Wireless Joint

Using Quectel EP06 modem on Verizon, connected to external antennas. B4 signal is weaker than B13, but B4 is has much higher speeds and less congestion.

Often the modem selects B4 alone and/or selects B4 and aggregates with B13, and I have high speeds. But sometimes, especially during the day, the modem selects B13 as the primary band and I have much slower speeds, unless it also aggregates with B4 or (rarely) B66 - but even then, it is somewhat slower than when B4 is the primary aggregated with B13. Probably this has to do with the weather/geography, as B13 is stronger signal and I'm far from tower, dealing with lots of reflection.

I have tried locking onto B4 alone (which works just fine) but do not want to lose the higher speeds achieved with aggregation. Is there an AT command for always keeping B4 as the primary band while still allowing for aggregation? If not, is there a different Quectel modem with this capability?

Below is command I ran to set modem to look for B4, B13, and B66 (only available Verizon bands in my area):
AT+QCFG="band",0,20000000000001008

Here are the available bands:
AT+QENG="neighbourcell"
+QENG: "neighbourcell intra","LTE",2100,358,-9,-113,-87,0,-,-,-,-,-
+QENG: "neighbourcell intra","LTE",2100,359,-20,-131,-95,0,-,-,-,-,-
+QENG: "neighbourcell inter","LTE",5230,358,-9,-93,-66,0,-,-,-,-
+QENG: "neighbourcell inter","LTE",2250,358,-9,-119,-100,0,-,-,-,-

You could try locking it by Cell-ID's, to have full control over which bands to be the primary/secondary in a CA session.
However, the tower may still decide the priority depending on the carrier and equipment used.

The commands below will work on the newer Quectel EM16/EM20/R500Q models, but will likely differ on older models (look up the equivalent commands in the particular modem's AT-command manual, search for "CellID").
The locking format requires reading the <freq>,<pci> which can be obtained via "servingcell".
You should be able to decipher the parameters from the example below.


Another method would be to use highly directnal antennas (such as Bolton Grid or Yagi type) to aim it towards the tower of your choice.

Thanks for the info, Bill! I've got a couple Bolton grids already, the only signal I can get is from a single tower, and even then it's highly reflected, bouncing off hillsides, etc. Since I wrote this post, I changed my data plan and found that B13 is no longer slower and so it isn't as much of a problem anymore.