Spark 4G fixed wireless bb - dropouts / spikes / ... ?

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boosacnoodle

963 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3068552 27-Apr-2023 21:53

I've also recently signed up to Spark FWA and noticed reasonably frequent dropouts in an urban area. Tends to be around 6:30 PM.

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3068606 27-Apr-2023 23:24

In our case the problem occurs most of the time to varying degrees. Not aware of any particular patterns in terms of time of day, or days of the week.

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3077913 19-May-2023 15:40

Would very much like to get suggestions or comments from any Spark or other knowledgeable technical types here about the problems we have been experiencing with our Spark 4G broadband service. Details as per earlier in this thread; eg. #302863, #3068373, #3068506

The same problems still persist as per the results from the last four SpeedTest results this today - the last two (RHS) run a few mins before starting this post. Well at least only one of the four had a full dropout!

As previously

brown = upload result - generally very good.
blue = download result - all over the place, but most concerningly, the dropouts as per the last test a short while ago.

As discussed in the earlier posts, the modem is in direct LOS of the cell tower 500m away, across a small 'valley'. No obstructing hills or trees. Should be light traffic on this cell tower, which basically only serves a relatively small lightly populated peri-urban area. We are rated as having 'Excellent' signal strength, which is indeed attested to by the almost always good upload results.

Spark Modem 2. Has already been replaced but exactly the same problems have persisted with the new modem.

700MHz 4G service.

In an earlier post (#3016231), @snnet said they had this issue around the time of my original post but it was resolved by Spark - "did something on their end and after that it was fixed - never had the issue before and didn't have it afterwards".

I have mentioned that to Spark support a couple of times but they seemed to have no idea what it was about.

To make matters worse, can be quite an ordeal getting a hold of Spark tech support (hours waiting), or worse, when have got through, line has dropped after perhaps an hour. No call back, so when I call back in, I get some other random support person and have to go through all the details from scratch ...

Would dearly love it if something could be done at their end and after that it was fixed.

Currently the service is barely fit for purpose. The frequent dropouts make Neon and Disney+ basically unwatchable.

Someone earlier suggested @ShaneKNZ but no response from that. Are there any other Spark tech experts here on Geekzone?

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3171380 13-Dec-2023 12:33

An update on our 4G broadband problems. Tentatively = FIXED ..?

After 12 months of testing, documenting, reporting here (largely to no avail :() and chasing up Spark, at last the worst of our problems appear to have been fixed (crossed fingers & touching wood)!

Ultimately it took an approach directly to much higher up the food chain to get action. Should not have required that but repeated attempts to escalate the issue beyond frontline staff got nowhere. For some uses, especially streaming type applications, the service was simply not fit for purpose. Should not have required so many, many days of our time in order to get what appears to have been a fault/issue in equipment at the cell tower site fixed. Multiple hours/days of recording speed tests as above, modem replacement, installing SamKnows on the system and days of discussions with Spark over many months.

When we did manage to break through to higher level support we at last got meaningful action and I acknowledge in particular the follow up provided by the Complex Support Specialist assigned to the case.. Though it still took more than six weeks of to & fro discussions (& another customer connected to the same tower experiencing very similar issues!), ultimately field techs attending on site identified an issue that now seems to have been fixed (🤞). Also good to learn that the equipment at the site is due to be replaced in Q1 2024. Hopefully further improvement?

I have yet to hear what the actual fix was but a few weeks ago we got feedback that a tech visiting the cell tower site had identified '... an issue with reflection .. not .. that looks like external .. a very good chance the issue is internal eg PIM.'.

Fixing the issue still took a further ~3 weeks but as of mid morning last Friday, the difference is day vs night as shown in the SamKnows data below.

DL speed still fluctuates wildly and while the average is 'OK', it is now considerably below the speeds we were previously getting (hopefully that will improve ..!)
But more importantly, at least over the last few days we are no longer getting multiple dozens/hundreds of DL dropouts daily that were causing so much strife
UL was good initially but then went through a phase where the speed dropped by a factor of about four. Thankfully now back close to what we were getting
Packet loss (top line on image below) has dropped from up to 16% and higher at times to around 0.04% over the last 5 days (plot shows daily averages from SamKnows sampling)
...

SamKnows still recording one outage a day (a few secs to 3 mins) ... equipment rebooting? If so an odd time to do it? Not certain if this is a permanent thing?

Note that the outages shown below are from SamKnows sampling. There were certainly many more. Watching NEON or Disney+ was near impossible, rarely getting beyond a minute or two (or in cases just seconds) viewing without hanging or crashing. Totals along the top line below are 30-day averages. Thankfully, at least the latter three are now a lot better. Alas not so the first number. Its been worse since the 'fix'.

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3171384 13-Dec-2023 12:38

One thing I should have mentioned re the SamKnows chart above. The solid 1.5 hour outage on 7 Dec was a (scheduled) power outage for line work in the area, not (all!) a 4G service dropout.

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3171575 13-Dec-2023 19:16

Update on the update!

Now had brief details of the situation but I was in the middle of a work call with a client when the CSS phoned so only a short debrief possible.

Briefly

Problem found at cell tower site. Something to do with a PIM fault(?) / faulty antennae / Sector 2 of 700 band, or something like that? Hard to take in the details in the middle of a work call.
Only a workaround possible at this stage, which has resulted in reduced capacity (as seen in our lower DL speeds)
Fix requires replacement of the antennae which will be done when the equipment at the site is upgraded in Q1 next year.

In the meantime, 12 months of rubbish internet service and many days effort trying to get it investigated properly and fixed :(.

nztim

3812 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#3171583 13-Dec-2023 19:34

DS248:

In the meantime, 12 months of rubbish internet service and many days effort trying to get it investigated properly and fixed :(.

Time for starlink?

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

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quickymart

13924 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3171587 13-Dec-2023 20:38

Or...

quickymart:

Any local WISP's you could utilise?

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3171951 15-Dec-2023 10:49

Now better clarification re the issue.

Field tech reported a "PIM fault on sector 2 L700 antenna". Permanent fix requires replacing the faulty antenna. Will hopefully be done in Q1/24 when site is upgraded 🤞. L2 is the one directed at us.

Workaround in meantime has been to disable L700 sector 2 so now getting feed from the antenna main leg, which likely accounts for the more stable but lower DL speed we are now seeing.

nztim

3812 posts

Uber Geek

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Trusted

TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#3172896 18-Dec-2023 09:14

DS248:

Now better clarification re the issue.

Field tech reported a "PIM fault on sector 2 L700 antenna". Permanent fix requires replacing the faulty antenna. Will hopefully be done in Q1/24 when site is upgraded 🤞. L2 is the one directed at us.

Workaround in meantime has been to disable L700 sector 2 so now getting feed from the antenna main leg, which likely accounts for the more stable but lower DL speed we are now seeing.

I am quite surprised casual approach to getting this resolved, 12 months of flakey connectivity in 2023 is crazy.

Quality broadband is now considered an essential service even for those outside fiber areas, at least half (if not more) television viewing in NZ comes from streaming, and with WFH Teams/Zoom calls as well as working on M365/SharePoint rely on consistent, stable, connectivity.

Disabling that sector also puts the load of all the other customers on the other sector impacting everyone.

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

RunningMan

8953 posts

Uber Geek

#3172989 18-Dec-2023 12:45

DS248:[snip]

Ultimately it took an approach directly to much higher up the food chain to get action. Should not have required that but repeated attempts to escalate the issue beyond frontline staff got nowhere.

Would be interested to hear the (non-techincal) response from Spark to this issue as well. It's good to know what the exact issue was, and it is a little obscure, but a year is too long to get the issue escalated, especially since you had to bypass support channels to get any traction.

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3173120 18-Dec-2023 16:29

@RunningMan:

DS248:[snip]

Ultimately it took an approach directly to much higher up the food chain to get action. Should not have required that but repeated attempts to escalate the issue beyond frontline staff got nowhere.

Would be interested to hear the (non-techincal) response from Spark to this issue as well. It's good to know what the exact issue was, and it is a little obscure, but a year is too long to get the issue escalated, especially since you had to bypass support channels to get any traction.

Ironic you should post this today.

This morning, little more than an hour before your post, I received an email from the person who followed up with me less than 20 mins after I had cc'd in several at the top of the food chain at the end of Oct (person who assigned the CSS I have since been working with). This morning's email contained an apology (for the intermittent disconnections) and advised that a credit of half our wireless broadband fee for the last 12 months has been applied to our Spark account.

Appreciated but it wasn't really about the money. Not expecting/wanting anything more on that front. Mainly, just want decent internet ... sooner rather than later! No way they could compensate the full cost of the time spent on this issue, let alone the frustration with the service and with getting nowhere for so long. Or keeping the old VDSL live for 12 months as a back up and to provide the stability needed for our security alarm monitoring.

Very much hoping the planned Q1 2024 upgrade of the cell tower is done on schedule and the faulty antennae replaced as part of the upgrade. And at last we have decent internet!

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3175386 25-Dec-2023 11:48

What speeds are people getting on Spark 4G broadband?

I'm currently staying somewhere that has it and the speeds have been appalling at times.

These numbers have measured using WiFiMan over WiFi sitting about 3 metres from a Ubiquiti LR6 access point showing a signal strength on my tablet of -48dBm.

Download has been as high as 23.2 Mbps and upload 0.4 Mbps.

There have been times the speed test has failed due to no or loss of connection to the speed server. The slowest results have been 4.4Mbps down and 0.1 Mbps up.

When you are sitting that close to the access point and YouTube is often pausing to buffer, something is wrong.

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