Ravilj
Well-Known Member
Background
I am in the middle of at least 4 basestation coverage maps: Sandton, Bryanston, Rosebank and it would seem Randburg. I have had speeds up to 1Mb quite happily.
The Problem
Last nite I the Randburg basestation went down and guess what I had no bandwidth. I spoke to the helpdesk and they informed me that i connect to Randburg even though its probably the furthest basestation from me, I cant believe for a second that it has the strongest signal.
Question1
Do the modems have a routine in their firmware to determine which basestation has the strongest signal strength...
Answer 1
NO! This was proven last evening when Randburg went down and after switching the modem on and off it still connected to Randburg even though the other surrounding basestations are up!
Question 2
So what does the modem do?
Answer 2
According to the helpdesk the modem determines which basestation is closest, hmmm well this is a load of bollocks since i am about 6km down the road from sandton city.
Quesion 3
Why havent WBS thought about this or done something about this?
Answer 3
I email Shaun about this and he said I should buy a directional antenna... this would be a great solution given the fact that I could actually afford one (R600).
Solution
No hear me out... I cant believe that it is that hard to add a simple routine that cycles through all the basestations testing the speed (which it can do already since you get signal strength readings) and just select the strongest signal?! Cell phones do it why cant iburst modems as well?
Why should they do it?
a) When a basestation goes down your modem should automatically cycle through the other available ones and connect to the next strongest.
- This will not only save time and money that would be lost due to basestations going down but also it will keep the users happy. (and I am sure WBS could use this given the general problems)
b) I will help eliminate slow speeds or degraded bandwidth problems that are actually cause due to weak signals.
- This will also save time and money since no sitting on the phone bitching and moaning and trying to work out what the problem is.
What I am no prepared to do...
As suggested I should put up a metal barrier between my modem and the direction of the randburg tower. To me this is not a solution this is a mere hack.
Yes buying a directional antenna is a possible solution but an expensive one. A simple firmware upgrade is all that in theory is needed with a little for look that looks as follows:
for(i = 0; i < 6; i++)
And what would be even cooler is if the modem ran this say every so often, I would be happy to loose a couple of bytes from my cap to make sure that I got a strong signal.
Disclaimer:
yadda yadda hispsky bob...
What are your thoughts?
I am in the middle of at least 4 basestation coverage maps: Sandton, Bryanston, Rosebank and it would seem Randburg. I have had speeds up to 1Mb quite happily.
The Problem
Last nite I the Randburg basestation went down and guess what I had no bandwidth. I spoke to the helpdesk and they informed me that i connect to Randburg even though its probably the furthest basestation from me, I cant believe for a second that it has the strongest signal.
Question1
Do the modems have a routine in their firmware to determine which basestation has the strongest signal strength...
Answer 1
NO! This was proven last evening when Randburg went down and after switching the modem on and off it still connected to Randburg even though the other surrounding basestations are up!
Question 2
So what does the modem do?
Answer 2
According to the helpdesk the modem determines which basestation is closest, hmmm well this is a load of bollocks since i am about 6km down the road from sandton city.
Quesion 3
Why havent WBS thought about this or done something about this?
Answer 3
I email Shaun about this and he said I should buy a directional antenna... this would be a great solution given the fact that I could actually afford one (R600).
Solution
No hear me out... I cant believe that it is that hard to add a simple routine that cycles through all the basestations testing the speed (which it can do already since you get signal strength readings) and just select the strongest signal?! Cell phones do it why cant iburst modems as well?
Why should they do it?
a) When a basestation goes down your modem should automatically cycle through the other available ones and connect to the next strongest.
- This will not only save time and money that would be lost due to basestations going down but also it will keep the users happy. (and I am sure WBS could use this given the general problems)
b) I will help eliminate slow speeds or degraded bandwidth problems that are actually cause due to weak signals.
- This will also save time and money since no sitting on the phone bitching and moaning and trying to work out what the problem is.
What I am no prepared to do...
As suggested I should put up a metal barrier between my modem and the direction of the randburg tower. To me this is not a solution this is a mere hack.
Yes buying a directional antenna is a possible solution but an expensive one. A simple firmware upgrade is all that in theory is needed with a little for look that looks as follows:
for(i = 0; i < 6; i++)
Code:
MaxSignal=0;
for ( i = 0; i < Number_of_basestations; i++ )
{
if ( Signal(i) > MaxSignal ) MaxSignal = i;
}
// Connect to BaseStation #MaxSignal.Disclaimer:
yadda yadda hispsky bob...
What are your thoughts?
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