RBI upgrade to 4G LTE

Forums › New Zealand Mobile and Wireless › RBI upgrade to 4G LTE

sidney

81 posts

Master Geek

#175406 28-Jun-2015 11:09

My tower was recently down for some sort of upgrade and now I see that my ISP, Ultimate Broadband, is offering 4G RBI plans. I know that there are people on this forum who know all about the technical details of different towers. Does anyone know if the Kraak Road cell tower (in Dome Valley, at Warkworth) has been upgraded to 4G and if so which frequency band?

My current modem is a Huawei B683 which does not do 4G. If I want to make use of 4G do I need a new Yagi antenna installed as well as a new modem? If the 4G frequency does require a different antenna, does that mean that I can only make use of the 4G frequency band and cannot fall back to the old 3G band if for some reason one is working and not the other?

Thanks

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#1332902 28-Jun-2015 11:42

No 4G license yet showing for Kraacks Hill. Doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been upgraded, but most of the time licence shows in RSM first.
Can you pick up Warkworth?

The 4G plans will fall back to 3G.

You will need new router and antenna upgrade to get 4G service. Though if you can pickup Warkworth L1800 signal, then current router will work and you will only need new antenna.

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johnr

19282 posts

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#1332914 28-Jun-2015 12:24

I think this site had band 28 L700 added or it was upgraded to U900 DC,

sidney

81 posts

Master Geek

#1332930 28-Jun-2015 12:59

coffeebaron: Can you pick up Warkworth?

The RBI modem uses a Yagi antenna pointed right at the Kraak Hill tower which is line of sight and nearby. My phone can get a weak signal from the tower on Falls Rd when Kraak Hill is down, but that is in a very different direction and I don't think that's what you mean when you are asking about Warkworth.

In any case I do know that the Huawei B683 modem that I have is spec'd at 3G only, so I would definitely need a new modem.

coffeebaron: The 4G plans will fall back to 3G.

How does that work with a Yagi antenna if they are built for a particular narrow frequency range? I read in Wikipedia that ham operators sometimes tweak the Yagi design using traps to make multi-band versions, is that what one would get for use in 4G RBI?

sidney

81 posts

Master Geek

#1332954 28-Jun-2015 13:49

johnr: I think this site had band 28 L700 added or it was upgraded to U900 DC,

My RBI modem does not do either of band 28 L700 nor DC-HSPA+, just single channel HSPA+

My phone doesn't do band 28 so I have nothing that could detect if the tower was upgraded to it.

My phone is supposed to work with DC-HSPA+ but I don't know what it would display if that is what I had. When I look at the status screen on the phone it usually shows UMTS but keeps bouncing to HSPA+ for a short while. Running speedtest gets me about 5Mbps download whether I try it over wifi through my RBI modem or on the phone's mobile data connection. So if the phone does make use of DC-HSPA+ I'm not getting any better speed out of it. It seems more like what I would expect from UMTS.

This is what my RBI modem shows about the signal in its diagnostic screen:

Ecio:   -8 dB
RSCP:   -72 dBm
RSSI: -64 dBm
Cell ID: 59407
Freq:   3086
PSC: 82
Service Status:   Circuit & Packet Switched Capable

I have no idea what a Freq of 3086 means.

bbman

646 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1332958 28-Jun-2015 14:09

Sidney I suggest you contact our help desk first and foremost, we actually have all of the details you need.

They will get back to you over the next few days with more info. At this point check the website for plan details.

As you have a B683 both the router and antenna will need to be changed to support LTE however we have no confirmed upgrade offer yet as it is being worked on currently. In the mean time plan changes for the next billing period can be requested via the web change form. You can go on all of new plans on existing hardware for now.

Again contact the help desk ether via email or phone to get the info you need.

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coffeebaron

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#1332959 28-Jun-2015 14:17

Ah, your right - the black router; yes 3G only.
Our new antenna's are wideband 700-2700, covering all frequencies.

Yes I did mean Falls road, but only if you are high enough up with reasonably unobstructed view to that side. L1800 has a smaller coverage footprint, so quite probably not an option for you anyway. Again you'd need the new router and antenna.

I'll check the Kraacks Hill site at next time I'm up north, probably in next few weeks.

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sidney

81 posts

Master Geek

#1332962 28-Jun-2015 14:30

bbman: Sidney I suggest you contact our help desk first and foremost, we actually have all of the details you need.

Yes, I did send an email just before I posted here, and I know how good your support people are about responding helpfully. The email had all my questions about pricing and plan changes, as well as some of the questions I posted here. Since it's a weekend I thought I would post here some of my questions about technical details about the tower and how the different bands work, to satisfy my curiosity.

Thanks

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bbman

646 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1332963 28-Jun-2015 14:39

Excellent, one of the team will be in touch.

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sidney

81 posts

Master Geek

#1333035 28-Jun-2015 18:10

coffeebaron: I'll check the Kraacks Hill site at next time I'm up north, probably in next few weeks.

That's great. I'm really curious as to exactly what Vodafone did to justify their taking down our service for a day :)

BTW, in case you didn't remember, you were our installer for the antenna and modem.

I notice that you mentioned the Huawei B593 s a 4G modem/router in another thread a few months ago. Looking at the review you linked to I see that it has two telephone ports. I tried to look up what they are for and found a Huawei support forum that tries to explain it but in very broken English that totally confused me. Do you know if the Huawei B593 will act as an ATA with just any SIP VOIP provider making a separate ATA box unnecessary?

grant_k

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#1333041 28-Jun-2015 18:41

sidney: ...
I notice that you mentioned the Huawei B593 s a 4G modem/router in another thread a few months ago. Looking at the review you linked to I see that it has two telephone ports. I tried to look up what they are for and found a Huawei support forum that tries to explain it but in very broken English that totally confused me. Do you know if the Huawei B593 will act as an ATA with just any SIP VOIP provider making a separate ATA box unnecessary?

I have a B593 and am also a happy Ultimate Broadband customer :)

When I first got the B593, Mike at Ultimate spent quite a bit of effort trying to get the built-in ATA to work for me. We could make outgoing calls, but incoming calls wouldn't get through. We had to give up in the end and use an external Cisco ATA which works fine. However, I'm told that the built-in ATA does work under some circumstances, just not for me.

sidney

81 posts

Master Geek

#1333046 28-Jun-2015 19:16

grant_k: I'm told that the built-in ATA does work under some circumstances, just not for me.

Did Ultimate Broadband provide the Huawei B593? Does it have factory stock firmware or has it been flashed with something custom? I just now found some people (not in New Zealand) talking about having that modem with the firmware customised for their telecom network provider and having to flash it with the factory image to be able to set up SIP ATA on it.

If I end up with a Huawei B593 and it doesn't work as an ATA that won't be a big deal as I do have the Linksys ATA I am using now. In fact it is the very same box I was using when you and I PM'd five years ago about my frustrating attempts to get it to do VOIP over iPStar satellite. The box gathered dust until I was finally able to get decent speeds, latency, and data cap via RBI.

grant_k

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#1333050 28-Jun-2015 19:47

sidney: Did Ultimate Broadband provide the Huawei B593? Does it have factory stock firmware or has it been flashed with something custom? I just now found some people (not in New Zealand) talking about having that modem with the firmware customised for their telecom network provider and having to flash it with the factory image to be able to set up SIP ATA on it.

Yes, Ultimate sent it to me as a replacement for the black router that you have now. It is a big improvement so far as stability and performance goes. I don't know if it has factory stock firmware or not, but I remember Fraser upgrading it for me.

sidney: If I end up with a Huawei B593 and it doesn't work as an ATA that won't be a big deal as I do have the Linksys ATA I am using now.

From what I've seen of the settings for the built-in ATA, it has very basic functionality compared to Cisco or Linksys. So I expect that it won't be able to work as well as either of those.

sidney: In fact it is the very same box I was using when you and I PM'd five years ago about my frustrating attempts to get it to do VOIP over iPStar satellite. The box gathered dust until I was finally able to get decent speeds, latency, and data cap via RBI.

Yes, I remember those discussions. If I remember correctly, you were trying to get WxC's VFX service working over iPStar and they gave you quite a bit of help too. Sorry to hear it wasn't successful, but great to catch up with you again. I'm guessing that you are glad to have left iPStar behind and now have a service with much larger data caps and less latency.

coffeebaron

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#1333183 29-Jun-2015 09:50

sidney:
coffeebaron: I'll check the Kraacks Hill site at next time I'm up north, probably in next few weeks.

That's great. I'm really curious as to exactly what Vodafone did to justify their taking down our service for a day :)

BTW, in case you didn't remember, you were our installer for the antenna and modem.

I notice that you mentioned the Huawei B593 s a 4G modem/router in another thread a few months ago. Looking at the review you linked to I see that it has two telephone ports. I tried to look up what they are for and found a Huawei support forum that tries to explain it but in very broken English that totally confused me. Do you know if the Huawei B593 will act as an ATA with just any SIP VOIP provider making a separate ATA box unnecessary?

Yes, I thought it was you I did the install for.

We have the new B315 4G router now. This does the L700 which is what the Kraacks Hill tower will get upgraded to in due course. Ultimate will discuss upgrade pricing with you.

As for you tower being offline and not necessarily getting a 4G upgrade - Vodafone are also doing a lot of capacity upgrades of backhaul, so that's another possibility.

Anyway, I'm sure we can get something organised for you in time for my next trip up that way. Even if there is no 4G, this router does faster Dual Carrier 3G anyway, so you will get a speed advantage now with this upgrade.

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johnr

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#1333187 29-Jun-2015 09:57

Kraacks 4G 700Mhz was unlocked 16/06

coffeebaron

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#1333215 29-Jun-2015 10:26

johnr: Kraacks 4G 700Mhz was unlocked 16/06

Sidney, looks like you are in luck :)

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