Question about data signal strength

[Anthony5]

I'm currently testing with Dtac and True move H sims for the signal at my location.

The HDPA and HDPA+ strength on Dtac will fluctuate between 85 and 95 dB at my home location. I know not excellent but way above the 105 dB I can get with AIS.

Sometimes I will get 4G LTE on the Dtac, but then the signal will drop to around 108 dB as well, however 108 dB on LTE is on the orange scale, while 108 dB on the HDPA scale would be the limit of the scale.

True is more continuous between 85 and 90 dB on HDPA, but I will not get 4G LTE, however a few hundreds meter away from my home it shows LTE.

Which one is the better signal of the two in the above example?

Edited February 24, 2015 by Anthony5

[RichCor]

I believe, to maintain an active mobile connection, LTE have a higher minimum speed than UMTS/HSPA or HSPA+. As the minimum data rate of a radio transmission is increase, a higher Signal to Noise / interference Ratio (dB) is also required to maintain clarity.

As an experiment, if you have an extra small Sat reflector Dish -- you might try putting your LTE phone near where the LNB Feedhorn would go and, rather than align the dish to receive signals from a satellite, align the dish to receive signals from the LTE antenna. An 18dB increase just might be enough to allow an LTE connection at the house.

[Anthony5]

I believe, to maintain an active mobile connection, LTE have a higher minimum speed than UMTS/HSPA or HSPA+. As the minimum data rate of a radio transmission is increase, a higher Signal to Noise / interference Ratio (dB) is also required to maintain clarity.

As an experiment, if you have an extra small Sat reflector Dish -- you might try putting your LTE phone near where the LNB Feedhorn would go and, rather than align the dish to receive signals from a satellite, align the dish to receive signals from the LTE antenna. An 18dB increase just might be enough to allow an LTE connection at the house.

I'm not sure if I can follow you.

I use this app to measure my signal.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cls.networkwidget&hl=en

On the scale there are 3 sections. Green, orange and red.

For HDPA the orange scale is between 92 and 102 dBm with the worst number on the scale being 113 dBm, while for LTE that orange scale ranges between 108 and 124 dBm. with the worst signal possible is 140 dBm.

Also what do you mean with the satellite dish alignment. Do you mean that if I align the dish correctly, it will reflect the signal to be better at the rest of the compound, or do I understand this wrong?

[RichCor]

I was working on two talking points and trying to find supporting papers/images for each and couldn't locate something adequate quickly, so decided to edit/condense my post down and forgot to reintroduce the talking points. Sorry about that.

From what I've read, LTE can operate with a weaker signal as the LTE employs multiple transmit and receive antennas (MIMO) at the towers to exploit multipath propagation, so LTE is better equipped to recover signals than HSPA/+.

"In LTE the noise floor (the lowest signal that the phone can use) is typically in the -118 dBm to -121 dBm range (though on some devices I've seen dBm values that lower overall and the noise floor on those devices can be as low as -125 dBm). In HSPA you'll find that the signal generally becomes unusable at around -107 dBm to -110 dBm. So long as you keep that in mind, you can successfully use the dBm values to judge your current signal strength."

"A better number to look at is the second one, rated in asu. This is a positive value based on 0 as the known noise floor for the air interface you are presently using. If you compare the asu values of LTE against those of HSPA you'll find that they are much closer and therefore a better way to compare to relative signal strengths on the two networks."

To the second point,

As you're been looking at LTE Routers as a possible replacement for your existing 3G Internet connection, my 'untitled' second point was a suggestion to see if a reflector (Ku-band dish) might be used to direct more signal into test LTE handset. If you could establish an LTE connection with the handset, then either a High-Gain rooftop antenna or antenna with reflector could be used to give a device access to the distant LTE tower.