I am new to the Mikrotik world. I bought an LtAP LTE6 kit to use as an LTE hotspot. I have two different SIM cards from T-Mobile and AT&T and with both, I get close to terrible performance. I test the same sim cards in a phone or a tablet, and I get much better performance (~10x as measured at TCP/UDP layer by speedtest.net). I get 1-2 Mbps at best with LTE6 and I get 20+ Mbps with a tablet or a phone. Latencies (as measured by ping to 8.8.8. are also pretty high with LTE6 ranging between 150 ms to 450 ms, where I expect 10-20 ms.
I am less familiar with measurements on LTE signal strengths but the mobile app gives me fair to good signal strength and good signal quality. I also have a SureCall LTE signal booster and I tried with it, it didnât make a difference or made it worse in some scenarios.
My configuration is default and I havenât adjusted any setting. Is this the performance of LtAP LTE6 or do I need to do some tuning?
In my testing no current Mikrotik modem performs very well in the US due to the fact they lack a good number of the bands in use in the US. Quectel EP06-A (Cat6) or Quectel EC25-AF (Cat4) are the best thus far in my testing. If you are only going for basic connectivity for remote administration and not throughput the LTE6 will probably suffice. And yhopefully they will start replacing mPCIe slots with M.2 slots as most of the modems are moving to the M.2 form factor. Also the Quectel modems I use are certified for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Sprint, FirstNet etc.
Thanks jspool. Do you use these modems on Mikrotik? If I buy one (assuming I do the installation myself), will RouterOS recognize it? If so, I may consider adding one.
Mikrotik supports them pretty well. I use the EC25-AF, EC25-V, EC25-A, EP06-A with Mikrotik. The AF model works on about every carrier The EG25-G works very well with Sprint. The modems default mode will show up in a Mikrotik as a PPP device. You can change the modems mode to ECM and it will show up as an LTE device.
Ok, thank you for the information, this is very helpful. I think I will buy one of these to add as a second modem to my LTaP. I currently have two SIMs (AT&T and T-Mobile) but obviously I can only use one at a time with a single modem. I can take advantage of a second modem to simultaneously use both SIMs. If you needed to pick one, would you recommend EP06-A or EC25-AF?
EC25-xx(whatever) has a USB2 minipcie interface and will work in the LtAP with out hardware issue as LtAPâs chipet is USB2/MiniPCIe cpu based board.
EP06-xx IS USB 3.0 interfaced card on the hardware interface and will require you to tape/glue or cut pins on the card to get it to work in USB 2 mode(minipcie) on the LtAP.
See : https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Cellular_Quectel_modems_01
My experience is the internal antenna on the LtAP-mini for 4G/LTE is poor unless your sitting near a cell tower for it to be âgood!â.
Ideally you will need to drill and install u.FL â SMA patch lead adapters(5-10cm, quite cheap on ebay or tech stores) internally in the plastic lid and connect the cardâs u.FL sockets.
You should also add a 3rd u.FL -->SMA to connect to the MT boards GPS u.FL socket. Up to you if you use that later, but be warned you will need to buy an active phantom powered GPS antenna to go with it.
Have a look at this for antenna installation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKqCHfS-SeU
EC25-xx is a good CAT4 modem, EP06 is a CAT6 modem, and supports Carrier Aggregation(e.g use a secondary band, or same band, different cell) for b/w increase.
Where possible always use 2x antennas, yes you can get away with the main, but the secondary antenna assists in noisy areas /diversity setups.)
To note R11e-LTE6 is a CAT6 modem and will outperform R11E-LTE speed wise. You should make sure whatever card you get supports the frequency/bands of your preferred SIM card-supplier. Be sure to check if the LTE6 will work without the usb2/3 mod in the ltap-mini, the biger mikrotik âltapâ uses a different CPU(usb 3 compatible / https://www.mediatek.com/products/homeNetworking/mt7621)
With the hardware you are using the EC25-AF would probably be the best. Definitely recommend ufl to SMA pigtails and a good external LTE antennas. And make sure the modem firmware is updated to latest for best results.
PD: If you canât find U.FL to SMA + SMA to N pigtails, you can use U-FL to RP-SMA + RP-SMA to N pigtails. Only make sure not combine SMA with RP-SMA.
are also pretty high with LTE6 ranging between 150 ms to 450 ms, where I expect 10-20 ms.
