I was at my brothers farm for Xmas which is located between Erickson and Clear Lake. He has MTS dial up and wants to get something better. He is not technically inclined at all so I am helping him out.
His friend in Clear Lake has a Novatel MC760 Internet stick which he let us borrow for the day. I connected the Internet stick to his PC and got about 1 bar on the signal and about 500 kbps download on Speakeasy. Not exactly cable modem but definitely better than dial up.
I was thinking that a directional external antenna pointed to the cell tower would improve his signal significantly. He has a TV tower which is about 30 feet. Has anyone tried doing this? Would a better signal improve the download speeds? In reality signal strength should have no correlation to download speeds because with digital its either on or off.
The Novatel MC760 Internet stick uses the EVDO CDMA network, but when I look at the MTS website it shows that they have 4G service available in that area. Unless I am missing something, it would not make sense for him to go with EVDO when 4G is available.
I know that I have asked a lot of questions for a newbie but I am just trying to get my brother some better Internet service.
Get MTS to loan you a 4G stick for a few days, and you can try it out up there. As for signal, if you have one bar, it is a weak signal, and could be going in and out causing packet loss, which results in slower speeds. The better the signal, the more reliable the data connection is.
Get MTS to loan you a 4G stick for a few days, and you can try it out up there. As for signal, if you have one bar, it is a weak signal, and could be going in and out causing packet loss, which results in slower speeds. The better the signal, the more reliable the data connection is.
Thanks for your help! I will give that a try and report my results.
I know this may be a little late as i see the post if a while old. But: More bars = more speed. and yes a tower to put the antenna on and get it up above the surrounding clutter will get you a lot more signal only thing is if the tower is not grounded properly it can also get you a lot of lightening which is very destructive to everything it gets to. in my experience with a tethered Iphone 4 going from 1 bar to 4 bars means from .4 to 1 Mbit/sec to 2 to 5 MBits/sec with much better ping times. One HSPA the type of modulation is dependent on distance from the tower and signal quality. The phone and the tower report to each other and negotiate the best possible speed since you will try to send the same amount of data regardless of the available speed, The faster it transfers your data the faster it can get to all the other data everyone else is trying to transfer.
1) if you can go with the 4G service, go with that but you have to make sure they are covered in your area.
2) Get a Wilson antenna booster (approx $400-$600)
It is expensive but customers have been very happy with them
3) Get a MOFI3500-3GN version 2 router. You can put the stick and router in a high location to get the best signal if you do not want to get the booster.
The 4G service is excellent and will be much faster than the CDMA one as long as you can grab at least 2 bar of signal on the 4G.
Before you decide, are you on a unlimited plan with CDMA?
If you are, you may not get this deal on the 4G plan,
Data is getting expensive everywhere so you have to device on speed vs price but as a note,
in general, a 2 bar 4G signal will be faster than an 4-5 bars CDMA so keep that in mind also.
The best suggestion is to download a 100MB file and time how long it takes to download.
Speed tests may be very misleading,
To this for both CDMA stick and the 4G stick and then you can decide,
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"More bars" doesn't always mean "more speed". At the farm, I could see the tower right out the window, I would regularly get 4-5 bars and it wouldn't even connect to speed test 98% of the time, if it does - it was speeds similar to dialup.
MTS had a serious issue with their CDMA data system which appears to have been fixed in Mid November that was causing intermittent issues with not being able to connect and being able to stay connected. Also if you are on CDMA in an area where there is only 1X coverage it will be at dial-up or below speed no matter how many bars you have. The Novatel MC760 is an EVDO device and in that area might get EVDO depending on exactly where you are relative to the tower With only one bar of signal you are probably stuck on 1X as it does not require nearly as strong of signal to stay connected. Because MTS runs both their systems of the same towers the signal for HSPA will likely be similar to that of EVDO. in both cases normally the more bars the better the speed as long as there is no interfernce present. Myself I run my HSPA Iphone in my cottage through my own booster to the local MTS/Rogers Booster tower to the MTS/Rogers smart tower 45 KM away and typically get better than 3 Mbits/sec whenever i test it and have seen up to 5 Mbits/sec since i typically have between 4 and 5 bars or signal on my phone.
MTS had a serious issue with their CDMA data system which appears to have been fixed in Mid November that was causing intermittent issues with not being able to connect and being able to stay connected. Also if you are on CDMA in an area where there is only 1X coverage it will be at dial-up or below speed no matter how many bars you have. The Novatel MC760 is an EVDO device and in that area might get EVDO depending on exactly where you are relative to the tower With only one bar of signal you are probably stuck on 1X as it does not require nearly as strong of signal to stay connected. Because MTS runs both their systems of the same towers the signal for HSPA will likely be similar to that of EVDO. in both cases normally the more bars the better the speed as long as there is no interfernce present. Myself I run my HSPA Iphone in my cottage through my own booster to the local MTS/Rogers Booster tower to the MTS/Rogers smart tower 45 KM away and typically get better than 3 Mbits/sec whenever i test it and have seen up to 5 Mbits/sec since i typically have between 4 and 5 bars or signal on my phone.
Thanks for the great info! I have a couple more questions if you don't mind. Are you using an external antenna? What Internet stick are you using to get your 4G?
Since my original post I have done some more research. When I spoke with some MTS retailers in Winnipeg they advised us that 4G was available in that area, and it would be foolish to go with the EVDO as the 4G was the same price.
When my brother spoke to some MTS retailers in Brandon they said that 4G is not yet available in that area? It would be nice to get a straight answer out of these guys. I think some of these providers claim a service is available (when its really not) in an attempt to stay ahead of their completion. I know that Shaw is notorious for releasing products that are full of bugs.
I will keep everyone in the loop once we get this thing working.
From what i know the 4 G service is available throughout Most of the MTS map. Check on their webisite to see if you have coverage. If it is shown on their map then there should be coverage. The Map Rogers has for HSPA is somewhat more detailed and it is the same at what MTS has in Manitoba. I am not using an internet stick. i am using my Iphone with the personal hotspot turned on. i have a booster with an external antenna mounted on a tower pointed at the cell tower and an internal antenna inside my cottage with a booster in between i have had it for about 4 years and it cost me $700 at the time for the equipment. which i installed myself. You can get a loaner HSPA internet stick to test and if you do that also get a USB extension so you can try it with the USB device at various locations because having the stick stuck into a PC or laptop pretty well guarantees that the signal will not be nearly as strong as it could be because you usually have your laptop computer on a desk with a lot of other wires, etc in the area of the USB stick. If you get the stick up away from the computer then you have much better chance of picking up a good signal with less interference from the computer, etc.
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Originally Posted by littlerichie29
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