Nighthawk MR1100 tower connection

[sarahrn76]

Hello.  I just got the MR1100 Nighthawk LTE Mobile Hotspot Router from ATT.  I live in a rural area, but have a cell tower within 4 miles from my home.  When I run a speedtest, through speedtest.net, it chooses a tower that is over 30 miles from my home.  I have the option to choose other towers, but the nearest one is 30 miles away.  How do I set my Nighthawk Router to always be connected to the tower that is nearest to my home.  I did call ATT to inquire why my speeds were so slow (10mbps down at best).  The agent mention the cell tower that is 4 miles away from me, but did not know how to set my Nighthawk to only use that tower.  Any help from the community is greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

[Cricket-user]

Speedtest.net does not tell you which tower you are connected to. It does allow which server to run a speed test from. The default one may or may not give you the best readings. In your MR1100 settings under diagnostics is the Cell number for the tower it is connected to.  That may match up to a tower if you can get a tower ID location. Chances are you are connected to the closest simply because of best signal, but if not, that is because the closest one is not providing the best signal due to blockage of some kind. External antennas might be one way to improve signal.