Questions about 4G RBI

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Awrrr
18663 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1361004 8-Aug-2015 09:09

4G RBI recently became available to us. The tower is about 20 km away and we have a rooftop antenna. Speedtest consistently shows 30 mb/s down. I calculated actual speed once by measuring the time a video file of known size took and it worked out to over 20 mb/s. This is a big improvement over what we were getting with 3G. Streaming used to be a little jittery, now it is usually smooth at highest definitions.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

grant_k

3539 posts

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Trusted

#1361088 8-Aug-2015 11:05

This is my speed on 3G from a tower 12km away:

I have done some tests by driving around and pulling over on the side of the road where good 4G 700MHz coverage currently exists and got this using the internal router antennae only:

So I'm expecting over 50Mbps at home once our site is upgraded to 4G. Meanwhile the 3G service at 30Mbps is pretty damn fine.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1361089 8-Aug-2015 11:21

dwl:
johnr: 4G+ is carrier aggregation and CAT6 handsets like the Samsung S6 will display 4G+ when attached to CA sites

I can answer for VodafoneNZ and a number of CA sites are live even had 4G+ in Cambridge few weeks back.

This speedtest was done on a CA site inTakapuna on a Samsung S6

johnr - a question you may choose not to answer - if using CA (40 MHz?) to achieve these rates, how may sectors of this capacity can be used in a single direction - I suspect few.

I'm not saying anything wrong with pushing these speeds but market expectation is now getting based around UFB for these type of headline speeds and it is a huge difference whether available across a sector at n*rate (each user gets high rate) or rate/n (shared).

CA can be be 3 carriers 700 1800 and 2600 Vodafone has some sites that have all 3 bands but only 2 bands are bonded at this stage,

kaihoka

164 posts

Master Geek

#1361299 8-Aug-2015 21:15

hi
i am on RBI 3G
i have full signa/ 5 bars
a dBm of 62
but i only have speeds of 7 or 8 mbs
is that because a B683 , an old antique modem that i am stuck with in my contract, that vodafone say they will not upgrade with out charging me

johnr

19282 posts

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Inactive user

#1361301 8-Aug-2015 21:27

The B683 is not a 4G modem

kaihoka

164 posts

Master Geek

#1361319 8-Aug-2015 22:48

yes i know that
but look at the speeds grant was getting on 3G from a tower 12 klm away and mine is only 6 klm
the new modems are 3G/4G
vodafone could supply me one of those

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1361320 8-Aug-2015 23:10

kaihoka: yes i know that
but look at the speeds grant was getting on 3G from a tower 12 klm away and mine is only 6 klm
the new modems are 3G/4G
vodafone could supply me one of those

Did you not confirm above that you are still under a contract term?

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kaihoka

164 posts

Master Geek

#1361400 9-Aug-2015 08:37

So the contract is the problem.
I read that RBI up take was.low because of vodafones contract terms
If you have a mobile phone plan with them they will often upgrade your phone.
I offered to buy a modem and they could send it.
But they refuse.and said it has to be installed by a technician and I would have to pay travel.
Maybe it is because we are not capable.of changing a sim and connecting cables.
But they will post adsl modems which need.cables connected
they will.post their non RBI modems with.sims to customers.
But it is my mistake I should have gone with ultimate broadband
The only reason I even went down this path is that my current modem keeps crashing and taking our weather station off line
And researching the problem I found it is common fault with these modems and you no longer install them.

johnr

19282 posts

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Inactive user

#1361409 9-Aug-2015 09:31

RBI is a regulated product and if you sign a mobile contract term for a phone / handset 24 months it's the same thing so trying to imply contract terms don't count for mobile does not wash with me they are also covered with fees / terms

If you sign a contract RBI term with ultimate broadband or any other retail provider of RBI products each time a new modem comes out they are not going to be sending out new modems to it's end users,

grant_k

3539 posts

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Trusted

#1361434 9-Aug-2015 10:32

kaihoka: So the contract is the problem.
I read that RBI up take was.low because of vodafones contract terms
If you have a mobile phone plan with them they will often upgrade your phone.
I offered to buy a modem and they could send it.
But they refuse.and said it has to be installed by a technician and I would have to pay travel.
Maybe it is because we are not capable.of changing a sim and connecting cables.
But they will post adsl modems which need.cables connected
they will.post their non RBI modems with.sims to customers.
But it is my mistake I should have gone with ultimate broadband
The only reason I even went down this path is that my current modem keeps crashing and taking our weather station off line
And researching the problem I found it is common fault with these modems and you no longer install them.

If Vodafone don't come to the party and upgrade your router I believe you have just cause to break your contract and make a claim against Vodafone with the Disputes Tribunal when they come demanding their break fee.

Clearly the existing router is not fit for purpose and Vodafone should be replacing it at no charge. I too run a weather station and experienced lockups with the router you have. It wouldn't disconnect as such, but all traffic stopped and so it needed to have the power cycled every few weeks. Later routers don't have that problem. If it helps your case I am happy to give you a signed statement to that effect.

Vodafone should be going out of their way to keep a valued customer happy and not sticking to their hard line that you are locked into a contract so tough. Not a good look at all. In contrast to your experience, Ultimate Broadband have been a pleasure to deal with for 3+ years now, and we came to a satisfactory arrangement over router upgrades as the need arose.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1361441 9-Aug-2015 10:48

grant_k:
kaihoka: So the contract is the problem.
I read that RBI up take was.low because of vodafones contract terms
If you have a mobile phone plan with them they will often upgrade your phone.
I offered to buy a modem and they could send it.
But they refuse.and said it has to be installed by a technician and I would have to pay travel.
Maybe it is because we are not capable.of changing a sim and connecting cables.
But they will post adsl modems which need.cables connected
they will.post their non RBI modems with.sims to customers.
But it is my mistake I should have gone with ultimate broadband
The only reason I even went down this path is that my current modem keeps crashing and taking our weather station off line
And researching the problem I found it is common fault with these modems and you no longer install them.

If Vodafone don't come to the party and upgrade your router I believe you have just cause to break your contract and make a claim against Vodafone with the Disputes Tribunal when they come demanding their break fee.

Clearly the existing router is not fit for purpose and Vodafone should be replacing it at no charge. I too run a weather station and experienced lockups with the router you have. It wouldn't disconnect as such, but all traffic stopped and so it needed to have the power cycled every few weeks. Later routers don't have that problem. If it helps your case I am happy to give you a signed statement to that effect.

Vodafone should be going out of their way to keep a valued customer happy and not sticking to their hard line that you are locked into a contract so tough. Not a good look at all. In contrast to your experience, Ultimate Broadband have been a pleasure to deal with for 3+ years now, and we came to a satisfactory arrangement over router upgrades as the need arose.

@grant_k The end user is getting well above the 5Mbps/s speed for RBI as above they have posted 7 - 8Mbps and then you speak about the disputes Disputes Tribunal

Please tell me why Vodafone should be replacing the RBI router? Different towers have different capacity so replacing the modem might see the end user getting the same speed,

You don't even know how long ago the end user signed the term contract for all we know they could be 5 months into a 12 month term

grant_k

3539 posts

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Trusted

#1361443 9-Aug-2015 10:57

johnr:
grant_k:
kaihoka: So the contract is the problem.
I read that RBI up take was.low because of vodafones contract terms
If you have a mobile phone plan with them they will often upgrade your phone.
I offered to buy a modem and they could send it.
But they refuse.and said it has to be installed by a technician and I would have to pay travel.
Maybe it is because we are not capable.of changing a sim and connecting cables.
But they will post adsl modems which need.cables connected
they will.post their non RBI modems with.sims to customers.
But it is my mistake I should have gone with ultimate broadband
The only reason I even went down this path is that my current modem keeps crashing and taking our weather station off line
And researching the problem I found it is common fault with these modems and you no longer install them.

If Vodafone don't come to the party and upgrade your router I believe you have just cause to break your contract and make a claim against Vodafone with the Disputes Tribunal when they come demanding their break fee.

Clearly the existing router is not fit for purpose and Vodafone should be replacing it at no charge. I too run a weather station and experienced lockups with the router you have. It wouldn't disconnect as such, but all traffic stopped and so it needed to have the power cycled every few weeks. Later routers don't have that problem. If it helps your case I am happy to give you a signed statement to that effect.

Vodafone should be going out of their way to keep a valued customer happy and not sticking to their hard line that you are locked into a contract so tough. Not a good look at all. In contrast to your experience, Ultimate Broadband have been a pleasure to deal with for 3+ years now, and we came to a satisfactory arrangement over router upgrades as the need arose.

@grant_k The end user is getting well above the 5Mbps/s speed for RBI as above they have posted 7 - 8Mbps and then you speak about the disputes Disputes Tribunal

Please tell me why Vodafone should be replacing the RBI router? Different towers have different capacity so replacing the modem might see the end user getting the same speed,

Speed is not the main issue John, it's the sheer unreliability of the B683 router that Kaihoka is having issues with. If you ran a weather station perhaps you'd understand. A 24/7 connection is required, not one that needs to be rebooted every few weeks, often when you're away from home.

Secondly, the B683 does not support DC-HSPA whereas later routers do, so it is my belief that Kaihoka would gain an increase in speed,exactly the same as I did. That of course assumes the cellsite being used supports DC-HSPA, but if I recall correctly, this was done when the sites concerned were upgraded for RBI use, or if it was a newly-built site, that capability would have been there from the beginning.

Lastly, regarding your edited comment concerning the contract term: If Kaihoka was only 5 months into a contract, AFAIK the B683 router would not have been supplied. The B593 was released in December last year according to my records.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1361444 9-Aug-2015 11:02

I did a Google search and the B683 supports up to 28.8Mbps which is DC-HSPA

grant_k

3539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1361453 9-Aug-2015 11:09

johnr: I did a Google search and the B683 supports up to 28.8Mbps which is DC-HSPA

In that case I apologise. After checking further, it is DC-HSPA+ I should have been referring to, which has a theoretical max speed of around 43Mbps. AFAIK the B683 did not support that protocol.

All I know is that my speed pretty much doubled from when I had the B683 to when I got the B593.

As I said earlier though, speed is not the main issue here. Reliability of the connection is!

kaihoka

164 posts

Master Geek

#1361456 9-Aug-2015 11:14

hi
i joined in september
so is the issue of reduced speed due to the configuration of the tower
why would the collingwood tower not be as capable as grants tower

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