on one mast?

Marlow

shaveAbullock wrote: »

So the signal is unstable and changes even with the antenna in the same location?

Or are there times of day when more people are connected to the mast? And the real issue is too many people on one mast?

It is mobile internet. It was never designed for static broadband use.

So yes .. it will change cell as it sees fit.

/M

fennor72

I was just wondering I'm not too tech savy but as I said previously the signal had dropped off down to about 2mb from up to 20-30 mb for the 24hr period.
I checked it again about an hour ago and it was still slow, I restarted the router and it immediately came back to 10mb down and has stayed there.
So is it a case the antenna is always receiving a good signal but the router is not always transmitting it

smuggler.ie

fennor72 wrote: »

So is it a case the antenna is always receiving a good signal but the router is not always transmitting it

Not necessary.
Signal your antenna catch could be switching from one mast to the other - quite normal for mobile tech.

orm0nd

fennor72 wrote: »

I was just wondering I'm not too tech savy but as I said previously the signal had dropped off down to about 2mb from up to 20-30 mb for the 24hr period.
I checked it again about an hour ago and it was still slow, I restarted the router and it immediately came back to 10mb down and has stayed there.
So is it a case the antenna is always receiving a good signal but the router is not always transmitting it

Re booting the router would switch you to a different cell. It looks there is serious congestion on that signal.

No aerial system will work if the signal isn't there. Do you have a garage or any other building away from the house. If there was a signal there it might work.

Know 1 guy whose using this set-up with 2 nano stations.

fennor72

orm0nd wrote:

No aerial system will work if the signal isn't there. Do you have a garage or any other building away from the house. If there was a signal there it might work.

I've a large shed at the bottom of the garden, I've checked the signal on top of it but it's no good.
It looks like I keep the antenna in the same spot, even though the signal is fluctuating it's still the best option.

pms7

fennor72 wrote: »

I can't find it in the contract, but I complained in January about the same thing and was told my speed was above the acceptable limit of 1.8 mbps now its 1 mb so they are clearly changing the requirements.
I tried everything, I spent a lot of time, and money last summer, finding the best signal and put up an external antenna which worked OK for about 4 months then the signal kept getting weaker and disconnecting. So I've disconnected that system and have positioned the router where we can get a signal. What even more frustrating is I can get a great signal outside on rare occasions but it never last for more than a couple of minutes

was it omni or directional aerial you tried?

fennor72

Its a directional antenna.
Just a quick update, I've learned through trial and error I've 2 accessable masts.
I put the antenna up as high as I could and the mast I was concentrating my efforts on did not improve. It was still good but unstable and I couldn't get any more than 3 bars of strength on the router.
So I completely changed direction to another 3 mast further away in a village and the speed shot up, also the signal strength went to full strength on the router. It has been brilliant up until the first night of the lockdown a couple of weeks ago, when the signal dies in the evening.
It's obviously contention, but it's amazing the difference in speed.
Very late at night I've seen over 100mbps on the speed test, but in the evening it will fall to around 2mbps gradually climbing up as the night goes on.

pms7

Have a read here, lots of info..
https://confusedbird.com/index.php

fennor72

pms7 wrote:

Have a read here, lots of info..

Thank you very much, that's a brilliant forum, very informative