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Lightbulb MikroTik Chateau 5G R16 & WaveForm QuadPro 4x MIMO on Vodafone UK 5G
Posted by: Oyster7 - Yesterday, 02:12 AM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (2)

Hello there,

First and foremost I have found a wealth of information here, and this has firmly led me right down the rabbit hole and as a result I am already several hundred pounds poorer! However I am sure I will be happier once I achieve my goal.

I hope someone here, or dare I say, the all wise Séan could kindly answer some of my questions regarding my proposed setup!

Here is how everything is presently setup now, and my proposed setup, and finally some questions I hope someone can answer.

I presently have:
1 x Huawei CPE Pro 2 H112-372 which I self modified and connected all 8 ports to 2 different 4x MIMO antennas:
1 x WaveForm Quad Pro on the 5G terminals (Directional - Aimed at the tower) https://www.waveform.com/products/quadpr...8XOMwrfSCq - and
1 x WaveForm Quad Mini on the 4G terminals (Omnidirectional) https://www.waveform.com/products/quadmi...z2L1lcykl1

My local tower is:
Network: vodafone UK
MCC-MNC: 234-15
TAC-CID: 24582-466972
eNB Id: 1824 (sector 28)

And I am presently connected using the following bands:
UL: 2510.0 MHhz (band b7)
DL: 2630.0 MHhz (band b77)
UL 5G: 3435.0 MHhz (band n77)
DL 5G: 3435.0 MHhz (band n77)

My local tower is precisely 1.22km away. As below:
   

https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=234&M...nits=false

I am covered by Vodafone's 5G Ultra service and use MVNO TalkMobile.

I do receive good speeds, however I am looking to improve this as much as possible. Particularly my upload speed. This is my primary objective.

My WaveForm Quad Pro is situated on the rear of my house, beside a 1st floor window, aimed precisely at the tower. However, there is a but! 10 meters away is a house, and 30 meteres behind that is a big old tree. This probably isn't optimal! And will be one of my questions later in this thread.
   

   

My present signal's per antenna type is as follows:

5G:
   

4G:
   

So - I initially purchased a MikroTik Chateau 5G ax. Then I read some threads here, and realised I would have been much better off with the R16. So I cancelled that order and the R16 is now arriving on Tuesday.

I will be modifying this so I can connect my four WaveForm QuadPro connections to each of the four ports.

My logic here, and understanding. Is that this is going to give me 4x MIMO of 4g/5g from one single antenna structure, so I can eliminate the omnidirectional QuadMini.

I am very familiar with MikroTik hardware routers and configurations, so any amount of technical work is something I will enjoy.

My questions, that I cannot answer, are:

1) There are four cables coming from my WaveForm Quad Pro. Does it matter which port I connect each of them to in the R16? Or will anything work?
2) Is the WaveForm QuadPro trash? I see Poyntings referenced a lot here, and not so much the WaveForm brand. Do you have any opinions on it, or its design? Here is a teardown by someone on YouTube - I am not qualified to determine if its good or not - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc-49EuBQ9A
3) I *could* re-site my Antenna on my chimney stack, which would mostly avoid the house 10 meteres away, and *some* of the tree foliage. But would this make much difference? It would probably cost me a days labour to find out!
4) The bands I am connected to presently, b7 and b/n77. I am not sure if I could connect to more bands from that cell site? Are there other bands that could work better if I locked to them? I have seen it connect to 900mhz previously, but not recently.

And finally. Am I missing anything? Or - Could I improve my setup in any way.

I sincerely appreciate the wealth of knowledge here and would deeply appreciate any feedback to my plan.

Thanks

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  Valentines Special MikroTik LHGR+R11e-LTE £60
Posted by: Meritez - 13/02/2025, 11:18 AM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (1)

https://linitx.com/product/mikrotik-lhg-...-lte/15799

I do not need one, I do not need one, 96 in stock at time of posting this.
Wondering what the fastest modem you could upgrade to would be, RM500U-CN?

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  how to point antenna using db trobleshooting?
Posted by: Raulico - 28/01/2025, 07:54 PM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (4)

my hardware in use:
mikrotik hap ax3(os 7.17) with usb3 adapter to m.2 quectel rm520ngl, last firmware.
4 lpda antenna by 5mt rg316 n-sma cable.
temporary setup indoor.
Bts, with eye sight, transmit 5g nsa fdd by primary bands b3(lte) 20mhz and CA with b1(lte) 15mhz and n28 (5g) 10mhz.
It shuold be mimo 2 on 5g e mimo 4 in lte, not sure.
i'm collecting db statistics just to understand some weird thing during idle and data transfer session.
When no traffic is generated i see:
output: +QRSRP: -84,-140,-140,-140,LTE   
          +QRSRP: -73,-74,-32768,-32768,NR5G
output: +QSINR: 23,23,19,20,LTE       
          +QSINR: 14,16,-32768,-32768,NR5G

when traffic is forced with a speed test, rsrp remain stable while sinr go to 30/36db on 5g, and while is high on 5g
antenna, it goes down on lte that was high before traffic.
From antenna details i see it's capable from 700mhz to 3,8ghz, so i cover all spectrum i have on bts.
Is it necessary a 45° position of antennas on rm520ngl, coupled ant01 and 02 and other couple on ant00 and ant03?
which is the best way to point these antennas?
thanks

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  4G / LTE Link Stability - Talkmobile UK
Posted by: cancunia - 27/01/2025, 09:15 AM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (2)

I've recently switched from a Three UK 3G WAN link to a 4G Talkmobile (Vodafone) UK WAN link and am noticing regular link disconnections. 
The 3G link was until recently very stable, but has recently become unusable, probably due to preparations for the switch off, while the locval Three 4G is really not usable due to being so slow at about 2Mb/s
 
The disconnect frequency seems to be depend on the router that I'm using:

ZTE MF286D with OpenWrt about 2-3 hours
Sercomm LTE 2122GR with stock firmware 4-5 hours

The Sercomm seems to recover & restore in under a minute, much quicker than the ZTE, I'm guessing that this is due to the firmware being designed for an LTE link while the ZTE with OpenWrt is a bit more generic with LTE as an option.

I'm using a directional external antenna with good signal quality, although the tower is not in sight due to being over a hill.

I'm curious, is a regular link drop normal with 4G routers in general? 

Thanks.

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  Vodafone FTTH SFP+ and Fibre
Posted by: elbob - 13/01/2025, 05:32 PM - Forum: Equipment and Software - Replies (1)

Hi all,

I've taken the plunge and for the first time in 20 years I'm changing from Eir to Vodafone for broadband.

I've opted for the 2gbit FTTH package and for that Vodafone say I need an SFP+ module. My home network is 10Gbit and I've plenty of spare Cisco SFP+ module.

Looking at Vodafone online and the SFP+ they offer is a actually an SFP+ to copper transceiver.

Would anyone know if I could use two of my own SFP+ modules instead (ONT to my Router)

Cheers!

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  5ber eSIM quirks with dual SIM Samsung S23
Posted by: Seán - 06/01/2025, 11:58 PM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (2)

After finishing setting up my Samsung S23 and transferring my GoMo and 5ber SIMs across, I restarted the phone and it displayed a message telling me to move my SIM to slot to use an eSIM.  At first I thought there was an issue with slot 1 with this being a used phone, but I then noticed the eSIMs from the 5ber SIM listed below as shown in the first screenshot.  In the Mobile Networks section where I can choose the VoLTE and Network mode options, it lets me choose between the eSIM 2 (i.e. 5ber SIM in slot 1) and SIM 2 and likewise for which SIM to use for calls, texts and data.  The 5ber App can also manage the eSIM profiles as shown in the 3rd screenshot.

           

Just in case the phone imported the eSIM profiles on its internal eSIM, I turned off the phone, removed the SIM card tray, started it up and the eSIM profiles disappeared.  This time I swapped the SIMs around, i.e. GoMo in slot 1 and 5ber in slot 2.  When I put the SIM tray back in, it then displayed a confusing prompt to turn on SIM 2, stating that this will turn off SIM 2! 

       

I remember seeing a warning somewhere to never disable a physical eSIM card, so I restarted the phone.  This time when I went into the SIM manager it displayed a similar prompt to turn on SIM 2 and that doing so will disable the eSIM, i.e. the built-in eSIM.  It still displayed the eSIM profiles as before, however, the 5ber App does not recognise the SIM in slot 2:

       

With the 5ber eSIM effectively presenting itself like the onboard eSIM in either slot, I plan testing an App based eSIM provider to see if this tricks the App into installing the eSIM onto the 5ber SIM instead of the phone's internal eSIM.  For example, GoMoWorld requires its App to install its eSIM and will not work on phones without native eSIM support even with the 5ber SIM.

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  Accessing *#0011# service menu on newer Samsung phones
Posted by: Seán - 22/12/2024, 03:34 PM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (1)

I finally decided to move back to a Samsung phone for one particular reason - being able to view detailed mobile signal technical information such as actual aggregated carrier readings, MIMO layers, etc. not available in the Android API that apps like NetMonster depend on.  For example, NetMonster is not able to show aggregated carriers on my OnePlus Nord 2T and would only show neighbour cells briefly after changing cell, making it difficult to see the available bands/carriers when travelling.  Had the OnePlus provided a similar service menu, I likely would have kept the phone for another year or two.

After setting up my Samsung S23, I dialled *#0011# and to my surprise nothing appeared!  I touched "Dial" and it just gave an MMI error like trying to dial *#0011# on any non Samsung phone.  I spent a good while Googling only to get nowhere until I tried finding out about whether it is still possible to get the network band selection menu, another feature I missed on the OnePlus.  It was in one of those Reddit threads that mentioned that Samsung's Auto Blocker Privacy feature disables the *#0011# service menu. 

To disable the Auto Blocker, go into Settings -> Security and privacy.  Scroll down to Additional security settings and turn off the Auto Blocker toggle.  Dialling *#0011# should now bring up the service mode:

       

As for the hidden network band selection menu, Samsung appears determined to close any loophole that provides access to it.  This appears to be due to pressure from the US carriers as I've heard that even the Network Mode menu is removed for the US market, probably to prevent customers comparing 4G vs 5G speeds.  When I had the Samsung A51 5G, it was possible to access it using Alliance Shield X which could launch activities with elevated privileges, but that trick no longer works.  It is still possible without root (screenshots below), but I don't feel comfortable sharing the steps I got from another source that may result in possibly the last workaround being closed. 

       

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  Getting Speedify to work with two 4G mobile data connections
Posted by: Seán - 11/12/2024, 09:39 PM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (2)

Every since Three refarmed band 1 for 5G which I'm outside the range limit of and Three's other energy saving measures that basically involve cutting bandwidth, my download speeds generally don't get much higher than the 40s in the evening.  I do however get decent upload speeds, typically in the high 20s.  The Vodafone mast in Kilcar performs better on the download, usually in the 60s to 80s in the evening, with upload speeds between 15 and 20Mbps.

Speedify is a service that claims to combine two internet connections to effectively get the combined upload and download bandwidth of both.  I tried the service a few times in the past, but ended up with it performing no better than without it running before using up the 2GB free trial allowance.  This time after using just over 80% of the data allowance, I got it to work.  Cool I purchased a year subscription, so will see how well it performs over the coming months. 

There are several factors that I found heavily influence how well Speedify performs, with number 1 and 2 being critical.

  1. Both connections need to be set as Primary.  Their documentation mentions that a secondary connection is only used when the primary connection is heavily congested or fails, i.e. its default configuration for mobile data.
  2. Large latency spikes will cause it to treat the connection as down temporarily.  Wi-Fi connections are prone to latency spikes with some USB adapters having terrible latency spikes, TP-Link in particular.
  3. The Speedify Irish servers generally don't perform well, particularly on the upload.  Most UK servers perform well.  See the Ireland vs UK speed test example further down.
  4. Set the Tansport mode to TCP Multiple.  From my testing, UDP performs much worse than just with either connection on its own and TCP can be hit and miss.

Configuring Speedify:
  1. On the main Speedify screen, click the connection labelled "Secondary"
  2. Set the Priority field to "Primary" as shown in the first image below, then click 'Done'.
  3. Go into the top left menu, scroll down to "SESSION SETTINGS" and click "Transport Mode".
  4. Set the Transport Mode to "TCP Multiple" as shown in the second image below, then click 'Back'.
  5. Under "SERVER SELECTION", click "SERVER" and chose "Great Britain", then click 'Back' and 'Done'
  6. If you are using a Wi-Fi for either connection, see this guide on avoiding latency spikes.

       

Before connecting Speedify, the following is a speed test on my Three and Vodafone connections run about 8:30pm (enabling one network adapter at a time):

       

After connecting Speedify with both connections configured as Primary and TCP Multiple Transport mode, the following is a speed test with their Irish server, followed by their UK server:

       

Generally I don't need the speed for streaming, however, when it comes to downloading or uploading large files such as WeTransfer, it makes a big difference.  It is also nice seeing speeds hitting over 100Mbps again in the evenings, something I have not seen since the good old days of getting 4G on band 1 with Three.

The only main drawback I encountered is that as Speedify operates as a VPN, some websites will present a Captcha, such as Patreon. It has automatic Bypass for many websites and streaming services that otherwise block VPN access or give issues, such as WhatsApp, NetFlix, Amazon, etc.

1GB download test after 10pm (Vultr UK test file)
Firefox browser - Download time in M:SS, average Mbps speed in brackets:
  • Three - 2:39 (51.5 Mbps)
  • Vodafone - 2:23 (57.3 Mbps)
  • Speedify Ireland - 2:05 (65.5 Mbps)
  • Speedify UK - 1:30 (91.0 Mbps)

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  Tackling Wi-Fi latency spikes / lag on Windows, Archer T4U, etc.
Posted by: Seán - 05/12/2024, 10:47 PM - Forum: Equipment and Software - No Replies

One issue I had with Wi-Fi network adapters going all the way back to 802.11g on Windows XP is intermittent latency spikes.  The periodic spikes are generally due to the Wi-Fi adapter periodically scanning for Wi-Fi networks, such as for roaming to a stronger node when moving about within a Wi-Fi Mesh or public Wi-Fi. 

These latency spikes range anywhere from under 100ms to over 2 seconds depending on the chipset and firmware, such as >1800ms with the TP-Link USB Archer T4U I recently purchased.  From a quick web search it turns out I'm not alone with massive latency spikes / lag being an ongoing issue with several TP-Link Wi-Fi adapters well before 2020.

Search the web for fixes and there are countless discussions that at best only partially fix the issue.  I wonder how many fell for a heavily upvoted Reddit thread that gives a terminal command, which disables the Wi-Fi functionality altogether in Windows!  This may have have worked back when Wi-Fi adapters provided a dedicated Wi-Fi management service instead of relying on the Windows native Wi-Fi service "WLAN AutoConfig". 

The culprit at least in my case turned out to be a Windows feature that you may not expect to have anything to do with Wi-Fi, the Windows Location permission setting!  This setting came to mind after what I recall someone mentioning, devices can estimate the location by checking the list of nearby Wi-Fi networks against an online database of Wi-Fi SSIDs collected from other devices such as mobiles with GPS data.  Sure enough, turning off the setting to allow Apps to access my location made a massive difference. 

Ping test before making any tweaks

The following is how a continuous ping test originally looked like with the TP-Link USB Archer T4U pinging my router, showing just how laggy it gets with an otherwise fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi connection to the nearby Fritz Box 7530: 

   

An hour of pinging (3600 ping requests), milliseconds along the left and ping # across the bottom:

     

Notice how frequent the ping spikes are at the left of the graph.  In this case, these are the result of launching the Desktop Ookla Speed Test App right at the start of the test, without running a single speed test.  Ookla collects location data to let them sell their speed test data by region / ISP.  It is surprising how often Windows scans for Wi-Fi networks just to estimate the location.

The periodic spikes throughout the rest of the graph are from background Wi-Fi scanning.

To turn off the Location setting in Windows 10

  1. Click Start -> Settings (Cog icon)
  2. Click "Location" in the left menu under "App permissions"
  3. Click the "Change" button under "Allow access to location on this device".
  4. Set the toggle to "Off"

I re-opened the Ookla Speed Test and ran another 3600 ping requests.  Notice the difference:

   

The periodic latency spikes in this case are the result of the background Wi-Fi scanning.  It also appears that Windows temporarily stops background scanning when streaming, in this case watching a 10 minute YouTube video near the start.  I was away from my PC throughout the rest of the ping test.


To turn off Background Wi-Fi scanning in Windows 10

There are two settings to change, one in Windows itself and another using a freeware utility called WLAN Optimizer, released back in the Windows Vista days!  From testing on my PC, this utility requires Windows Administrator rights to work.  Otherwise the settings appear to have no effect.

Part 1
  1. Click Start, type "View Network" and click "View network connections"
  2. Double-click the WiFi adapter.
  3. Click the "Wireless Properties" button.
  4. Clear the checkbox "Look for other wireless networks while connected to this network"
  5. Click OK, then Close

Part 2
  1. Download the utility from http://www.martin-majowski.de/
  2. Extract the Zip file somewhere handy.  It is a portable app, i.e. has no installer
  3. Right-click "WLAN Optimizer" and "Run as administrator"
  4. In the Settings tab, tick "Disable background scan" and "Enable streaming mode".

Note - Do not tick the "Disable autoconfig" option. 

   

The settings persist after a reboot.  With just the "Disable background scan" option checked, this is how the graph turned out after another hour of ping requests:

   

Finally I tried ticking the "Enable streaming mode" in WLAN Optimizer, rebooted to see if the setting remained persistent and got a nice surprise at the end of the ping test: Cool

   

The following is the resulting graph with the vertical scale adjusted to 18ms due to the lack of spikes:

   

The only time I experience a latency spike now over Wi-Fi is when I click the Network icon to view the available Wi-Fi networks as it obviously needs to perform a scan.

Note - For Windows Laptop / Tablet users, you may need to re-enable background scanning to move to another room within a Wi-Fi Mesh set up, likewise while on public or office Wi-Fi networks.

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  Using Mikrotik 5G router with poor reception
Posted by: GrumpyPatzer - 18/11/2024, 04:59 PM - Forum: Mobile Broadband - Replies (13)

Good evening everyone

I just discovered this forum and have found a number of threads really helpful and interesting.  I wonder if I might ask for advice about 5G and Mikrotik routers?

Having had some success with a Chateau LTE12 and Poynting XPOL-2 in the Scottish Highlands (connecting to a mast nearly 20km distant, with RSRP typically no better than -110dBm, I can usually get 60-80Mbps download), I would now like to try something similar in rural Herefordshire.  The difference is that in this location there is a 5G signal, albeit fairly poor and only, it seems, at the lower frequency bands.  In summary:

There is *nearly* line of sight to the nearest mast, which is just over 3km away (if the mast was 5m higher, it would probably be visible).  There is another mast about 7km away which does, I think, have line of sight, apart from an area of woodland quite close to the mast.  Connecting to the nearer mast, I can usually get n28 with 10MHz bandwidth, but RSRP no better than just under (worse than) -100dBm, in conjunction with (usually) 4G band 1, 15MHz, RSRP -110 to -115dBm.  With this signal, download speed is typically either side of 80Mbps using a new iPhone.  The ‘phone occasionally seems to pick up an n1 signal, although usually not for long.  But I can also get similar if not better download speeds using a really old iPhone, which seems to connect using 4G band 3 (10MHz bandwidth).

I am hoping that a decent 4/5G aerial and a good router (ideally Mikrotik, given my positive experience with the LTE12 in the Highlands) could yield something comfortably over 100Mbps, although I don’t know if that is realistic.  If I understand correctly, however, the external aerial sockets Mikrotik 5G (and the 5G ax?) are, by default, only for the higher frequencies, not n28 or n1.  So I am wondering if, if I get a Mikrotik router, I would need to modify the internal connections and, even if I were to do that, whether the weakness of the 4G signal would also be a problem.  Some questions:

1.  Am I correct to think that, in order to use an aerial such as the Poynting XPOL-2 with with a Mikrotik Chanteau 5G and the rather poor 5G signal I described (n28 or n1), it would be necessary to modify the router to connect its sockets to different inputs on its modem (if ‘modem’ is the correct term to use).

2.  If so, is it possible to do this in a way such that, if the router judges the 4G signal to be better, it will use that instead?  (I guess I don’t actually know for certain whether the new iPhone was actually using 5G or not, although it was giving the 5G band details and showed ‘SA+NSA’ in the field test mode; the broadband speedchecker app also showed a little signal strength icon with the letters '5G'.)

3.  Is there any way of telling (before purchasing an aerial and router) whether a 5G connection here would also need 4G?  (If it does, am I perhaps on a losing wicket, given how weak the 4G signal also seems to be?  I don't know whether the field test mode on the 'phone showing 'SA+NSA' is significant.  I certainly can’t imagine a router’s internal aerial would be adequate, particularly given that the router would be indoors, behind a brick wall.)

4.  If a Mikrotik 5G router seems unsuitable for this reason, is there an alternative you can suggest?  (I would prefer to avoid Huawei, not least because I had problems with a B535 in the Highlands, before buying the Chateau LTE12.)

Thanks in advance for any advice and suggestions!

Andrew

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