Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Mobile broadband => Topic started by: meritez on May 16, 2022, 12:41:40 PM
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On the desk next to me:
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/13159604853.png)
not bad for £45
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That, of course, depends upon where, in the country, your desk is located. ;)
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That, of course, depends upon where, in the country, your desk is located. ;)
200 metres from the local mobile mast, in a straight line,
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Thank you. That was was the missing piece of information.
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Hows your experience with the MF286D been @meritez?
Have you experimented with other firmware? Was reading about it over here (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/zte-mf286d-feature-unlock-rough-guide-for-h3g-units.37795/page-8) and recognised the name ;D.
I'd be interested in trying openwrt on it, pawol seems to have done most of the work to make it fairly effortless experience.
Seems like an excellent device for the money, Cat 12 Qualcomm chipset with open source firmware for £29 from three on a month to month contract...
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Hi johnson,
It works brilliantly in bridge mode, presenting an IPoE connection to a better router.
Had to use it when someone took out my parents FTTC cabinet, had no complaints from them.
OpenWRT is not officially supported as of yet, it's only showing up in the release candidates of 22.03.
It's £69.99 from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MF286D-600mbps-External-Antennas-Renewed/dp/B09HHJHFL2
Get a £16 unlimited sim from Smarty: https://smarty.co.uk/plans/unlimited?vc=12MthUnlimited16AFF
No reason to pay £29 a month
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I meant its £29 upfront for the modem with a £30 a month single month contract, so £59 for the modem and a months unlimited data to test Threes network, well thats the way I’d view it.
Does the default firmware expose options to choose bands? I guess letting it do its thing works fine if you are that close to the tower, I get stuck on suboptimal bands if I leave my huawei stick to its own devices.
I assume you have no need for an antenna either so haven't tried? The other forum mentions that the external antenna wiring is a bit of mess.
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There's a script that lets you get into the debug mode of the web interface and select bands.
The external antenna on the back are main and div, but if you open the unit up there's five antennas on the mini pcie:
https://openwrt.org/_detail/media/zte/mf286d/mf286d-12.jpg
If you're handy with a Dremel you could add extra external antenna.
I've been testing it in poor signal areas and seeing 110/30 speed tests in most areas, only an alleyway in London was 14 down and five up.
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Ah, great stuff!
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Got one myself, an improvement over the huawei stick:
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/13412515238.png) (https://www.speedtest.net/result/13412515238)
I’m about 650m from the tower with no line of sight.
Getting stats and locking bands on the stock firmware needs a little bit of effort, pawol over at the eko.one forums has some javascript that apparently works as a chrome bookmark https://eko.one.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=19085&p=11 , but for anyone who wants to use curl etc:
#!/bin/bash
IP="http://192.168.0.1"
COOKIE="zte-cookie"
PASSWORD="xxxxxxxx"
goform_get(){
curl -s -b $COOKIE $IP'/goform/goform_get_cmd_process?isTest=false&cmd='$1'&multi_data=1&_='$(date +%s) -H 'Referer: '$IP'/index.html'
}
set_band_lock(){
curl -b $COOKIE $IP'/goform/goform_set_cmd_process' -X POST -H 'Referer: '$IP'/index.html' --data-raw 'goformId=SET_LTE_BAND_LOCK&'$1'&isTest=false&AD='$AD
}
calc_ad(){
#Get serial numbers
rd0=$(goform_get wa_inner_version | jq -r .wa_inner_version)
rd1=$(goform_get cr_version | jq -r .cr_version)
#Hash numbers together
rdXhash=$(echo -n "$rd0$rd1" | md5sum | awk '{print $1}')
#Get 'RD' string
RD=$(goform_get "RD" | jq -r .RD)
#Hash all together
AD=$(echo -n "$rdXhash$RD" | md5sum | awk '{print $1}')
}
calc_ad
#Login
RES=$(curl -s -c $COOKIE $IP'/goform/goform_set_cmd_process' -X POST -H 'Origin: '$IP -H 'Referer: '$IP'/index.html' --data-raw 'isTest=false&goformId=LOGIN_MULTI_USER&user=admin&password='$(echo -n $PASSWORD | base64)'&AD='$AD)
#Cookied request
goform_get "network_type,lte_ca_pcell_band,lte_ca_scell_band,wan_lte_ca" | jq
echo ""
PRI_BAND=$(goform_get "lte_ca_pcell_band" | jq -r .lte_ca_pcell_band)
SEC_BAND=$(goform_get "lte_ca_scell_band" | jq -r .lte_ca_scell_band)
echo "Current bands: B$PRI_BAND + B$SEC_BAND"
echo ""
echo "Select a band or bands to lock, eg:"
echo " 1+20"
echo " 3"
echo " all"
while :
do
echo "Enter band(s):"
read BAND
case $BAND in
1)
BAND_STRING="B1"
BAND_HEX=1
;;
3)
BAND_STRING="B3"
BAND_HEX=4
;;
7)
BAND_STRING="B7"
BAND_HEX=40
;;
20)
BAND_STRING="B20"
BAND_HEX=80000
;;
32)
BAND_STRING="B32"
BAND_HEX=80000000
;;
1+3 | 3+1)
BAND_STRING="B1 + B3"
BAND_HEX=5
;;
1+7 | 7+1)
BAND_STRING="B1 + B7"
BAND_HEX=41
;;
1+20 | 20+1)
BAND_STRING="B1 + B20"
BAND_HEX=80001
;;
3+20 | 20+3)
BAND_STRING="B3 + B20"
BAND_HEX=80004
;;
7+20 | 20+7)
BAND_STRING="B7 + B20"
BAND_HEX=80040
;;
7+32 | 32+7)
BAND_STRING="B7 + B32"
BAND_HEX=80000040
;;
20+32 | 32+20)
BAND_STRING="B20 + B32"
BAND_HEX=80080000
;;
1+3+7 | 1+7+3 | 7+3+1 | 7+1+3 | 3+7+1 | 3+1+7)
BAND_STRING="B1 + B3 + B7"
BAND_HEX=45
;;
1+3+20 | 1+20+3 | 20+3+1 | 20+1+3 | 3+20+1 | 3+1+20)
BAND_STRING="B1 + B3 + B20"
BAND_HEX=80005
;;
1+7+20 | 1+20+7 | 20+7+1 | 20+1+7 | 7+20+1 | 7+1+20)
BAND_STRING="B1 + B7 + B20"
BAND_HEX=80041
;;
all | ALL | All)
BAND_STRING="All Bands"
BAND_HEX=20880800D7
;;
*)
BAND_STRING="Unknown"
echo "Unknown"
continue
;;
esac
echo "Selected: $BAND_STRING Confirm?"
read CONFIRM
if [ "$CONFIRM" != "${CONFIRM#[Yy]}" ] ;then
echo "ok"
LOCK_PARAM='lte_band_lock=0x'$BAND_HEX
echo $LOCK_PARAM
calc_ad
set_band_lock $LOCK_PARAM
break
fi
done
echo ""
After the login cookie is acquired reading stats:
#!/bin/bash
IP="http://192.168.0.1"
COOKIE=zte-cookie
URI=$IP'/goform/goform_get_cmd_process?isTest=false&cmd=network_type,mcc,mnc,rssi,rsrq,lte_rsrp,wan_lte_ca,lte_ca_pcell_band,lte_ca_pcell_bandwidth,lte_ca_scell_band,lte_ca_scell_bandwidth,lte_ca_pcell_arfcn,lte_ca_scell_arfcn,Z_SINR,Z_CELL_ID,Z_eNB_id,Z_rsrq,lte_ca_scell_info&multi_data=1'
curl -s -b $COOKIE $URI -H 'Referer: '$IP'/index.html' | jq
Anything more requires a serial connection.
The speed test above is with CA on band 1 & 20 with 20 as the primary band, with band 1 I only get 2-5mbit upload, which the modem seems to default to.
I have tried setting 20 as the primary band all the time by locking to that cell, but when I do I the modem stops aggregating with band 1. On the eko.one forums locking to a cell is reported to set that as the primary and still allow CA: https://eko.one.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=258150#p258150.
I’m thinking about updating the software on the actual modem (the qualcomm based mini pcie card) to see if I can get the behaviour reported in the link. The unit I have is Three branded and shows its firmware version as HGGBMF286DV1.0.0B04, its auto update claims no newer is available, but firmware ending in B06-B11 seems to be around from other providers. Apparently the procedure involves using adb to push sequential updates to the modem card as detailed in the link here https://eko.one.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=271304#p271304.
Have not tried openwrt yet as without changing software on the actual modem I’d still have the problem of low upload with band 1 as primary.
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Updating the modem firmware looks intriguing, running a cut down version of android like the pinephone ec25?
https://dylanvanassche.be/blog/2022/pinephone-modem-upgrade/
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The huawei E3372 I have also runs android behind the scenes, so from my sample size of 2 it seems to be common. I guess when pretty much the whole market for modems is phones, android is a good choice for the SoCs OS.
The pcie card on the MF268D runs another ARMv7 core:
admin@(none):~# adb shell
/ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 5 (v7l)
BogoMIPS : 38.40
Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xc07
CPU revision : 5
Hardware : Qualcomm Technologies, Inc MDM9650
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000
Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 5 (v7l)
/ # cat /sys/bus/cpu/devices/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
1286400
/ #
/ # uname -a
Linux mdm9650 3.18.31 #1 PREEMPT Fri Nov 27 11:53:02 CST 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux
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Did you manage to successfully update?
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There's a script that lets you get into the debug mode of the web interface and select bands.
The external antenna on the back are main and div, but if you open the unit up there's five antennas on the mini pcie:
https://openwrt.org/_detail/media/zte/mf286d/mf286d-12.jpg
If you're handy with a Dremel you could add extra external antenna.
I've been testing it in poor signal areas and seeing 110/30 speed tests in most areas, only an alleyway in London was 14 down and five up.
Hi meritez, I have a few Q's
What external directional antennae would you recommend? The ones I have seen have 2 connectors.
Which of the existing one is the cellular?
In the image, which one is the additional cellular antenna?
;D
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Let's wait for it to arrive, I hear good things about poynting.
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Did you manage to successfully update?
Unfortunately not. I had a go following the instructions in the mega link but the AT commands to update would always fail. Not surprising really as it seems to verify you are on the correct vendor and version of the firmware before flashing, so the supplied Telia OTA updates were not likely to be compatible with the Three branded stuff on my device.
From reading the eko.one forums the path to a fully updated mini-PCIe card seems to be flashing the whole modem with Telia or Elsia ISP firmware using what they refer to (or google translate does) as the 'framework', which I think is one of those 500+MB mega packages with windows binaries in, then incrementally pushing updates that have been extracted from ZTE OTA updates, there is this python script for pulling the 'delta' updates using a random IMEI:
https://gist.github.com/Leo-PL/051a0b2ba26c3495afa47746e4a809cd
But I cant get it to find any Three related ones.
I dont have a link but some other discussion on that forum led me to believe that setting a locked cell didn't always allow for carrier aggregation, or that it may be dependant on network provider. This coupled with moving the device to a different location that gets roughly 10mpbs upload on band 1 has removed motivation for trying to get the modem updated.
Would still like to put Openwrt on it, but as you say, in bridge mode it just works.
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EE speedtest
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/13688148882.png)
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https://gist.github.com/Leo-PL/051a0b2ba26c3495afa47746e4a809cd
Thanks for the above, I see Orange Poland has b12
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B11 modem firmware enables Volte
B12 enables upload Carrier aggregation.
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I meant its £29 upfront for the modem with a £30 a month single month contract, so £59 for the modem and a months unlimited data to test Threes network, well thats the way I’d view it.
I was thinking about the one month contract and getting it delivered to a friend with Three 4G coverage as there's none available at my home but looking on the Three website, looks like it's now only available on a 2yr contract?