Hi, I have an old Max BR1 IP67 that was working good since last Thursday when Rogers (Canadian Cell company) shut down it’s 3G network. I am on latest firmware and force LTE connection but it does not help. Any advice ?
Hey!
Be worth factory resetting the unit, check what band is on the LTE network, check the modem model support the bands available too.
Assuming that your model is MAX-BR1-LTEA-W-IP67, you can do LTE on bands
B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B8, B12, B13, B20, B25, B26, B29, B30, B41
Rogers (as far as I know) supports LTE-A on
B2, B4, B5, B7, B12, B17, B25, B38, B46, B66, B71
Of those you are missing B17, B38, B46, B66, and B71. I would think that at least some of the bands that cross over should be on your local tower but that is not actually guaranteed. In every province they own different bands or different parts of those bands. They may have prioritized their largest chunk they own in your area to 5g usage and thrown LTE on a band you can’t support. Not saying this is the case, just that it is possible. In SK they(Rogers) have Sasktel host their network for them on the Sasktel infrastructure for most of the rural stuff. It may be like that in other places too. That would leave only B2 and B66 for LTE on my nearest tower but an additional 3 LTE bands on the next nearest tower, it gets stupidly complex.
Other things to consider, if your sim card is very old, you might need a new one that is even capable of connecting to their LTE network.
You said that your firmware is up to date. Is your cellular modem firmware also up to date? It does not get done automatically ever. This would be through the hidden support page at 192.168.1.1/cgi-bin/MANGA/support.cgi (changing the IP for your routers if not using default). You will need another internet connection to do that firmware update, Wi-Fi Wan connected to your phone acting as a hotspot would work if your phone is capable and has a data plan.
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Thanks for you detailed answer.
I am in Quebec province near Montreal. I bought this BR1 IP67 like a month ago and it was working fine (but slow around 25mbps). I put it in my RV roof and got signal while travelling between Montreal and Quebec City. So I think the band stuff make sense.
I updated cellular modem firmware and that changed nothing.
Do you know if there is a way to know band usage with a location ?
When you log in to the router, the first page is the Dashboard, it lists all WAN connections. If you click the IP address for the cell connection, it will give you a Details popup that shows the band or bands you are connected to currently. That will let you keep an eye on what bands are connected.
You can use that and some time disabling bands in the connection settings (some modems can’t do this) to determine what is available on a local tower or nearby towers and run speedtests to determine what is fastest for your location.
In motion, this gets a bit harder since you could be swapping towers every city block or every 40KM on the highway. I don’t think there is an accurate public database of what towers have what bands on them. With how much most carriers in Canada rely on other companies towers to cover dead spots (this usually would show up as roaming but they could configure it to not), it really depends on where that tower is on it’s upgrade path. Even within a single companies towers it gets odd, I am on band 78 for my 5G band right now but on Sasktel’s website map there is no 3500mhz used anywhere near my area.
Sorry I can’t give you more definitive answers but it’s a bit difficult. What I can say with certainty is that the cell companies are shifting more and more of their bands to 5G as time goes on. If 25Mbit is good for what you are doing, stick with your current modem. If you need a lot more than that, a newer 5G device could get you better speeds and access to bands you can’t currently access.