I have a GL-X3000 connected to TMO(Unlimited Business plan). Router and connection work great most of the time. From time to time through the day, the router will switch me to a slower tower(n41~20Mbps) which I can verify by looking at signal strength and checking the Tower ID. The router never reconnects me back to the faster tower(n71~140Mbps). If I reboot the router, it will reconnect back to the faster tower(n71) however it will still be at a much slower speed ~ 20Mbps. If I unplug the router and plug it back in, it will connect back to the faster n71 tower at the higher speed of ~140Mbps. I’ve tried tower locking but this always reconnects me at the n71 of 20Mbps. Any suggestions?
PS. I am currently stationary but if it acts like this in a single location, I can’t imagine how bad this will be once traveling again in my RV.
Hrmmm… I wonder if you’re connected to multiple bands and only the primary n71 is showing up in the GUI. When you’ve got your best connection, try running a AT+QCAINFO (note: no question mark at the end) and see which bands the modem itself reports.
As a fellow RVer, I’ll warn you that ~20Mbps is an awesome speed while camped 8-10 miles from the nearest tower. Even just 5Mbps will give enough performance for Teams/Zoom.
I had seen similar issues over the last 2-3 weeks. TM is making some changes to their towers to incorporate newer spectrum and I am wondering if those upgrades might be part of the tower hopping that seems to be going on. I have no data to back that up, but my connection has been stable again for about 5-6 days now after seeing some of the same things you report.
I have a feeling that you are correct. It’s been stable for the past several months but no longer is as of the last week. TMO is building a new store close to me and close to the tower. Otherwise the closest store is a 30 min ride. So it would make more sense that the recent issues I’ve been having is due to a tower upgrade to support the additional capacity of users they are going to need once the store opens. At least that’s one plausible explanation.
I just don’t know why the router would drop to a slower channel and not flip back to a faster one. It would appear that it doesn’t auto search from time to time.
As noted, you can use tower locking to try influence which tower you will connect to. Also, you can use Band Masking to help manage connections you prefer or wish not to use.
No, I can’t lock to band n71. If I do that then I will actually loose all cellular connection after a while. I believe that I am just far enough from the tower where I am picking up a weak signal and when the tower aggregates then it is either trying to get me on a different tower or a different band/channel. If I lock to n71, I loose all cellular connection and the router doesn’t reconnect until I unplug or reboot the device. If I connect manually, it will change bands as needed but once it drops to a lower/slower band it doesn’t appear to change back to a faster band. I have to reboot the device in order for it to make a good connection again. It’s almost like the router isn’t set up to auto search for best connection.
