Nighthawk LTE hotspot + poor band decisions

[nhantenna]

I am in the United States. I purchased the Nighthawk LTE hotspot directly from AT&T.  I am in rural location.  Without an external antenna, the Nighthawk LTE hotspot always connected to the same cell tower on AT&T LTE Band 12 700MHz with "Fair", three bars signal resulting in single digit speedtest scores and far too many dropped connections to the point where the Nighthawk was not a usable internet solution.  I purchased an external non-MIMO AT&T LTE Band 12 700MHz "only" antenna.  "Only" meaning the antenna does not receive any other LTE bands.  The antenna connects to the Nighthawk's TS9 connector 1.  There is nothing connected to the Nighthawk's TS9 connector 2.  On the same cell tower on AT&T LTE Band 12 700MHz I now get "Excellent", five bars signal.  Speedtest performance improved dramatically to a peak 51Mbit download and peak 20Mbit upload.  "Peak" meaning it is not consistent.  The first thing I noticed when troubleshooting is the Nighthawk LTE hotspot is now continuously shifting between two different cell towers.  Tower 1 using Band 12 ("Excellent" five bars signal) and tower 2 using Band 4 ("Poor" one bar signal).  The moves back and forth between these two towers are unpredictable.  It might move in one minute.  It might move in one hour.  I understand that the AT&T cell tower and the Nighthawk LTE hotspot must work together on moving customers between bands for many reasons (performance/congestion, cell tower maintenance windows, etc).  However, routinely and continuously moving the Nighthawk back and forth between an "Excellent" five bars signal to a "Poor" one bar signal day in and day out seems like a poor choice by the AT&T cell tower or the Nighthawk device or both.  Band 4 is not 700MHz so I assume the antenna has just enough metal on it to catch a "Poor" one bar signal.  When the Nighthawk automatically moves to Band 4 "Poor" one bar signal, the Nighthawk performance is negatively affected.  I have seen other requests in this forum asking for manual LTE band selection in the Nighthawk web console.  I would like to second that request.  Radio is a crazy thing.  When crazy radio things happen in the field, like a 700MHz antenna picking up Band 4 which is not 700MHz, Nighthawk end user's need manual controls to correct the problem.  I am on the 10.20.05.02 firmware.  I have not yet installed the newer firmware that was just released in the last couple days.

[nhantenna]

For example, the AT&T Nighthawk LTE hotspot originally shipped with LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 29, 30, and 66.  Bands may be added/deleted in the future via firmware updates.  In the Nighthawk web console the end user could be prompted to "allow" certain bands by marking "X" next to those bands.

[X] Band 1

[  ] Band 2

[X] Band 3

[X] Band 4

etc.

In the above example, the end user has removed the "X" next to "Band 2" indicating the end user does not want the Nighthawk to use Band 2.

[JSchnee21]

Hi @nhantenna,

Is your 700MHz antenna directional?  Aka is it a Yagi or parabolic style?  Did you dry rotating the (directional) antenna away from the tower with the offending Band 4 signal?  

Unfortunately this is not a perfect / foolproof process.  Especially if the Band 4 signal is very strong.  We had a similar issue with our WIlson Amplifier where the 700Mhz signal from Verizon was screaming hot, but the 700Mhz signal from AT&T not so much.  The amp didn't discriminate and would shut down.  We had to use a Yagi and point it 180 degrees away from the Verizon tower to attenuate their signal.

You might need:

1) a more directional antenna

2) inline filters to attenuate the other bands

3) amplification (surecall) of the desired band

But I totally agree, if the firmware enabled band selection or band blocking this would be very helpful.  Unfortunately, since the carrier (AT&T) controls the firmware, it's unlikely they would ever give up this type of control.

[nhantenna]

"Is your 700MHz antenna directional?  Aka is it a Yagi or parabolic style?  Did you dry rotating the (directional) antenna away from the tower with the offending Band 4 signal?"

It is a yagi and is very directional.  Band 4 is received regardless of antenna direction.  I can point the antenna straight down toward the ground and it still picks up Band 4 "Poor" 1 bar signal.  I live in a rural area where Band 4 (and similar high frequencies) will never work.  I will investigate if there is a filter that could help my situation.  The bottomline is the Nighthawk should never routinely and constantly release an "Excellent" 5 bar signal for a "Poor" 1 bar signal.