Question about signal strength..

GTO_VR4 · EVDO User Joined: 29 Apr 2007 Posts: 49

Right now my novatel U720 has about -85dbm and that keeps me constantly connected @ a little over 1100kbps with a upload of 120kbps.

Now my question is, if I get better signal than what i have will my connection be faster?
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U720-sprint-XP

thebubbleboy · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 8:20 am Post subject:

Maybe, maybe not. I don't trust the signal strenght number to be the best indicator of performance. I have an external antenna on my U720 and it gets me a signal of 80-85. I definately noticed an improvement over the 88-95 that I got with just the modem antenna but if I play with the antenna postion and get a signal in the upper 70's it doesn't always translate into faster speeds. I have found a "happy spot" on the desk for the antenna and it seems to yield pretty good numbers and fast browsing.

Normally I get about 800 down and 200 up with latency in the 150 range. This isn't blazing fast to some of you, but to me, out in the country and 3 or 4 miles from the tower, it is really quite good. It browses very nicely and loads pages quickly.

Bubble

Alex · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 4:26 pm Post subject:

the easiest way to find out if an antenna or amp is going to be worth the money, is to move closer to tower and get better RSSI value.

when you see higher value... if you don't see speed increase it is likely that the pipe to the tower isn't all that great. in this case, it probably would not be worthwhile to improve signal where you use device.

however, if better speeds come with better signal... now you have to decide if the money on antenna and/or amp, justifies the increase in speed.

hope that made sense. it did in my head...