The Huawei B593 LTE discussion thread

[jcheek]

Hey jcheek,
Thanks for all the info. My sister rents out an apartment on the 4th floor of a complex that doesn't offer fixed broadband, this also means external antenna are a no go. This is why I was wondering about the performance you can get from the standard antenna. This would be a fixed installation, once the router is in place she wouldn't move it around. Aside from moving the router near to a window/room that faces the tower's direction is there anything else I can do to get the best results?

She has a contract with TM already and I was told by the TM reps in the shop that to use LTE you just have to pop the sim from the dongle into the LTE router and your internet becomes a little better. Honestly I'm not looking for earth shattering speeds, just want to upgrade her internet from being acceptable for browsing to something vaguely resembling adsl.

4th floor - then at least she has a bit of elevation! In that case I would think that the B593's built-in antennas will do quite well. In my experience they perform better than the two flat whip antennas that are shipped with the B593, so you may not even bother unpacking those.

Inside these threads there is a lot of emphasis on "directional" installations, ie where your antenna system has line-of-sight to the base station. However LTE can do also do very, very well with a non-line-of-sight installation, ie where your signal diversity comes from picking up signals that have been reflected off buildings and internal obstructions, rather than relying on direct coupling to the base station antenna elements.

Given your stated objectives, I think that the B593 will probably meet your performance needs out the box. You can indeed experiment with location and orientation of the B593, and you may well find that putting it closer to an aperture (like a window) gives a bit more performance.
At a subsequent stage you might consider an indoor external ("desktop") antenna like the Poynting XPOL-0010, which has dual orthogonally-polarised elements inside a one-piece casing with separate feed cables.
If you wished to go a step further (but still staying indoors), you might consider an install similar to the one Azimuth did here.

As regards getting up and running, the process is virtually that simple (well, almost!). You would just need to make sure that her SIMcard is indeed provisioned for LTE. At worst she may need to do a SIM swap.

For a fixed installation, one of the "nice" aspects of the B593 is that it connects via a bog-standard RJ-45 ethernet jack (or WLAN, of course). No USB dongle with a mess of antenna cables hanging off the side of your laptop, and no need for USB drivers.

I had to chuckle at your comment about "... just want to upgrade her internet from being acceptable for browsing to something vaguely resembling ADSL".
For the fortunate few of us who live close enough to a Telkom exchange to get access to 10, 20 or even 40Mbps xDSL services, that may be true. However for many folks, distance and legacy copper circuits means that xDSL tops out at 4Mbps. In such cases - the majority, I believe - LTE easily blows ADSL out of the water in terms of performance. The only real downside is the absence of "uncapped" data packages.

Good luck - let us know what you decide and how you do!

Edit: Be sure to check that your sister's place does indeed have LTE coverage from Telkom Mobile before splurging out!

 

[image132]

4th floor - then at least she has a bit of elevation! In that case I would think that the B593's built-in antennas will do quite well. In my experience they perform better than the two flat whip antennas that are shipped with the B593, so you may not even bother unpacking those.

Inside these threads there is a lot of emphasis on "directional" installations, ie where your antenna system has line-of-sight to the base station. However LTE can do also do very, very well with a non-line-of-sight installation, ie where your signal diversity comes from picking up signals that have been reflected off buildings and internal obstructions, rather than relying on direct coupling to the base station antenna elements.

Given your stated objectives, I think that the B593 will probably meet your performance needs out the box. You can indeed experiment with location and orientation of the B593, and you may well find that putting it closer to an aperture (like a window) gives a bit more performance.
At a subsequent stage you might consider an indoor external ("desktop") antenna like the Poynting XPOL-0010, which has dual orthogonally-polarised elements inside a one-piece casing with separate feed cables.
If you wished to go a step further (but still staying indoors), you might consider an install similar to the one Azimuth did here.

As regards getting up and running, the process is virtually that simple (well, almost!). You would just need to make sure that her SIMcard is indeed provisioned for LTE. At worst she may need to do a SIM swap.

For a fixed installation, one of the "nice" aspects of the B593 is that it connects via a bog-standard RJ-45 ethernet jack (or WLAN, of course). No USB dongle with a mess of antenna cables hanging off the side of your laptop, and no need for USB drivers.

I had to chuckle at your comment about "... just want to upgrade her internet from being acceptable for browsing to something vaguely resembling ADSL".
For the fortunate few of us who live close enough to a Telkom exchange to get access to 10, 20 or even 40Mbps xDSL services, that may be true. However for many folks, distance and legacy copper circuits means that xDSL tops out at 4Mbps. In such cases - the majority, I believe - LTE easily blows ADSL out of the water in terms of performance. The only real downside is the absence of "uncapped" data packages.

Good luck - let us know what you decide and how you do!

Edit: Be sure to check that your sister's place does indeed have LTE coverage from Telkom Mobile before splurging out!

Yep I'm 100% sure her area is supported by TM LTE, one of the first things I've checked. I guess I set the bar a bit low with adsl hey? I'm quietly hoping for a significant improvement over it but if the results aren't satisfactory out of the box I'll definitely look at those antennas. I was actually already looking at the second one you sent as sticking it to a window seems like my best bet. Any idea how well those suction cups hold? I'd be worried about sticking them on the outside of a window on the 4th floor with how windy days can get down here in Cape Town.

Is there any quick way to check if her sim has been provisioned? I really don't want to have to phone telkom :/

 

[jcheek]

Yep I'm 100% sure her area is supported by TM LTE, one of the first things I've checked. I guess I set the bar a bit low with adsl hey? I'm quietly hoping for a significant improvement over it but if the results aren't satisfactory out of the box I'll definitely look at those antennas. I was actually already looking at the second one you sent as sticking it to a window seems like my best bet. Any idea how well those suction cups hold? I'd be worried about sticking them on the outside of a window on the 4th floor with how windy days can get down here in Cape Town.

Is there any quick way to check if her sim has been provisioned? I really don't want to have to phone telkom :/

Personally, I'm a "screws and rawlplugs" kinda guy ! I didn't have too much luck with the suction cups on a previous 3G window antenna I used, but then it was much larger than the XPOL-0001. Azimuth may chime in here as he's had first-hand experience with the suction cups on the XPOL-0001.

As for a provisioning check .. no easy way that I know of, sorry. There's no indication of LTE per SIMcard on the Telkom Mobile self-service web page.
If a phonecall to TM doesn't work to check this, you'll very quickly find this out when you try to connect for 4G if/when you insert the SIM into an LTE-capable device, of course. At that point a call (or visit) to a TM shop may or may not be necessary anyway.

I bought my TM 60GB+60GB package specifically for LTE and to TM's credit, it did work for LTE right out the box. Unlike other network operators (MTN, for example), the TM LTE SIMcards are not specifically marked as such.
Someone else may know of a better/other way to check.

 

[image132]

Personally, I'm a "screws and rawlplugs" kinda guy ! I didn't have too much luck with the suction cups on a previous 3G window antenna I used, but then it was much larger than the XPOL-0001. Azimuth may chime in here as he's had first-hand experience with the suction cups on the XPOL-0001.

As for a provisioning check .. no easy way that I know of, sorry. There's no indication of LTE per SIMcard on the Telkom Mobile self-service web page.
If a phonecall to TM doesn't work to check this, you'll very quickly find this out when you try to connect for 4G if/when you insert the SIM into an LTE-capable device, of course. At that point a call (or visit) to a TM shop may or may not be necessary anyway.

I bought my TM 60GB+60GB package specifically for LTE and to TM's credit, it did work for LTE right out the box. Unlike other network operators (MTN, for example), the TM LTE SIMcards are not specifically marked as such.
Someone else may know of a better/other way to check.

For me personally I also prefer screw and rawlbolts but thats not really an option in her flat.

Yeah I'm pretty doubtful whether her sim is provisioned for it as she got her contract ages ago when TM was still 8ta. Guess it's time to go in again.

One final question. I see these routers are being sold everywhere in their generic form and after doing some research I see that I need a specific sub model (one that supports TDD 2300 TM band) to get it to work. Do you have any idea which sub model supports it?

 

[jcheek]

One final question. I see these routers are being sold everywhere in their generic form and after doing some research I see that I need a specific sub model (one that supports TDD 2300 TM band) to get it to work. Do you have any idea which sub model supports it?

Azimuth has assembled all the right info for you in the first post of this thread, but the short answer is that the B593s-601 is probably the one you want. If you're happy to be locked in to Telkom Mobile, you might find a B593u-91 at a better price.

 

[image132]

Azimuth has assembled all the right info for you in the first post of this thread, but the short answer is that the B593s-601 is probably the one you want. If you're happy to be locked in to Telkom Mobile, you might find a B593u-91 at a better price.

My plan was just to go the Telkom shop to buy it as it seems pretty hard to find sub models in brochures and on online shops. At least that way I can guarantee it's compatible.

Anyway thank you for all the info, you've been a wealth of knowledge and information.

 

[jcheek]

My plan was just to go the Telkom shop to buy it as it seems pretty hard to find sub models in brochures and on online shops. At least that way I can guarantee it's compatible.

Yes, the brochures generally don't say. The only sure way is to physically check the packaging when you buy. The B593s-601 will work with most any current network, whereas the 'u-91 will *only* work with Telkom. I gather that most of the new stock in Telkom shops is of the "all-purpose" 's-601 model in any case.

Anyway thank you for all the info, you've been a wealth of knowledge and information.

Thanks, and you're very welcome! Luckily there have been several contributors and many valuable posts on these LTE-related threads and we're able to draw on what is now a formidable information resource.

Good luck, and let us know how you do!

Cheers

 

[image132]

Alrighty. So to anyone who has an 8ta sim they are NOT LTE compatible. You need to sim swap to the blue TM sim. Also Telkom direct shops seem to have the best deal on the B593 at R1499.

These are the speeds I got out of the router in my sisters flat using the bundled antenna paddles.



Not going to break the LTE record here but well above what you'd get from ADSL and a nice upgrade from the ~70 ping, 5mb down and 1 mb up she used to get from 3g. These are the speeds I was hoping for.

Thanks again jcheek for all the help.

 

[jcheek]

Alrighty. So to anyone who has an 8ta sim they are NOT LTE compatible. You need to sim swap to the blue TM sim. Also Telkom direct shops seem to have the best deal on the B593 at R1499.

Thanks for the feedback on the old 8ta SIMs and current pricing on the B593, useful info for anyone contemplating the same migration. Did you manage to get the B593s-601 model variant from your Telkom shop ?

These are the speeds I got out of the router in my sister's flat using the bundled antenna paddles.

Not going to break the LTE record here but well above what you'd get from ADSL and a nice upgrade from the ~70 ping, 5mb down and 1 mb up she used to get from 3g. These are the speeds I was hoping for.

Nice going, image132! Perfectly respectable out-the-box speeds.

I'm impressed by your uplink speed. Telkom have stated in a couple of places that they run their TDD LTE links at 75% down, 25% up, but in practise most of the results I've seen (including my own) suggest something more like 90%/10%. So your 6.6Mbps uplink is pretty hot.

You may want to try losing the included flat whip antennas (the "ice cream sticks") and just go with the B593's built-in patch antennas. They're less fussy and you may find you do just as well (or perhaps even slightly better) speed-wise. Some guidance here if you need it.

Thanks again jcheek for all the help.

Again, you're very welcome. Thanks for taking the trouble to come back and give some closure. It really helps other folks contemplating the same move.

Welcome to Speedland - enjoy !

 

[image132]

Yep I got the 601 sub model. I'm still a little confused as to how telkom can sell the router for so much less but I'm not complaining.

When I opened the unit up I first installed the flat whip antennas and set it to "external antenna" which gave me between 3 and 4 bars of signal strength on LTE. I removed the ice cream sticks and changed the setting to built in but then the unit switched down to 3g, gave me full bars and didn't go back to LTE. I wasn't sure if it needs a reboot for the setting to work properly but next time I go I'll give it a bash.

P.S My sister is very chuffed with the results

 

[meloncin]

Hi everybody. I got a peculiar issue with this router (b593s-22): while connected with cable, I have good download/upload rates (15 Mbs/20Mbps). But connecting via Wifi, while the upload speed remains at a good level, the download speed only reaches about 6 MBs. First time in my life that I get faster upload speed than download speed!. No matter if I connect with an android device or a Windows 7 or 8 computer, the router is not transmitting correctly the download speed. I tried to disable the WMM but it doesn't work. I live in a house in the country side so there is no congestion problem or anybody stealing my signal. Excuse my english and thanks in advance.

 

[espdesign]

B593 LTE Router R1499

Where can one buy the B593 LTE Router directly, for R1499?

Alrighty. So to anyone who has an 8ta sim they are NOT LTE compatible. You need to sim swap to the blue TM sim. Also Telkom direct shops seem to have the best deal on the B593 at R1499.

These are the speeds I got out of the router in my sisters flat using the bundled antenna paddles.

View attachment 155404

Not going to break the LTE record here but well above what you'd get from ADSL and a nice upgrade from the ~70 ping, 5mb down and 1 mb up she used to get from 3g. These are the speeds I was hoping for.

Thanks again jcheek for all the help.

 

[jcheek]

Where can one buy the B593 LTE Router directly, for R1499?

Hey espdesign

More than one person has said that the "Telkom Direct" shops are currently selling the B593s-601 "outright" (ie with no form of contract) for R1499 on special at the moment. Find your nearest shop here.
Having said that, it seems not all Telkom Direct shops have stock or know about the deal (yet), so be prepared to be persistent/insistent !

Failing that, you may also find stock at Makro - they usually carry the B593s-601 and the going rate is about R2499, although it has previously been on special there at R1 999.

R1499 is a pretty awesome deal, obviously.

 

[espdesign]

Thanks jcheek

Saw Telkom Direct was previously mentioned, but as you say it's extremely frustrating that no one there knows of this deal.. been trying a couple of stores here in Cape Town..

Is the B593s-601 version the one 'locked ' to Telkom 2300 band?

Hey espdesign

More than one person has said that the "Telkom Direct" shops are currently selling the B593s-601 "outright" (ie with no form of contract) for R1499 on special at the moment. Find your nearest shop here.
Having said that, it seems not all Telkom Direct shops have stock or know about the deal (yet), so be prepared to be persistent/insistent !

Failing that, you may also find stock at Makro - they usually carry the B593s-601 and the going rate is about R2499, although it has previously been on special there at R1 999.

R1499 is a pretty awesome deal, obviously.

 

[jcheek]

Thanks jcheek

Saw Telkom Direct was previously mentioned, but as you say it's extremely frustrating that no one there knows of this deal.. been trying a couple of stores here in Cape Town..

Is the B593s-601 version the one 'locked ' to Telkom 2300 band?

No, that's the B593u-91 - see Azimuth's summary here.

The B593s-601 is currently the "best" model to go for if you want to preserve the ability to swap to the LTE offering of either Vodacom or MTN. Only downside is that the s-601's firmware is a bit rudimentary in places compared to some of the other sub-models.

Suggestion : Maybe PM image132 (see this post), ask which store he found it at, phone them and try and get the Telkom stock number or whatever ?

 

[espdesign]

Wow.. thanks so much for your help!

Will try ask image132..

Will let you know if I come right..

 

[jcheek]

Wow.. thanks so much for your help!
Will try ask image132..
Will let you know if I come right..

Sure thing. Also see this post for additional ammo.

Good luck!

 

[hcpeer]

Hi. Needed some advice. I'm running a b593 with the paddle antennas. The best i get on TM is around 5mb/s, MTN 7mb/s, CellC 6mb/s. This is much faster than what telkom dsl can provide in my area (4mb/s).

The situation is such that I'm in the south of JHB, Ridgeway to be specific. On the edge of the ridge so signal is not great.

I understand that an external antennae setup would be best.

What would be the best external antennae setup to get 4g on TM or MTN?

Self install or professional setup?

Who would you recommend?

 

[jcheek]

Hi. Needed some advice.

Hi, hcpeer!
I'll try to get the ball rolling for you.

I'm running a b593 with the paddle antennas. The best i get on TM is around 5mb/s, MTN 7mb/s, CellC 6mb/s.

I assume you're connecting on LTE (blue modem light, indicated "4G" connection) ?
Not great speeds for LTE, I agree. Have you tried forcing the modem to 3G ? Although the theoretical maximum speed may be lower, the 3G signal may be stronger for a better overall result.
Also try the B593's built-in antennas - you may find them as good or better than the paddles.

This is much faster than what telkom dsl can provide in my area (4mb/s).

I think your DSL experience is pretty average. For many (most?) people, 4Mbps is about the best they can ever hope to get with any current form of xDSL. 10, 20 and 40Mbps xDSL are all very well, but many Telkom fixed-line subscribers are simply too far from the exchange and/or have old copper lines that simply won't support anything faster than 4Mbps.

The situation is such that I'm in the south of JHB, Ridgeway to be specific. On the edge of the ridge so signal is not great.
I understand that an external antenna setup would be best.

Very likely, yes.

What would be the best external antennae setup to get 4g on TM or MTN?

First off : if you want to preserve your ability to connect to both Telkom Mobile LTE and MTN (or Vodacom), you'll need a B593 sub-model that supports both the TDD mode on 2300MHz (Telkom LTE) and the FDD mode on 1800MHz (Vodacom and MTN LTE). You may also want to retain the ability to use 3G for "fallback". Currently, only the B593s-601 fits that bill. Is that the one you have ?

Second : For the same reason as above (network choice), you'll want to stay away (if possible) from any antenna that only works in a narrow frequency range used by one network operator. Ideally you want an antenna system that works over all frequencies likely to be used for 4G (LTE or LTE Advanced) in SA.
You can have a look at some of the 3G/LTE antenna products from Poynting, Otto Wireless and Scoop Distribution for some ideas.
Unfortunately there is often a bit of a trade-off between antenna performance and network choice.

Third : Which is the "best" antenna for your purposes ? Well that depends.
The first thing to do is to figure out if you are going to go for a line-of-sight (LOS) or a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) antenna system. This will (to some extent) determine the type of antenna system you go for.
To make this call, you need to establish whether or not you have line-of-sight to any nearby base stations. When doing so, you need to keep in mind which network operator(s) you will be using, both now and possibly in future. In the case of base stations on dedicated masts, the "Big Three" cell operators (Vodacom, MTN and Telkom) often share a mast, which makes your life easier in this respect. In other cases (eg stations on top of buildings), the different operators' equipment may be at different locations.
There are a couple of ways to source information about the location of nearby base stations. A sure-fire way is to shin up on your roof with some binoculars and see what you can see. Then take a drive out to those stations and see whose equipment is there.
PS: If you PM me your location in Ridgeway (more or less), I may be able to point out some nearby base stations for you.

Self install or professional setup?

That depends largely on you, and how comfortable you are doing this kind of work!

Have a look through the Antenna Installation and Alignment thread - it contains a wealth of information on how to go about this.

Who would you recommend?

If you go for an antenna from Poynting, they might be able to refer you to an installer.
Also, have a look through the Antenna Installation and Alignment thread for comments by people who've had work done by professional installers.

 

[Jow]

Does anyone know which Telkom stores in JHB have this available R1499?