First of all, I’m a novice at any sort of wireless, so bear with me.
Previously had a Peplink Max BR1 Mini that wasn’t compatible with FirstNet - the Cat 6 modem. Didn’t matter as we used Verizon. However, we recently switched to FirstNet, and I did purchase the Cat 7 version of the BR1 Mini to be compatible with FirstNet. In addition to that change, I had previously installed two omnidirectional antennas and traded one of them out for a directional antenna on the “primary” antenna connection. So I now have one omnidirectional and one directional antenna for the BR1.
My issue is that I have great signal on Band 14 (FirstNet) - generally in the 40’s and I get 15-20 MBPS. If I switch to Band 2, I have signal in the 60s-70s but have reached speeds of 80 MBPS (generally 30-40 though). Most of the time, I only get both bands (14 primary and 2 diversity) for the first few minutes I turn on the BR1. After that, it always disconnects Band 2 and I’m ONLY running a single band. I’d be happy to just use Band 2, but also don’t like limiting myself to a single band all the time, when I know I can run two and I lose the FirstNet benefits.
Any ideas on solutions? As I said, I’m fairly inexperienced on wireless tech, and only slightly above average on networking in general. I have tried changing to MTU to match FirstNet. I’m guessing it may be my antenna setup and I should switch to a MIMO antenna?
Why do you think the other band is dropping? Is it due to signal? Is the device moving at all or being blocked? I’d want to pinpoint whether its the peplink or provider.
Just so you know, you can get FirstNET benefits on bands other than 14 not everywhere has B14. You should read up on it.
Not sure why you are using it, but on a day-to-day basis Firstnet offers you very little, if anything. In an emergency situation it can offer priority and pre-emption, however. But don’t expect it to be the “fastest” spectrum and it may be to your advantage to let the network direct your traffic.
Second thing: AT&T often does not use CA and take full advantage of LTEA. We usually see AT&T modems come to rest on a single band after briefly invoking CA. It’s not your router doing this
Finally, unless you have a compelling reason to use a directional antenna my recommendation would be not to do so. If you really need to go that route to improve the important signal metrics (not RSSI) – OK. Typically, we’d start with the OEM “rabbit ears.” If that’s not sufficient, we’d look at a good quality antenna such as Peplink’s Mobility series. Then, we’d try alternate placements of that antenna. Only as a last measure would we point a directional antenna at a cel site. (Having said that, in a rural environment where a given location can only be served by a single tower things are a bit different.)
Agree on that. I avoid directional because there are usually multiple cell towers, in case one goes down, heck we have had disasters and CoWs we’re deployed . Having a statically pointed directional antenna might mean no signal in a critical time.