LTE v Fixed LTE

[carlnielsen]

Can someone tell me the difference between LTE and Fixed LTE. I lived in an area with LTE coverage - I use a 3G dongle for fallback from my main WISP-based internet service, but the data prices are high. Data on so-called Fixed LTE is way cheaper, but technically I am not in a Fixed LTE covered area, so can't use it.

 

[Hemps]

I'm with Telkom Fixed LTE and can take it with me from the business to my home 60km away and it still works.

I'm told MTN Fixed LTE is fixed to the MTN tower at your registered address?
So you can't use it elsewhere?

also curious....

 

[carlnielsen]

Guessing both your home and office are within the Fixed LTE coverage range, so it would make sense that it works at both. The question is, if you go somewhere that has "normal" LTE coverage but not Fixed LTE (e.g. the N2 somewhere in the middle of nowhere), will it work?

 

[Matt91]

Guessing both your home and office are within the Fixed LTE coverage range, so it would make sense that it works at both. The question is, if you go somewhere that has "normal" LTE coverage (e.g. the N2 somewhere in the middle of nowhere) will it work?

As far as I know its not that MTN is limited to a certain tower, it's limited to certain 4G LTE cat6 routers.

I use Telkom fixed LTE in a portable Mi-Fi router (cat4) and it works like a charm as long as your in the signal radius.

 

[carlnielsen]

As far as I know its not that MTN is limited to a certain tower, it's limited to certain 4G LTE cat6 routers.

You mean an MTN fixed LTE sim will only work in certain routers? Is there then something that is required on the tower to make it work. In other words, certain of their towers supports those routers and certain towers don't?

 

[Magandroid]

This is my understanding when I inquired with Afrihost recently, as I am wanting to try the Afrihost MTN Pure LTE which is Fixed LTE.
Normal LTE allows access to any tower and any LTE capable device to connect to these towers. This allows the user to be able to move around and connect to the LTE tower, like when using your cellphone.
With Fixed LTE (MTN), your network approved LTE router is locked to a certain tower and cannot be moved from one tower to the other. The idea is that they allocate the user a port (I thinks that's what they called it) on a tower so as not to oversubscribe the tower as they want to give the user a good experience.

 

[carlnielsen]

This is my understanding when I inquired with Afrihost recently, as I am wanting to try the Afrihost MTN Pure LTE which is Fixed LTE.
Normal LTE allows access to any tower and any LTE capable device to connect to these towers. This allows the user to be able to move around and connect to the LTE tower, like when using your cellphone.
With Fixed LTE (MTN), your network approved LTE router is locked to a certain tower and cannot be moved from one tower to the other. The idea is that they allocate the user a port (I thinks that's what they called it) on a tower so as not to oversubscribe the tower as they want to give the user a good experience.

That's as may be, but it doesn't answer the question of why the coverage areas for Fixed LTE and Normal LTE are different, which is really at the heart of my enquiry.

 

[Magandroid]

That's as may be, but it doesn't answer the question of why the coverage areas for Fixed LTE and Normal LTE are different, which is really at the heart of my enquiry.

That's proabaly something you would have to query with service providers. Could be that towers in the area are already over subscribed. Only they answer your question.

 

[carlnielsen]

That's proabaly something you would have to query with service providers. Could be that towers in the area are already over subscribed. Only they answer your question.

I am not so sure. If it truly is down to the networks locking out certain towers because they are oversubscribed, then you would expect that in lower population areas, they wouldn't need to do that, and Fixed LTE access would be readily available (viz here where I live in the Klein Karoo). It seems more likely that their towers need some sort of upgrade to be able to service Fixed LTE or that there is some technical issue which reduces the range of fixed LTE coverage as against normal LTE. Which all presupposes that normal LTE and fixed LTE are 2 different animals. But I don't know that: hence the original question.

 

[MirageF1]

Let us know when MTN let you in to their sales tactics, oh sorry, technical reasoning.