Nighthawk M1 - selection of LTE Frequency/Band

[Glocknerblick]

Hello there,

is there any way to select the LTE Band/Frequency the router should log on to? This would really help to avoid switching from a "good" cell to a bad one. With Huawei Routers I can do that using a third party tool. (LTE Watch). Unfortunately this is not available for Netgear Routers.

Thanks for your comments!

[JasonN]

Hi Glocknerblick,

Unfortunately, the M1 does not provide the selection of LTE Band/Frequency. This idea has been forward to the internal team and they are looking into it.

Thank you for your post. :]

- Jason N

[nhantenna]

"is there any way to select the LTE Band/Frequency the router should log on to?"

this has been previously requested.  for me personally, i don't care about signal strength meters or signal bars.  all i care about is the most stable, highest performing experience.

for example, a "one bar" high performance band can easily out perform a "five bar" low performance band.  for most end users the best bet is to let the Nighthawk LTE hotspot make the band decision based on real-time actual data throughput.  things get more complex when we start talking about multiband CA.  complexity beyond what a normal user is going to want to decipher.

a concern that been raised multiple times is the current Nighthawk LTE hotspot rapid unwanted switching back and forth between bands.  "Excellent" signal one minute, "poor" signal next minute, "Excellent" signal the next.  This causes unnecessary confusion for end users looking in the Nighthawk GUI interface.  There are better ways for Netgear to communicate what is happening on the LTE hotspot.

End users are looking at this signal strength info, bars info, "Excellent" vs "Poor" trying to dial in their Nighthawk LTE hotspot to the best performance.  That said why not just show end users the performance numbers they are really interested in to begin with.  Skip all the signal bars and other stuff that is causing the confusion.

Average Download Mbps Last 10 minutes = 55.90

Average Download Mbps Last 5 minutes = 64.33

Average Download Mbps Last 1 minute = 5.90

Average Upload Mbps Last 10 minutes = 12.71

Average Upload Mbps Last 5 minutes = 31.39 

Average Upload Mbps Last 1 minute = 3.32

This tells us the real world info we need.  A few minutes of data is all that is needed if the Nighthawk is light on resources.  Why AT&T cell towers constantly flip end users between Excellent and Poor signals is an interesting technical discussion, but we can't control that.  What we as end users can control is moving our Nighthawk LTE hotspot around until we get the highest Mbps readout possible.  This real world Average Mbps data would allow us to do that with high confidence.

[JasonN]

Hi nhantenna,

Thank you for providing that for the thread. :]

- Jason N

[plus-sk]

Hi Glocknerblick, the only theoretical way to do that is described here: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Mobile-Routers-Hotspots-Modems/What-is-the-AT-entercnd-password/m-p...

But it is not possible since Netgear blocks the use of extended AT commands.

[AoC]

Here's a picture of Huawei B525's network band selection dropdown menu. Something similar would be good to have on the Netgear too.  At this moment band locking could be done with AT commands, but that AT command is protected by a password which is still unknown. I believe Netgear fears that people end up to brick their devices with "too" low-level  AT commands and therefore they won't reveal the password.

Band selection menu on Huawei B525

[Mapcoo]

hello,

this function is very important to force a frequency precis, is there a place in the configuration where we can see when the modem agrees the frequencies to see if it is mimo 2 * 2 or 4 * 4 of the 64 or 265 qam? as well as the rsrp corresponding to each carrier and if they come from a different enodeb

regards,

[Mapcoo]

hello

it's possible to show Band Carrier agregation CA like B3+B7+B20 for example

with each Cell ID and RSRP

 

[Mapcoo]

is it possible to allow the selection of text with the mouse to make a copy paste on the field cellid?

regards

[JasonN]

Hi Everyone,

As of now, Selecting a band for the M1 is not possible yet. The feature has been forwarded to my internal team and they are reviewing for consideration. :]

- Jason N

[Mapcoo]

Hi,

thanks for the confirmation

Do you have an idea if it's possible to make an option to force external antenna on the ts9 ports like huawei?

regards,

[Mapcoo]

or for the moment it's possible to detailed AT commands on this model to do it manualy ?

regards,

[JasonN]

Hi Mapcoo,

I will forward that to my internal team with your idea and have them review it for consideration. :]

- Jason N

[Ni_co_las]

Hi, Does it mean that when plugging external antenna(s), there might be no "direct visible effect" since the router select itself the "best" (or not) antenna in reception (internal or external)? Am I correct?

[Mapcoo]

would you have good news to announce us for a likely future firmware with these improvements? it's been over a month since you answered me and since radio silence, can I keep hope?

[JasonN]

Hi Ni_co_las,

This will improve on getting the best band connection that is available with its distance compatibility.

- Jason N

[JasonN]

Hi Mapcoo,

Thank you for checking in. Like I said in the earlier post, I have forward the idea to my internal team for consideration. It is up to them if they are going to move forward with the idea. If they decide to move forward then it will be release to the public. :]

- Jason N

[eggYsan]

I feel ripped off I paid a lot of money for this mobile hotspot for it to crash every movie everything I stream every download every time because it keeps jumping to band 30 which gets one bar And no data! Fix it!

[carleast01]

It's crazy that they don't allow you to choose bands.  Where are we with this request.  What's really annoying is that this thing is advertised as the fastest thing known to man yet it only achieves 25% of the speed that my phone does!  If I reset it then it will sometimes get the same as my phone but it's only a matter of time before it drops back.  My guess is that it's to do with the band.  I'm stuck in B3.

[electroMechanic]

Did the firmware for the M1 ever get updated to include band selection?

I am trying to get Netgear to do the same for the LB2120 (which doesn't even have type selection 3G/ 4G) that we currently rely on exclusively for cellular internet access. It would be useful if someone could tell me how Netgear will resolve this situation.

[JSchnee21]

Nope.  Sorry, that will never happen (Netgear/AT&T updating the firmware to permit band selection).  Carriers in the USA don't want to permit that much control  They don't want end users being able to camp on specific bands and avoid their load balancing, failover, and CA algorithms.

I've generally only seen this capability on Asian products (Samsung, Huwei, ZTE, etc.).  Even then, for many (like the Galaxy S series), I believe you have to boot the phone in a special service mode to limit the range of bands you allow it to select.  Huwei is one of the few that seems to proactively let you choose which band(s) to use.

[electroMechanic]

But didn't one of their representatives say that the "idea has been forwarded to the internal team and they are looking into it"?

If they aren't going to address this problem they should have simply stated that the idea was declined.

[JSchnee21]

Perhaps we'll all be pleasantly surprised -- I hope this is the case.  But I wouldn't hold my breath.

[electroMechanic]

We are based in a rural location, and we were hoping to expand our network, using more capable hardware. We weren't looking to employ expensive professional routers/ firewalls, but we were thinking that a moderately priced firewall would be ideal for our needs. If most of the devices that allow for band selection do not offer external IP pass-through, then I would have been better off suggesting a unit like a b525, along with a switch and some access points. Not to mention, if we have no reliable means of maintaining a steady connection to the internet using cellular access, which is the only option we currently have for the foreseeable future, then I cannot justify any additional costs involved in this exercise.

I know this Topic is related to a mobile router, but the LB2120 is marketed towards commercial/ "enterprise" internet access, and should have this capability. And if the LB2120 gets band selection, while many of Huawei's routers already have this ability, then I don't see why this shouldn't be a standard feature on every Cellular modem/ router including the M1.

[Juggar]

Unless we get the password to telnet in and force a band via command, we will never have that ability. 

Nothing is perfect, some people will say "let the network manage it" or "the algorithm knows best". 

That is simply not true in some specific use cases. I am sure some netgear engineers know this, but their hands are tied im guessing. 

I live in a rural area and the Nighthawk M1 just doesnt cut it, bouncing between band 30, 12 and 2. 

I bought a Mofi 4500 so I could lock onto bands and guess what, it works. Drove up to a tower, line of site. Nighthawk M1 7mbps down on band 30. Mofi 4500 locked to Band 2 - 45-50 mbps down..... 

In some scenarios automatic band selection just does not work. The nighthawk REFUSED to get off band 30.