3G Mast Info

sean12 said:
Is there a way to display which mast you are getting your signal from / connecting to?
Just like it is displayed for the Cell Phone signal.
Click to expand...

Do you mean for the data card?

I've managed to receive cellular broadcast messages in GPRS/EDGE mode, but not in 3G mode. Apparently in 3G mode you are connected to many towers simultaneously so they don't have cell broadcasts.
 
ginggs said:
Do you mean for the data card?

I've managed to receive cellular broadcast messages in GPRS/EDGE mode, but not in 3G mode. Apparently in 3G mode you are connected to many towers simultaneously so they don't have cell broadcasts.
Click to expand...

Hi

Sorry

Yes it is for the E620 Data Card.

It might help pinpointing errors with speeds etc. and moving to a different location of the house to get better speeds. That is if you know where the Towers are located.

Sean
 
sean12 said:
Hi

Sorry

Yes it is for the E620 Data Card.

It might help pinpointing errors with speeds etc. and moving to a different location of the house to get better speeds. That is if you know where the Towers are located.

Sean
Click to expand...

Good day,

Will advise on this ASAP

Thanks MTNDD
 
sean12 said:
Hi

Is there a way to display which mast you are getting your signal from / connecting to?
Just like it is displayed for the Cell Phone signal.

Sean
Click to expand...

Try turning on Cell Broadcast channel 900.

Thanks MTNDD
 
sean12 said:
Is this for a mobile phone because I can not find these settings on the E620.

Sean
Click to expand...

Sorry long day - You right that's only for a phone I'll check with my device manager tomorrow and see what we can do

MTNDD
 
Just to confirm - cell broadcast on channel 900 will only work on 2G (GPRS, EDGE) but there is no equivalent on 3G.

This is according to the international 3GPP standard.
 
Insider said:
Just to confirm - cell broadcast on channel 900 will only work on 2G (GPRS, EDGE) but there is no equivalent on 3G.

This is according to the international 3GPP standard.
Click to expand...


@Insider

Thanks

MTNDD
 
Is it possible to determine the capabilities of a tower by physically looking at it?
 
BEB said:
Is it possible to determine the capabilities of a tower by physically looking at it?
Click to expand...

It is possible, but it depends. First you need to ascertain which network the tower belongs to. Hopefully they have a sign posted at the gate. Otherwise, you will have to go on how strong the signal is. [Full bars can be deceiving as you will probably be on some high site somewhere picking up multiple towers with good signal strength]. On some sites, the networks share the tower complicating things a little.

But let's say you know for a fact you are looking at an unshared tower i.e. occupied by only one network-
then also you would only be able to tell which bands the towers are using, i.e. GSM 900, GSM 1800 and 3G. I am not that familiar with the 3G antennas, all I know is they are usually smaller than the GSM 900's and GSM 1800's.

As to whether the tower does HSDPA instead of 3G, or if it does EDGE instead of GPRS, there's no way you would know. You could of course drive to the tower with a laptop and a few devices at 3am in the morning and hopefully get reliable speed tests! :D

Maybe MTNDD can get the tower's status from his radio techies?
 
BEB said:
Is it possible to determine the capabilities of a tower by physically looking at it?
Click to expand...

In short – no. Too many variants of antennas and most of the “capability” is hidden away in the container.

MTNDD
 
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