Top up contracts and LTE

[nuyork]

If I plug an E398 LTE modem directly into my PC I get the following :

That is a DL of 1.36Mbps (APN=lte.vodacom.za; 4G only; connected to 4G)

If I just change the settings and connect via Vodacom 3G, I get :

That is a DL of 5.22Mbps (APN=internet; 3G only; connected to 3G).

So, LTE does not work for me.

That is correct. LTE does not work for you.

Are you covered by LTE?

You might have a 3G tower which is closer to you. And the LTE tower is farther away from you.

How many bars of signal do you get on 3G? And how many bars of signal do you get on LTE?

 

[nuyork]

I don't think signal strength has much to do with it. Attached is a screenshot of my LTE signal strength at home taken the other day when trying to get to the bottom of the issue. HSPA still performs better.

It's either the APN issue as Jola documented or LTE is suffering from a serious lack if spectrum.

Hush: What was your speedtest on LTE with those 4 bars?

 

[Jola]

55% on LTE and how much on 3G/HSPA? Is your external antenna suited for 1800MHz?

3G/HSPA is usually between 38% and 43%.

The antenna was originally purchased for 900MHz and 2100MHz, not sure how it does with 1800MHz.

Not that this is a different location to the modem only tests, which gave me 2 bars on LTE and 5 bars on 3G/HSPA.

 

[jannievanzyl]

I have been testing LTE, and IMO these issues are all related to the fact that Vodacom requires a different APN for LTE.

The Cell C setup where the APN remains the same works better and does not cause these issues.

My Vodacom LTE is quite poor, so I usually need to switch back to 3G, so this LTE APN is a PITA.

You should not need to switch APNs. Once provisioned for the LTE APN, it'll work on 3G or LTE.

Maybe mail me the speedtest results while on 3G with both the internet and lte.vodacom.za APNs.

 

[Jola]

You should not need to switch APNs. Once provisioned for the LTE APN, it'll work on 3G or LTE.

Maybe mail me the speedtest results while on 3G with both the internet and lte.vodacom.za APNs.

OK, thanks, I will do some experiments.

I have also had some weird stuff, my phone's sim won't work in the 4G modems (even in 3G), but all the sims are the same, they are all 64k sims. I have had to put my phone sim in a E372 (aka Vodafone K4605), it works in there. I am doing this because I have some excess data on the phone, and the wifi hotspot does not work that well.

The contracts are also all the same, all Top Up Data contracts. But I think that I need to phone in order to get them all LTE provisioned, it looks as if only one did an autoprovisioning.

This stuff is driving me around the bend

 

[Hush9300]

I don't think signal strength has much to do with it. Attached is a screenshot of my LTE signal strength at home taken the other day when trying to get to the bottom of the issue. HSPA still performs better.

It's either the APN issue as Jola documented or LTE is suffering from a serious lack if spectrum.

Hush: What was your speedtest on LTE with those 4 bars?

As you can see from the images. 3G using the LTE APN is woeful. LTE is good but it is still a far cry from HSPA+ (which is GREAT) using the iphone.vodacom.za APN.

Hence I don't even bother with LTE. Remaining with the standard APN saves on the battery too according to my tests.

 

[Jola]

Latest test results :

Vodacom 3G (54% Signal, APN=internet]) :

Vodacom 3G (54% Signal, APN= lte.vodacom.za) :

Vodacom LTE (41% Signal, APN= lte.vodacom.za) :

Modem untouched over all these tests, purely software control.

Jannie says that there are four LTE stations around me, so not sure what the problem is.

BTW, if these results look OK to you, there are times during the day when the 3G service gets completely congested, and then I have zero throughput (like the Cell C issue). This is why I want the LTE to work well, my theory is that there will be less congestion on LTE.

 

[Hush9300]

Latest test results :

Vodacom 3G (54% Signal, APN=internet]) :

Vodacom 3G (54% Signal, APN= lte.vodacom.za) :

Vodacom LTE (41% Signal, APN= lte.vodacom.za) :

Modem untouched over all these tests, purely software control.

Jannie says that there are four LTE stations around me, so not sure what the problem is.

BTW, if these results look OK to you, there are times during the day when the 3G service gets completely congested, and then I have zero throughput (like the Cell C issue). This is why I want the LTE to work well, my theory is that there will be less congestion on LTE.

You're getting decent 3G speeds on the LTE APN. Mine is hit and miss but on the majority of occasions I get really bad 3G speeds while using the LTE APN.

I'm at the office now. Will do another test.

 

[Jola]

Done some more tests, LTE is really poor here, can't even complete a Speedtest without failing.

However, Jannie says that there are 4 LTE towers in my area, so this is weird.

3G works fine, no problems, so have had to switch everything down to 3G. I am using the 3G on the lte.vodacom.za APN, no problems with this either :

I have been testing on Huawei E398 and E3276 modems.

 

[Jola]

But this is what often happens to my Vodacom 3G during business hours :

and it is the reason why I wanted LTE.

However, LTE has not lived up to expectations, it is also pretty poor.

(LTE :

)

However, LTE is often much worse than that.