Does gateway use only primary or only secondary or both.

dilbert wrote:

How does the primary and secondary work?

Does it use both of them together or does it use only one at a time  

If only one, how does it choose which one to use? 

Good questions! I hope someone can give a more technical answers than me. I've looked for answers to these online several times and they are hard to find. I mean it's confusing. If you search for them, there are a few hour-long podcasts where experts discuss 5G, and the technology behind it. I've got to start listening to more of those. Often they talk too much about mmWave, since it is so fast, but that is in relatively few places, and is so problematic right now I can't see it coming to my rural area within the next five years or more.

I've read that T mobile had a standalone 5G test project a year ago, but it wasn't as fast a speed range as provided by the non-standalone pair many T mobile users get currently in the mid-frequency n41 5G pairing with a 4G signal. Standalone 5G is used some in China, I believe, and they are working to develop it here and believe it will one day be the standard.

Right now, during the transition between 4G and 5G, it's convenient and cost effective to have the equipment on the same tower, and helpful since the signals work in a non-standalone pair for 5G, and can still function as standalone 4G LTE. The 3G has been around for 19 years and they are trying to phase it out now, so 4G is likely to be around for quite a while still.

I've heard the working relationship of the 4G/5G (primary/secondary) non-standalone 5G pair described that the 4G is an on-ramp to initiate the 5G signal. I don't know what that means in technical terms and am not even sure if it's accurate.

Practically, and from my own experience of getting the B2/n41 or B66/n41, the 3X the upload speed I get on the former pair suggests the 4G part of the pairing determines or handles the upload. And this is what was said by an expert in this field in an article from Forbes two years ago. I found that article while searching for answers to the questions you pose.

Basically, band pairs are selected dynamically and seamlessly, since the system is designed to function as you, for example, travel between towers on your phone in a car. Until I got a 4G just this year, I  didn't know that when I'm standing in my yard, in one position, sometimes the signal switches to a tower 10 miles away from the one that's 5 miles away. You can watch this happen in tower mapper software.

But as of yet, there is no band-locking to prevent it from doing this.

The third question, how does it choose band pairs. It's choosing on what's the strongest signal, but there's also some traffic management that goes on during high congestion, in which case you could be shifted to a signal pair that gives you slower speeds. Lastly, there can be priorities given to users on a more expensive phone plan. They more often get the fastest or perhaps more stable signals.

That said, with TMHI, a lot depends on your orientation in relation to various towers near you, how close you are, how directly you are in their transmission fan pattern, what equipment they have, what power the tower is transmitting at, the efficiency of their backhaul setup, and level of obstructions between you and the tower.

Oh, and one more thing. When you get a primary signal only, that means you are on 4G LTE. The 4G is a standalone signal always. Likewise, when getting primary and secondary, you are on 5G, or rather the current state of the 4G/5G non standalone 5G.

0With all my testing on my phone and on the can I can say one thing for sure. If you do not have a good 4G LTE and 5G connection you will not get good speeds. In fact if you do not have a good combo speed will most likely be super bad like 5 up 2 down. I am 100% sure the can especially needs both to operate at high speeds.

If you have a good 4G and a bad 5G (like I did before I installed the outside ant) and you are lucky you get ok 4G speeds like I did 75/25. But if you are one of the unlucky ones that has a good 5G and no or poor 4G you get super bad speeds. It seems to me that the can cannot operate with just 5G IMO.

I think some on on the edge of one or the other and that’s why they need to reboot often to get the signal back.

Anyway did a speed test a few min ago and holy cow 787 down and 159 up unbelievable considering I was stuck at 75/25 on a good day before the ext antenna.

007BondMI6 wrote:

Anyway did a speed test a few min ago and holy cow 787 down and 159 up unbelievable considering I was stuck at 75/25 on a good day before the ext antenna.

Wow! I've heard of people hitting over 800 down on this but I don't think I've ever heard of that fast an upload speed. You're going to be the Waveform poster boy outlaw.

I know the feeling of hitting record speeds, even if my peak is still 420/70, because for my first two months my peak was 190/38, and I hit that very rarely, although 170 was fairly common. And then the unexplained speed jump when my old peak speeds became my new average. Not expecting to break 500 anytime soon. But who knows?

I’ve got a question for you Bond. Since you got the you-know-what installed, are you on the same band pair all the time?

Timsw wrote:

007BondMI6 wrote:

Anyway did a speed test a few min ago and holy cow 787 down and 159 up unbelievable considering I was stuck at 75/25 on a good day before the ext antenna.

 

I’ve got a question for you Bond. Since you got the you-know-what installed, are you on the same band pair all the time?

I am on the same band pair all the time and that’s by my design.

Before I had the can in the NW window getting the .5 mile W B66 ok and the 2 mile n71 very poor if at all. Why the B66 was so cappy being on .5 miles I don't know but it just was not that great.

The plan all along was to get ahold of the n41 tower that was just upgraded 3 miles to the SW. That's why the can got moved to the S window and the you know what is just outside that window pointed right at the n41 tower. Being outside it also seems to grab the B66 quite well to the W even though it is not pointed in that direction. And by design the roof of the house blocks the signal from the n71 tower to the NW.

So far the can is holding the n41 and B66 solid and that's what I was out to do. I do not want the can to pickup the n71 since that is an older tower that has not been upgraded. So far so good let's see as weather changes and time goes by.

I get only Band 12 700MHz 2 bars from one tower so provides  good distance about 3.5 miles, but low speeds of 37Mbs Down max.

However, compared to our former 1.5Mbs rural service we couldn't be happier, though with only Band 12 on a single tower we have no redundancy/backup at all. 

007Bond What antenna did you install?