The Huawei B593 LTE discussion thread

Phew, lots of questions....

... @ Darook - I have no idea what your real name is, so I don't know what you purchased.... it depends what antenna you purchased, and depends if the firmware in your router allows you to select "external antenna" as opposed to "auto". If it allows external antenna selection, you will be fine no matter what antenna you purchased. If it only allows only "auto", then you need an antenna which exhibits "dc short". We have such antennas in stock. email me details at [email protected]. I will keep your real name confidential, don't stress.

.... @jcheek... yes, I will get comment from the manufacturer. Chang Hong is pretty good, and they normally give us constructive and good technical input if we ask. As far as the 12dB Omni goes.... yes, it is true. Remember we also test locally, so we run it through the spectrum analyser and look at the gain at specific frequencies. We can send it for a spectral plot as well, but have seldom found a need to do so. As for your last post, asking what antenna that is.... I saw this come into stock at one point, but I stopped them after the first shipment. It was supposed to be a MIMO antenna, but it is not. What it is is 2 antennas in a box. One handles 1710MHz to 2170MHZ (which then handles MTN and Vodacom frequency bands for HSPA and LTE, but omits Telkom LTE which is at 2300MHz), and the other handles the old "GSM" band. Your other question - why don't I like MIMO - probably just a personal preference based on my capabilities. I am a qualified design engineer, I specialized in RF, and used to work for a Military company... if you give me a choice between the convenience of a MIMO, vs the performance of two separate antennas which have been properly installed and properly tuned, I will choose the two separate antennas every time. I just find that from a practical point of view, there is no MIMO that can cater for everything, and the fixed distance between the elements just does not allow me the flexibility to be a tinkering engineer.... For our clients who are in "reasonable" signal strength areas, with limited knowledge of antenna installation, MIMO remains a good choice, and an omnidirectional MIMO is a great choice. Also.... many people live in complexes controlled by a body corporate, and require permission to install antennas on outside walls etc... often it is easier to get permission for one antenna, than for two. We do of course have a guide available which tells you how to align antennas, what free android apps to use etc... I wrote that guide because it is such a common hurdle for our clients.

.... @ jeaninek.... WOW! That sounds like a massive improvement! I am not going to take two of those antennas home for my B593! I am really really keen to hear what you experience after installing them on the roof! And thank you once again for taking the time to come through and allow me to assist you. It is always gives me a great sense of pride to "turn around" what could have been a bad experience for a customer. I honestly love doing that, it is what keeps me enjoying what I do. Looking forward to hearing the final results from you!
 
viveiros said:
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We do of course have a guide available which tells you how to align antennas, what free android apps to use etc... I wrote that guide because it is such a common hurdle for our clients.
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hey Chris! Big UP on rectifying the problem jeaninek had!

Is that guide available for free download? Had a look at your website, but could not find it there.......
 
Due to the tangent (but great topic discussion), I'm going to request a mod to move these discussions to a new section.
 
viveiros said:
Your other question - why don't I like MIMO - probably just a personal preference based on my capabilities. I am a qualified design engineer, I specialized in RF, and used to work for a Military company... if you give me a choice between the convenience of a MIMO, vs the performance of two separate antennas which have been properly installed and properly tuned, I will choose the two separate antennas every time. I just find that from a practical point of view, there is no MIMO that can cater for everything, and the fixed distance between the elements just does not allow me the flexibility to be a tinkering engineer.... For our clients who are in "reasonable" signal strength areas, with limited knowledge of antenna installation, MIMO remains a good choice, and an omnidirectional MIMO is a great choice.
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I agree with your experience in military where stability of the connection is a priority to the maximum throughput and efficient utilization of radio resources. For cellular business the priorities are different and B593 clearly show preference in utilisation of radio resources over stability, so 2x2 MIMO is used whenever is possible. In addition you won't get much acceptance on this forum for the lack of 2x2 MIMO operation in your LTE antennas, I am affraid. :) SPEED TEST...SPEED TEST...SPEED TEST....

As for the comment for integrating two different frequency MIMO elements into a single antenna it sounds resonable, but it gives another problem with B593. It seems when B593 is unable to negotiate 2x2 MIMO operation, it will negotiate connection based on the signal coming from input #1, disregarding anything what comes on input #2. I talk about negotiation phase only (I don't know it will use both inputs for 1x2 MIMO operation when transfering data). It means that customer when changing ISP from MTN to Telkom will have to swap antenna feeder inputs. It cost you many man-hours of technical support....

Oh, forgotten to say welcome on the forum!
 
Azimuth said:
Due to the tangent (but great topic discussion), I'm going to request a mod to move these discussions to a new section.
Click to expand...
I beg to differ. It is all about B593, crippled down firmware, poor front-end (antenna) design causing compatibility issues and not achieving expected performance when forcing external source (when comparing to other devices).
No, Please do not split.
 
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sajunky said:
I agree with your experience in military where stability of the connection is a priority to the maximum throughput and efficient utilization of radio resources. For cellular business the priorities are different and B593 clearly show preference in utilisation of radio resources over stability, so 2x2 MIMO is used whenever is possible. In addition you won't get much acceptance on this forum for the lack of 2x2 MIMO operation in your LTE antennas, I am affraid. :) SPEED TEST...SPEED TEST...SPEED TEST....

As for the comment for integrating two different frequency MIMO elements into a single antenna it sounds resonable, but it gives another problem with B593. It seems when B593 is unable to negotiate 2x2 MIMO operation, it will negotiate connection based on the signal coming from input #1, disregarding anything what comes on input #2. I talk about negotiation phase only (I don't know it will use both inputs for 1x2 MIMO operation when transfering data). It means that customer when changing ISP from MTN to Telkom will have to swap antenna feeder inputs. It cost you many man-hours of technical support....
Click to expand...

Commercial routers are not our main business. If you are after stability in a business, an industrial LTE router should be used.

I also forgot to mention the biggest driver when it comes to MIMO - price. It is much cheaper than 2 separate Yagi antennas.

You will note above our one client has posted that 2 omnidirectional LTE antennas give 38Mbps download, without even mounting them on the roof of the house. I doubt a MIMO would do the same under the same environment. I might be wrong though, but I am pretty confident that once those 2 omni's are aligned prperly, 50Mbps would not be un unreasonable expectation in terms of peak speeds.
 
sajunky said:
We have another participant who ... contributed greatly in spreading DC-short urban legend.
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Offhand, I don't know who you might be referring to there.
Many other forumites have independently found multiple reports of the same "legend", so it's already way out there and has been for quite a while.
For the record : Personally I've never supported or deprecated the DC-short theory, merely tried to attribute it to the original sources, and test it by performing physical measurements on real antennas.


sajunky said:
When I use my finding that it is design fault in Huawei B593 I automatically become (perhaps disgruntled) Huawei design team.
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Nope, I'm merely saying that for someone who doesn't actually use a B593 (I don't think?) you seem to have exceptional insight into the internal circuitry on the front-end.


sajunky said:
And when this participant writes about no 2x2 MIMO operation when using antennas offered by Otto, he use my findings but not giving enough credit.
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Again, you may or may not be referring to me there.
Speaking for myself, and if you are referring to this post, I did acknowledge you properly :

Screengrab.jpg
I'm sorry if that's not "enough credit" for you.


sajunky said:
Having said so you handled conversation with Otto rep properly to the advantage of forumites, I couldn't do it any better.
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Again : If you're referring to me - thanks.
 
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I would just like to say that I had never heard of this "dc-short" issue and found all the comments extremely informative. I also measured antennas and found that, depending what I was using to measure, the dc-short was either coming up as present, or not. So one needs to measure the antenna with the right piece of equipment as well.

The comments about the dc-short, both as far as the router and antenna goes, has been of great assistance to me. I am not looking at our entire Antenna portfolio, and this would not have been done without the input of this forum. So without singling anyone out, I would like to thank everyone for contributing to an awesome and informative discussion.
 
Morning everyone

Some feedback regarding the B593u-91 I have. Keep in mind, I used my router without antenna's, had 3 signal bar's, and got around 38Mb down and around 5Mb up untill my router firmware crashed....

I have loaded the V100....SP103 firmware. Turned out to be Polish but is fine as you can choose english. Gave me a whole bunch of more options for the router which I never had....including the elusive antenna "internal/external" setting. Without any aerials I got around 2 signal bars, sometimes 3. Download speed very poor...2.6Mb down/1Mb up. Using the MIMO-OA-0727 and forcing the setting to external antenna - worse. So it still does not see the antenna even telling the router it is connected. Downside is: under the upgrade tab it showed that the modem does not match my router....even though it worked.
I then loaded V100...SP100, result the same but here you have no setting for antenna's....then on to V100....SP070, which turned out to be Arabic firmware I had on when bought....(before the V100....SP150, which crashed), here you can also set English so no problem. Result, same as SP103 but no antenna settings, no sms....(my router says Huawei-Mobily on the front, imported it).

So this is where I wanted to chuck it through the window, lol. Luckily I didn't. Yesterday I managed to get hold of a B593-601 and set it up last night....result is worse than my router running at 1.8Mb down/not even a Mb up, even with the aerial's that it came with in the box. For interest I connected the MIMO to it....even worse, so that didn't work either.

Conclution: Nothing wrong with my router, it must come from the actual Telkom tower. Brought my router to work this morning (which stupid me should have done a long time ago), set it up, connected to PLMN 65502, Cell ID: 173, and got 20Mb Down/3Mb up with SP103, 2 signal bars. Quickly loaded SP070, result the same....So when I connect to Cell ID: 191(home) it just does not work. So I will be off to Telkom on Saturday to go log a call and see what happens. Will keep posted.

To Chris: Please can you let me know which aerials you sold the lady as she has the same router as me.

Thanks

Conrad
 
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Conrads said:
Morning everyone
<snip>
I have loaded the V100....SP103 firmware ... I then loaded V100...SP100 ... then on to V100....SP070, which turned out to be Arabic ... Yesterday I managed to get hold of a B593-601 and set it up last night....For interest I connected the MIMO-OA-0727 to it ... Brought my router to work this morning ... Quickly loaded SP070, result the same...
Click to expand...

Conrads, I'd like to congratulate you - you are incredibly persistent, very inventive, and very good at finding firmware in the strangest places!
When you get to the bottom of your problem - and I'm quite sure you will - you're going to have saved some other people a whole bunch of time!
This thread is very lucky to have you.
 
jcheek said:
Conrads, I'd like to congratulate you - you are incredibly persistent, very inventive, and very good at finding firmware in the strangest places!
When you get to the bottom of your problem - and I'm quite sure you will - you're going to have saved some other people a whole bunch of time!
This thread is very lucky to have you.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much....I appreciate it
:D
 
viveiros said:
I would just like to say that I had never heard of this "dc-short" issue and found all the comments extremely informative. I also measured antennas and found that, depending what I was using to measure, the dc-short was either coming up as present, or not. So one needs to measure the antenna with the right piece of equipment as well.
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It means there are built-in surge protection devices.
Typically multimeter use lower voltage on 200 Ohm range and slightly increased voltage for meassuring higher resistance. There is also a special mode for meassuring semiconductors (diodes/transisors), it uses higher voltage on the low range to break 0.6V barrier and cause diode under test to conduct electricity.

In normal working condition input voltage is very low (microvolts) and protection devices are inactive. You can consider your antenna as DC-open.

You didn't hear about DC-short problem so far, as any properly designed front-end has DC separation. Ask your engineers, they will tell you the same. Problem appears, as B593 is not properly designed. Some people attempted to explain abnormal B593 behaviour by creating theory that DC-short is used for automatic antenna detection. Recently jeaninek supplied a proof that DC-short theory is just urban legend, as B593 can automatically detect paddle antennas supplied with the router. These antennas are not DC-short.

Your testing brings interesting input to this saga. Now there is no other explanation why router is not detecting your antenna, than the assessment I made from the beginning that router prefers to work in 2x2 MIMO mode. With your MIMO antenna 2x2 MIMO mode is simply impossible, it is the only reason why is not used.
 
I have an MTN bundled B593 (black with a MTN logo). I went into the settings (diagnostic report) last night but there seemed to be no option to select external or auto antenna, it was set/stuck on internal. Should I forget about getting an antenna or is there a solution via firmware upgrade or something?

Are there any other recommended lte modems that have antenna options cos I am pretty sick of trying to find a solution for the B593.

SAJunky - are you saying all I need is a 2x2 MIMO antenna (whatever that is)?
 
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Hey Darook. I think your model is the B593u-12. Any of these options (specific to 1800MHz) will work and will detect fine.
 
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Darook said:
SAJunky - are you saying all I need is a 2x2 MIMO antenna (whatever that is)?
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It looks like. There is still possible in that strong antenna connected to input #1 (or standard MIMO antenna sold by Otto) covering your frequency range will be detected. Such condition is when internal antenna is unable to negotiate 2x2 MIMO mode (like very weak signal quality), but in such condition I wouldn't recommend B593 at all.

If you already have B593 (any model), get proper 2x2 MIMO antenna as suggested, or wait maybe Otto Marketing will come with cheaper solution.
 
sajunky said:
Recently jeaninek supplied a proof that DC-short theory is just urban legend, as B593 can automatically detect paddle antennas supplied with the router. These antennas are not DC-short.
Click to expand...

Just thought I would point out that the paddle antenna does in fact have a DC-Short - at least mine does... as per this post...

viveiros said:
Firstly I took her Hauwei-provided blade antennas, and when I measured with a multimeter, there was no dc short. When I used a proper continuity tester which we fortunately also have available, there was a short.
Click to expand...

As for the signal strength determining the antenna selection - when we tested at OTTO, we used both my B593u-91, and one of their B593-601 routers. In all tests the router was placed underneath the desk, and the antenna outside.
With the 601, when manually switching between the internal and external antenna, we could see a clear increase in signal strength using the external - yet when the router was set to auto, it chose to use the weaker signal from the internal...
When using the OMNI antenna (with short) with auto selection, it used the external...
 
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jeaninek said:
Just thought I would point out that the paddle antenna does in fact have a DC-Short - at least mine does... as per this post...
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From my understanding just in reverse, it doesn't. If you test DC-short antenna it will always show zero irrespective of how you meassure it. It will show zero on any range. But if you test DC-open antenna it might show some resistance depends how you meassure it. It is what I read from viveiros post. It was protection device activated, depends on the range selected.

Read message from jcheek how he tested it and conclusion. I am to lazy to find this message (it doesn't show message number in mobile style anyway), but I can tell you it was done properly.
jeaninek said:
As for the signal strength determining the antenna selection - when we tested at OTTO, we used both my B593u-91, and one of their B593-601 routers. In all tests the router was placed underneath the desk, and the antenna outside.
With the 601, when manually switching between the internal and external antenna, we could see a clear increase in signal strength using the external - yet when the router was set to auto, it chose to use the weaker signal from the internal...
When using the OMNI antenna (with short) with auto selection, it used the external...
Click to expand...
I understand that the first antenna was Otto's MIMO antenna, right?
I assume the second antenna - OMNI - was dual OMNI, right?

The first antenna is not recognised as router cannot negotiate 2x2 MIMO mode on this antenna, it not compatible. Signal strenght is not only fator for chosing connection mode.

The second one gives probably better signal than internal and 2x2 MIMO mode, so decision is not complicated.
 
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