Manual band selection in MWconn

[pblanker]

Hi everyone,

I'm based in Melbourne, Australia and use the Optus wireless service here. I've been using MWconn for a while now, rather than the supplied software from Optus. I've been having a lot problems with the service (calling it a "service" seems like a misnomer, but never mind...) that it keeps disconnecting and is very slow. And they call this Broadband? I got so fed up with it that I ended up logging a call with their help desk. They advised me to use the Optus software (big surprise!) but it does have a unique function that MWconn doesn't seem to have. It has the option to manually set the band. The default option is for "all bands" to be enabled. They asked me to change this option to "GSM900/GSM1800/WCDMA2100". (FYI - The other options that are available are GSM1900, GSM850, WCDMA900.) And lo and behold, one of the problems is now fixed! it no longer hangs up every 2 minutes. It's still as slow as my grandma but at least it doesn't hang up all the time. You should also know that on this Optus prepaid wireless plan, there is a minimum 10MB charge for each connection. You can imagine how quickly this will eat through your allowance on a 3gb plan if it disconnects every 2 minutes or so! What a scam, and this is legal! Sorry, I digress again.

Here's my question. Can you manually select the band in MWconn? like you can with the Optus software as it seems to make a big difference. I would really prefer to use the MWconn software.

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very grateful.

Cheers,

Peter.

[hErMeS]

There are two options for a manual selection of the band. First is to use gprs or umts ( umts = wcdma and gprs = gsm )
The frequency of the gsm mode given through the providers network
I don't know about an option to set a specific gsm mode.

[pblanker]

I was aware of that. In fact, I only run the UMTS executable to make sure. This option exists in the Optus software also. In addition to that, it also offers the option to select a specific band. Pity though...

[Opilionn]

Hi Peter,
what is the type of your modem device? I remember that there is an AT command which can be used to select specific frequency bands for Huawei devices. Maybe this could work...

Opilionn

[pblanker]

Hi Opilionn

The modem is a Huawei E160.

Cheers.

[Opilionn]

Very good. Then there is a command which can be used to select specific frequency bands: AT+SYSCFG
Please use a search engine to find out the correct syntax, e.g. search for:
"at+syscfg" huawei band

The value described as 3fffffff (for "all bands") may be changed to exclude some bands. I would assume that the related bits must be set to zero to do so. Unfortunately, I don't know which bit stands for which band.

Opilionn

[pblanker]

Hi Opilionn

I should have thought of that... that an AT style command would do the trick. After searching Google for while, it became clear that Huawei considers their AT instruction manual to be a state secret! In every forum I've seen, they seem to ignore any questions that ask for the command reference. Very bizarre attitude...

Anyway, I did find this:

Huawei AT commands for setting operational mode
Ripped from http://public.warp.es/wader/browser/tru ... /huawei.py

Any : AT^SYSCFG=2,0,3FFFFFFF,2,4
2G only : AT^SYSCFG=13,1,3FFFFFFF,2,4
3G only : AT^SYSCFG=14,2,3FFFFFFF,2,4
2G preferred : AT^SYSCFG=2,1,3FFFFFFF,2,4
3G preferred : AT^SYSCFG=2,2,3FFFFFFF,2,4

To set the band used, you could use these:

Any band: 3FFFFFFF
EGSM(900): 00000100
DCS(1800): 00000080
PCS(1900): 00200000
GSM850: 00080000
WCDMA2100: 00400000

So, based on this information (although I still can't find out what the last two parameters do 2,4) I have set the following:

DEVI=AT^SYSCFG=14,2,400180,2,4

which basically does 2 things; it sets it to 3G only and selects the band to be GSM 900/1800/WCDMA 2100, which is exactly what I wanted.

The modem works much better now - it hasn't disconnected once!

Thanks for the suggestion and the info, it is much appreciated. I can now use MWconn again!

Cheers.

[mekabo]

(although I still can't find out what the last two parameters do 2,4)

AT^SYSCFG=$mode,$acqOrder,$band,$roam,$srvDomain

$mode
2=Auto-Select
13=GSM only
14=WCDMA only
16=no Change

$acqOrder
0=Automatic
1=GSM prefered
2=WCDMA prefered
3=no Change

$band
3fffffff = All
other, try "AT^SYSCFG=?"

$roam
0=Not Supported
1=Supported
2=no Change

$srvDomain
0=Circuit-Switched only
1=Packet-Switched only
2=Circuit- & Packet-Switched
3=Any
4=no Change

it's for from http://www.telefon-treff.de/showthread. ... ost3449548

[mekabo]

from http://www.mobilebroadbandrocks.com/at- ... ent-page-1

Band
80 GSM DCS systems
100 Extended GSM 900
200 Primary GSM 900
200000 GSM PCS
400000 WCDMA IMT 2000
3FFFFFFF Any band
40000000 No change of band