Phone and Huawei B525 different speeds

mp3guy

I have a Samsung S9 and a Huawei B525 both with Three sims.

Right beside each other, both on 4G, and the router is getting less than a tenth of the speed my phone is on speed test (ethernet, no other clients connected, both antennas attached, full 5 bars on both devices).

What is going on? This is really annoying because tethering my phone right now would be 10x faster but there's literally no reason as to why the router should be slower.

ED E

3Ireland vs 3Internet APN?

The S9 is a CAT18 device vs the 525s CAT6 but in practice this shouldn't lead it to massively faster.

smuggler.ie

Only speculating here

I suppose you have changed antenna settings in Web interface to "external", and have tried with internals only
Potential your devices connected to different masts
Potential speed test taken to two different servers
You not mixing measurement units MB/s vs Mbps

mp3guy

Thanks for the replies.

3Internet APN, checked that one at the time.

So I was running external, tried switching back to internal and have left them there since.

Any way to check mast connectivity?

Units aren't being mixed.

I ended up forcing the router into 3G mode and that was has been stable/fast enough since. Weird.

smuggler.ie

Post your 4G signal reading from router web interface: Settings>System>Device info

RSRQ:
RSRP:
SINR:

mp3guy

RSRQ: -17dB
RSRP: -97dBm
SINR: -5dB

Getting 0.5Mbps currently on 4G on router, forcing into 3G I get 20Mbps. On S9 in same position I get 12Mbps on 4G and 16Mbps on 3G.

Ping about 30ms on all.

smuggler.ie

No surprise, and ignore LED signal indication - manipulated by ISP.
Relocate your router

smuggler.ie

By any chance its brand new contract with Three on the phone?

mp3guy

smuggler.ie wrote: »

No surprise, and ignore LED signal indication - manipulated by ISP.
Relocate your router

smuggler.ie wrote: »

By any chance its brand new contract with Three on the phone?

Ah thanks for the insight here.

3G I'm getting

RSSI: -77dBm
ECIO: -3dB

Which explains things. I guess the antenna in my phone is just superior?

The router is a brand new contract, the phone is a 6 month old contract.

ED E

Power levels are fine, quality is crap.



Open a youtube video on your phone and check if the 4G symbol has a little + beside it. If so:
- Two serving cells
- Cell A: High power low quality
- Cell B: Lower power ok quality
525 is seeing the higher power cell and latching, S9 is grabbing both and thus can pull reasonable amounts of data over the SCC (2nd cell).

smuggler.ie

And what you use for "external" antenna - them two skinny "rabbit ears" - found them useless
Directional might help you if you into it

mp3guy

ED E wrote: »

Power levels are fine, quality is crap.



Open a youtube video on your phone and check if the 4G symbol has a little + beside it. If so:
- Two serving cells
- Cell A: High power low quality
- Cell B: Lower power ok quality
525 is seeing the higher power cell and latching, S9 is grabbing both and thus can pull reasonable amounts of data over the SCC (2nd cell).

Yes my phone does have 4G+. Are there routers that can do the same thing my phone can do? Worth the investment?

smuggler.ie

B525 can

mp3guy

smuggler.ie wrote: »

And what you use for "external" antenna - them two skinny "rabbit ears" - found them useless
Directional might help you if you into it

I might look into it in a couple weeks time. Honestly ping of 30ms with 20Mbps during peak times is a lot better than I see a lot of poor folks getting on here.

mp3guy

smuggler.ie wrote: »

B525 can

Hmm, why isn't my B525 when my phone is?

smuggler.ie

Can't tell you that, might be Samsung vs Huawei or CAT6 vs CAT18.....

ED E

smuggler.ie wrote: »

B525 can

I can't find a CA matrix published for it. Its a bit more nuanced than can and cannot. It may be able to CA 2x B3 but not B3+B20 (Inter vs intra).

smuggler.ie

You have more advanced knowledge on that, but this what i get under load..

smuggler.ie

Current

RSRQ: -10
RSRP: -100
SINR: 17

ED E

Unfortunately it doesn't tell you how its doing it.



With rooted phones you can see where its coming from.

smuggler.ie

I know, you mention this in other thread, just don't have enough time to play with it.
Even have galaxy S5 laying around... somewhere... to be rooted - 24H in a day is not enough

mp3guy

Alright I moved house. I'm now 800m from the nearest mast, direct line of sight. Literally just a single tree between my router and the mast.

I'm reading;
RSRQ: -8dB
RSRP: -82dBm
SINR: 3dB

And only getting 23Mbit up/down in the afternoon. 30ms ping, 4G (no plus).

How can I improve throughput here? My SINR seems to be the problem. Would a directional antenna aimed right at the mast fix this?

smuggler.ie

mp3guy wrote: »

Alright I moved house. I'm now 800m from the nearest mast, direct line of sight. Literally just a single tree between my router and the mast.

I'm reading;
RSRQ: -8dB
RSRP: -82dBm
SINR: 3dB

And only getting 23Mbit up/down in the afternoon. 30ms ping, 4G (no plus).

How can I improve throughput here? My SINR seems to be the problem. Would a directional antenna aimed right at the mast fix this?

Have you confirmed this is Three mast and it is 4G enabled?
At distance 800m and LOS you should not need any antenna.

mp3guy

Hmm I'm actually a bit confused now.

What's gospel for mast locations?

If it's https://siteviewer.comreg.ie/ I'm definitely 800m away from a Three mast, but it's not an LTE mast, just UMTS.

But when I force the router into 3G I get 30ms ping, 15Mbit down and 4Mbit up.

RSSI: -79dBm
ECIO: -2dB.

Also, looking at https://coveragemap.comreg.ie/map my house is contained within a 4G "Very Good" region that is isolated and centered around the mast 800m away from me.

I took a drive around since it's so close by and sure enough it's a mast there.

ED E

Siteviewer often is out of date when a 3G site becomes a 4G one. The way to tell for sure is Cellmapper but that requires root.

smuggler.ie

There is possibility that comreg site viewer is outdated, and map they provide is under great criticism, however, double check your B525 settings regard antenna.
What signal and speed you get on your phone?

mp3guy

smuggler.ie wrote: »

There is possibility that comreg site viewer is outdated, and map they provide is under great criticism, however, double check your B525 settings regard antenna.
What signal and speed you get on your phone?

Actually getting similar speed and signal on my phone now. I tried internal and external antennas and a bunch of orientations and not much changed.

This is a bit unusual, I would have thought being this close (I can see it!) it would be killer. Worth buying a directional antenna to see if it's something on the tower itself limiting things? Any point contacting Three about it? I was about 400m from it earlier and still getting these mediocre speeds, on both 3G and 4G.

ED E

mp3guy wrote: »

This is a bit unusual, I would have thought being this close (I can see it!) it would be killer. Worth buying a directional antenna to see if it's something on the tower itself limiting things? Any point contacting Three about it? I was about 400m from it earlier and still getting these mediocre speeds, on both 3G and 4G.

If nobody was on the three network maybe. Most places you can get 220Mb at 3.30AM but <10Mb when anyone is awake.

mp3guy wrote: »

Alright I moved house. I'm now 800m from the nearest mast, direct line of sight. Literally just a single tree between my router and the mast.
I'm reading;
RSRQ: -8dB
RSRP: -82dBm
SINR: 3dB

And only getting 23Mbit up/down in the afternoon. 30ms ping, 4G (no plus).
How can I improve throughput here? My SINR seems to be the problem. Would a directional antenna aimed right at the mast fix this?

Your SINR is fine, your Q is super and your P is super. This is ideal signal conditions.

You're getting 20Mb because the sector is sharing 150Mb between 100-300 UEs(handsets and routers) and has to divvy up bandwidth.

mp3guy

ED E wrote: »

If nobody was on the three network maybe. Most places you can get 220Mb at 3.30AM but <10Mb when anyone is awake.





Your SINR is fine, your Q is super and your P is super. This is ideal signal conditions.

You're getting 20Mb because the sector is sharing 150Mb between 100-300 UEs(handsets and routers) and has to divvy up bandwidth.

Good to know. I will be up at 5am tomorrow morning so will do a quick test then outside to see the limit.

<edit> Actually this doesn't explain why I get 5Mb on 4G and 20Mb on 3G though, does it?

ED E

mp3guy wrote: »

<edit> Actually this doesn't explain why I get 5Mb on 4G and 20Mb on 3G though, does it?

It does.

4G is available to nearly everyone on Three. Even an S5 from years ago has 4G. So if there are 300 users in an area all 300 will latch to 4G as phones assume its better.

That leaves you on 3G with Larry who's got a Galaxy S2 and doesnt know what Instagram is and any active phone calls (low bandwidth). 150 divided by 300 is a lot smaller than 44 divided by 10.

smuggler.ie

ED E wrote: »

It does.

4G is available to nearly everyone on Three. Even an S5 from years ago has 4G. So if there are 300 users in an area all 300 will latch to 4G as phones assume its better.

That leaves you on 3G with Larry who's got a Galaxy S2 and doesnt know what Instagram is and any active phone calls (low bandwidth). 150 divided by 300 is a lot smaller than 44 divided by 10.

Who is Larry?:D