EE 4G vs 3 UK 3G on my mobile router....

Something strange going on with my mobile broadband connection.

I've been running a Huawei B593s-22 Mobile Router with an EE 4G mobile broadband SIM, I get two bars of 4G and website response is pretty slow, sometimes it can't even get to the website and times out, even though speeds stay steady at 24-22MB and this is on and off peak.

For an experiment, I slotted in my old 3 UK PAYG sim (1GB package) with one bar of 3G coverage and the websites respond better, and everything is a lot faster, it's yet to timeout and everything is a lot faster, the speed test comes in at 8MB.

I thought 4G was supposed to have lower latency and offer better performance in lower signal areas, can I anyone help?

Thankfully going back to landline broadband in a couple of weeks.

My postcode is HP9, Beaconsfield.

Sounds like a fault :-/

I found EE dire when at a signal strength that was high 4-bar to low 5-bar, when driven with an external antenna.

Then I discovered that 5-bar wasn't actually that high a strength overall (about 60%, IIRC).

A better way of driving the router meant I could get RSSI figures, and found a spot where I got to 93% instead. Speeds improved somewhat, but the responsivness was improved immensely. At least until 3:30pm, which marked the start of the evening congestion period.

DNS could be a major issue, did you try different DNS or a VPN solution to try and avoid any transparent proxies e.g. the parental controls system that runs on mobile connections

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

A better way of driving the router meant I could get RSSI figures

Yes, a dbm figure is comparable, "bars", are generally useless. However on 4G (LTE) you get a different calculation so 4G LTE numbers are not comparable to 3G UMTS.

As others have said post your raw signal stats, RSSI etc..
Full postcode would help also.

Thanks for all the insight, I've logged into the router and I can't obtain signal stats from any of the settings menu.

It's a Huawei B593-22

Full Postcode HP9 2HD

It's in a odd place, I'll fire mine up tomorrow and post how to get the stats.

It does appear you are on the cusp of 4G service on a cell located at Beaconsfield RFC, that won't be helping the performance of the service.

Try forcing the unit down to 3G on the EE sim and pointing any antenna towards the train station or toward National Film & Television School.

Beaconsfield RFC is a good couple of miles away, I thought the EE cells at NFTS or railway station were 4G enabled which means they are obviously not.

I've found out the db stats, this is against EE 4G

PLMN: 23430
Service status: Valid service
RSSI (dBm): -81
RSRP (dBm): -107
RSRQ (dB): -6
Roaming: No

When I get sometime I'll post the 3UK stats but I need the SIM in another dongle tonight, this was taken at just before 7pm.

Humm, that's looks to be a busy cell to me. You have a good signal strength to you but across the sector as a whole is bordering on weak. But that said you are on the edge of the cell...

Thanks for all the information and detail everyone, much appreciated.

I did move the router as it's not tied to a physical line (one huge advantage of mobile broadband) and pointed the antennas at the Film School / Station and signal shot up and broadband has been steady.

One thing I've also noticed is there's "alot" of broadband routers locally, pumping out alot of strong signals, (most are Sky, TalkTalk and BT) and sometimes a disconnecting from the router and reconnecting solves the problem.

What stats show this as being busy? I'm asking as I do not know the answer.

Read up on RSSI and RSRP
RSSI is the signal strength you have in use, the RSRP is is average across that cell sector. they should hopefully be close together (within 5-10 dBm) no a problem if not but it do show that the cell is but as the average is being dragged lower because its serving a large area and a large number of users.

This does mean the network is not capable in that area, as I know the rollout in that town is not yet complete, also I work for EE and I can see cell loading stats

Might be worth a read - http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-308-rssi-vs... - Old but still valid

Edited by bookey (Tue 24-Mar-15 19:46:35)

You do know that you're going to PM'd to oblvion when users get an issue with their cell.

Since your advice even though I can't push the router down to 3G, it's running much better since pointing the router elsehwere as you advised.

Although landline broadband due to go active any day now, so moving down to a prepay plan soon.

Thanks again for your help bookey.