Questions about 4G RBI

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Deathstroke

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#177587 7-Aug-2015 18:51

So i currently live in the country where i need to get rural wireless broadband, my closest tower isnt upgraded to 4g yet but the 2nd closest tower which is about 10-15km away im able to pick up a 4g signal on my mobile phone, i get 1-2 bars of 4g signal and speedtest run on the spark and vodafone servers sit me at around 35ping/40 download/15 upload. so thats on regular 4g im able to pick up.

Then if i sit my phone in the right place in my house i get a 1 bar stable connection of "4g+" which speedtests indicate me at 23 ping/50 download/18upload.

So my questions are just from the regular 4g connection im able to pick up, is that a base idea of what ill be getting if i connect to a company that supplys rural wireless broadband because ive been told that RBI can be different because of handovers/dimensioning.

Does rural wireless broadband companys support "4g+" or only 4g?

last question but since im able to pick up 1-2bars of 4g does that mean with an external antenna i will get even better signal connection?

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#1360844 7-Aug-2015 19:10

There is no such thing as "4g+"

Typical RBI performance I've seen both on here and elsewhere is anywhere from 50-80Mbps down and 20-40Mbps up.

Deathstroke

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#1360846 7-Aug-2015 19:15

No such thing as 4g+ in general or just not on the rbi? Cause my phone says 4g+ and the speeds increase a lot when it has the + over not having it

sbiddle

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#1360848 7-Aug-2015 19:16

There is no such thing as 4g+ in general.

coffeebaron

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#1360849 7-Aug-2015 19:18

Keep in mind RBI is a regulated 5Mbps product, though a can't imagine Vodafone deciding to throttle it, else we'll be getting ad's from Spark saying 10x faster than any other rural broadband network in the country :)

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johnr

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#1360875 7-Aug-2015 20:08

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

dwl

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#1360881 7-Aug-2015 20:36

4G+ is a marketing term used for LTE Advanced. LTE categories are continuing to be enhanced. Spark seems to use the term 4G to apply up to CAT3 (100/50) and 4G+ to apply to CAT4 (150/50) based on this guide for the Galaxy S4 different models.

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#1360887 7-Aug-2015 20:42

4G+ is not CAT3 or CAT4 as these use a single carrier CAT6 and above uses carrier aggregation

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coffeebaron

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#1360902 7-Aug-2015 20:55

Note current RBI router is Cat4

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dwl

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#1360903 7-Aug-2015 21:03

johnr: 4G+ is not CAT3 or CAT4 as these use a single carrier CAT6 and above uses carrier aggregation

I don't believe the standards define what 4G+ means so I expect there can be variations with vendors what they want their phone to show for different categories. I suspect the 4G+ display mentioned above might not be indicating CAT6. Regardless, I would love to be able to get any 4G but both Vodafone and Spark carriers haven't gone beyond 3G on our local site.

johnr

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#1360912 7-Aug-2015 21:07

dwl:
johnr: 4G+ is not CAT3 or CAT4 as these use a single carrier CAT6 and above uses carrier aggregation

I don't believe the standards define what 4G+ means so I expect there can be variations with vendors what they want their phone to show for different categories. I suspect the 4G+ display mentioned above might not be indicating CAT6

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firefuze

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#1360925 7-Aug-2015 21:35

dwl:Spark seems to use the term 4G to apply up to CAT3 (100/50) and 4G+ to apply to CAT4 (150/50) based on this guide for the Galaxy S4 different models.

4G+ was never used in Spark's marketing, it was a loose term to describe the subtle difference between the two Galaxy S4 devices that were briefly ranged at the same time. The CAT4 device in turn was called the Galaxy S4 Advanced. The CAT3 version simply called the Galaxy S4. Spark does not have any 4G+ carrier logo / speed indication on their devices.

firefuze

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#1360926 7-Aug-2015 21:38

dwl:
johnr: 4G+ is not CAT3 or CAT4 as these use a single carrier CAT6 and above uses carrier aggregation

I don't believe the standards define what 4G+ means so I expect there can be variations with vendors what they want their phone to show for different categories. I suspect the 4G+ display mentioned above might not be indicating CAT6. Regardless, I would love to be able to get any 4G but both Vodafone and Spark carriers haven't gone beyond 3G on our local site.

The 4G+ in this case seems to be clearly showing CAT6, How could it be anything less? Those speeds are not possible on CAT3 or 4...

Deathstroke

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#1360966 8-Aug-2015 03:46

And yeah I have Samsung s6 edge and in city areas I easily get above 150mbps with the 4g+.

But since I'm in rural and the nearest cell tower with 4g upgraded is 10km+ speed is 50mbps.

dwl

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#1361001 8-Aug-2015 08:55

firefuze:
dwl:
johnr: 4G+ is not CAT3 or CAT4 as these use a single carrier CAT6 and above uses carrier aggregation

I don't believe the standards define what 4G+ means so I expect there can be variations with vendors what they want their phone to show for different categories. I suspect the 4G+ display mentioned above might not be indicating CAT6. Regardless, I would love to be able to get any 4G but both Vodafone and Spark carriers haven't gone beyond 3G on our local site.

The 4G+ in this case seems to be clearly showing CAT6, How could it be anything less? Those speeds are not possible on CAT3 or 4...

The first post said - "4g+" which speedtests indicate me at 23 ping/50 download/18upload - from this can't confirm which CAT but new info from the OP clarifies that this probably means CAT6. Sorry if I used the old marketing from Spark to mislead.

To confirm my understanding of RBI, as coffeebaron has stated, this is a regulated 5 Mbps product and there is meant to be a guarantee of 5 Mbps (some averaging allowed) but that doesn't mean higher speeds aren't available. The original question highlights the problem with 4G and RBI. Higher peak speeds may be available close to the sites but as the path loss increases there are two factors - rates per user reduce (can be mitigated with external antennas) and the percentage of the site capacity used per remote user for a given MB download increases (less efficient modulation).

As a rural user I am currently stuck with limited rates on 3G and reports of how well 4G+ can get over 150 Mbps don't apply at the moment and to be honest get rather frustrating in the context of a RBI discussion. If/when 4G comes to our local RBI site I would expect the peak rates to be a lot higher but I also don't know how well the sites will cope with my other rural neighbours, seeing $105 for 80GB, all climbing on that site as well because our ADSL is limited.

In an urban context the UFB and xDSL alternatives mean that many users will be using those as primary download paths with 4G more intermittently used. Going to rural, if RBI wireless is the primary delivery path I seriously doubt, assuming users are greater distances from the sites, that there will be enough per sector capacity to have those households getting the same experience as might be indicated by the headline numbers.

Using the example of 4g+ phone that is getting > 150 Mbps urban, and is getting 50 Mbps in a more remote location, this would seem to many to still be a good service. However, that user may be paying per GB so doesn't have any different constraint to user getting 150 Mbps+ but are they using 3x the cell capacity due to their distance? Is that 50 Mbps in fact sucking up most of the sector capacity while active?

I suspect Vodafone and Spark have some idea of how well 4G might work in terms of rural users on lower RF levels and what the average user experience might be with a loaded sector. I am pretty sure it will be well below what urban users can get (of course expected and realistic) but the price points coming into the market and high speed headlines are setting expectations that might disappoint (badly) when Netflix effect kicks in.

So, please don't keep quoting how fast 4G+ can go in an urban context. I want to know how it will work for more remote rural users when take up increases. Probably only time will tell. Rant over.

dwl

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#1361002 8-Aug-2015 09:02

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).

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