upgrade Cat 4 to Cat 7 router - LTE to LTE advanced

hey,

im looking to upgrade my huawei router from the b315 to the b535.

the upgrade is a jump in speeds thanks to the CAT upgrades. Im not wanting to upgrade if there is no point so im trying to find out if my area is capable of operating on this CAT 7 or even anything better than CAT4 but dont know were to look??

my download/upload speeds are not to bad, 20-35/20-30Mbps depending on peak times, but what i do suffer from is latency issues when stream games through Geforce Now - latency seems to sit about 60/70ms, which results in stuttering in game play.

the info i have sourced from mastdata.com is "UMTS Sectored at 14m (2100 MHz 18.7/65 dBW)"

Currently with smarty, looking at moving directly to three to take advantage of their deal for the b535..

Edited by deleted (Mon 18-Nov-19 16:17:19)

From my reading of posts on the use of the B535 I would not go near it, the apps and PC programs that you need to use to get the best functionality from these Huawei modems cannot get access to the B535 login routine. I have a B525 CAT6 which can be accessed, but times are moving on and a CAT9 seems to be the next logical step so the B715-23c is on my radar, however getting one with a good price and the firmware to support my setup are a struggle so I may just drop this idea for 6 months and then redo the research from baseline.

Edited by kommando (Mon 18-Nov-19 16:46:39)

Is CAT 9 worth waiting for when in the next year or 2 5G will be hopefully in my area?

Will CAT 7 help with the latency and improve speeds? Short term this could be the stop gap improvement for myself until 5G is here, then again if the improvement is negligible then I'll just have to sit tight!

Edited by deleted (Mon 18-Nov-19 17:00:28)

In reply to a post by danfozzy85:

Will CAT 7 help with the latency and improve speeds?

I don't believe it will help with latency as that's more a limitation of 4G, improved speeds would be hard to determine by forum members as that comes down to what mobile bands are actually available from within your property.

Others may have a different opinion and I will bow to their superior knowledge.

Cat4 to Cat6 or 7 gets you 4G+/CA, but with Three that is of marginal improvement if your Cat4 can be easily locked to Band 3 with 15mhz bandwidth, the extra band currently on offer from 3 is Band 20 is only 5mhz band width. So if you get say 30mb download with Band 3 then adding in band 20 can only get you 1/3 more eg 30 becomes max 40 and inefficiencies mean 35mb is more likely. Its the upcoming rollout of Band 32 (L band) with 20mhz of bandwidth that will make the big difference. But when does it happen to your mast, will 5G be installed first, there is no info out there to be able to make an informed decision. As my local Three mast is very rural I am making presumptions of the strategy for Three's local mast and to me a Cat9 upgrade will get me the Band 32, 5G seems to be starting out on the high frequencies which do not travel farso even if the mast gets the capability it will not get to me.

In reply to a post by kommando:

to me a Cat9 upgrade will get me the Band 32

I thought Band 32 was supported by the B525

As I know nothing on the subject of bands I've just google about band 32, sounds promising, but as mentioned above latency timings are pretty much set with the 4g standard?

It's a pain in the butt not knowing what is intended for my local mast, but I know something is in the works as there is planning permission approved from my local council (in 2017) to remove x3 masts and replace the x3 masts and add a dish on the current mast site.

Dont want commit to any 2 year contracts if things are about to change massively, if a black friday deal comes up on the ee/3 site for unlimted home broadband I might take the jump

Were is a good place to start for reading up on 4g and how it works lol

Edited by deleted (Mon 18-Nov-19 17:52:52)

Latency of 60-70ms has nothing to do with 4g. On 4g I usually get latency of 15ms with EE but that is in london. Latency with 5g can be lower than that but clearly 4g is capable of doing 15ms at least. Your latency will likely depend on your location, distances, the server your are connecting to, and your provider more than it will 4g.

Correct, so one option is to stick to the B525 and CA band 3 and 32 for 35mhz bandwidthand ignore band 20 as it's staying at 5mhz bandwidth, but sometimes the rotation for absolute max is irrational 😆

In reply to a post by kommando:

Correct, so one option is to stick to the B525 and CA band 3 and 32 for 35mhz bandwidthand ignore band 20 as it's staying at 5mhz bandwidth, but sometimes the rotation for absolute max is irrational 😆

I�m pretty sure three have not confirmed if they will support band 3 and 32 together. Even if they do they might only use band 3 for upload.