Frequency Band Question

[EvergreenLTE]

A quick overview,

I am on an old AT&T Home Phone and Internet plan which is essentially the Unlimited Data (22.5GB) plan. Its been fantastic till a week ago. I am using the ZTE 700a modem provided by AT&T. Been working great. What I have noticed lately is that I am not getting consistent connectivity with Band 2. The device seems to be switching to Band 12 and holds that band most of the time now. If I am lucky to be on band 2, I will get speeds of 50-100Mbps. Band 12 is very slow at <5Mbps. My signal strength on Band 12 seems to be -83dBm to -87dBm, while Band 2 is -95 to -102dBm. I am guessing it picks up Band 12 mostly because of the stronger signal. Part of the issue could be, I am right in the middle of where two opposite cell towers send signal. The tower to the north is band 12, the tower to the south-west is band 2. On occasion I can reset the modem and it will grab the band 2 tower and runs great for a day or so.

So here are my questions,

1. Is there a way for the ZTE 700a to band lock on 2?
2. Would a long range antenna pointed to the tower I get Band 2 from, be used to supersede the Band 12 detection?
3. If neither of the other options are available, would I be able to swap the sim card from the 700a to a Mofi4500 without issues with AT&T? I know I would lose the phone at that point but I would rather have better internet.

Thank you in advance to anyone with advice. I am new to the forum.

[Dr-BroadBand]

1. I have not worked with the ZTE 700, but I would guess, NO for band lock. The MoFi 4500 SIM7 has band lock and other tools like band scan, to scan and report on all the available bands in your area.

2. Looks like your Band-12 is very strong and Band-2 is week. Think you will need to band lock to get Band-2.

3. Not sure on swapping your SIM will work ….. maybe … If not you will need to work with a MVNO to set a new SIM/Plan, cost ~$100 a month 900GB Data. Most MVNO are a little sketchy. There are tricks you can do by playing with the TTL setting to get your modem/hot spot on the network using cheaper SIM/Plans. But it's getting harder to do so.

A MoFi is still a good starting point for most, I have one. But the MoFi company is a little sketchy. Their web site does not even have HTTPS encryption. I used Amazon to get my unit. The company has the look & feel of working out of their garage.

Good luck ...... and happy hunting for your internet solution

A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers

TTL (time to live) is a setting that tells the DNS resolver how long to cache a query before requesting a new one.


http://mofinetwork.com
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089N ... UTF8&psc=1

[EvergreenLTE]

Im still with AT&T and I switched to a IFWA-40 modem. Added two Proxicast Omni flat type +5dbi Antennas to the back on it. It managed to pull 140mbps Down and 45mbps Up with a -90dbi signal. I think im going to dump some coin on parabolic antennas and see what happens.