Signal Quality vs Signal Strengh

[KD503]

I am in a bad reception area and tried to find the best location for my M1 modem.

As I found out , the signal strengh indicaton on top of the LCD display is not reliable in determining  the best modem location.

I get 2 or sometimes 3 bars. In one location the signal strengh goes up to 4 bars but the connection speed drops below the location with 3 bars.

A quick search in the internet revealed that indeed maximum signal strengh does not guarantee maximum connection speed.

The "Signal Quality" is more important.

The values to look at are namely:  ECIO (Energy to Interference Ratio), RSQU (Reference Signal Received Quality) & SINR (Signal to Interference-plus-Noise Ratio) and choose the modem location accordingly.

Is there any way to display these values anywhere?

Many thanks KD503.

[William10a · Accepted solution]

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@KD503 wrote:

I am in a bad reception area and tried to find the best location for my M1 modem.

As I found out , the signal strengh indicaton on top of the LCD display is not reliable in determining  the best modem location.

I get 2 or sometimes 3 bars. In one location the signal strengh goes up to 4 bars but the connection speed drops below the location with 3 bars.

A quick search in the internet revealed that indeed maximum signal strengh does not guarantee maximum connection speed.

The "Signal Quality" is more important.

The values to look at are namely:  ECIO (Energy to Interference Ratio), RSQU (Reference Signal Received Quality) & SINR (Signal to Interference-plus-Noise Ratio) and choose the modem location accordingly.

Is there any way to display these values anywhere?

Many thanks KD503.

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True you can have so much signal strength that you can reload the signal with noise and get nothing it was true with the old analog tv signal and is true today.

Yes a spectrum analyzer would show the wifi signal along with the noise.

[William10a · Accepted solution]

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@KD503 wrote:

I am in a bad reception area and tried to find the best location for my M1 modem.

As I found out , the signal strengh indicaton on top of the LCD display is not reliable in determining  the best modem location.

I get 2 or sometimes 3 bars. In one location the signal strengh goes up to 4 bars but the connection speed drops below the location with 3 bars.

A quick search in the internet revealed that indeed maximum signal strengh does not guarantee maximum connection speed.

The "Signal Quality" is more important.

The values to look at are namely:  ECIO (Energy to Interference Ratio), RSQU (Reference Signal Received Quality) & SINR (Signal to Interference-plus-Noise Ratio) and choose the modem location accordingly.

Is there any way to display these values anywhere?

Many thanks KD503.

---

True you can have so much signal strength that you can reload the signal with noise and get nothing it was true with the old analog tv signal and is true today.

Yes a spectrum analyzer would show the wifi signal along with the noise.

[KD503]

Hi William10a.

Thanks for your reply.

I just thought that there might be an App or tool for the M1 modem where the Signal to Noise ratio was displayed.

I went with the modem and external antenna allover my block ( site survey ) and found two good spots, one with 4 bars and one with 3 bars.

the 3 bar spot produces much faster downloads.

Perhaps noise or multi path reception. Another strange thing to mention is that my uploadspeed is always way better that the download speed.

I wonder if there is something to learn from that. 

Cheers KD503