Awful variation in 4g download speeds

[Rob195]

I live on an island with four masts.  Speeds from one are excellent (65-1105 d 25-45 u)  but the other three are very poor  usually 5-8d and 0u.  More often than not one of the three poor masts fails on speedtest completely.  I keep reporting and keep getting told that there is not a problem and it may be a one off........I have three weeks of speed test results now all consistently showing the same.  I moved back to EE after a breif time away to take advantage of a good value 40gb deal but I cant use it.  Very frustrated.  Incidentally the signal from each mast is usually excellent and making calls is not a problem - all masts give me a 3/4 bar 4g but I can park under two of them and get 8mbps at best.

[bristolian]

By means of some background info, 4G is provided on several different frequency bands, or parts of the radio spectrum.

Bands 1, 3, 7 & 20 are all used on parts of EE's network, and have different characteristics.

On many rural sites, EE use Band20 which is excellent at providing wide-area "umbrella" coverage but does have limited spectrum, and therefore data speeds.

From some past posts of yours, I think you're on the outer Hebrides where there is extensive use of this band, along with overlapping service from others.

Having said all that, zero upload is indicative more of a potential fault 

[Rob195]

Hi Bristolian

Your right about my location - bottom of the OH.  I'm just back from another trip to the shop.  Streaming BBC 5 Live until I crest a hill and lose the signal from "good" mast.  I dont quite understand the tekky stuff but coverage map I will get excellent everything in the location I get no data (Co-op) car park.

[Rob195]

Hi

A further update.  A couple of days ago one of the poor, slow masts lt to a downlaod of between 65/85 and an up around 40.  The other slow one is still very slow  5-8 down 0 up. The one that consistently fails to connect to the speedtest app did yesterday ....5 down 0 up but apps that I would like to use time out.  So now at least for the time being I have excellent data from two masts covering maybe 6 miles of the road around the island (13 miles around) and nothing usable anywhere else.  Not good VFM at £14 a month for 40GB data which I cant use  .  I've been promised a call from the tekkies but it's not happened

[Leanne_T]

Hi @Rob195

I have replied to your private message. 

Leanne.

[EssexBoyEE]

I tend to agree with @bristolian on the Band 20 (800mhz) on its own and normally with only 5mhz Bandwidth it's very limited in terms of Data Speed, ideally this Band is used for extended Coverage be it should still give enough data speed to provide basic Internet downloads, normally this would be paired with 1800mhz (or and 2100 and 2600) Band which will then see some vast improvements on Data Speed.

I also suppect that if your getting some Download speeds be it low but 0 Upload then this really points to an issue some where.

Samsung generally restrict access to Android Hidden Menus where you can gather extra info on Sites and Signals etc, but if you prefer download 'Netmonster' from the App Store, it's a good small App that will give Signals, Mast info and What 4G Bands your Registered to but more importantly the Group of Bands, if any, your using for Carrier Aggregation (4G+), which I suspect you are getting here and there if your getting near 100Mbs + on some Downloads, this will help you identify more info about what's going on your Travels around the Island(s) and could potentially help with your Fault Reporting to the CS Tech Support.

[bristolian]

There is next to no deployment of Bands 1 or Band 7 on the outer Hebrides, and it would be likely limited to Stornoway if so.

Coverage on the islands is provided largely by a single Band-1 carrier (EARFCN-1617 @ 20Mhz) & the 5Mhz Band20 service.

I was on the islands fairly recently, and capacity requirements are quite light for the most part. The issue is in providing blanket coverage across the road routes, which is where Band20 proves absolutely invaluable.

[Rob195]

Hi

Thanks for that info.  I've installed netmonster - what should I be looking for amongst all those numbers?

[bristolian]

The primary eNB will identify the site you're currently connected to, the EARFCN will identify the carrier.

The neighbour list at the bottom of the screen will identify potential other sites that your phone can pickup, along with their RX levels and carrier IDs.

I would expect you to be seeing L800 and/or L1800 as your technologies - the "L" refers to LTE/4G, the number is the frequency band. 800Mhz is Band 20, 1800Mhz is Band 3.

I can't recall if you have an Android device or not, but Cellmapper is an excellent app to use if you do. You can even contribute to the crowdsourced data if you do 😉

[EssexBoyEE]

Just add a bit more info on Netmonster, the reason I recommend Netmonster is to pull the Hidden Info from Android that your Samsung normally restricts, also Netmonster is a good App for Carrier Aggregation as it will display which Bands in real-time you Aggregating with (Header Info on the Live Page) eg -

EE LTE A 800+1800+2100+2600 etc.

The LTE and LTE A are your CA icons, ie LTE (4G) and LTE A (4G+ or LTE+ CA) sometimes you may need to pull Data, normally a Speed Test does this for the CA to kick in.

As @bristolian suggest you can cross reference the eNBiD to Cellmapper for Mast and Site info, if Cellmapper is a bit empty for Info in your Area then just do some Cellmapper Record ings yourself when on your Travels to build up Cellmapper Data Base, takes a few days to show though.

Don't worry too much about Map feature and Mast Locations within Netmonster, as it's only a rough guide, seems to do a better job than most though, just use the App in conjunction with Cellmapper by cross referencing.

[Rob195]

This is the netmonster info on the mast that until yesterday would not produce a speedtest result.  

EE 4G .LTE 1800

Ci 4472321

eNb 17470

CID 1

TAC 25821

PCI 156

EARFCN 1617

RSSI -63dBm

RSRP --85dBm

RSRQ -5db (red triangle down)

SNR 3.4dB (Green triangle up)

CQI 15

TA 13 (1.0k)

I've also got the cellmapper info for the same site.

Speedtest result was 7.47 down 0.00 up Ping 429 Jitter 54.78 

It took about a two minute for BBC sounds to start to stream, after five minutes it stopped and started buffering so I gave up!