What's Next

Antenna installation and alignment

RiFTY123 said:
Hey guys. I have a Huawei b618 LTE-A router from telkom, I can't put up big antennas or anything in the estate I stay. is there anything else I can do to imporove my signal or other antenna options I can use?
Click to expand...

You can install in the roof under roof tiles it will give you better signal than relying on the ordinary in built antenna, especially if the device is between walls.

We have fitted many "hidden" antennas on sites within estates where they cannot be seen but have made remarkable difference. Peacon wood for one has a few antennas I have fitted that are not visible from most places. No one has complained or moaned about it. Site survey and site evaluation always good to do before installing to check if the signal improves. :)
 
phillyza said:
I have got a Huawei B315 modem with a Telkom prepaid sim card. Got a Poynting XPOL-6 antenna which I installed yesterday and connected to the modem. After installation:
Signal parameters:
RSRQ -6db (good)
RSRP -83dBm (excellent)
SINR 5dB (bad)
RSSI -61 dBm (good)
Signal strength: 4 out of 5 bars.
Download speeds range from 14-21 (max)Mbps and upload speeds of around 19Mbps everytime. The download speeds dropped to around 2-3Mbps between 19:00 and 20:00 last night which might be contributed to congestion?
Anything else I can do to improve speeds and improve SINR which is bad? My modem software doesn't show cellID so not sure which tower I'm connected to. I just turned the antenna till I got best signal. In that direction I saw towers and I have direct line of sight to them.
Click to expand...

Direction & Freq possibly ? those readings are pretty good, SINR is low your RSSI is very good which means its possible frequency specific. RSSI is Full band Relative Strength indicator if you look at the Xpol 6 gain pattern it has a best response in the 1710 - 2700 MHz, It rolls off pretty much in the lower 1700 and upper 2600. So You maybe on connecting on the UMTS 3G when in fact you Should be on the LTE. Just make sure your direction and LTE ONLY has been selected in the router, try not let the modem drop down to the LTE to UMTS, GSM... and then rotate or move your Antenna till you have full signal strength on the LTE band. :)
 
How much does Telkom charge to put up Antenna? provided i have bought it myself.
other than telkom, who can i pay to put my antenna at my residence? anyone know a company.
 
darksidemessiah said:
How much does Telkom charge to put up Antenna? provided i have bought it myself.
other than telkom, who can i pay to put my antenna at my residence? anyone know a company.
Click to expand...

which area ? I maybe able to assist - can you PM your contact details
 
Would an antenna improve sinr on cellc fixed lte? Don't know much about LTE signal info but I noticed that higher sinr values resulted in faster download speeds
 
ikramj said:
Would an antenna improve sinr on cellc fixed lte? Don't know much about LTE signal info but I noticed that higher sinr values resulted in faster download speeds
Click to expand...

Yes it will, in a perfect environment, assuming all other network factors remain constant and only SINR is adjusted...

SINR is defined as:

  • S: indicates the power of measured usable signals. Reference signals (RS) and physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) are mainly involved
LTE-SINR-Total-Definition.png

    • I: indicates the average interference power – the power of measured signals or channel interference signals from other cells in the current system
    • N: indicates background noise, which is related to measurement bandwidths and receiver noise coefficients
All quantities are measured over the same bandwidth and normalized to one subcarrier bandwidth.

SINR is a measure of signal quality as well but it is not defined in the 3GPP specs but defined by the UE vendor.

It is not reported to the network. SINR is used a lot by operators, and the LTE industry in general, as it better quantifies the relationship between RF conditions and Throughput. LTE UEs typically use SINR to calculate the CQI (Channel Quality Indicator) they report to the network.

It is a common practice to use Signal-to-Interference Ratio (SINR) as an indicator for network quality. It should be however noted that 3GPP specifications do not define SINR and therefore UE does not report SINR to the network. SINR is still internally measured by most UEs and recorded by drive test tools.

Unfortunately UE chipset and RF scanner manufacturers have implemented SINR measurement in various different ways which are not always easily comparable. While at first it may seem that defining SINR should be unambiguous, in case of LTE downlink this is not the case. This is because different REs within a radio frame carry different physical signals and channels each of which, in turn, see different interference power depending on inter-cell radio frame synchronization.

For example, in a frame-synchronized network, SINR estimation based on synchronization signals (PSS/SSS) results in different SINR than SINR estimation based on Reference Signals, since in the latter case the frequency shift of the RS depends on the PCI plan

For the Techies who want to understand LTE Download speed
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6927712
 
Asked this in telkom thread but maybe this is a better thread to ask in?

Hi guys
So im finally gonna install my external antenna (After 4 years I think!)

Just a quick question regarding cell towers. I have a few in my area, all within 3km from me. Each tower is marked with either telkom, mtn or cell c. What are the chances that they are sharing towers? As I have direct line of sight to the one mtn tower?
Click to expand...
 
Hi

Please may i obtain advice.

I am based around 800 meters away from a Telkom Mobile tower, and have a Poynting XPOL 6 antenna connected to my Huawei B525s-65a LTE-A router.

My current signal stats on the 2300Mhz band are:

RSRQ:-7dB
RSRP:-82dBm
RSSI:-57dBm
SINR:9d



I also have a Poynting XPOL 2 antenna which I want to have mounted externally, and then ‘combine’ the antenna cables from the XPOL 6 and XPOL 2 using a splitter/combiner type box (i.e. 4 antenna cables combined into 2
antenna cables which will connect to the router).

Will using these two external antennas in the manner mentioned above improve my signal stats (strength / quality) at all ?

Thank you
 
so i just got an antenna installed

is there any need to change settings on the router ?
 
Hi all, does anyone know if @rain_mobile has spectrum analyzers, or is there someone in Guateng that has one that I could maybe rent for a day? There is an area that has a huge amount of noise that I need to figure out how to get a better connection to the towers.
 
GhostShow said:
Hi all, does anyone know if @rain_mobile has spectrum analyzers, or is there someone in Guateng that has one that I could maybe rent for a day? There is an area that has a huge amount of noise that I need to figure out how to get a better connection to the towers.
Click to expand...
Hi @GhostShow Please provide me with your email via PM.
 
Wow, so @rain_mobile , @rain_networks , this is now 2 times you have told me the tower close to me has been fixed, and two times now that you come back and tell me there is still an alarm going off by the tower. I have the screenshots of the chat where I am told the tower is restored. Who can I trust now?
 
GhostShow said:
Wow, so @rain_mobile , @rain_networks , this is now 2 times you have told me the tower close to me has been fixed, and two times now that you come back and tell me there is still an alarm going off by the tower. I have the screenshots of the chat where I am told the tower is restored. Who can I trust now?
Click to expand...
Good Morning @GhostShow

I will take a look into this and advise you as to what is happening.
 
Hi,

Just a reminder if you are experiencing bad coverage, your property might be an ideal location for a cell site. I can make that happen and make you money in the process. PM me if you are interested with the co-ordinates of your property.

Further out of good will should any of you need help identifying your closest cell site to point your antennas to, I can help if need be.

Thanks
TowerGuru
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top