Sorry, I meant band 3 (15MHz)

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I don't think I'd count -98dB as "quite good"

Using my externally mounted (about 5 metres up) Mikrotik SXT LTE kit I'm getting -80dB with -20dB SINR, that gets me 70-80 down and 30 up on band 20.

Correction: I meant to say band 3

With the Mikrotik indoors behind a window it drops to -90bB/-8bB/40/15.

However I am lucky with the mast only 1,000 metres away with mostly just a few trees and hedges between me and it.

The power level you get shows you have a great line of sight as from what I can see if you stood in front of the cell site you would expect -78db.

From my other house where I was testing the signal has quite a few houses in the way and we are higher up than the mast is.

The -98db rating gave me 4 bars and was listed as 'quite good' by the device itself. I'm around 1,250m with that reading. Only problem was the ping was around 50ms. This appears to give a noticeable delay when loading web pages. Not sure if this will end up being a solution unless three fix the network.

Tried the sim at work, and the service was shocking. My house, and both my work addresses (some 40 miles apart) are all showing as network issues on '3' website.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Sorry, I meant band 3 (15MHz)

That makes more sense for the speeds you're getting.

In reply to a post by gary333:

Tried the sim at work, and the service was shocking. My house, and both my work addresses (some 40 miles apart) are all showing as network issues on '3' website.

As they say on TV "other networks are available" - worth trying PAYG SIMs from EE, Voda and O2 to see if its worth trying any of their higher data allowance products.

50ms ping is what I get as well. It appears when I use the three.co.uk APN it drops to 40ms, but is at 50ms on 3internet.

I can't say I'm noticing a delay on loading pages, though I might move my local DNS server to use my backup FTTC line for lookups

The only real issue I'm having with my Three connection is the slow ramp up of bandwidth on streams.

You start a high quality stream (Netflix, YouTube, iPlayer) and it takes a minute or so before the player works out it has enough bandwidth to switch to the HD/UHD version of the stream. I think this is due to the LTE layer, I reckon it takes a few seconds before it decides a connection is wanting lots of bandwidth and there is a delay as it spools up extra timeslots/frequencies or however it works...

Less latency would be nice, but luckily I'm not really into online gaming and I can cope with 50ms when it comes to occasional ssh sessions.

I keep meaning to go and sit near the mast with my phone to check the max signal that is achievable.

I've just bought another LTE router with external antenna connectors, mainly as a spare for if the Mikrotik ever dies, but also to see if I can get any more signal quality with external antennas. Not that I really need any more, 70-80Mb/s is fine (much, much better than I ever got with two expensive bonded FTTC lines).

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I keep meaning to go and sit near the mast with my phone to check the max signal that is achievable.

I've just bought another LTE router with external antenna connectors, mainly as a spare for if the Mikrotik ever dies, but also to see if I can get any more signal quality with external antennas. Not that I really need any more, 70-80Mb/s is fine (much, much better than I ever got with two expensive bonded FTTC lines).

I'll try that too on my way home. The mast is on a Water Tower with the antennas strapped to the side and report back. I was stuck in traffic this morning and checked power and it was getting -90db at around 150m away however I was in the car so i'll get out this time.

I did a quick test this evening, 50 metres away from the mast (and 13 metres below the antenna). On my iPhone I got -76 RSRP/25 SINR, which gave me 96 up and 45 down.

1km away on the Mikrotik I get between -81 and -79, with SINR varying a lot between 15 and 21.

So I reckon I do have some room for improvement yet, with some directional external antennas. Whether I can be bothered with the extra effort is another question...

Are you aware that the Mikrotik has a 9dBi 60 degree antenna built into it and unlike an external antenna to a internal 4G router there is no signal loss for cables.
I messed about with an external antenna to 4G router and the SXE LTE Kit, the SXE performed better by miles for me, it wasnt very scientific but the Mikrotik is the one I made the effort to install outside properly.

In reply to a post by Rolandrat:

Are you aware that the Mikrotik has a 9dBi 60 degree antenna built into it and unlike an external antenna to a internal 4G router there is no signal loss for cables.

I am, though on band 3 the gain is a bit less at 7dBi.

There are yagi antennae that will theoretically give me ~17dBi of gain, without being stupidly hard to point (35 degree).

In the place I can mount the antennae and router I can get the cable length probably as low as 15cm. So I don't think I'll have a lot of line loss to deal with.

In reply to a post by Rolandrat:

I messed about with an external antenna to 4G router and the SXE LTE Kit, the SXE performed better by miles for me, it wasnt very scientific but the Mikrotik is the one I made the effort to install outside properly.

The Huawei that I've picked up also has a better category of LTE modem than the SXE LTE Kit, whether that will make any different or not I don't know.

The likelihood is that I'll never get around to it, especially as the yagis I'd need seem to be hard to buy in the UK (more popular in the US, Australia and South Africa for obvious reasons), so I'd probably end up having to build my own.

http://bcbj.org/antennae/lte_yagi_diy.htm

I've never built a yagi before, though I have built a couple of antennae for VHF frequencies, which worked out ok.