Good morning to all. I have a question and I hope someone can help. I canned Rain the end of April and switched to MTN Fixed LTE. Rain became useless! I had a look on MTN's coverage map and I seem to be just outside the Fixed LTE range. I do however pick up LTE A on my ZTE router. I am also expecting my Poynting antenna this week. Here is my problem. I seem to connect to some MTN tower about 300 metres away from me. I went looking for this non existing tower (Network Cell Info). Can't find it. Open Signal says I'm connected to a tower behind a tall hill. Not possible. Network Signal Info shows another tower. Went looking for it. Nope, nothing. We have a tall mast on another hill with LOTS of cell antennas on it, yet I don't seem to connect to it. ANY connection gives me around - 110 to 115 Db signal. Now, here is my question. Where do I point my Poynting antenna to now, seeing that I am tower locked?
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Afrihost - MTN Fixed LTE
- Thread starter Dirk1805
- Start date
I did a similar exercise to you last year when considering buying a Poynting, or other antenna.
I also found conflicting results from those apps (ie. non-existent masts), so relied on lower figures (in the region of 40 - 60) from my smartphone when driving around to determine where in the general vicinity the masts were.
I found that the one closest to home - around 200m estimated, gave good enough figures on Telkom, so went with that. Later on, tested an MTN SIM, and speeds were reduced, but still acceptable. Ping was about the same for both.
I think if your antenna is directional, you'll literally have to have one of you in the household position it in a certain direction (on wall outside / roof ?), then another do a speed-test & see the results after each change in position. It will be time-consuming and irritating for the one moving the antenna around in all available directions, AND will be complicated by the fact that in your router, you should also be able to change from "Auto" to "4G only" to "3G & 4G", maybe "1800Mhz", "2300Mhz" depending on what it offers, and test each of those in turn.
This vid. gives some good info on testing (in the UK), though not watched in a long time :
As my figures were lower than yours, I didn't bother in the end, relying on only the internal antenna instead.
This is a good option to test with (if in southern part of the country, from PE West I'd think), as it gives jitter results as well :
Otherwise, http://speedtest.co.za/ , or the one on this forum.
https://getvoip.com/blog/2018/04/02/understanding-jitter-voip/
Hope it works out, but I'm definitely no expert on this.
I also found conflicting results from those apps (ie. non-existent masts), so relied on lower figures (in the region of 40 - 60) from my smartphone when driving around to determine where in the general vicinity the masts were.
I found that the one closest to home - around 200m estimated, gave good enough figures on Telkom, so went with that. Later on, tested an MTN SIM, and speeds were reduced, but still acceptable. Ping was about the same for both.
I think if your antenna is directional, you'll literally have to have one of you in the household position it in a certain direction (on wall outside / roof ?), then another do a speed-test & see the results after each change in position. It will be time-consuming and irritating for the one moving the antenna around in all available directions, AND will be complicated by the fact that in your router, you should also be able to change from "Auto" to "4G only" to "3G & 4G", maybe "1800Mhz", "2300Mhz" depending on what it offers, and test each of those in turn.
This vid. gives some good info on testing (in the UK), though not watched in a long time :
As my figures were lower than yours, I didn't bother in the end, relying on only the internal antenna instead.
This is a good option to test with (if in southern part of the country, from PE West I'd think), as it gives jitter results as well :
Otherwise, http://speedtest.co.za/ , or the one on this forum.
https://getvoip.com/blog/2018/04/02/understanding-jitter-voip/
Hope it works out, but I'm definitely no expert on this.
Thanks BayCity. I have watched that video. My main concern is when I install the X-POL 6-10M it will pick up better signals when I start aiming in different directions, but what happens to the tower lock? Surely if I good a good signal and speed test from another tower, MTN will surely block me because I am not using the initial tower that the modem locked on to the first time? I live in Sedgefield. I've only seen the one big tower in Sedgefield, although the various apps show some other tower locations. I drove around, but as I said, I have not found any of them. Weird.
David
Well-Known Member
Guys, just be careful because MTN Fixed LTE is a bit a scam in my opinion and here is why. They have very good prices for their data packages on these plans, in fact best offers for data next to Telkom, HOWEVER you are FORCED to use a specific routers and their are only a couple of models they allow, all of which are expensive as hell. R2k + region.
Now here is my issue. Firstly I understand that they want to be able to manage the connection and speed expectation and experience on this platform and hence would not want all and sundry connecting any old LTE router or cellphone. But the problem is they have only approved a very limited amount of routers, which are listed in this article,
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wire...te-heres-why-you-need-an-approved-router.html
And secondly these are all very expensive routers, surely by now after all these years the price of LTE routers would be coming down, just like in the days of ADSL. I recall paying R2k for my very first Netgear ADSL and years later you could pickup a ADSL router with WIFI for R600.
And Thirdly have you ever tried to obtain one of these routers especially in the last 2 months. No one has stock. It seems that ZTE is exclusively reserved for ISP's like Afrihost and Axxess. Even as I reseller we could not track down a local distributor and the local ZTE office just refers you back to MTN. And Huwaei are super expensive and stock is never available.
And dont even try to use a non certified router, it works for 24 Hours and then the network simply blocks the router from their network for ever. And even worse is both Afrihost and Axxess who by the way are one and the same company, will take another 24 to 48 hours to activate the card once you receive it and put it into the router.
Now here is my issue. Firstly I understand that they want to be able to manage the connection and speed expectation and experience on this platform and hence would not want all and sundry connecting any old LTE router or cellphone. But the problem is they have only approved a very limited amount of routers, which are listed in this article,
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wire...te-heres-why-you-need-an-approved-router.html
And secondly these are all very expensive routers, surely by now after all these years the price of LTE routers would be coming down, just like in the days of ADSL. I recall paying R2k for my very first Netgear ADSL and years later you could pickup a ADSL router with WIFI for R600.
And Thirdly have you ever tried to obtain one of these routers especially in the last 2 months. No one has stock. It seems that ZTE is exclusively reserved for ISP's like Afrihost and Axxess. Even as I reseller we could not track down a local distributor and the local ZTE office just refers you back to MTN. And Huwaei are super expensive and stock is never available.
And dont even try to use a non certified router, it works for 24 Hours and then the network simply blocks the router from their network for ever. And even worse is both Afrihost and Axxess who by the way are one and the same company, will take another 24 to 48 hours to activate the card once you receive it and put it into the router.