Mobile wifi r216 only going 3g+

[craigchuck1985]

I have an R216 dongle, it will only go 3G+ when i try and use it. I have really strong reception as i live near a mast, my phone gets 3-4 bars on 4G and has really fast data connection.

I've contemplated getting an external antenna, however im reluctant as i should be able to get 4g in my house. I always put my antenna close to the window and ive tried it in multiple rooms in the house ( phone gets 4g in every room regardless of me being near a window).

Any help would be gratefully received

Thanks in advance 

Craig

[PedroC1999]

Please complete the network diagnostics form and post here.

Post Title: 'First half of post code - Area' e.g. ST1 – Stoke-on-Trent

1) Does the issue happen in just one location? If so, how far do you have to travel to regain service?

2) What is the full postcode (e.g. ST1 1AA) of where the issue occurs? If you don't want this showing on the Community, add it to your profile here.

3) Does the issue occur if you try your SIM card in a different phone?

4) What errors are seen or heard when the issue occurs

5) Does this happen on 2G, 3G, 4G or all?

6) When did you first notice this issue?

7) Is the issue permanent or intermittent? If intermittent, are there certain times of the day when it occurs?

Interestingly, another forum member has also found a similar thing with their R216: http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Network-queries/NP44-Cwmbran-Mobile-WiFi/td-p/2547085

[ad_winkie]

Hi,

Did the problem of the the R216 not going to 4g get resolved. I have just bought a brand new one and I am having exactly the same problem. I bought this router because I was told I would get a better speed for the mobile wifi hotspot than the phone as it was optimised for this.

Well so far its performance is far far less than the phone and it seems this is becaus it is not using 4g. In fact if I switch my preferences to 4g only then it does not work at all despite the fact that it is a 4 g router and it is sitting in a good 4g area. Any help would be appreciated.

[Annie_N]

Mysteriously, many data SIMs are not automatically provisioned for 4G, although they are advertised as providing a 4G service. If you call CS, and ask to have your SIM provisioned for 4G, this might fix your problem.

[ad_winkie]

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@Annie_N wrote:

Mysteriously, many data SIMs are not automatically provisioned for 4G, although they are advertised as providing a 4G service. If you call CS, and ask to have your SIM provisioned for 4G, this might fix your problem.

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Thank you for replying. You are spot on. I eventually got on to the right part of CS who told me that the SIM was not provisioned for 4g. I got the store to change the SIM, saw the screen that said that I had a 4g sim with a 4g bundle then had to go back to CS because despite the store doing their best, the data bundle was not recognised and I had no data. The guys in India finally sorted it and I now have a working mobile wifi with a data bundle but whether I actually have 4g is not confirmed in my mind.

This mobile wifi which has nothing to do but pick up the 4g signal and create a mobile wifi hot spot can not match my phone at all. I was expecting it to be a lot faster but the best it has ever done is get to about 80% on the download and 15% of the upload speed achieved through my phone.  Nor have I seen anything but 3g+ on the app. The phone is significantly outperforming it.

I am going to find a solid 4g signal and then do another set of tests If it continues to be poor in comparison to my phone or does not show that it is locking onto 4g it is going back.  Compared to a similar device I havce used in Australia this device is very poor.

Once again thankyou for replying to request for help.

[Annie_N]

@ad_winkie I hope this does work for you.

I've read somewhere that it is only automatically provisioned if your home address has a good 4G signal, but that seems a lunatic situation, if correct, as the whole point of these devices is to be able to use them wherever you happen to be, not just at home.

[craigchuck1985]

I had to spend some time on the phone to customer services explain my symptons and tell them its not going to 4G even though my phone, which is on vodafone is right next to it has 4 bars on 4g. They looked into this and then explained that 4g isnt enable as standard on the mobile internet dongles and that they would enable it. Went from a 1-2mb connection to a 28mbps connection

[ad_winkie]

Thanks for responding. Went through the same process and customer services supposedly enabled it and certainly my account shows that the I have 5gig of 4g data I was expecting and which I did not have before.

However, I still have never seen 4g and I can never switch it to 4g only - it just switches back to 4g preferred even when there is an excellent 4g signal. I have never seen it do better than about 50% of what my phone can achieve and that only rarely.

The sim is listed as an ipad sim - is this significant?

I am getting very frustrated and at the moment and vodafone is rapidly losing about 15 years of goodwill with this long saga.

[Jenny]

@ad_winkie – I’m sorry to hear this hasn’t been resolved yet.

I’ve sent you a private message with instructions on how to get in touch, so we can look into this further.

[ad_winkie]

I have finally had the problem of not getting 4g resolved and I thought that I would share it with the forum in case it helped someone else. I went back to the local store again. I had my phone linked to the mobile wifi and was able to prove to them that I was not getting 4g even though their own phones were doing so. When yet another change of a sim to a supposedly guaranteed 4g sim made no change they got in touch with their own technical team and to cut a long story short what eventually solved the problem was removing all the original 4g permissons off my account and the Sim and then redoing them all.  Once this went through I had 4g.  It would appear that the process for enabling 4g is not as precise as it should be. It was a process problem not a technical issue at all. Hope this helps someone.

All credit to the local store staff member who kept pushing the technical team to find a solution. 

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@ad_winkie wrote:

Thanks for responding. Went through the same process and customer services supposedly enabled it and certainly my account shows that the I have 5gig of 4g data I was expecting and which I did not have before.

However, I still have never seen 4g and I can never switch it to 4g only - it just switches back to 4g preferred even when there is an excellent 4g signal. I have never seen it do better than about 50% of what my phone can achieve and that only rarely.

The sim is listed as an ipad sim - is this significant?

I am getting very frustrated and at the moment and vodafone is rapidly losing about 15 years of goodwill with this long saga.

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@ad_winkie wrote:

Thanks for responding. Went through the same process and customer services supposedly enabled it and certainly my account shows that the I have 5gig of 4g data I was expecting and which I did not have before.

However, I still have never seen 4g and I can never switch it to 4g only - it just switches back to 4g preferred even when there is an excellent 4g signal. I have never seen it do better than about 50% of what my phone can achieve and that only rarely.

The sim is listed as an ipad sim - is this significant?

I am getting very frustrated and at the moment and vodafone is rapidly losing about 15 years of goodwill with this long saga.

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