1 Tråd av dagath

  • dagath
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Tråd: 4G, Home Compensor and max distance

Living out in the woods is nice and quiet, but it does leave your broadband speeds to be desired. Can't get anything over 2Mbit ADSL, so I figured I'd not even bother with that.

With some fiddling around with antenna directions, transmitter locations and an amplifier (home compensor) I now have a fairly decent connection fluctuating between 2.5 and 3.2 Mbit. This is with telenor however, which means that in prime time the speeds tends to head rock bottom due to oversubscription. Still, they're the only ones with decent data limits.

Here's the current situation with 3G: http://g.co/maps/dgbcz

And in comes the 800Mhz 4G network. They will still never cover this area here, so I have to continue running with amplifier and external antenna. All that equipment is not cheap, I'd hate to buy it again for a different 4G frequency.

The home compensor is suitable for 800Mhz EDGE though. Does this mean that it would work for 4G as well? Does an amplifier even care about protocols? All it does is amplify a specific frequency band as far as I'm aware.

A bit further away they've now started with 4G:

http://g.co/maps/s2bs4

So we have 800 Mhz instead of 2100 Mhz, which should result in a longer reach. We've got a 800Mhz amplifier (build for EDGE but should work on 4G?). I'd need to get a different antenna, tuned for 800Mhz instead of UMTS. And a new contract with new 4G modem.

Could I cover 16km this way?

2 Svar av dagath

  • dagath
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Sv: 4G, Home Compensor and max distance

Actually, I'm not sure where I got the 800Mhz EDGE from.

It says here that it supports GSM900: http://www.funkwerk-breitband.de/downlo … att_gb.pdf

Still, isn't that frequency used for 4G as well?

And in addition that that, here it states there is support for the 800Mhz band .. http://www.fwd-online.de/downloads/Date … 2626-C.pdf (page 2)

The thing is, I have asked Funkwerk themselves, but they never answer =/

3 Svar av G-Man

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Sv: 4G, Home Compensor and max distance

Funkwerk got banned for me at a locatuon.

And with a price of 200€ ....

Expensive roadblock now

.:[RaspberryPI.:.Dovado UMR|3GN|4GR|Tiny|Doma|GO|PRO].:.
T2MBL40GB229kr|Android verktyg: Delat internet, gör om din mobil till mobilhotspot gratis (tether)

4 Svar av dagath

  • dagath
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Sv: 4G, Home Compensor and max distance

Well, disregard this whole thing. I didn't read correctly, it's not DCS 1: 800, but DCS 1800, has nothing at all to do with 800Mhz.

Still, I wonder if I can cover 16km with just an antenna at 800Mhz? Would be pretty difficult to do with UMTS.

5 Svar av jonasolof Senaste redigerad av jonasolof (2012-07-21 21:36:55)

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Sv: 4G, Home Compensor and max distance

There could be a cut off at a certain distance which is determined by the time it takes for the radio signal to travel the distance to and from the base station to the user equipment. If that is the case it does not matter how much antenna gain you can provide, it still won't work. My preliminary  belief is that there is a cut off at about 15 km for 4G 800 with Telia although I have only scant proof so far because I need to determine the location of the base station which I am testing towards. There is line of sight view over water so there are no obstacles in the way. I got a reasonable signal at one place and then moved back one km along the coast and could not get the signal at all although I could still see the the place I believe the signal comes from.

You need a high gain antenna for testing. I am now using a 12dBi mimo biquad but i am thinking of getting an 18 dB version. The difference of 6 dB should give the same signal strength as a 12 dB antenna at half the distance from the base station.

Download speed is highly dependent on signal strength and signal quality. If you can get a signal of -100 dB at half the distance, it would be worthwhile to test at you location with a large antenna since that should still get you a decent download of at least 5 mbit/s. Provided that you are not beyond the cut off limit, if there is one.

You should only consider solutions with double antennas since that would help significantly at great distances.

LTE testare på 4G 2600, 1800, 900, 800 med Fritzbox AVM 6890, AVM6840, AVM6842, AVM 6820 och AVM 7590/7490/7390 samt diverse mifis från ZTE och Netgear. Några huaweimodem på hyllan.

6 Svar av jonasolof Senaste redigerad av jonasolof (2013-01-29 04:52:31)

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Sv: 4G, Home Compensor and max distance

Late replies.

The Funkwerk thingy is NOT listed to work on the LTE 800 band 20. Instead of buying amplifiers, buy two antennas with higher gain and separate them both spatially and polarization wise. Aim towards 16-18 dBi gain and mount them high to overcome Fresnel zone limitations.

By the way, I do not think any more that there is cut off at 15 km for LTE 800. However, even if a router such as the AVM6840 can detect cells further away than 15 km as possible candidate cells, the proof is in attachment and getting an ip-address. Since I can not lock to a specific cell, I can't test distant cells for connections, since  there are always other cells which are closer in the area in which I test and those cells will be selected by the router.

The longest distance known for connections on this forum is about 13 km for LTE 2600. My nokia lumia 920 gets a connection on LTE 800 from a cell tower more than 10 km away over water and I doubt that antenna gain in the crammed smartphone is better than 1 dBi. Adding 15 dB of gain would make a big difference.

LTE testare på 4G 2600, 1800, 900, 800 med Fritzbox AVM 6890, AVM6840, AVM6842, AVM 6820 och AVM 7590/7490/7390 samt diverse mifis från ZTE och Netgear. Några huaweimodem på hyllan.