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Shadaia
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Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 12:03 am

Hey guys. I have bought ATL LTE18 and I have issues with its underwhelming performance. I have installed it on my roof, pointing directly to BTS. The distance is 270 meters and there is nothing between ATL and BTS.

I tried different combinations of bands but leaving it blank (automatic) makes for best performance. I've tried testing in different times of day and average seems to be about 45 Mb/s DL and 18Mb/s UP.
Here are my statistics:

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I'm getting about 45Mb/s speeds even at night so it does seem like limitation on my end. What makes me wonder is that CA Band is almost always empty - sometimes it appear for literally a second and disappears. Do you guys have any ideas?

LTE and RouterOS firmwares are up to date.

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milka351
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:36 am

I have the same problem with CA on LHG 18. I have CA with two bands B1 and B3. After about 1 hour later for example B1 is disconnected and dont want connect again. Only manually reset connection is helping. I updated Router os, modem firmware and routerboard but it doesnt help. It's not problem with BTS because my phone have CA in this same time without any problems.
 
BitHaulers
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:46 pm

Your SINR is horrible. That close, it should be over 20dB. You have interference, so you have another tower, same band, same carrier, causing issues. Your RSRQ is -18dB...This is a horrible signal. You don't need to be high up on the roof, this is not WiFi. Put that thing lower, and find the other tower that's on the same frequency, and put something between the radio and that tower...like the house. Be careful of reflections from hills, evergreen trees, and other building that might bounce the signal right into the path of the radio.

Also, aggregation is controlled by the carrier/tower. That tower might not have multiple sectors pointing at you, or it might not allow aggregation in that direction, or on those bands. Totally normal stuff, actually. Your uploads are also rather poor for that strong of an RSRP, but that could be a network decision. Congestion could also be in play, but you won't know until you get that SINR over 15dB.

These modems are Quectels, they just work 99.9% of the time. This (usually) isn't a software issue, but a network and/or placement issue.
 
Shadaia
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:53 pm

Your SINR is horrible. That close, it should be over 20dB. You have interference, so you have another tower, same band, same carrier, causing issues. Your RSRQ is -18dB...This is a horrible signal. You don't need to be high up on the roof, this is not WiFi. Put that thing lower, and find the other tower that's on the same frequency, and put something between the radio and that tower...like the house. Be careful of reflections from hills, evergreen trees, and other building that might bounce the signal right into the path of the radio.

Also, aggregation is controlled by the carrier/tower. That tower might not have multiple sectors pointing at you, or it might not allow aggregation in that direction, or on those bands. Totally normal stuff, actually. Your uploads are also rather poor for that strong of an RSRP, but that could be a network decision. Congestion could also be in play, but you won't know until you get that SINR over 15dB.

These modems are Quectels, they just work 99.9% of the time. This (usually) isn't a software issue, but a network and/or placement issue.
Thanks a lot, that's what I noticed as well. I'll be trying different placements tomorrow. I just wanted to ask you what exactly do you mean by towers with the same frequency? All towers in the area are using same LTE bands. I think this might be an issue, because I'm trying to access pink BTS:

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The orange one is in the same place as pink (which I want to use), and purple one is the first one in my straight line. So am I doomed? If I want to point antenna to my BTS I need to go through purple one, it's on the way. I will try to put my ATL on side of the building facing BTS, instead of on the roof (this way I at least cover one side)
 
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Larsa
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:06 pm

What download rate do you get using your smartphone?
Last edited by Larsa on Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
 
Shadaia
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:08 pm

What download rate do you get using a smartphone?
When I was testing it indoors it was about the same. 40 Mb/s-ish. Samsung S20 FE 5G. I will try using the phone tomorrow from the exact same place as antenna.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:14 pm

That is pretty bad considering you are that close. Do you have line in sight to the antenna tower and secondly are you sure it belongs to T-mobile? Regarding available LTE/5G bands and carrier aggregation you can check it using field test mode on your smartphone.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:18 pm

That is pretty bad considering you are that close. Do you have line in sight to the antenna tower and secondly are you sure it belongs to T-mobile? Regarding available LTE/5G bands and carrier aggregation you can check it using field test mode on your smartphone.
Yeah it's T-Mobile and I can see it directly from roof and two sides of the building, however there is another tower from another operator on the same church, and one LTE operator in between me and my BTS. So if I'm pointing to my BTS, I need to go "through" two other towers.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sat Feb 11, 2023 11:32 pm

In general, you always need a clear line of sight to the antenna tower to utilize the upper bands with CA.

Just to investigate what speed you actually can get, I'd suggest you find a spot that is about the same distance from your house where you have a completely clean line of sight and test it again using your smartphone.

In rural areas (really far out on the countryside) a worst case scenario might be that the base station itself has poor capacity when many people are connected at the same time. I've seen places during week days where you get about 80-120 Mbs and on weekends when people starts streaming it pops down to very low numbers.

EDIT:
Note to self: this is one of many similar asked questions and related issues in the forum, thus why isn't there a Mikrotik FAQ or best practice on how to prepare for purchasing, commissioning and operating mikrotik products for 4G LTE/5G NR?
 
BitHaulers
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 12:40 am

In general, you always need a clear line of sight to the antenna tower to utilize the upper bands with CA.

In rural areas (really far out on the countryside) a worst case scenario might be that the base station itself has poor capacity when many people are connected at the same time. I've seen places during week days where you get about 80-120 Mbs and on weekends when people starts streaming it pops down to very low numbers.
Not true. NLOS works all day long with CA. Line of sight means nothing if the tower's sectors aren't pointed at you. The worst places are on ridgelines, where the property sees everything down below. The interference can be so bad the modem won't stay connected to anything.

If it was a congestion problem, you'd see it rebound at night when people are asleep (usually).
Last edited by BitHaulers on Sun Feb 12, 2023 12:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 12:45 am

That is pretty bad considering you are that close. Do you have line in sight to the antenna tower and secondly are you sure it belongs to T-mobile? Regarding available LTE/5G bands and carrier aggregation you can check it using field test mode on your smartphone.
Yeah it's T-Mobile and I can see it directly from roof and two sides of the building, however there is another tower from another operator on the same church, and one LTE operator in between me and my BTS. So if I'm pointing to my BTS, I need to go "through" two other towers.
The interference is coming from TMO, not another carrier. TMO is interfering with TMO here. It could be a further tower on a ridgeline that's pointed straight at you. In the US, I've seen AT&T go through and realign their sector antennas to cut down on this type of interference. Verizon is always the best at avoiding this interference. TMO is usually pretty good about it here locally, but it's expensive to pay people to drive around and take readings, and then re-align antennas. So there's a good chance that it's just poorly planned alignment for the spectrum they licensed in your area.

Sometimes it's better to use a different band from a further tower. Use the band that gives the best SINR, with an RSRP better than -100dB. There's not much of a speed difference between RSRPs as there are SINRs. Modulation is determined by SINR. So it's SINR or bust for speeds.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:12 am

That type of interference problem is pretty unlikely, unless the base station installation crew were completely idiots (ie FUBU) and T-Mobile is running some kind of piracy operations to bypass the control of Office of Electronic Communications.

Also, avoid lower bands in rural areas as they are usually overcrowded. There is also no reason when you are that close to a tower, especially when access to the higher bands in general provides much better throughput using CA.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:31 am

I'll try tomorrow to disable 800Mhz band, and move antenna around untill I get some decent values. Ill also try doing some tests using my smartphone. Ill let you guys know.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:56 am

I'd definitely start testing using a smartphone in a number of places around the tower at different times to get a good baseline of what speed it's actually possible to achieve.

While you're at it you're also able to check what bands it uses for CA which you might use to configure your Mikrotik device.

EDIT:
Also be aware that some test services might give different results depending on whether they use tcp, udp and how much it loads the device.

When I don't have access to specialized test equipment I usually prefer to use the google built-in internet speed test whenever it's available (google "Internet speed test") which is fast with a minimal load and startup time on mobile devices:
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BitHaulers
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 6:07 pm

That type of interference problem is pretty unlikely, unless the base station installation crew were completely idiots (ie FUBU) and T-Mobile is running some kind of piracy operations to bypass the control of Office of Electronic Communications.
You'd think, but it's actually very common. Most people don't have hundreds of LTE radios deployed with logging and remote capabilities, or do LTE surveys for a living. So their perspective is limited.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 6:15 pm

I'd definitely start testing using a smartphone in a number of places around the tower at different times to get a good baseline of what speed it's actually possible to achieve.
Using a low dB omnidirectional 4x4 antenna isn't the best way to figure out where the signal is for a directional high gain 2x2 antenna. You're going to pick up all sorts of reflections and side lobes that are not going to be accurate for the directional antenna. Also, most phones don't let you step through the bands, and all modems by default anchor to the band with the best RSRP, SINR/RSRQ is ignored.

When you run these speedtests, the phone will be using CA, and unless you have the right app/permissions, you won't know what bands the phone is actually using for PCC/SCC. So it's usually the opposite of transparent.

So phones are a quick and dirty way to quickly see what's kinda going on, but the best way is to get a cheap tripod, mount the ATL LTE18, use a battery powered PoE/WiFI device like what Mikrotik sells (sans battery, so you'd have to figure that out) or Linktechs' $200 device, and use a phone or laptop logged in to the radio to see what's going on as you step through the bands and move it around.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 6:53 pm

Regarding channel interference, I can say for sure it's not a common problem but rather a non-existent problem.

As for the rest, try not to overcomplicate things, especially for someone who has no experience in the field. Using a regular smartphone works perfectly fine to establish a baseline. In general, most smartphones are way much smarter than a mikrotik device to find the most optimal connection. If you want to triangulate a tower just bring a strainer, colander or similar to you smartphone.

Bottom line, keep it simple.
 
Shadaia
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Sun Feb 12, 2023 8:44 pm

I have been doing some testing and unfortunately I don't think I'll be happy with this device. I have tested 10 different spots around the house, high and low, on different sides of building while looking live at signal levels and I have also tried using NetMonster to check these levels on phone and I was never able to achieve SINR higher then 10, and even then, it fluctuated to 2 very often. In every single place my smartphone showed better speeda, even hitting 100Mb/s when ATL hit only 55Mb/s max, once. Ive tried disabling 800Mhz but that did nothing other than lowering SINR (its highest on 800Mhz, but speed is bad)

Looks like mikrotik devices might be worth it at countryside, but when you're close they're just plain worse than simple smartphone. Unfortunate, as I love this brand. 8
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Tue Feb 14, 2023 8:22 pm

Regarding channel interference, I can say for sure it's not a common problem but rather a non-existent problem.

As for the rest, try not to overcomplicate things, especially for someone who has no experience in the field. Using a regular smartphone works perfectly fine to establish a baseline. In general, most smartphones are way much smarter than a mikrotik device to find the most optimal connection. If you want to triangulate a tower just bring a strainer, colander or similar to you smartphone.

Bottom line, keep it simple.
I am keeping it simple. You are simply wrong. If your method worked, I wouldn't have a successful business for over half a decade now. Also, don't assume I use stock devices. Those are limited.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Tue Feb 14, 2023 8:30 pm

Looks like mikrotik devices might be worth it at countryside, but when you're close they're just plain worse than simple smartphone. Unfortunate, as I love this brand.
The Tik is 2x2 MIMO, that's going to be half as fast as the phone, all other things being equal. The phones are also usually better at filtering interference, and most use amplifiers on the board, so while their gain is low, they are pretty advanced.

IoT modems are not nearly as advanced. The ATL is designed for where you need the gain. If you don't need the gain, use something else. It is possible it's too hot for the radio and being that close (gain is too strong). You see that with WiFi. I work in rural areas, so I don't usually get sub 70dB RSRPs. The phones are usually worse than 120dB and we're trying to get to 100dB with large antennas. In that scenario, the phone gets smoked every time.

Sometimes putting it inside helps with boosting the SINR, especially on ridgelines. It helps attenuate the interference from the other towers. I've done this quite often. I have several places where outside is unusable due to interference, but inside gets a solid SINR and they've been stable for years.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Wed Apr 26, 2023 11:45 am

I have the same problem with SINR (ATL LTE 18 router).No problems on old hardware (RBSXTR), SINR was 10-15.
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Wed May 03, 2023 7:21 pm

I am seeing the same issue and Mikrotik is just blaming the mobile network.

It is embarrassing for my business that provides high quality, professionally installed, LTE/4G antennas to install a Mikrotik antenna and get a lower speed than a phone does in the same location. What is the point of this product if the directional antenna isn't getting a better signal and speed?

The upload speed is really good, I can get 80-100Mbps with the ATL

The download is crap!

Phone gets 200Mbps.

ATL gets speeds all over the place from a few Mbps to 140Mbps with an average of 30Mbps.

I have a recently installed customer that now just tethers to his phone as that is faster than the ATL installed. Chances are I'll have to refund and remove the ATL.

I AM REALLY DISAPPOINTED IN THIS PRODUCT!
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Thu Nov 23, 2023 1:01 pm

I have had bad experiences with Mikrotik mobile devices; I have tested several devices, and the results were disappointing, even with QU antennas. Instead of Mikrotik, I decided to go with Huawei, and I am satisfied.
 
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Re: Underwhelming speeds with ATL LTE18 kit, CA not working

Fri Dec 01, 2023 2:13 pm

I've seen somebody hinting at carrier aggregation compatibility issues with some mobile operators. For me personally the SCCs were showing up but would never receive any traffic. Other people complained on SCCs not ever even showing up. After reducing the version of RRC protocol, CA works fine. Maybe it's the same issue here?
/interface/lte at-chat lte1 input="AT+QCFG=\"rrc\",4"
followed by a reboot.

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