Good day. The issue I have is I find that a device I have is not staying on the strongest cell in the area, it seems to hand over to weaker
cells even when I have not left the area. I haven’t been able to exactly see at what signal level it happens at, it mostly seems to happen while
the phones screen is off, and I turn it back on and it’s on a weaker cell. Often it will hover between 2 or even 3 different weaker 1800mhz cells
before going back to the strong 700mhz cell, that is being redistributed via Nextivity booster
I have a room I am in, where primarily the strongest cell is a 700mhz 4G cell, let’s call this PCI 241. This UE device is only a 4G device. It’s RSRP mainly is -98 to -100 when the device is sitting on the bed as an example
For whatever reason, the device will decide to hover on cells with a weaker RSRP, I saw it join to a 1800mhz cell that had a power level -115RSRP, during the time the serving cell had a RSRP of -100. This totally nullifies the condition that the serving cell must be weaker in order for handover to happen. Handover is happening to WEAKER cells while the serving cell has a much stronger signal.
Could there be some other dynamic that is causing issues, even on the device side somehow preferring 1800mhz cells over 700?
Device will hover on 1800mhz cells that are -110 to -118 and holding them deep into -121db, sometimes switching from one weak cell to another, before finally deciding to go back on PCI 241
Generally, it only likes switching back to PCI 241 when it’s RSRP reaches around -90, but almost never when it’s around the -98 mark. The trick that always works is to hold the device next to the repeater antenna from the booster (that only boosts PCI 241), in this premises and it instantly switches to PCI 241, often when it’s power level reached is about -90, seems to be the switching point. Based on this I do not assume that this cell has some sort of other limit imposed on it that is keeping my device off.
Could the carrier have imposed some strict signal strength margins, that are trying to favour only devices with the best signal on this cell, and kick off distant devices? As normally under every other situation where a serving cell is this strong, and neighbouring cells are as weak as I mention, the device almost never hovers around.
I can say PCI 241 has the best RSRQ of all the neighbouring cells, the quality is not dropping to unreasonable levels
Surely, even when PCI 241 is at -98 RSRP mark, this should be enough to warrant a handover from much weaker cells the device is preferring, which are -110 -118.
Could indeed there be a very wide threshhold margin the network has set? Which is why the device only connects to PCI 241 when i hold it near the repeater antenna from the booster (when it hits RSRP of -92), switchover is swift.
Is there a tendency for the UE to “want” on it’s own accord to hang onto 1800mhz cells as a priority, perhaps preferring higher frequencies , or is this entirely the network decision that the UE has no input on, i.e can the UE decide to only prefer 1800mhz cells for a certain power threshhold, and only join 700mhz cells only if they are very strong.
This even happens at 3AM in the morning when everyone in the area is asleep, I can not imagine congestion would be an issue of being kicked off the strongest cell all the time from the network side.
The SIM card is from the primary provider of this network, it’s not a wholesale or from a reseller using this network
I would be greatful to hear some feedback so I can understand the mechanics better on why this might be happening.