Locating telkom lte tower?

[Savy561]

So my father who lives on the other side of the country has telkom lte and he does not enjoy tinkering with anything that he doesn't need to. Now the current location of his router is not cutting it and I cannot for the life of me get him to move the router and do a few tests or even log into the routers UI.

So here is the question: is there any way to locate his tower or get even a direction towards the tower so that I can help him from here? Would telkom help even help if I had to ask them this question?

 

[Lord Flacko]

You sound like someone that wants to steal the batteries.

Jokes aside the below link might help or steer you in the right direction.

How to Find Your Nearest Cell Tower in South Africa in Five Minutes or Less: 2021 Edition

Looking to find your nearest cell phone tower in South Africa? Our tried and tested guide to websites, apps, native tools, and signal meters will help you locate your closest cell tower for various networks.

www.boltontechnical.co.za

 

[Savy561]

You sound like someone that wants to steal the batteries.

Jokes aside the below link might help or steer you in the right direction.

How to Find Your Nearest Cell Tower in South Africa in Five Minutes or Less: 2021 Edition

Looking to find your nearest cell phone tower in South Africa? Our tried and tested guide to websites, apps, native tools, and signal meters will help you locate your closest cell tower for various networks.

www.boltontechnical.co.za

Haha yeah that's why I haven't even contacted telkom yet as I know that battery theft is all too common these day's. Thank you for the link, I will check it out now.

 

[deweyzeph]

Although it doesn't really help your current situation, I always advise anyone who I help with LTE issues to firstly get a router that has connections for an external antenna, and then to get a directional LTE antenna from Poynting and mount it on their roof. Once that's done you can move the antenna around 360 degrees and find the best signal easily if there are multiple Telkom towers around you. If there's only one Telkom tower nearby (likely in a rural area) then the directional antenna is even more efficient in ensuring you get the best signal by focusing the collection area of the antenna in exactly the right direction.

 

[dillinger]

Although it doesn't really help your current situation, I always advise anyone who I help with LTE issues to firstly get a router that has connections for an external antenna, and then to get a directional LTE antenna from Poynting and mount it on their roof. Once that's done you can move the antenna around 360 degrees and find the best signal easily if there are multiple Telkom towers around you. If there's only one Telkom tower nearby (likely in a rural area) then the directional antenna is even more efficient in ensuring you get the best signal by focusing the collection area of the antenna in exactly the right direction.

That is exactly did yesterday, bought a Poynting antenna (11dB gain), mounted it on the roof. Took laptop up on the roof and logged into the router and looked at the RSRP and SINR reading while turning the antenna, then changed the frequency setting to 1800MHz.

 

[deweyzeph]

That is exactly did yesterday, bought a Poynting antenna (11dB gain), mounted it on the roof. Took laptop up on the roof and logged into the router and looked at the RSRP and SINR reading while turning the antenna, then changed the frequency setting to 1800MHz.

View attachment 898474View attachment 898476

Nice. Personally I use Afrihost's Pure LTE service with MTN as a backup to my ADSL and I regularly get 80Mbps download and 25Mbps upload with my external antenna mounted on my roof. I stay in the South Peninsula area of Cape Town and the nearest tower is almost 7.5km away with clear LOS, so the antenna has worked magic for me. I've got the Huawei B618 router and I also had to tweak the LTE bands using the Huawei band tool that I found here on Mybroadband before I was able to get a nice stable connection with my external antenna.

 

[ponder]

So here is the question: is there any way to locate his tower or get even a direction towards the tower so that I can help him from here? Would telkom help even help if I had to ask them this question?

There's an Android app called opensignal, it will give you a directional indicator as well as plot towers on a map. Just pop the sim into a phone or if you already have Telkom sim in your phone just carry on with that.