Can coverage maps be trusted? 5g good, 4g fair, so I'm thinking of switching, any advice please?

Damoedge

Here's my story. I'm with 3 mobile broadband and I'm kinda technically minded when it comes to broadband.

I have a 4g ZTE MF286D CAT 12 router with openwrt installed. My antenna is a Poynting XPOL-2-5G. I also use and contribute to cell mapper.

I moved to a new house last November and in my old house I was getting great speeds as I was in line of sight of the mast, DL speed was about 150 and UP about 30, 4g.

When I moved to the new house I kinda knew beforehand that the internet was going to be crap but had no choice. I use the internet mainly in the evening time for streaming TV and the kids streaming videos.

In the new house before the leaves came back on the trees I was getting about DL 50 morning time and in the evening time about 15. Since May the service has severely degraded in the evening time, DL about 3 and can't watch the TV. I put it down to the leaves on the trees and the bad weather lately. I have also noticed that the 3 mast I used to connect to now has only 1 band (B28 crap bandwidth) when before it had all 4 bands. I find myself every evening on the openwrt switching bands and masts to get the TV working, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

I wrote to 3 about this and as usual they said they looked into it and found nothing wrong with the service.

My main question here is this, can coverage maps be trusted? Because for my area the 4g coverage is just "fair" and 5g is "good" which to me means there is better 5g coverage than 4g?

I know the nearest 5g mast is about 2km from my house up on a hill, I can't see it from my house.

I was thinking of getting a 5g top up sim card from 3 and buying a second hand 5g router from Cex just to test it out.

I was looking at the ZTE MC801A 5G CAT 22 just because it has external antenna connectors and I know the antenna I have is capable of receiving 5g signal. Has anyone any experience of this router? Or are the Huawei routers better?

Hope someone can advise me thanks for reading.

smuggler.ie

For start - maps? never trusted them

As far i see, ZTE MC801A external antenna only for 5G and for n77/78 OR n79 only. Rural i only get n3 and dont know if n77/78/79 even in use in Irl ( my Iskra P60 list it as supported (LTE 5G (3,2–3,8 GHz)), your antenna might be rendered useless

these settings(as many other) are hidden on Three "marked" model that i have

Dont ask me what "Antenna state" mean/does/how it works

Used ZTE MC801A for little while , eating dust now, back to Huawei B818 on 4G. Not that is bad, just 5G for me was poor stability(140DL/100UL max), frequently dropping to 4G and 4G hard(er) to control vs B818. Also, as you say - B28 crap

Note: this was for me in my location, other users might have different experience

Interface on ZTE somewhat crap - you need to disable data before you can modify network/APN settings - nonsense

I think if there is no good 4G you wont have good 5G either, especially @2km distance.

in few threads here i read mentioned that ISP's disabling bands at off-peak time to save power, perhaps three no exception... My speeds drop to 40/60 sometime and no CA (no 4G+) on router for a long time now.

Takes more fiddling to get back to my normal speeds, but no longer can get above 190/60 (4G on B818). Its like "capped" or full available capacity, like even now - in steady line

YMMV

Damoedge

Thanks @smuggler.ie for your reply much appreciated.

First off my antenna, here are the specs:

2-3dB higher over all the bands compared to "V2".

3400MHz-3800MHz, 5G band with 11dBi gain.

Broadband, including the latest 3.5GHz bands.

X-Polarised 2x2 MIMO Antenna.

Wall or pole mountable (Z-shaped bracket included, pole mount sold separately).

Lightweight & Rugged.

Weatherproof & waterproof (IP65).

High pattern consistency across bands for 4G/5G carrier aggregation.

From the specs above my antenna picks up between 3.2 - 3.8MHz on 5g with a decent gain too so it should be ok??

5g is new to me and I thought there was only one band NR78 I didn't even know there are others lol. Cell mapper does not seem to list 5g towers or am I doing something wrong?

The tower in question eNB ID 3604 how would I find out which NR bands it uses? I guess I'm kinda hoping it is using NR78 as that seems to be the most common being used by networks.

Could you suggest a better router than the ZTE? I would still like to be able to use my antenna for 4g and 5g if possible.

Thanks again.

babelfish1990

Firstly, Coverage maps camnot be trusted. They are based on computer simulations of terrain, that cannot know every detail of buildings & tree obstructions, or which homes have A-rated BER's that kill mobile signals, etc.

You also should not confuse coverage with capacity/congestion. If your operator has capacity at certain times of day but not others, then they are giving you coverage, but their network is congested at certain times due to lack of capacity.

There are no guarantees with mobile broadband. You can be lucky at certain times in certain places, and unlucky at other times. If you want reliable broadband for high bandwidth or low latency applications, you need a fixed line fibre-based service.

smuggler.ie

Mast location on cellmapper is bit off for 3604. Actual location is in the woods ~600m NE. Despite XPOL-2-5G is classed as un-directional you point it that direction, right?

Unless them trees grow huge, mast seem well exposed to area

Depending where you located, review other masts in the area(comreg siteviewer)

cellmapper does not show 5G masts on its own, not for Irl. 5G is operating of 4G here as far i understood .

Damoedge

Thanks for your reply. 

Yes the mast location is off on cell mapper, in fact I drive by that sometimes and is up on a hill in the woods. 

The funny thing is my antenna never connects to that mast for 4g but when it does it has a bad signal and that's the only mast around that has the 5g NR bands which leads me to believe that I would not receive a good 5g signal even though on coverage maps they all state I have better 5g coverage than 4g.

I'm still trying to figure out which mast I'm connected to for 4g, reading cell mapper is sometimes not easy. I live outside Robertstown village Kildare, my antenna is outside on a window pointing North East and it seems I'm connected to a mast in Newbridge which is miles away and in the opposite direction to the antenna.

According to cell mapper I'm connecting to mast eNB ID 3661 cell 82 band 28 cell identifier 937298...but when I click on "go to cell" the outline coverage area for that cell covers my area in a long triangle shape which doesn't make sense to me at all, I'm guessing that the data on cell mapper is incorrect.

smuggler.ie

Have you tried without external antenna?

Other - try to force B3 as main band if avail

Damoedge

Yes tried it without the external antenna and it barely gets any signal at all. The antenna makes a huge difference, even turning on 4g on my phone and placing it where the antenna is the phone picks up a very very weak signal. Without the antenna I would have no internet at all.

Does anyone know why on cell mapper when you click on "go to cell" it sometimes brings you kilometers away from that cell to a different area of the map?

smuggler.ie

My mistake, correction - In my previous post:"Mast location on cellmapper is bit off for 3604. Actual location is in the woods ~600m NE" , meant to say SE from current 3604 on CM.

Well, if you in Robertstown, 3604 is S,S/W

Antenna pointing NE from Robertstown would be wrong if you try get "fix" to 3604

As of today, i see 3604 has updated on CM and show B3 available too (was B1, B20 since you started thread), B3 is good

There might be some terrain "issues" toward 3604 and it'll depend on your exact location, your antenna elevation, etc. (i set mast(blue) to 15m, yours(green) to 8m =~ 3m mast on the chimney on single store house)

With same elevation set, 3661 signal, even if its weaker and mast further away, propagation might reach you better, especially you point NE. Newbridge is S from Robinstown, way to far and 3604 on the way. Suspect(not confirmed) location of 3661 is Prosperous

Another mast, with good terrain, to consider is past Allenwood, eNB unknown on CM

3604 being ~2km away from your potential location is preferable, for distant masts(4km+) you'd better with directional antenna

Damoedge

I took a drive around today with cell mapper on and I kinda knew from before that cell 3661 was located in the wrong place on cell mapper, I remember from months ago it's located near the "Kildare maze" and it is, straight across from it. So now with a bit more data uploaded to cell mapper 3661 is slowly moving from Newbridge to it's proper place.

This mast was down for a few weeks and that's why I had bad internet as I was connecting to cell 3604 which is closer to me but bad signal, 3604 has NR band 5g and if I can't get a decent signal on 4g I doubt that if I switched to 5g on my own it would not work.

My antenna is pointing directly at Kildare maze 3661 cell and getting a decent signal now. I also swapped the antenna cables over on the ports and that keeps the router locked on cell 3661 which is what I want.

Also I noticed on cell mapper that cell 3661 had an extra B3 band which is strange...

I'm still kinda tempted to buy a 5g router on cex and test out the 5g in this area but I don't like the fact that the external antenna ports are only for 5g signal on all 5g routers. I could always open up the router and modify the 4g antenna connectors to attach to my poyting antenna. It's all very interesting stuff this.....

smuggler.ie

CM placing masts in wrong locations is common due to lack of data

I believe 3661 being at Prosperous,

"Kildare Maze" has another, likely 755 on CM

more data and time will tell...

Damoedge

Well 3661 was in Newbridge last week and now in Prosperous due to my data I guess, but I do believe from a few months ago it was at Kildare maze. During the week I'll drive up there to log more data on cell mapper. 

At my location my elevation is 260ft, Kildare maze is at 350ft and 3604 5g mast is at 403ft, I wonder would that elevation at the 5g mast make much of a difference for receiving 5g?

smuggler.ie

How is it holding? I see 3661 still in prosperous.

Did you went for 5G router?

Damoedge

Howdy @smuggler.ie

You know it's actually going good, I'm still with my 4g setup (winter time no leaves on trees) never went for the 5g after. I'm still able to watch IPTV on my TV through the 4g setup.... but... from 8.30pm to 9.00pm it will buffer a bit, we can't have it every way I suppose.

That Mast in prosperous, you know what, I now have over 5100 points on Cellmaper so I'm able to move masts and I know the mast in prosperous is definitely in the wrong place so I'll move it on Cellmaper but I'll drive up to it sometime soon when I get a chance just to confirm it and then move it.

I was nearly gonna pull the trigger and get the 5g setup last time I was on here and then I saw the NBI vans in my area and last October they ran the fiber cables from Robertstown to my area, as I look out my bedroom widow the cable is tied up on a pole straight across from my house. The NBI website says connection due March to May, so only a few months to wait I hope!

I noticed with IPTV it all depends on the playlists to, (I think I have 10 on tivimate) in other words the server on the other side, bad overload server and it will buffer, good server and it plays perfect.

How are you... Hope you had a good new year so far 👍

smuggler.ie

Thanks for update.

All good with me and my speeds (still the same good)