Spark Wireless Broadband Experience

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pryannz

29 posts

Geek

#196708 10-Jun-2016 06:21

Hi All,

Has anyone had much experience with Spark Wireless Broadband? I recently ditched the highly over subscribed and underperforming (10Mbps) DSL service to go with Sparks Wireless Broadband offering (Skinny have something similar...). It has over trippled my download speed with upload speeds to match.

However I was expecting even greater speeds being that I have line-of-sight to the Spark tower and can see it from my house at a distance of approximately 600 meters. Not only that I have mounted an external 900Mhz LTE broadband directional antena on the roof pointing in the direction of the tower. This is fully cabled on a 20m run back to the Huawei B315 LTE modem. I live in Auckland by the way so plenty of towers but because DSL is so poo in some of the suburbs here I've gone for a RBI setup in the city - go figure, also not waiting around until 2018 for fibre. The LTE modem is on 4G only - full bars for signal strength.

What I get when running speedtest.net (via ethernet to the LTE modem) initially is that the dial maxes out between 80-100Mbps (cool!). However subsequent tests drop back to 30-40Mbps which makes me think that after my initial *suprise here i am* test things get throttled back by something in the Telco infrastructure. I guessing to prevent bandwidth hogs like myself. I run the same speed test from a data enabled mobile phone on Spark at get 90Mbps+ every time so it seems it knows the difference between a mobile device and the LTE modem.

So my questions are: 1. Does Spark throttle LTE traffic for Wireless Broadband 2. Are the LTE modems bound to any one particular tower 3. Anyone else made the move to Wireless Broadband? If so what has your experience been like?

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151 posts

Master Geek

#1569135 10-Jun-2016 08:39

Not sure a 900Mhz antenna will help as Spark's 4G runs over 700Mhz, 1800Mhz, 2600Mhz depending on where you are?

BarTender

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#1569142 10-Jun-2016 08:56

staticnz: Not sure a 900Mhz antenna will help as Spark's 4G runs over 700Mhz, 1800Mhz, 2600Mhz depending on where you are?

The 315 has only been configured to do 700 Primary and 1800 fall back.

So the appropriate antenna would be required like the AY15 that Cellutronics sell.

Then you will also want to make sure your polarisation is right, and you're plugged into the left Antenna port as that is the primary radio.

and

pryannz

29 posts

Geek

#1569262 10-Jun-2016 11:33

Should have 700 and 1800 ranges covered. The aerial I have is http://www.gowifi.co.nz/antennas-1710-2100mhz-directio/11dbi-wideband-lte-broadband-directional-antenna.html look wise it appears to be the same as the YAGI AY15 in that link you provided.

I have it connected it to the left antenna of the Huawei, nearest the SIM card slot. I have go the LTE modem configured to 'Auto' on the antenna's. I did have it set to antenna 1 external and antenna 2 auto. Didn't seem to make much difference.

What I don't get is on the initial test it really rips and I get a good result then suddenly the breaks go on. When you see the dial on speedtest.net scream up to the 30-40Mbps mark then stop on subsequent tests makes me think something is restricting the bandwidth.

Perthman

33 posts

Geek

#1569337 10-Jun-2016 12:05

Interesting comments on the aerial setup - I went to the Spark service about two months ago. We had moved from a home with Fibre at the gate to an area 5km away with a great ADSL service and no plans for an update - a service with downloads of 650 kbps didnt really cut the mustard, but a sudden improvement with the new offering had us with downloads of 32odd Mbps. So more than happy. However the 315 sits on a window ledge looking north west - lines up nicely with a voda tower!, but the Spark tower is to the south east. A subsequent glitch had Spark asking me to relocate the 315 to the south east alignment, but that is really not an option, given the windows/areas on that side of the house. We found that once a day the system appeared to lose signal and sent us to log the router advising "our security was compromised" (or similar) The problem is solved by killing the power to the router and rebooting - but as a daily event its a pain in the butt. Initially this was happening at a peak time - ie around 4.00pm-7.00pm, but more recently has started happening early mornings. It may well be that an aerial would assist - but spending several hundy on a whim doesnt cheer me up :-(

pryannz

29 posts

Geek

#1569353 10-Jun-2016 12:26

Hi Perthman,

The antenna, cable, antenna mount + bracket, cable management, coax-seal tape etc you can get for all under $150.

It all hinges on if you can carry out the install yourself which may be inhibited but the height of your house, pitch of your roof, length of the cable run etc.

From what I understand Voda and Spark will get a contractor to carry out all this work for a RBI installations but not if you are in an urban center. I guess they figure that the cell tower coverage means the internal antennas should be more than adequate. My setup may be overkill with no value add... I was gunning for 80Mbps+ speeds but am not getting it at present.

Will do some tests without the external antenna and come back with the results / difference.

pryannz

29 posts

Geek

#1570177 11-Jun-2016 20:45

Well hopefully Aucklanders stick with their DSL/VDSL and remain living in the land of the congested and oversubscribed. Very happy with the Mobile Broadband. Don't need the external antenna either as the built-in give almost the same result.

dantheperson

83 posts

Master Geek

#1675268 21-Nov-2016 23:36

Did you resolve the issue with the slowdown from 80-100mbps to 30-40mbps?

pryannz

29 posts

Geek

#1680700 1-Dec-2016 14:13

Looks like the Telco is rate limiting / throttling wireless broadband speeds back to their entry level fibre speeds of 30/30Mbps. Would be good if someone in the know could confirm.

The Telcos are pushing wireless broadband pretty hard now, especially those with more spectrum to play with (Spark). They are pushing it ahead of copper (DSL) probably from a number of reasons aka not paying Chorus anything and the copper network is shot. The thinking is probably if you can get fibre take it if you can't then use this wireless broadband, forget copper.

So if the uptake is good I am guess they will have to throttle bandwidth / datacaps so as to not degrade the service.

Talkiet

4482 posts

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#1680745 1-Dec-2016 15:17

pryannz:

Looks like the Telco is rate limiting / throttling wireless broadband speeds back to their entry level fibre speeds of 30/30Mbps. Would be good if someone in the know could confirm.

The Telcos are pushing wireless broadband pretty hard now, especially those with more spectrum to play with (Spark). They are pushing it ahead of copper (DSL) probably from a number of reasons aka not paying Chorus anything and the copper network is shot. The thinking is probably if you can get fibre take it if you can't then use this wireless broadband, forget copper.

So if the uptake is good I am guess they will have to throttle bandwidth / datacaps so as to not degrade the service.

No rate limiting/throttling.

Cheers -N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

tangerz

538 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1680820 1-Dec-2016 18:28

Talkiet:

pryannz:

Looks like the Telco is rate limiting / throttling wireless broadband speeds back to their entry level fibre speeds of 30/30Mbps. Would be good if someone in the know could confirm.

The Telcos are pushing wireless broadband pretty hard now, especially those with more spectrum to play with (Spark). They are pushing it ahead of copper (DSL) probably from a number of reasons aka not paying Chorus anything and the copper network is shot. The thinking is probably if you can get fibre take it if you can't then use this wireless broadband, forget copper.

So if the uptake is good I am guess they will have to throttle bandwidth / datacaps so as to not degrade the service.

No rate limiting/throttling.

Cheers -N

So just network congestion then?!?

Talkiet

4482 posts

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#1680823 1-Dec-2016 18:48

tangerz:

Talkiet:

pryannz:

Looks like the Telco is rate limiting / throttling wireless broadband speeds back to their entry level fibre speeds of 30/30Mbps. Would be good if someone in the know could confirm.

The Telcos are pushing wireless broadband pretty hard now, especially those with more spectrum to play with (Spark). They are pushing it ahead of copper (DSL) probably from a number of reasons aka not paying Chorus anything and the copper network is shot. The thinking is probably if you can get fibre take it if you can't then use this wireless broadband, forget copper.

So if the uptake is good I am guess they will have to throttle bandwidth / datacaps so as to not degrade the service.

No rate limiting/throttling.

Cheers -N

So just network congestion then?!?

I have no idea - I don't work in the mobile network space. I corrected something I knew was wrong but you won't find me conjecturing on issues I am not sure about when it comes to my work. There are a lot of things it could be, and localised congestion is one of them... Given the description of the problem though, it doesn't sound like it.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

tdgeek

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#1680833 1-Dec-2016 19:48

I believe that subscriptions to wireless are limited, to avoid over subscribing. Thats why you cannot move your 315 elsewhere as that breaks that user per tower ratio. Also, there is no unlimited on wireless, same reason.

DarkShadow

1636 posts

Uber Geek

#1680972 1-Dec-2016 23:03

pryannz:

Well hopefully Aucklanders stick with their DSL/VDSL and remain living in the land of the congested and oversubscribed.

DSL is not congested in Auckland, or for that matter any urban area. Only the 2% of the most remote DSL lines are oversubscribed. The 98% are totally fine.

The reason you're getting slow DSL in a city is because of your house wiring and/or you live too far from the exchange.

gtyler

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1681062 2-Dec-2016 09:20

tdgeek:

I believe that subscriptions to wireless are limited, to avoid over subscribing. Thats why you cannot move your 315 elsewhere as that breaks that user per tower ratio. Also, there is no unlimited on wireless, same reason.

How does wireless nation and netspeed allow you to move around? i.e. to have it in motorhomes, see NZMCA's web site. they use vodafone's network.

sbiddle

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#1681076 2-Dec-2016 09:54

gtyler:

tdgeek:

I believe that subscriptions to wireless are limited, to avoid over subscribing. Thats why you cannot move your 315 elsewhere as that breaks that user per tower ratio. Also, there is no unlimited on wireless, same reason.

How does wireless nation and netspeed allow you to move around? i.e. to have it in motorhomes, see NZMCA's web site. they use vodafone's network.

They're not selling a FWA product which is what Skinny and Spark are. The key word here is fixed.

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