Hi All,
I’m using the WAP LTE6 routers for customers and have two sites where I can’t get a stable connection to the phone mast that I want as I have closer but much slower masts that they are defaulting to.
Even using the dish version, they still connect to the unwanted masts.
Using 6.46.4 Stable
Does anyone know if there’s a setting or method to maually select a Cell ID and force it to stay on it??
Cheers all…
Dave
Bump… 
Are the closer (slower) masts and the father (faster) masts using same or different frequency?
You read a documentation ?
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Interface/LTE
CellLock or CellFreq or just selecting one Band are your solution.
‘mkx’
There are two sites currently with the issue, some 30 miles appart so not related with the same cells.
Both have LOS to stronger masts with more client capacity. One site has the better Cell tower closer than the poor one and the other has the better tower further away but with better LOS to the better mast.
Receive strength from all masts that I am trying to connect to are between -78dB and -89dB so plenty of strength.
The site with the better mast slightly further away is defaulting to a 2,500 client mast at 8km and it’s not a great LOS, but the better 12,500 client mast is only 9km and a perfect clear LOS which I have confirmed with spotting scope.
Most masts are Band 3 in this area and those are the ones I’m trying not to connect to. The others are Band 3 with CA on Band 20 and give 4G double speed from 90 - 140MBps when close to the mast.
There are no other bands in use in West Wales
‘SiB’
That looks like ‘Cell Lock’ may be a real thing after all. Now, my expertise is signal transmission and reception. Not so experienced in SSH commands but have passed this to a collegue.
Fingers Crossed…
Dave
With your lenghty answer it’s still not clear to me if the cells in the play (the closer you don’t want to use and the distant you want to use) are transmitting on the same frequency or not. If they are transmitting on the same frequency, then you should not use cell lock to force your LTE modem to the distant cell … doing so will increase interference for yourself and other local users.
Another question: when you’re writing about “Receive strength … are between -78dB and -89dB”, which quantity are you writing about? RSRP or RSSI? If the later, then signal strength is not that great … if it’s the former, then signal strength is fair (but not great).
You should do a table comparison… means do a testing in single bands and write results in table.
Next I do the same with a 2CA.
In 2CA sometimes when I use Freq/Cell Lock to force opposite primary-band vs ca-band the transfers are better.
Sometimes I do a car trip with my lte+hAPac²+dc/ac and test that from 600-800m from bts.
That way I know what and in what config I can receive from my BTS.
Results are differ per modem firmware.
One of my draft who show you how I do that (testing are terrible and are for check how it’s works in basement) :
1aaerials
Which carrier are you using?, I’m the opposite side of the country in East Anglia and have found from experience that manual re-positioning of the LTE can make a difference. A recent example would be a similar case to your where the nearest mast (EE) gave between 20/30 down and 10/15 up but by moving the modem round by 90 degrees i locked onto a different mast which tripled the speeds.
Joe.
Hi Joe,
We mostly have EE & Vodafone over here with the vary rare connection to ‘3’
Tend to mostly use the panel and bin antennas but are increasingly using the dish.
Yes we can see them mast hopping whilst adjusting teh azimuth and that’s why we wanted to cell lock as often they are locking onto closer stronger slower masts when we can get connection to much fater service by forcing it to ignore the stronger signal. It’s been working very well…