In reply to a post by Banger:

Yes it is 30 day 3gb.
https://www.speedtest.net/result/10242070820
Looks like this is the best speed I will get.

Strange, the consistent imbalance the wrong way between the speeds. Are you sure you don't keep plugging these dongles in upside down?

😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

More sensibly, how many different places have you tried it? Even something as simple as having my phone tethering through USB one side of my laptop rather than the other, shielding its antennae from the mast I realised, made a big difference. (Same effect with the laptop turned 180 degrees).

The whole question of where to pick up mobile masts in a house is complex, as we can see in many threads.

Having sorted which side to have the phone, I could just reach the window ledge with it plugged in and that was better.

Better still was in the same place on the windowsill with power from a mains socket nearby, and tethering to its hotspot.

Best! Was using its own power, on the table a foot or so the other side of the laptop from me and 4-5 feet away from the window 🤔.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The whole question of where to pick up mobile masts in a house is complex, as we can see in many threads.

Have a search around about radio multi path and you will see why there are a lot of antennas on modern devices which the radio switches between. Unfortunately the dongles are not designed for this, and equally don't have the electronics, so an external antenna would not help.

When I used to travel to north scotland, using a dongle like these, I travelled with a 3m USB extension cable, and used to hang the dongle on the window handle.

It's strange. 20 down 40 up. I suppose testing should continue on my laptop on battery and decide where best signal is. At present it is plugged into my desktop monitor as that seems to be the best postion signal wise looking at the Huawei GUI meter which is right next to my router where it original was designed for in failover mode.

I have posed the 20/40 question to EE in a network report and await any response whether it be everything is ok.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/10244260277

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16026215078...

Speedtests on laptop

I agree. I was talking in the light of both my tethering experience in the last 22 months with a Huawei P10 Lite and more recently a OnePlus 8 Pro, to a pretty powerful laptop on W10, and still needing to carry out several location tests with my Huawei B311 when I installed it some time last year to provide 24/7 cloud access for security cameras.

That of course making the tethering function of the phones mostly redundant. Tethering only used when I want the (expected) far better speed the phone(s) provide than the B311.

Accepting the B311 has now been ditched by Three, that is definitely very reliant on location and horizontal rotation. Just as the home LAN wifi was, maybe still is, on the cheaper landline routers.

Complicated by the OnePlus being able to detect masts at the front and back of the house using Network Cell Info Lite which simultaneously shows two live sets of stats on the same screen, those sometimes showing the same channel and mast, and sometimes one or other or both of those changing.

Right now, a few minutes ago when I started this post and loaded the app, it was showing me connected on on band 3, the next chosen signal on Band 1. When I started this paragraph both were on Band 3 but now the "standby" one is on 1. Oops, changed again! Both again on 3. No movement here of anything except my fingers on the keyboard and a slight turn of the head to look at the stationary phone.

If I test upstairs in bed, the phone when held above and to the left of me will get two band 3s, move it to the right and lower it to not much above the duvet, swivel it about a bit, and I can to some extent control the subsidiary mast/signal selection and channel.

Edit: Changing the position and orientation of the phone after posting, I get really significant changes to the signal strength graphics

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 13-Oct-20 23:32:05)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The whole question of where to pick up mobile masts in a house is complex, as we can see in many threads.

Have a search around about radio multi path and you will see why there are a lot of antennas on modern devices which the radio switches between. Unfortunately the dongles are not designed for this, and equally don't have the electronics, so an external antenna would not help.

When I used to travel to north scotland, using a dongle like these, I travelled with a 3m USB extension cable, and used to hang the dongle on the window handle.

Think I will order a 3m cable.

Can we have a CCTV feed of you dancing around waving your dongle in the air?

Edit: Please don't say "Yep"!

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 14-Oct-20 00:37:57)

I have two external aerials to come yet. Imagine them hanging at the window on the dongle.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Right now, a few minutes ago when I started this post and loaded the app, it was showing me connected on on band 3, the next chosen signal on Band 1. When I started this paragraph both were on Band 3 but now the "standby" one is on 1. Oops, changed again! Both again on 3. No movement here of anything except my fingers on the keyboard and a slight turn of the head to look at the stationary phone.

Thats because the phone is connected to both but majority of Android "status" apps are confused by how this works, and flip between one and the other. Also downlink CA is very normal, but uplink CA is rare. On Qualcomm hardware devices (as the One Plus range are) Cellmapper is fairly reliable, but if you use the summary "car mode" screen, it only shows one band at a time.

Its a similar problem to my parents phones showing 1 or 2 bars signal, which you would think is poor. In fact they have good reception on three bands, (B20, B3, B7) and it is the highest frequency that has the lowest strength that is being used to show the signal bars. Confusing everyone.

Cellular is incredibly complicated, and I've learnt enough to see how complex it it :-/