how to get more then 2 bars on my home internet gateway?

Mckinley wrote:

We just got a new home internet gateway and I can’t get it over 2 bars in 5 different places I have tried putting it in the house.  Am I doing something wrong? Because I’m doing what it’s telling me to do 

Two bars is often sufficient for a person to get the best speeds available at their house. Within those two bars, there can be some variation in speeds you get at various two-bar locations though, so that is why you should restart the gateway via the button on the side for each location you try, including rotating the gateway a few inches and thinking of that as a new position, to try for the fastest speed range you can get.

I understand that while the following is a method which can’t be done by some apartment dwellers, but the first thing I did was to take the gateway outside (I have a portable power supply but you can also use an extension cord) to see if there was anywhere in my yard where I could get three bars instead of two. You can also try it on a balcony or patio. So, free of obstructions of the  house walls and outside, I was able to get three bars. So that way you can tell if three bars is possible anywhere. Of course, you can’t leave the gateway outside. The attic or second floor should be tried, if you have those.

But in my house, I was only able to get three bars in one place -- in the window facing the tower and with the gateway rotated in a certain way, and that is how I found the single position in the house that is best for the gateway.

Use the GUI at: 192.168.12.1

As Bond mentioned, the GUI is better than the app and you can put that number in the URL of any browser. Click on Status and Overview on the left, and the dropdown arrows near the two bands, Primary and Secondary. You’re looking for a location for the gateway where you can get the highest figures on many of those parameters, so on RSRP, keep  in mind -98 is higher than -110. You also want to find a location where you can get two bands, and not just the Primary alone.

I’ve had the gateway for over three months and although I found the window location on the second day, weeks later I refined it to a certain rotation and elevation (a foot higher) in the window where  I always get three bars on the Primary and Secondary bands and the signal never drops to two bars on either the Primary or Secondary.

Although number of bars is usually correlated with speed, there are other factors, too, and some people with 4 or 5-bar signals get speeds below 20, while people with 2 bars can get over 200. 

I have two bars almost all the time and get download speeds consistently in the 100-140 range. The few times I've moved and/or rotated the modem and got three bars, my speeds deteriorated. My Primary is B2, with Secondary of n41, when I check it using address of 192.168.12.1.

driver37 wrote:

... The few times I've moved and/or rotated the modem and got three bars, my speeds deteriorated. My Primary is B2, with Secondary of n41, when I check it using address of 192.168.12.1.

This happens for me, too. The tower with the N71 band (slower than the N41 band) is much closer than the N41 tower, and the lower frequencies of the N71 band give it farther range, so my strongest signal ends up being the slower speeds. I keep the can oriented where it picks up the N41 with faster speeds and two bars.

I get only 2 bars on my gateway...and I only get a primary signal on B71, no secondary signal. I can still get between 25 and 30 down and 5 to 8 up….which was fine for me since it blew Frontier out of the water.
 

I am so exited to test it since a few days , I am in zip code 19018 (PA) , closest cellphone tower is not very near (please shoot me a good cellphone tower site if you have one) , I have currently this data :

Total Download

31.68 MB

Total Upload

2.96 MB

try to hook up more devices and run my 21-30days test , 

I believe the upload is more on the lower end , two bars on my device, but i can work on my laptop pretty good so far , please post any tweaks to make the gateway/speed faster , I was nervous if this will work fine but I am impressed so far and will test for another 2 to 3 weeks on.

Thanks for all advices and inputs on that !!

running test on my primary provider is still better :

 PING ms

21

 DOWNLOAD Mbps

53.79

 UPLOAD Mbps

5.97

What is your speed?

What are your reading what bands are you on?

Please don't use the phone app it’s crap log into the router direct.

Agree with what’s been said that 2 bars can be enough.  I’m getting over 200 Mbps down with 2 bars and b66 as primary and n41 as secondary. 
 

I get 2 bands with B2 Primary and N41 Secondary  takes me 2 hours to upload youtube video i get a speed of between 200 and 300 down and between 1 and 10 up One time i have seen the upload speed of 0.22 up 

2 bars here and its cruising along. 

Sad  show  2 bars   I move around my room said  weak