Got my MAX-TST-GLTE-G-T-PRM today –
I wanted to see if I could get band 71 from a tower 5 miles away (the tower that is closer has only 4 12 and 66 I think.)
I set Band Selection to “custom” and unchecked all except for band 71. (Only Band 71 at the bottom was checked.) I then clicked Save and Apply.
It still connected on band 66.
Is this the intended behavior?
May I know which firmwarae version you are using?
Just to confirm also you have checked with service provider that your location should able to connect using B71 ?
Latest firmware 8.0.2 on brand new (delivered Friday) Max Transit Cat 18.
No, I haven’t checked with provider on band availability. Cellmapper.net shows band 71 on a tower in one direction from me. However, tower in other direction doesn’t have it. I was trying to force it to band 71 to see if there was any possibility of getting a signal on 71.
It does work if I check only band 12, to connect on band 12.
There must be some logic that if only one band is selected as enabled and that one band is not available, that it falls back to all bands? Maybe it would still keep looking for the one selected band and change to it the minute it was available??
That probably is a good thing if that’s what is going on now that I think about it, but it caught me by surprise. My goal was to lock it to the one band and see if I could pick it up by moving antenna carefully.
Please PM your serial number. I wish to confirm your hardware info.
Thanks.
Thanks. Under System Status it says it is hardware revision 2
Product Code MAX-TST-GLTE-G-T-PRM
Hardware Revision 2
Firmware 8.0.2s046 build 4437
Thanks. please PM your serial number.
I’d just like to add to this thread that I’m also seeing some weirdness with band locking on the Cat 18 Max Transit. I was in auto mode and the modem was working great in LTE-A. It started performing badly and I checked and it had somehow set itself to a single B2 channel and wouldn’t go back into Ca Agg mode (LTE-A). I blocked B2 by doing custom band selection and it started working great again for about 10 minutes. Then it started performing badly again and same thing, but this time with B30 stuck at LTE (not LTE-A). Blocked B30 in the table and got it back to LTE-A. Then chose Auto again and it has stayed working in LTE-A for 4 hours, something weird going on with this modems band selection criteria.
@Legionetz, please open a ticket to allow support team to check on this.
Will do. I turned on my InControl reporting since it reports cell info to the cloud. As soon as it happens again, I’ll open a support ticket and give them time stamps. Thanks!
Well it’s happened again. I’m stuck on B30 and it won’t come out of LTE mode. I opened a ticket and left it this way. Hopefully they will respond soon and take a look at what’s going on. The good news is, in InControl2 you can go to the WAN Quality report and see exactly the moment it happened. What you can’t see is me pegging out the link trying to get it to re-upgrade to LTE-A and it ignoring me 
They are getting an engineer to take a look. They turned on optimal band selection to kick it back onto the correct channel after 5 minutes.
Hello.
I just purchased my first pepwave with this model in hopes of having access to Band 71. I am experiencing the same symptoms as the original poster and C_metz. I cannot seem to find a configuration that would allow the modem to acknowledge a lock on the B71 carrier. I can get interface to show attempts to connect to B41 and other bands, even if restricted, but not B71. Will there be a future firmware to address this?
Please advise.
@MobileHopeful If you can open a ticket, I would do so. My ticket is still open and they are still working on my issues. With my modem locked to LTE only and optimal network selection set to 5 minutes, I get one disconnect from the tower each night around 2AM and 5 minutes later it recovers and stays good all day long. Like I say, my ticket is still open and they are still investigating.
Hi. Are you certain that band 71 is present at the tower that services your location? At least in the USA, not all towers make use of all spectrum licensed to the carrier.
Is there a way to determine that using only the pepwave max transit category 18 device?
Hi. I am not aware of any modem that can determine if a given chunk of FCC-allocated spectrum is not in operation at a given location.
At least in the USA, the carriers typically only add most bands to a given site when they’re needed. And, there are really good reasons for such behavior. This is particularly true with the “newer,” higher frequency bands.
So, a Cat 18 modem may be huge value in certain environments but it would bring absolutely nothing to the party in others.
I was wondering about confirming if band 71 is present with the cat 18 modem itself?
If trying to point a yagi antenna at a tower that you think has 71, with the cat 18 modem locked onto 66 or some other band (which it seems to do as a smart feature rather than using only the selected 71 or nothing), will it keep trying to see if 71 is available every couple seconds (or how many seconds?) Or is it constantly checking 71?) I wasn’t sure if I would miss the 71 as I rotated the yagi as the modem was locked onto another band.
(I suppose this is mainly curiosity at this point because if 71 isn’t strong enough to dominate over other bands, it’s probably not the one to use.)
Legitimate concern. I am operating with the understanding that this band is available only on the carrier’s technology map and a third party’s reporting webservice that suggests the band is available. But, I-myself, do not own any other equipment to verify this band is present. I can check with older modem hardware I have but I do not have any field-test devices.
Confirmed Band71 connection issue (CAT 18 module) is a bug. I will post the firmware fix shortly here or latest by Monday.