Slow Mobile Broadbabd

[ace101]

Have a 4G usb + wifi plus dongle i use on a laptop, have been using for a few years now and have never got great download speeds, but lately seems to be worse than normal. Any suggestions or just a bad area  for reception?

[Jupiter]

School holidays don't help mobile broadband download speeds.
Is your device a 4G or 4GX model? The 4GX should be faster overall as it can access more of the frequency bands that are used by the network.

[ace101]

thanks for the feedback

Its a 4GX model, always been slow, Telstra map says a good reception area for my location, but has never been very fast. Possibly an external aerial would help? My brother has Optus 4g in a different area and he is getting 244 mbps download and 30.5 mbps upload, far cry from my 4g

[Jupiter]

An antenna could help, although I'm not sure if the one that you have has a socket for an antenna.

It might pay to drop in to your nearest Telstra Shop and have a chat with them to see if they have someone suitable in stock. Ideally, to get the best performance, you want the antenna to be as high as possible.

[ace101]

Hi Jupiter

Thanks for the info

I think I would need a new modem, but thanks for your help, 4g should be better than what I am getting at the moment, so probably worth a try

thanks again

[ForensicsGuru]

Hmm... To be honest, I am finding your brother's speeds unbelievable... I am about 900 metres (line of sight) from Telstra's 4GX tower and I never get speeds like that on my iPhone 8+. Of course there is always issue of congestion etc...
Having said that, your speeds are rather poor (although, right now, I am not getting much better - school holidays, proximity of the airport and loads of tourists at this time of the day, etc?)

[ace101]

HI

Yes, they looked impressive to me, but saw him test it on his iphone, the speed test was correct, amazing, he just changed form Optus ADSL to Optus 4g mobile broadband and is extremely happy with improvement. Dont know why my speeds are so low when Testra map advises I am in a good location for 4g reception, not much better than my previous 3g speed?

[ForensicsGuru]

As I said, it could be area with 4G(X) but lots of users, hence congestion issue. Again, I have seen close to 150Mbps on my iPhone (t's 4GX here), but right now, it is around 6Mbps and fluctuating heavily... The CONGESTION is the important word!
Then again, topography plays a role too... Frequencies used for 4G(X) and 5G are more susceptible to terrain interference (I am sure some more knowledgeable people will jump in and explain)…
In my case, I have visual with the tower, so the above does not play the role - congestion is the only culprit in my case...

[Jupiter]

4G speeds are highly variable and depend on the number of bands that a tower uses and the capability of your handset to aggregate those signals.

At home I get around 250Mbps on my Samsung Galaxy S9+ on my Telstra 4G (4 LTE bands in use on the tower), but between here and Melbourne it can drop as low as 15Mbps due to the lower capability of the towers (single frequency).

[ace101]

yes a lot of factors come into it, but has always been on the slow side which has been dissapointing, might look into new modem ans external aerial, only thing i can think of to improve