Stuck obtaining IP address on T-Mobile

Hi-
I’m having a terrible time getting connected to T-Mobile. The router was working yesterday on band 12. I used speedtest.net to check the speed and it was great. Today, it will not see band 12, even though other devices on T-mobile see it and can use it. I tried putting the SIM card in another T-Mobile phone, and it works and gets band 12. In any event, the BR-1 sees band 2, and gets stuck obtaining an IP address. I have tried both epc.tmobile.com and fast.tmobile.com for APNs and neither seem to work. The only difference between yesterday and today is about 12 feet and I now have a 700MHz-specific Yagi antenna pointed directly at the tower. Help!
-Adam

Hi @Adam_Bailey,

Please check with the OEM antenna. If problems persist please open a support ticket to facilitate investigation.

Thank you.

hello adam,

keep in mind if you use a single YAGI antenna that this wont work for LTE signals. You need either a single MIMO supported antenna or 2x Yagi LTE antenna’s. If this is the issue you had it should be easily fixed with using an MIMO antenna or 2x normaal LTE antenna.

I hope this will help you out.

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Hi-
That is very interesting. I was unaware of this whole MIMO thing and I
just did a tiny bit of research on it. Would band 12a always be a
MIMO-type signal? I seem to be getting quite a bit better signal strength
numbers with one yagi and one OEM antenna than I do with two OEM antennas.
Do the signal strength numbers the router gives simply not tell the whole
story? Is there any way to tell if the receiver would benefit from a
MIMO-type antenna without just buying one and trying it?
-Adam

Hey Adam,

As i am from the netherlands i am not familiair with your network bands. LTE-Signal will always need MIMO to reach top speeds. try it with 2 YAGI antenna’s this will even amaze you more. as you already have 1 YAGI antenna buying 1 extra will prob be the cheapest. MIMO is nothing more then using 2 Antenna’s for 1 connection. This is also why you are getting better speeds with 1 YAGI and one OEM antenna.

Keep me posted if you need anny more information feel free to ask.

PS: we did a test with 2x directional antenna konig ANT-4G10-KN in the netherlands on the TMOBILE network and we were able to achieve 67MBPS UP and 50 MBPS Down on the Peplink router.

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Allright I will let you know. I know that the yagi is a polarized antenna,
so I don’t think it should be a problem…

It shoudnt give you anny problems just be sure both antenna’s support the correct Frequency.
Also point them towards the same connectiontower. this will give you the best results if you need to cross long range.

If the connection tower is shortrange from your device, you could always try and use a single MIMO enabled OMNI-Directional antenna. if the antenna is MIMO certified for 4G you will only need 1 module as this module will contain 2 antenna’s or more already. aswel as 2 cables coming out of this module to be connected to both Peplink antenna sockets.

It would be awsome if you could share the difference between the OEM antenna and the outdoor ones.

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Hello @Adam_Bailey,
If you want to understand antennas better for mobile telecommunications, we highly recommend this page on “What Antenna Do I Need” from Telco Antennas (it is flavoured for Australia, though the principles apply everywhere)

and on this page (if you scroll down) is a good explanation of MIMO

and

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

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Keep in mind that when using 2 Yagi antennas for MIMO, you will need to turn one of them 45 degrees for the best results.
Example:

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Hope this adds to the good advise already from @Joey_van_der_Gaag

Here is the same antennas on the manufactures mount.
In Australia you need to be installing 45Deg off the horizontal with the two antennas 90Deg opposed for best results as shown in this photo, in Australia if you mount so the fins are flat on the Horizontal, then you will get almost no performance out of the antenna (and in most parts of the world this would be the same too).


You can source this from many antenna suppliers around the world, be wary of cheaper imitations (such as pot riveted and spot welded version), they will have a specification sheet saying they preform better, though we know from real life experiences that the RFI antennas are the the Genuine thing.

Here are some the links to the Australian manufactures website if interested.

And a trusted supplier that sells them in Australia and also internationally as a Kit is linked here

Happy to Help,
Marcus :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Thanks everybody for your insights. I have purchased another matching
700MHz Yagi and will be mounting one at 45 degrees from horizontal and one
at 135 degrees. That seems to be the wisdom available on the web.It’s not
quite as ideal as the one pictured here, but it should be close (that
looks like a very nice antenna). I should have it up tomorrow and I’ll do
a before and after comparison.
-Adam

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hey adam,

Goodluck let us know i am really intrested in what you will gain with the yagi’s in your country!

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