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Signal strength on Mifi device

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swill453
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Signal strength on Mifi device

#423612

Postby swill453 » June 29th, 2021, 10:56 pm

I bought a Huawei E5577C Mifi mobile router on eBay, new stock that has been unlocked to any network by the seller.

It generally works fine, but I've noticed it never picks up as good a signal as my phone (Huawei P20 Lite) when in the same place. If the phone is getting 4G, the Mifi typically has 3G. If the phone has 3G, the Mifi has H+.

If I use Opensignal speed test on the phone, it gets a much faster result using its own mobile connection compared to using WiFi to the mobile router.

They're both on the same network, Sky Mobile which uses O2.

Could it be defective? Do I have cause for complaint?

Scott.

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423616

Postby kiloran » June 29th, 2021, 11:15 pm

I don't really know, but I suspect the mifi device is smaller than the phone, and has a smaller aerial, so your experience doesn't surprise me

--kiloran

swill453
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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423653

Postby swill453 » June 30th, 2021, 9:32 am

kiloran wrote:I don't really know, but I suspect the mifi device is smaller than the phone, and has a smaller aerial, so your experience doesn't surprise me

Would you really expect the antenna to be smaller? The phone might be bigger but it has a multitude of other uses. The Mifi's sole purpose is to communicate over the mobile signal and WiFi.

Scott.

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423659

Postby servodude » June 30th, 2021, 9:42 am

swill453 wrote:
kiloran wrote:I don't really know, but I suspect the mifi device is smaller than the phone, and has a smaller aerial, so your experience doesn't surprise me

Would you really expect the antenna to be smaller? The phone might be bigger but it has a multitude of other uses. The Mifi's sole purpose is to communicate over the mobile signal and WiFi.

Scott.


Couple of thoughts:
How does the throughout using the phone as a hotspot look?
Even though they're on the same network are they on equivalent plans?

-sd

swill453
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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423716

Postby swill453 » June 30th, 2021, 12:56 pm

servodude wrote:Couple of thoughts:
How does the throughout using the phone as a hotspot look?
Even though they're on the same network are they on equivalent plans?

Hotspot on phone is much faster. (I bought the mifi so I could use my tablet when out and about).

It's 2 SIMs on the same account, just with a data allowance each. I tried the phone SIM in the mifi and the signal was worse than when in the phone.

Scott.

PhaseThree

Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423724

Postby PhaseThree » June 30th, 2021, 1:23 pm

It may be worth trying the software I suggest on another thread recently :-

https://www.ltehmonitor.com/en/

It allows you a huge amount of control over the modem and the frequency bands it's using.
I don't know whether it supports the e5577C but worth a try if you have a windows machine around.

swill453
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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423832

Postby swill453 » June 30th, 2021, 8:22 pm

PhaseThree wrote:It may be worth trying the software I suggest on another thread recently :-

https://www.ltehmonitor.com/en/

It allows you a huge amount of control over the modem and the frequency bands it's using.
I don't know whether it supports the e5577C but worth a try if you have a windows machine around.

Thanks I'll have a look at that.

Scott.

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423864

Postby servodude » July 1st, 2021, 4:38 am

swill453 wrote:
PhaseThree wrote:It may be worth trying the software I suggest on another thread recently :-

https://www.ltehmonitor.com/en/

It allows you a huge amount of control over the modem and the frequency bands it's using.
I don't know whether it supports the e5577C but worth a try if you have a windows machine around.

Thanks I'll have a look at that.

Scott.


Really hard to guess what precisely it could be

On paper the your phone looks to be capable of double the download baudrate of the MiFi device (~300 vs 150Mbps)
- but I can't imagine that you are running speeds anywhere near where that would matter

Its very unlikely that the antenna in the device is deficient in a way that it degrades signal quality by just enough (relative to that of the phone) such that it is dropped to the next "tier" of network and no more
I'd expect it to have a omni antenna onboard (i.e very low gain and orientation agnostic); if it's not working you'll see "nothing" not just a few dB less
That said it seems the E5577 looks to have connections for external antennas on the board
- check these are clean and if have a look for a menu option that might be trying to use these (it might select them automatically - I can't see a manual that covers them)

It possible that the ISP decides to treat the MiFi router as a second class netizen; but I would have suspected that throttling to be harder to detect and probably not to show up on a band/signal display

So as you're able to tell what that you're on a signal tier below the P20 perhaps your phone could be a better fit for the network?
- there are a few versions of the E5577; it's not impossible that an ebay seller might not be completely aware of where things are meant to be sold

From https://www.4gltemall.com/huawei-e5577-4g-lte-cat4-mobile-hotspot.html

Code: Select all

* Huawei E5577Cs-321: Band 1/3/5/7/8/20 (FDD 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600MHz)
* Huawei E5577Cs-603: Band 3/740 (FDD 1800/2600MHz & TDD 2300MHz)
* Huawei E5577Bs-937: FDD Band 1/2/3/4/5/8/19 & TDD Band 38/39/40/41
* Huawei E5577s-324: FDD Band 1/3/5/7/8/19/20


The Cs-321 version would be the one that most aligned with the capabilities of the P20

If that is the one you have then the software PhaseThree linked to might give some visibility of what is really going on

- sd

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#423865

Postby servodude » July 1st, 2021, 4:57 am

Missed this bit - and was too late to edit:

Also have a look also at the management console on the device likely at 192.168.8.1
it should have a page for "network settings"
- check it makes sense (https://setuprouter.com/router/huawei/e5577cs-603/3g-4g-wifi-88793-large.htm)

- sd

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#425345

Postby swill453 » July 6th, 2021, 8:25 pm

PhaseThree wrote:It may be worth trying the software I suggest on another thread recently :-

https://www.ltehmonitor.com/en/

It allows you a huge amount of control over the modem and the frequency bands it's using.
I don't know whether it supports the e5577C but worth a try if you have a windows machine around.

So I did try it, and it seems to work fine with the device. Thanks for that.

However I'm not sure it helps me diagnose whether there's anything wrong with it, or if it's working as designed.

If I configure it for 4G only, the signal drops completely. Despite my phone in the same location happily receiving 4G without a problem.

(The mifi does get 4G elsewhere, so it's not entirely incapable of it).

Rather than go down the route of trying to claim there's a fault with it, I think I'll replace it with something like the Huawei B535. I have a 12v supply in my campervan, so don't really need battery capability.

Scott.

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#425381

Postby servodude » July 6th, 2021, 11:11 pm

swill453 wrote:If I configure it for 4G only, the signal drops completely. Despite my phone in the same location happily receiving 4G without a problem


Sounds like it might not cover the prevailing band in the location you're testing it (simply because restricting it to 4G causes it to drop out?)

Can you find the full product code? (should allow a check of the supported freqs)
Or can the software work in a scan/sniffer mode to show what's available

-sd

swill453
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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#425384

Postby swill453 » July 6th, 2021, 11:16 pm

servodude wrote:
swill453 wrote:If I configure it for 4G only, the signal drops completely. Despite my phone in the same location happily receiving 4G without a problem


Sounds like it might not cover the prevailing band in the location you're testing it (simply because restricting it to 4G causes it to drop out?)

Can you find the full product code? (should allow a check of the supported freqs)
Or can the software work in a scan/sniffer mode to show what's available

The ltehmonitor shows the bands as per the first one quoted above

* Huawei E5577Cs-321: Band 1/3/5/7/8/20 (FDD 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600MHz)

Scott.

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Re: Signal strength on Mifi device

#425388

Postby servodude » July 6th, 2021, 11:33 pm

swill453 wrote:
servodude wrote:
swill453 wrote:If I configure it for 4G only, the signal drops completely. Despite my phone in the same location happily receiving 4G without a problem


Sounds like it might not cover the prevailing band in the location you're testing it (simply because restricting it to 4G causes it to drop out?)

Can you find the full product code? (should allow a check of the supported freqs)
Or can the software work in a scan/sniffer mode to show what's available

The ltehmonitor shows the bands as per the first one quoted above

* Huawei E5577Cs-321: Band 1/3/5/7/8/20 (FDD 800/850/900/1800/2100/2600MHz)

Scott.


If it has read that from the module then it would appear to be the version you should need
- strange that you would be getting nothing on that case

-sd


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