On 13 January our XT wireless broadband performance went from excellent to "horrible". Some background: since late November we've been sailing around the Bay of Islands on our yacht ADAGIO using a new install of Telecom XT SIM in Ericsson W35 "fixed wireless terminal" / "Mobile Broadband Data/Voice Router" driven by an external IF Industries CD2195 antenna.
Our performance experience has been generally excellent -- even achieving a spotty but useable connection in Whangamumu Harbor (south of Cape Brett), e.g., RSCP -103 dBm .
We had experienced good results, around 2Mb/sec, with the relatively poor signal in the Te Puna Inlet. E.g., typical st wan report up there would be
Average CQI: 15 Strongest cells Signal level: Ec/Io: RSCP: |** | -10.0 dB -95 dBm
On the morning of the 13th, in Te Puna Inlet, we noticed our connection was unreliable. We were on the west side of Te Puna inlet, where Telecom's coverage map shows a sharp signal dropoff. I.e., strong signal in the inlet, then knife edge as you move west towards land. We shifted about 500 meters east until the signal improved from about 2 to about 4. The internet performance remained roughly "horrible" the rest of the day.
By "horrible" I mean erratic jekyl/hyde: say 5 minutes of no packets, then 5 to 30 seconds of normal ping responses. E.g. running continuous pings to telecom.co.nz 146.171.18.242 we get bursts of 50ms responses then stalls where the next response may be 25,000 to 150,000ms.
I've spent 3 days of my time troubleshooting, phoning Telecom support, etc. Including talking to the Complex Mobile Team Friday. They said we see you on the net but we can't help you because your Ericsson W35 is not sold by Telecom. They said take your SIM to such as Orb to see if it works in a Telecom device.
Today we sailed up to Kerikeri inlet to access the Orb Comm store. There I confirmed that our SIM is AOK in one of their Telecom MF636 T‑Stick modems. The Orb manager said he often experienced the same sort of erratic performance in the Paihia area - that the problem is network, not your hardware.
Bottom line: solid radio link but huge variance in telecom.co.nz ping responses.
Update: I'm not sure whether my IP tells me which cell base transceivers we are using (with APN internet.telecom.co.nz). From observation it looks like we are being assigned in these ranges
#1 Russell 115.189.174.93, 115.189.154.186 #2 Kerikeri 122.56.192.237, 122.56.193.24
If correct, we were happy on #2 122.56.xx when KAPUT service goes south. We move back onto #1, service stays horrible. Last night we move back near Kerikeri, noticing our IP is #2. Suddenly around 1800 Sunday we are getting terrific performance.
Today, Monday when I returned from Orb Comm testing the W35 rebooted and associated #1 again. Peformance is still fine. We move the boat back to Russell area, on same IP. Around 1455 PM we are nearing Roberton Island and performance is back into the horrible zone - same IP.
My st wan report includes the following: is the location of base transceiver indicated here:
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