Omini vs Directional

Axwell

Hi lads,

Currently with VF and having a nightmare with them - speeds can be anywhere from 2-20Mbps one day and then another time 40-50Mbps (rarely though).

Currently I have this


Am wondering if I could expect much or any of an improvement going with the directional one here


Thanks

ED E

Only if your issue is a signal one which its unlikely to be as you sometimes get higher speeds. That would only really happen if trees were in your LOS to the high site.

More than likely its congestion. That's what happens when VF go from 40GB to 150-250GB caps. Check your RSSI to be sure its not dire then you can be confident its congestion.

Axwell

To be honest I dont know if it can all be down to congestion these days - I allow for the fact the speeds will go down a bit at peak times but I have gone from crap speeds of anything from 2-7Mbps in the evenings where i might have 15-20 in the day (and I accept thats congestion related) to doing a factory reset of the modem and having speeds of 40Mbps for almost 24 hours with no issues and that includes during peak times. The service isnt consistant and while congestion is going to be an issue I think there is more at play as I really dont see how congestion would have such an impact based on where I live.



Anyways not that up to speed (pardon the pun) on the terms - RSSI isnt listed in the routers analytics - I assume one of these 2 is the equivalent?


RSRQ: -12dB
RSRP: -93dBm

ED E

Thats fine, P is power and Q is quality. RSSI is used to help determine Quality.

Use this as a rule of thumb kinda guide:


In your case, good power not so good quality. Resetting shouldnt really change this but if its having such a profound impact then it may be causing you to change cell. If thats the case you've got a very good prospect for improving service.

The modem should report its cell ID or something along those lines (probably a 5 digit number). Take a note of that and signal values on it. Reset it and see if it comes up with a different cell ID then record the new values.

Axwell

CELL_ID: 43616780
RSRQ: -11dB
RSRP: -92dBm

Reset brings it to this one
CELL_ID: 43616771
RSRQ: -6dB
RSRP: -110dBm

Getting 36Mbps down on this one..9Mbps up.

Is there any way to force it to use that cell - I suppose the obvious answer is the directional antenna but any other?

ED E

Without going down the route of very nerdy hacking to blacklist a particular cell in the baseband I see a couple approaches:

A. Directional antenna
B. Shielding
C. Positioning (thus shielding)

A. You understand.
B. A conductive plate of any sort may be all you need to block LOS to the "bad" cell assuming its at an acute angle to the "good" one.



Tin foil works. Might not last a storm though.

C. If you can determine bad is to the north and good is to the south put the antenna on the south side of the building and use the building as your blocker.

This site may be useful:
http://siteviewer.comreg.ie
Unfortunately site IDs and cell IDs aren't the same so it'll take a little trial and error to see which is which.

Axwell

Thanks for that. Will probably look into a directional one just for convenience, annoying cos I went with omni first off, but I have been going back and forth with vodafone who told me my speed was just tough luck basically because I am in a blackspot and yet I can hit speeds of 50Mbps when I was messing with the settings, which from your tips has proved to be that its because its on the other cell - I didnt know about or cop this previously.

Just in relation to the tin foil method. I have the omni linked above. If I was the place tinfoil on the side that I find it facing the weaker cell would that be enough to block it? Like a sheet doubled over a few times and taped to the outer casing of the omni?

ED E

Should be enough yes. All you actually need to do is make it weak enough that the router will reject it.


As that antenna appears to swivel around the mount you could tape tin foil tight to one side with some duct tape covering a little more than 50% then you can swing left, reboot, test, swing right and repeat. Hopefully within 15 minutes you'll be homed in on the cell you want.

Axwell

Ok great will have a play with that tomorrow and see what sort of success I have. Thanks again for the help.

Axwell

Hi ED - so yesterday I played around with the antenna, figured out which way the best cell is and put the tin foil to block interference from the others. Havent repeatedly force reset it to test that it will connect to that cell everytime but at least I know the cell number and which one I want it to be on to get the best speed etc.

What I find though is that there are intermittent drops still in the signal - I can be surfing pages and then I will get a point where the page stalls to load, you get the waiting..connecting..down the bottom left of the browser and its like the connection has dropped for a bit then things go back to normal.

What is the likely cause of this - trees in the LOS or something like that? If that was the case would it not just be permanently a very low signal and speeds? With an omni antenna is it not more forgiving to that as its not as focussed on LOS as a directional one or is it a case with the Omni that the signal still operates on a LOS you just have multiple angles to receive the connection?

Like right now I have speeds of 60Mbps looking at my phone connected to the 5Ghz wifi and when I am on my pc browsing this will happen. There are some trees in that direction that are quite tall but they arent blowing around and moving a lot so I would have thought if they were the issue they would simply be a constant issue? Would a directional antenna be any help in this case over the omni?

Edit: Going to double check the direction and bearing of where the mast is relative to my house to make sure I am looking in the exact LOS but would directional have to be spot on in line with the mast if that was the case?

ED E

If you have a reasonably large/two monitor(s) then I'd suggest keeping the signal stats on one side of your screen. You can use an autorefresh plugin in your browser to keep them updated if needed. Then as you browse you can see if a stop correlates to any particular RF behaviour.

Also if you can pinpoint the cells in use try using this
https://www.solwise.co.uk/wireless-elevationtool.html
You may have to guesstimate the mast height especially if there are three operators on the one mast.

Axwell

Hi Ed,

I have applied tin foil to the back of the antenna in an attempt to block the other signal - when I factory reset the router it connects to the cell I want which gives me much better speeds, however still the same DNS issues - bottom left of browser..loading..waiting..pages not loading, images not loading properly etc and then after a min or two (maybe slightly longer) this will fix and go away although sometimes it can be longer.

What I have since discovered a possibility is there are actually 3 cells - one behind which is probably not having much effect or influence. But then there are 2 in the direction I am facing it with the tin foil behind. By defauly it is jumping to the nearest one when I restart the router (as oppose to reset to factory).

I did a check on the map on solwise and got the following results.Total disatance 10.3Km and Elevation difference 11.3m. I believe this may be the mast with the cell with the slow speeds.

What I think is giving me the better speeds is another mast located as follows.
Total distance 14.3Km and Elevation difference of 161.2m

However when I do a restart it will jump from this one to the nearer one with poor speeds.

So any suggestions on making it stick to the one permanently that gives me the good speeds? Would a directional antenna give me better results than the omni one in this case?

Still dont know what the issue is causing the drops in connection - there are packet loses, dns lookup issues etc so I am considering just looking at buying a different unlocked router as an option but with all of this I am trying to figure the issue then the solution at mimimum cost rather than just trying anything and everything.

From messing with the router and the different cells I have already gone from a connection that was between 1-20Mb at best..mostly 1-10Mb to now being able to get speeds of 40Mb and anything up to 60 or 70 depending on time of day etc. But the constant factor is the dns/drop out issues and the fact i cant get the router to always lock on to that one particular cell.

Any advice greatly appreciated as always.

ED E

For ease of discussion:

CELL_ID: 43616780
RSRQ: -11dB
RSRP: -92dBm - Called Cell A

Reset brings it to this one
CELL_ID: 43616771
RSRQ: -6dB
RSRP: -110dBm - Called Cell B

[Other direction] - Called Cell C

A is high power, poor quality, B is low power higher quality. If I'm reading you correctly its B thats faster but also has the drops. If the power level fluctuates slightly then that could bring you below critical causing the link to stall. Did you watch the figures during a stall?

If both are in line at that distance you won't "aim" specifically at one, the beam of the antenna isn't really that narrow. The interesting option would be, drop your antenna lower down? Does that eliminate the 10km away cell? If you're barely receiving over a hill/object then the taller cell may reach further down the near side.

Axwell

Hi Ed,

Will look at lowering it tomorrow and see what the signal is like. I may be able to place the chimney breast in the way of cell A to make it more focused on B as an option either but will have to see does the brack its on come off easily as its on the same one an old tv antenna was on so the nuts may be rusted at this stage.


Signal below are from a few mins ago when I had issues loading boards to reply - all on Cell B


Issues here..

RSRQ: -5dB
RSRP: -104dBm
SINR: 8dB

RSRQ: -8dB
RSRP: -104dBm
SINR: 8dB

RSRQ: -5dB
RSRP: -103dBm
SINR: 8dB

RSRQ: -5dB
RSRP: -104dBm
SINR: 8dB

RSRQ: -9dB
RSRP: -104dBm
SINR: 8dB

RSRQ: -6dB
RSRP: -104dBm
SINR: 8dB

Working fine again here..

RSRQ: -8dB
RSRP: -103dBm
SINR: 8dB

Axwell

From refreshing there and the results I can see the RSRQ changes a bit which i assume is the power and what you were referring to?

ED E

Note: B528 (wasnt mentioned in this thread)

RSRQ: -8dB
RSRP: -104dBm
SINR: 8dB

RSRQ: -5dB
RSRP: -103dBm
SINR: 8dB

The "Quality" is fluctuating a bit there but its not huge and its back at -8 when it works again so that makes me wonder if something else is going on.



Should really have done this due diligence before:
Whats the device you're testing on
How is it connected

Axwell

ED E wrote: »

Note: B528 (wasnt mentioned in this thread)



The "Quality" is fluctuating a bit there but its not huge and its back at -8 when it works again so that makes me wonder if something else is going on.



Should really have done this due diligence before:
Whats the device you're testing on
How is it connected

Sorry yeah I havent given you everything to work off.


B528 is the device. Its in the attic connected to the omni antenna.
Ethernet cable then running from it to a tp-link in the room where I work with ethernet cable going from it to a ps4 and then I had an ethernet cable going from it to my pc but swapped it to power plugs just to see if it made a difference..it didnt.


Wireless devices running on the wifi channels directly off the B528 in the attic and the wifi turned off completely on the tp-link.

PC is where I login to the router and any results are from it in terms of web page issues etc. But even on my iphone when I run speedtests there just to check what its running at there are times where it wont even run the speedtest (same on the pc at times).

ED E

You might have a double NAT setup going on depending on how the TP is configured but that wouldn't cause those disconnects.



Stupid question, no offence intended, but its definitely in external antenna mode (some units switch automatically, doesnt work with all antennas 100% of the time)?



That all being good I don't have a huge number of suggestions left. You can go higher and or/different antennas but they'll likely link the slower closer cell which would be of no benefit. Nobody seems to be able to program Huawei basebands to ignore particular CIDs so that behaviour cannot be bypassed.


Any hopes of rural FTTH/NBP in your parts?

Axwell

No offence taken, at this stage there are no stupid questions if it might be a solution! No I have it set to external mode, I have played around with mixed and auto and it has made no differnce, mixed obviously gives less speed etc but that is expected. But the disconnects happen no matter which setting it is on anyways when testing it out.



Nothing in the immediate line for FTTH/NBP. On the NBP map we show up as amber which gives - Your premises is in an area that is not considered commercial by operators. This area will be covered under the State Intervention of the National Broadband Plan.


I had the antenna higher and it wasnt making any differences - I may try it lower as suggested just to see as I have always had it on a pole since I setup the antenna. Have enever tried it using the chimney to block the other cell - mainly because I only came across this last week and noticed the big increase in speed. The B528 seems to be a piece of **** in general and there are many others on the thread over on the VF with the same complaints, the latest isnt even in a rural area and is surrounded by masts and still has the problems. Is there any point in buying some other modem that is reliable or is it a combination of a ****ty service from VF with bad equipment and even removing one wont remove the other?

smuggler.ie

Hi folks,
Followed this from beginning as facing similar situation regards desire to connect to "specific" mast. Few points if you don't mind:

Axwell wrote: »

CELL_ID: 43616780
RSRQ: -11dB
RSRP: -92dBm

Reset brings it to this one
CELL_ID: 43616771
RSRQ: -6dB
RSRP: -110dBm

I might be wrong, but from my own testing/observation, 3x masts in my near proximity have ID's differ like from 399688 on one site to 578720 and 761030 on other, further more approaching same mast from different sides would give ID variation like 399688, 399686, 399687.
you cell ID numbers very close and if my "theory" is correct, you are connecting to same mast but different cell


I am getting similar signal conditions and speed ~50d/5u, but cannot insure connection to desired mast(some time even 4G+) as it keep reverting to closer one with speed so bad that 3G is better than 4G. To mention, i am using directional but not sure if its best available on market. Does the job.
I don't experience delay/drop as OP, but noticed speedtest.net takes 3-5 attempts to start measuring, were testmy.net and other sites goes right away. No idea what would cause this.

ED E

The B528 is a little bit of an unknown quantity. New, EU only, mostly Vodafone. Powerful enough insides but a single ethernet port? CAT6 is fine but slower than current phones which are CAT12-14.

RE Smuggs, yes, how did I skip that. They could be sectors on the same site but the bit the Im curious about is Ax is mapping two on Siteviewer. This may mean he's never hit the second one or they're both part of the same grouping.


Axwell:
1. Have you check with Three/Eir recently? They aren't terrible everywhere.
2. Whats the rough lay of the land? Some have found placing a pole at the bottom of the garden gets them perfect LOS to a site that was previously invisible.
3. Do you have a rooted android phone?

smuggler.ie

ED E wrote: »

They could be sectors on the same site but the bit the Im curious about is Ax is mapping two on Siteviewer. This may mean he's never hit the second one or they're both part of the same grouping.

Again, it was just my finding and i am on three - different nomenclature possible. @Axwell - to be certain, see bellow.

You know yourself that Site ID on Comreg no mach to Cell ID read by router and so far i could not locate any database to link them.

The only way i could map them was: power 12v-to-240v inverter + router capable to display ID's(currently B525) + laptop for speed test + driving around locations marked on Comreg . Was able to pinpoint each mast and take reading from different angles. And here i can confirm cells have different "power" - @ 200m distance have read same poor speed as with antenna from home on same cell ID despite signal parameters perfect @ the mast.
One of them was so good it was giving 110-112 Down, but not able to catch it from home - no LOS.

Another thing is distance:
I'm dealing with radius of 5-7km and signal currently RSRQ(-4),RSRP(-101),SNIR(12), Down speed ~45(Testmy.net)~55(broadbandspeedtest.ie and speedtest.net). Up speed just under 8 for all.

OP is measuring 10-14km - this says my directional antenna is crap(and i would accept that - Ebay job, even marked as 2x23dBi no way i can confirm that) and his omni is superb, elevation difference over 14 km of 161m also impressive.

Also, my setup is on 2x10m cable - could have negative affect.

Have plan to integrate antenna onto unused sat dish - shield from "unwanted" cells and possibly catch better/stronger signal from "desired". Limited knowledge about radio waves so open for advice.

ED E

I admire your dedication but seriously, http://cellmapper.net/map - Needs a rooted phone to submit data but you can just drive around with your phone recording on the dash and create detailed maps. As yet only some areas have been mapped but anyone can add to it.

Cell Identifier 39205889
System Subtype LTE-A
PCI 34 (11/1)
EARFCN 1450
Maximum Signal (RSRP) -53 dBm
Direction W (248°)
First Seen Thu, Apr 13, 2017
Last Seen Thu, Jun 28, 2018
Bandwidth* 10 MHz
Uplink Frequency 1735 MHz
Downlink Frequency 1830 MHz
Frequency Band DCS (B3 FDD)

Cell Identifier 39205890
System Subtype LTE-A
PCI 287 (95/2)
EARFCN 1450
Maximum Signal (RSRP) -60 dBm
Direction SE (148°)
First Seen Mon, Sep 18, 2017
Last Seen Thu, May 31, 2018
Bandwidth* 10 MHz
Uplink Frequency 1735 MHz
Downlink Frequency 1830 MHz
Frequency Band DCS (B3 FDD)

Cell Identifier 39205891
System Subtype LTE-A
PCI 228 (76/0)
EARFCN 1450
Maximum Signal (RSRP) -60 dBm
Direction E (100°)
First Seen Thu, Apr 13, 2017
Last Seen Thu, Jun 28, 2018
Bandwidth* 10 MHz
Uplink Frequency 1735 MHz
Downlink Frequency 1830 MHz
Frequency Band DCS (B3 FDD)

Cell Identifier 39205899
System Subtype LTE
PCI 296 (98/2)
Maximum Signal (RSRP) -66 dBm
Direction W (273°)
First Seen Mon, May 1, 2017
Last Seen Tue, Feb 6, 2018
Bandwidth* 20 MHz
Frequency Band* DCS (B3 FDD)

Cell Identifier 39205901
System Subtype LTE
PCI 370 (123/1)
Maximum Signal (RSRP) -67 dBm
Direction NE (28°)
First Seen Mon, May 22, 2017
Last Seen Fri, Feb 16, 2018
Bandwidth* 20 MHz
Frequency Band* DCS (B3 FDD)

Thats Sandyford. 39000 is a region then you've got the groupings so 58s are one tier/eNB and 59s are another overlapping set - I think.


When you fill in data like that you can also look for sites that are double stacked - likely better connected - and try to favour 1800Mhz vs 800Mhz cells though sometimes the 1800s will be, by their nature, covering busy areas so slower. Its a case of test and see.

ED E

Random aside: was wondering if they'd released some nice CAT12 gear. Turns out they have its just not common retail.

https://www.play.pl/telefony/huawei/huawei-netbox-b2368-66/

If you had a killer network like SE or FI have here you'd be blasting away with this. Its a client side RRU so its not like running antenna cables and there's no interference/loss.

smuggler.ie

ED E wrote: »

I admire your dedication but seriously, http://cellmapper.net/map - Needs a rooted phone to submit data but you can just drive around with your phone recording on the dash and create detailed maps. As yet only some areas have been mapped but anyone can add to it.

Thanks for link, as remainder, have come across this somewhere. Unfortunately, as i mentioned, no data about masts in my area - country side, farmers.

And i have no rooted phone to participate. Might be some later time.

So i did "manual handling"


Huawei B2368 LTE Cat12 CPE sound bit $$$ even if local ISP's would provide speeds and capacity LTE suppose to be. Some remotely located business could afford and benefit.



Returning to mast question, do you know if VF and Meteor have "roaming" agreement as Three had with VF up to June 2016. If yes, is there chance Axwell connecting to other, closer mast as "roaming" client?

Axwell

ED E wrote: »

Axwell:
1. Have you check with Three/Eir recently? They aren't terrible everywhere.
2. Whats the rough lay of the land? Some have found placing a pole at the bottom of the garden gets them perfect LOS to a site that was previously invisible.
3. Do you have a rooted android phone?

1. I havent but my own mobile is with 3 and the signal is horrendous, 1 bar at the most and thats only in certain places - unless I place it against the window and even at that you might get 2 bars. I cant imagine it being anywhere near the speeds I can get when on the right cell with VF but the constant drops and DNS issues are whats making VF unusable. At the moment though they seem to be looking after that after constant badgering and I escalated a complaint to a more senior person so will see what comes of that. If the DNS cant be manually set then I will be looking for them to provide some other solution/device.


2. Currently the antenna is on the chimney so its up high, land is pretty even so I dont think there would be any benefit to positioning it in the garden anywhere and achieving better results - or on top of the garage or shed for example.


3. Nope unfortunately not.

Axwell

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Hi folks,
Followed this from beginning as facing similar situation regards desire to connect to "specific" mast. Few points if you don't mind:

I might be wrong, but from my own testing/observation, 3x masts in my near proximity have ID's differ like from 399688 on one site to 578720 and 761030 on other, further more approaching same mast from different sides would give ID variation like 399688, 399686, 399687.
you cell ID numbers very close and if my "theory" is correct, you are connecting to same mast but different cell


I am getting similar signal conditions and speed ~50d/5u, but cannot insure connection to desired mast(some time even 4G+) as it keep reverting to closer one with speed so bad that 3G is better than 4G. To mention, i am using directional but not sure if its best available on market. Does the job.
I don't experience delay/drop as OP, but noticed speedtest.net takes 3-5 attempts to start measuring, were testmy.net and other sites goes right away. No idea what would cause this.

Interesting about the same mast and different cell and could potentially be the case. If the DNS issues were gone then I would be happy enough with how things are. It would just be a case of if the power went or the broadband for whatever reason seemed ridiculously slow all of a sudden to go check that its on the right cell. A factor reset seems to make it pick up the right one and its a bit annoying having to reenter all the ssids and passwords etc but not the end of the world.

smuggler.ie

Axwell wrote: »

Interesting about the same mast and different cell and could potentially be the case. If the DNS issues were gone then I would be happy enough with how things are. It would just be a case of if the power went or the broadband for whatever reason seemed ridiculously slow all of a sudden to go check that its on the right cell. A factor reset seems to make it pick up the right one and its a bit annoying having to reenter all the ssids and passwords etc but not the end of the world.

What makes you sure it is DNS. Could this be latency or jitter?


Regards factory resets - is there feature on router to export config file?

Axwell

Could be but I can see the jitter readings on speedtests and they are never high. Issues always are around webpages not loading, timing out, not resolving. Multiple people with the same constant issues so not just tied to me or my location. There are settings in the device to change the DNS but require a username and password to bypass the default ones so chasing VF for those to see if its possible..but this is after months of banging our heads against the wall with them.



No config export in there - the device is pretty ****, it is built to just do what its supposed to with no frills and obviously is cost effective for VF.

smuggler.ie

Probably dumb Q, what DNS is set on you NIC?

Have you tried to set static to google or others?

smuggler.ie

So i did mount it on sat dish
"Redneck" job, but gain somewhat up to ~ 10-20 Mbps on download, compare to previous setup. Signal status remain about same.


I noticed before, that speed and cell "selection" somehow depend on weather - on sunny bright day it use to connect to "bad" cell and keep steady connection to "good" cell on dull, drizzly day.


It will take time to confirm if "catching" desired cell will work and speed stay consistent with this setup. Tuning might be needed.

Axwell

Sorry for the delayed reply - how is that setup working out smuggler? On the good cell here thelast 2 weeks or so and the speeds are still decent. Havent had a case where it has swapped back to the bad one. Still having the same issues with signal drops though.



Another user on the VF thread swapped over to using a different unlocked router and claims to not have the issues at all so waiting for him to confirm this is still the case after a few days. VF completely ignoring the whole thing and doing their best to bury their heads in the sand about it.

smuggler.ie

So far...

My antenna pointing towards mast that i have no LOS. Anyone can tell me how high the tower would be, or is it variable depending on location?

Got "locked" to one tower, judging by ID's, but still alternating between two cells, one of them seem bit better. Change happens during day/night(on its own) or on router restart, but random. Dish seem to help, but there is downside - winds rocking it.

There was/is moderate latency errors on speed measuring, particularly on speedtest.net, same time(right after) if kick off testmy.net it run just fine. Have not experienced general browsing or file download issues. Per say, 5.6Gb Server 2016 ISO runs 5.5-6.4 MB/s, YouTube 4K/30fps - smooth.

Noticed couple odd things - under speed testing or big file download RSRQ changes from -6 -7 to -10 -13(RSRP and SNIR remain same), then return to initial -6 - 7. Same time, "under load", router indicates 4G+ ,then returns to 4G .
Speed fluctuate "depending on the mood and weather", but in average getting better speeds than had before, was few times as high as 84Mbps.
Tests taken in sequence one-after-another as per table, at random time. Other users in household using same connection(YouTube, other video streaming involved) so might well have some effect. Might setup temp separate connection for more precise testing later.

...so good.

ED E

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Noticed couple odd things - under speed testing or big file download RSRQ changes from -6 -7 to -10 -13(RSRP and SNIR remain same), then return to initial -6 - 7. Same time, "under load", router indicates 4G+ ,then returns to 4G .
Speed fluctuate "depending on the mood and weather", but in average getting better speeds than had before, was few times as high as 84Mbps.
Tests taken in sequence one-after-another as per table, at random time. Other users in household using same connection(YouTube, other video streaming involved) so might well have some effect. Might setup temp separate connection for more precise testing later.

Thats how LTE-A works. [Simplified] You're normally on CH1 for download, CH2 for upload (we're FDD) and sitting there idling. When heavy downloading is detected for a few resource blocks the system pulls up CH3 for extra downstream bandwidth so you're CH1+3 Down and CH2 up. As soon as its done CH2 is dropped again to leave it free for others to use.

Your router is probably averaging the PCC and SCC signal values (CH1 and CH3) when displaying them to you as a single value thus the change during load.


Are 740 and 720 the full length of the id? If so I'd guess they're the eNB ids and should indicate independent units.

smuggler.ie

ED E wrote: »

Are 740 and 720 the full length of the id? If so I'd guess they're the eNB ids and should indicate independent units.

Oh no. These are just last digits out of full number, beginning numbers match.

Thanks for simplified version.

TimHorton

I see 3 have sent an update to the supplied 4G Modem , Magically my signal strength has gone from a solid 1 bar to a solid 3 bar , There is no change in performance so possibly they adjusted the firmware to increase signal strength with regard to optics..

ED E

TimHorton wrote: »

I see 3 have sent an update to the supplied 4G Modem , Magically my signal strength has gone from a solid 1 bar to a solid 3 bar , There is no change in performance so possibly they adjusted the firmware to increase signal strength with regard to optics..

Bars are always imaginary. Up to the OEM how to scale them.