Home Connecta Throttling?

[Amnesia]

I recently picked up a Home Connecta Sim from Pep after coming across the offerings on social media. Loaded the 50+50 for R199 just to get a feel and see if it's something I can live with. I have a B535-932 & got a perfect signal on that and my phone so no issues there. First concern are the download speeds. Regardless of what I do this sim just can't seem to do more than 0,5Mbs Down. Upload speeds usually max at 3,5Mbs.This is both on the phone and router. Moved the router after fiddling on the huactrl app and the stats didn't improve one bit. I put the router in the same spot where theoretically I'm supposed to be getting good speeds and popped in my Telkom sim and the speed difference is staggering. The Telkom sim has terrible stats on the huactrl app too in that position and the router was showing 3 bars. Could the sim be throttled? I'm not tech savvy so please don't bite my head off if there's something I'm missing. My router doesn't have an external antenna BTW.

@Cell_C Help

 

[BCR]

@Amnesia - I don't think you're doing anything wrong regarding your setup, because with Cell C (unlike Telkom) there's not too much or anything you can choose from in the router settings.

As you may know, with Telkom in the Huawei routers (I have 2x B525's, so older than your model), you can change to different bands (1800 / 2300Mhz) as well as select between "4G Only", or "Auto", and there's some difference between speedtests as a result, especially changing between 1800 and 2300.

But with Cell C, on this particular package, the last I checked, "4G Only" and "Auto" meant the same thing, and those were the only 2 options (not even "3G Only" was available, again, unlike Telkom).

I also don't know much about the technical side of things, but my guess is it's likely the tower you're connecting to.
Possible it hasn't (yet) been provisioned to work off MTN, which is what I believe from some comments in this forum, Cell C are busy with, because they're piggy-backing off MTN from now on (from what I understand).

You might need more time to just sit it out until things improve.
I've had variable speeds in the 2 months I've been testing / using this service, but very stable connections the last month - only 2 cut-out's in that time - and at usually around 18 down & about 9 up.

Just depends on where you are, I suppose ; I did this speedtest now, but for some reason, MWeb's newer format don't allow you to copy the result, as in the past :

https://speedtest.mweb.co.za/

Download - 16.86Mbps
Upload - 12.16Mbps

Ping - 61.00 ms
Jitter - 3.39 ms
105.4.6.222 - Cell C (Pty) Ltd, ZA (<20 km) -> MWEB - Johannesburg

My pings are usually better in the mid-40's.

The only minor criticism I'd have for you is not first testing with a 5 + 5 GB package at R59, though you still have 2 months to hope things improve, unless @Cell_C arrives on the scene with some other way to help.

Hope things improve for you.

Here's another speedtest in line with how you tested ; though not great & also not nearly as good as Telkom, I'm satisfied enough :

Speed Test – Fast, reliable, and ad-free internet speed test

Speed test result: Latency: 8ms | Download: 13.58Mbps | Upload: 3.36Mbps | Provider: Easyweb | Test your Internet connection speed with our fast, reliable, and ad-free tool. Measure your Internet speed now.

speedtest.co.za

ISP: Cell C
Ping: 46ms
Download: 17.98Mbps
Upload: 10.83Mbps
Test your speed: http://speedtest.co.za

 

[Cell_C]

I recently picked up a Home Connecta Sim from Pep after coming across the offerings on social media. Loaded the 50+50 for R199 just to get a feel and see if it's something I can live with. I have a B535-932 & got a perfect signal on that and my phone so no issues there. First concern are the download speeds. Regardless of what I do this sim just can't seem to do more than 0,5Mbs Down. Upload speeds usually max at 3,5Mbs.This is both on the phone and router. Moved the router after fiddling on the huactrl app and the stats didn't improve one bit. I put the router in the same spot where theoretically I'm supposed to be getting good speeds and popped in my Telkom sim and the speed difference is staggering. The Telkom sim has terrible stats on the huactrl app too in that position and the router was showing 3 bars. View attachment 1121256View attachment 1121258View attachment 1121260View attachment 1121262Could the sim be throttled? I'm not tech savvy so please don't bite my head off if there's something I'm missing. My router doesn't have an external antenna BTW.

@Cell_C Help

Hi there,

Thank you for contacting Cell C.

Kindly try to lock the the router on 4G. Restart and test to see if the connection improves and let us know of the outcome.

^NZ

 

[Amnesia]

I think you're right @BayCityRoller because I've been fiddling around with the router today in different positions and it's getting the same result speed wise even though the stats on the huactrl app show I've placed it in a very optimal position. The image is from the last position I placed it in and the down wasn't above 1mbps but funnily enough the up shot all the way up to 3.5Mbs. At the stats this thing is showing the speeds should be flying. Gonna try and find an external antenna and see what happens.

 

[Amnesia]

@Cell_C I've done that numerous times. Locked on 4G only and data roaming enabled.

 

[BCR]

I think you're right @BayCityRoller because I've been fiddling around with the router today in different positions and it's getting the same result speed wise even though the stats on the huactrl app show I've placed it in a very optimal position. The image is from the last position I placed it in and the down wasn't above 1mbps but funnily enough the up shot all the way up to 3.5Mbs. At the stats this thing is showing the speeds should be flying. Gonna try and find an external antenna and see what happens. View attachment 1121716

I understand your enthusiasm to get it to work, but just so you know, my routers aren't placed in any special positions & in fact sometimes have both on at the same time, in the same room (the one with Cell C and other with Telkom SIM), and they never seem to interfere with one another - which one might think they would.

Also, I don't have external antennae for either of them, so again, I think it's just down to good fortune with mobile / LTE, re tower placement etc.

I think I left mine on "Auto" in the router after testing "4G Only" some time ago, finding it didn't make a difference which was selected.

 

[Amnesia]

@BayCityRoller honestly it's not much enthusiasm as it is intrigue because something isn't just adding up so I wanna eliminate the antenna issue with the external. I've never used an external either with Telkom and that thing can push 80 down on a good day with 3 signal bars . The same is true for other networks I've been on with the exception of rain. They were just a sh#t show because of oversubscription in my humble opinion.

 

[BCR]

@Amnesia - I didn't bother with logging in again the whole long-weekend, but want to mention one other thing I can think of, assuming you check back here.

If you log into your router while the Cell C SIM is in, then under Device Info / Information (assuming you have a similar interface to the B525's I have), copy & paste it into a Start Conversation (ie. private message) with @Cell_C .
Maybe you can get some feedback re the specific tower you're connecting to as that Device Info includes the tower ID your router's connecting to.

Perhaps it's Cell C congestion in your area, or old equipment that has to be upgraded still, but that way you should know whether to continue with Cell C medium to longer term or not.

 

[Amnesia]

@BayCityRoller I'm gonna try and see if that yields any results.

Thanks.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

Tool is showing you connected to 1800mhz band and using 20mhz of it, cellc does not have 20mhz in the 1800band or even all the bands combined i think. Mtn does have 20mhz in 1800mhz band, pretty sure you roaming on mtn and they limit the speeds in roaming on mtn.

 

[Amnesia]

@Gtx Gaming that's interesting. On the router network settings interface it isn't roaming and is showing as Cell C. What do I do to sort it out?

---

 

[NeonNinja]

Yep they are throttling.

 

[Amnesia]

Yep they are throttling.

Figures.

 

[Gtx Gaming]

@Gtx Gaming that's interesting. On the router network settings interface it isn't roaming and is showing as Cell C. What do I do to sort it out?

---

Mtn towers broadcast the cellc ID where it roams, it will never show roaming. Nothing you can do cells is switching off there towers and mtn will be running the network. Mtn won't be allowing full speed on there towers, as this will slow down there users.

 

[Amnesia]

An ******* decided that 4:50am is a good time to wake me up today so after he left and I couldn't sleep I decided to test this service by running a torrent while everyone else is asleep. Lo and behold the improvement (it's not a lot but this is Cell C here so...) in speeds. It seems like congestion might also be an issue on this tower. If I could get this QOS consistently on this network all day day everyday I'd gladly make it my main LTE service but the crawling speeds when I need the service the most are just unacceptable.

 

[Amnesia]

Mtn towers broadcast the cellc ID where it roams, it will never show roaming. Nothing you can do cells is switching off there towers and mtn will be running the network. Mtn won't be allowing full speed on there towers, as this will slow down there users.

Damn shame because I'm not even a speed demon. I just need anything above 8/9Mbps so I can stream my sports in peace.

 

[renzoo]

Here my speed

 

[Amnesia]

Here my speed

You're in heaven.