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ke4pym
Premium Member
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC

ke4pym

Premium Member

Bandwidth Santa came for a visit over the weekend.

A long time ago (+2 years now), Verizon upgraded the tower outside my office building to 4G.

However, I think it was in spirit only. More often than not, even on off hours, 3G was faster than 4G (even standing under the tower with 4 bars). And trying to keep a 4G signal in the building was pure luck.

Well, for the past couple of weeks, cranes have been stationed outside the tower hoisting stuff up and down.

Friday, they had a couple cranes and a bunch of people working. Come in this morning and BAM! Awesome 4G speeds. And my t'bolt is keeping a solid 3 bars.

Think I pulled a high of 18Mbps down, and 12Mbps up with a latency of around 72ms!

About time!

Hall
MVM
join:2000-04-28
Germantown, OH

Hall

MVM

said by ke4pym:

(even standing under the tower with 4 bars).

I'm not certain of the pattern that wireless (cellular) antennas use, but I'll bet it's not 360º. Standing "under" a tower is probably useless.
ke4pym
Premium Member
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC

ke4pym

Premium Member

Well, by under it I mean, the other side of a highway. I can see it and am less than 500 feet from it.

And the antenna has arrays in a 360 degree pattern. There are at least 18-20 antennas around the pole.

The connection has gotten better during the day. Latency has dropped to around 60ms.

Hall
MVM
join:2000-04-28
Germantown, OH

Hall

MVM

Sorry, by 360', I meant.... how to explain it....




How's that ? Notice that standing next to or under a tower isn't as helpful as some might think ? I realize you aren't "under" it now, of course.
ke4pym
Premium Member
join:2004-07-24
Charlotte, NC

ke4pym

Premium Member

I knew what you meant. It's called being the shadow of the tower.

You can talk to lots of people over in NE Charlotte about how they can't pick up the CBS affil because of that very problem.

None-the-less, outside, with a full 4 bars, I pulled a 18 down and a 12.5 up. That's pretty awesome compared to last week with like, 5 down and 2 up.

This might be worth getting the hotspot turned on and getting rid of the 3g card. If VPN worked...