1337Jess wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:03 pm
xdavidx,
I am using speedtest.net primarily from my desktop PC that is connected via ethernet cable to the WG3526-P. I have actually tested with cell phone connected to wifi, laptop connected wifi and ethernet, and desktop connected with ethernet. All devices report the same inconsistencies. What I have noticed however is if I run a speedtest early in the morning I get around 16D 3U. Speeds slow down to a crawl around 10am and last throughout the day and late into the night. I recently moved to this house so I didn't have a good grasp on the terrain. I drove around my house yesterday and noticed that I am actually in a small valley and I have zero direct path to a tower which is obviously my problem with the antenna. After racking my brain on this I have chalked it up to network\tower congestion. I live in East Tennessee and this place is crawling with tourism. Every other license plate is from out of state.
I've found that when there is little bandwidth to go around, Windows and apps on Windows doing background things and Android apps doing background things can really suck down the bandwidth during tests. Although you may need those background things in order to use the Windows machine and the Android (or iOS) devices, seeing if they are contributing to the slower speeds might be worthwhile.
I went through this recently as well. You can turn off wifi on the phone and then either disconnect the laptop or the desktop and use the remaining one for testing. On that remaining one, you can use Windows firewall to shut down all outbound connections for everything except chrome (or whatever browser you use to check the modem stats) and speedtest.net. That assumes you are using the speedtest.net Windows app. If you are using the browser version, I'd recommend switching to the full Windows app. Lastly, you'd need to create an allow rule for the Windows DNS service. Then you could disable all the other auto-created rules and then set the whole profile (whether that is set to private or public depends on how you classified it when it asked you if you'd be using the connection at home or in public) to not allow any connections that don't have a rule. Before doing all this, you'd want to save the configuration as it was and save it after and then you can switch between the two fairly easily.
If you want to jump through those hoops, I can provide screenshots of the process.
The early morning 16 mbps downloads once people are awake does seem like tower congestion. However, are the antennas inside or outside? If there is contention with other towers, getting a cleaner signal to the target tower might reduce this contention a bit, depending on where you are located and how much overlap there is in tower coverage.
Your guess about tourism would sure seem to fit. Not only are they not working, hence on their devices more, but since they are away from home, they are probably using their LTE devices to watch TV too. If kids are out of school for the summer already, that could be another drain.
1337Jess wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:03 pm
The only non LTE service I have here is AT&T which is a 3D 1U DSL connection. I went ahead and scheduled an install for tomorrow. Yeah, that bandwidth is pretty atrocious but all I need is consistency, not throughput. I might drop this Verizon account which costs me $100 a month and get a cheaper AT&T unlimited LTE account. That way I can "attempt" load balancing on the WG3526.
I feel for you. An LTE system is my only escape from a poor DSL service. So I'm going the opposite way -- trying to get away from DSL with the LTE system. The AT&T ipad plans seem like a good deal to reduce costs.
I've load balanced from a router running a load balancing capable version of Tomato firmware before, when I used 2 poor DSL lines. It works okay if both sources are performing okay, but if one is really slow or limping along (like your LTE system is at times), then it becomes difficult, because the load balancing system uses a simple algorithm that doesn't look at bandwidth usage on each leg. I have no idea what the WG3526 firmware uses for an algorithm, so maybe you won't have this issue, but just something I thought I'd mention from my experience.
I plan on load balancing the LTE router with my DSL router until I'm sure the LTE system is stable, and then I may get rid of the DSL service or lower it to a cheaper plan. So I'll be in the same boat of using 2 dissimilar speed links.
1337Jess wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:03 pm
Attached is my speedtest from this morning at 10am
An upload higher than a download is a good sign of congestion in my experience. Not as many people upload.
There is still a question of whether the tower's connection to the internet is bogged down or if it is a matter of too many people fighting over the spectrum to that tower, or interference with other towers on the same frequencies. If it is one or both of the first couple issues, then finding another tower to point the antennas at might help. If it is the last issue, then getting a stronger signal to the current tower might help it lower what it considers noise from the other towers.
With you being in a valley, getting your antennas higher should improve the signal quite a bit, especially for Band 4.
There is one other thing I can think of, and this is a super long shot, but it is an easy thing to check. Check the debug screen, under the modem section, and find the temperature reported. Compare it when it is fast vs when it is slow. I highly doubt this is the issue, but on the off chance you have it in a hot location and that location cools at night, it is theoretically possible. I encountered this today, where the modem got too hot on the roof where I was testing and I was down to consistent 3 Mbps speeds. Cooling it off inside the house before hooking it up again outside brought the speeds back. This is the first time this has happened, but the conditions were hotter today than in the past where I had it located. It is possible that it was a coincidence, but the fact that it went away right after I cooled it down seems to jive with it being a self-preservation mechanism in the modem.
There are other 3rd party services that buy in bulk from the main carriers and provide unlimited service. It just costs more than the iPad plan. Those are my Plan B.
