Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps at DVinfo.net

Andrew Smith · July 14th, 2017, 04:18 PM

The first step is to get your modem unit higher up. The rest involves gaff (preferred) tape. :-)

Andrew

Chris Harding · July 14th, 2017, 06:57 PM

I assume it's taped to the window Andrew? Did it stay there all the time or fall off frequently? Maybe the resonant frequency of the glass panel combined with the amplification factor of the polymer in the tape doubled the speed?

Mine has fallen off my stand a few times (light stand plus an old mobile phone car mount clip mounted on top) but it still works fine ..all the happened was the back panel fell off!

Andrew Smith · July 14th, 2017, 07:17 PM

It only fell off once, which was ascribed to the heating up of the glass and tape adhesive courtesy of the sunlight.

So we fixed it by using even more tape. :-)

Andrew

Miggy Sanchez · July 20th, 2017, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

The first step is to get your modem unit higher up. The rest involves gaff (preferred) tape. :-)

Andrew

Interesting!

Is the doubling of speed consistent or just temporary?

Ultimately I would have guessed that the amount of local traffic to the tower dictates mobile speed/bandwidth, thereby trumping such an attempt? Or is the science telling us to get our wireless devices higher to ride more robust radiowaves (or is it microwaves :-) )?

Also interesting is your set-up there. Is that a wireless modem connected to your encoder via data cable?

A picture asking a 1000 questions. Thanks for sharing.

Andrew Smith · July 20th, 2017, 06:26 AM

Hi Miggy,

There are a few factors in this particular instance and it kinda more than doubled.

From memory we were getting 10 or slightly more Mbps up when the modem unit was on the desk in the media box. When it was up high on the window the up-link speed went up to about 30Mbps or more. I wasn't paying too much attention at that point as we essentially had "plenty". This ensured that we could (and did) confidently stream the football matches all day in 1080HD at a full 10Mbps encoding rate.

The improvement in reception and thus data rates has also been noticed at other venues when the unit is raised in height. This just happens to be in line with the classic industry saying from FM broadcasting: "There are three things that matter ... height, height and height."

On a side note: Previously the fastest 4G data connection here (with the same unit) was about 10Mbps up. I attribute the increase in possible data transmit rates to a suspected equipment upgrade at the local cell tower since I was last there. This upgrade would have thus taken us from regular 4G technology to the 4GX (aka 4.5G) technology.

Local traffic will always have an effect, hence you tend to make a rule of running at about half of what the available bandwidth is. In this case I only set it to encode for 10Mbps as we simply didn't need anything higher. Given the upgrade to 4GX to give us those speeds, there will have also been more back haul provisioned to service it. (During the previous "4G" occasion I was at the ground we noticed up-link issues during the breaks between quarters when people would have turned to checking Facebook etc on their phones. I didn't notice any issues this time with the "4GX" connectivity.)

The ethernet cable from the wireless data modem goes back to a small gigabit switch. My laptop and the Matrox Monarch encoder are also connected to this via ethernet cable.

Andrew

Miggy Sanchez · July 20th, 2017, 06:42 AM

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply.

Will need to properly digest!!!

How do you measure your speeds? Speednet?

Miggy Sanchez · July 20th, 2017, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew

This ensured that we could (and did) confidently stream the football matches all day in 1080HD at a full 10Mbps encoding

1080! That's impressive.

Assuming 3 hours of live streaming, that'd be somewhere around 5Gb upload in total?

Also, in terms of viewership on mobile phones, do you think your audience is opting for the 1080 or throttling back to a more conservative 480 (or 360/ 720 etc) live stream to save data?

Donald McPherson · July 20th, 2017, 12:09 PM

Throttling back to watch on a phone maybe yes. But there are so much large screen smart TVs out there that I can see the need for 1080.

Chris Harding · July 20th, 2017, 06:57 PM

Using wifi even when your encoder/computer is close to the router is totally dependent on how many people are playing with their phones! We cable all the time now!! I have had a displayed 22mbps upload shown on Speednet fall to pieces and dropping below 1mbps simply because the wifi was flaky! The identical spot a few minutes later with a cable between the router and encoder gave a perfect 5mbps stream. That was at a wedding so you know when the 100 guests enter the room, they are all playing with their phones ..that's when things go wrong! I have done quite a few beach weddings where the signal drops off drastically as you descend the steps down to the sand so a really tall lighting stand up on the dunes and cabled with 20m of Cat5e the the only way to do it. My router (same as Andrew's) claims a 45m wifi range but if the wifi is flaky you are wasting your time!!

Andrew Smith · July 20th, 2017, 07:23 PM

I think we were doing about 6 hours per day of streaming (3 matches with 15min quarters) and the data used would be well beyond 5Gb. Probably around 20-25Gb but that's just off the top of my head. Worth remembering is that you also need to use additional data somewhere for monitoring the stream.

Attached are the stats that you would want to see in answer to the question of what resolution the stream is being viewed at. This is for one of the games. Unable to split down to mobile devices only.

Andrew

Andrew Smith · July 20th, 2017, 07:29 PM

Viewing of the stream by device type:

Andrew

Andrew Smith · July 20th, 2017, 07:34 PM

On the topic of wifi connections, the device in the original photo does support it but I don't use it at all. It's network cabling all the way to the device and then it's 4G/X cellular signal from there to the mobile network base station.

Don't use wifi in your streaming workflow. I do not use wifi at all for this.

Andrew

Chris Harding · July 20th, 2017, 08:16 PM

Me too Andrew .. Haven't used wifi for ages now ..it's simply too unreliable! I think that wifi has been the downfall of Livestream's MEVO cameras ...they seem to have complaints pouring in daily about connect issues and probably all wifi related!!

Chris Harding · July 22nd, 2017, 05:26 AM

When I sold my stedicam I kept the docking stand which folds up quite neatly but can extend up to around 5' which isn't much help so I grafted on a two section cheap lighting stand and bolted an old mobile phone clamp (used as a hands free car kit) on the top. I now have a stand that can extend about 11' up in the air and have the router right at the top ... works a treat!!!

July 14th, 2017, 04:18 PM	#1
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,065	Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps The first step is to get your modem unit higher up. The rest involves gaff (preferred) tape. :-) Andrew Attached Thumbnails

July 14th, 2017, 06:57 PM	#2
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps I assume it's taped to the window Andrew? Did it stay there all the time or fall off frequently? Maybe the resonant frequency of the glass panel combined with the amplification factor of the polymer in the tape doubled the speed? Mine has fallen off my stand a few times (light stand plus an old mobile phone car mount clip mounted on top) but it still works fine ..all the happened was the back panel fell off!

July 14th, 2017, 07:17 PM	#3
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,065	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps It only fell off once, which was ascribed to the heating up of the glass and tape adhesive courtesy of the sunlight. So we fixed it by using even more tape. :-) Andrew

July 20th, 2017, 06:26 AM	#5
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,065	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps Hi Miggy, There are a few factors in this particular instance and it kinda more than doubled. From memory we were getting 10 or slightly more Mbps up when the modem unit was on the desk in the media box. When it was up high on the window the up-link speed went up to about 30Mbps or more. I wasn't paying too much attention at that point as we essentially had "plenty". This ensured that we could (and did) confidently stream the football matches all day in 1080HD at a full 10Mbps encoding rate. The improvement in reception and thus data rates has also been noticed at other venues when the unit is raised in height. This just happens to be in line with the classic industry saying from FM broadcasting: "There are three things that matter ... height, height and height." On a side note: Previously the fastest 4G data connection here (with the same unit) was about 10Mbps up. I attribute the increase in possible data transmit rates to a suspected equipment upgrade at the local cell tower since I was last there. This upgrade would have thus taken us from regular 4G technology to the 4GX (aka 4.5G) technology. Local traffic will always have an effect, hence you tend to make a rule of running at about half of what the available bandwidth is. In this case I only set it to encode for 10Mbps as we simply didn't need anything higher. Given the upgrade to 4GX to give us those speeds, there will have also been more back haul provisioned to service it. (During the previous "4G" occasion I was at the ground we noticed up-link issues during the breaks between quarters when people would have turned to checking Facebook etc on their phones. I didn't notice any issues this time with the "4GX" connectivity.) The ethernet cable from the wireless data modem goes back to a small gigabit switch. My laptop and the Matrox Monarch encoder are also connected to this via ethernet cable. Andrew

July 20th, 2017, 06:42 AM	#6
Miggy Sanchez Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Melbourne Posts: 92	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps Thanks a lot for the detailed reply. Will need to properly digest!!! How do you measure your speeds? Speednet?

July 20th, 2017, 12:09 PM	#8
Donald McPherson Major Player Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Aberdeen Scotland Posts: 815	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps Throttling back to watch on a phone maybe yes. But there are so much large screen smart TVs out there that I can see the need for 1080.

July 20th, 2017, 06:57 PM	#9
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps Using wifi even when your encoder/computer is close to the router is totally dependent on how many people are playing with their phones! We cable all the time now!! I have had a displayed 22mbps upload shown on Speednet fall to pieces and dropping below 1mbps simply because the wifi was flaky! The identical spot a few minutes later with a cable between the router and encoder gave a perfect 5mbps stream. That was at a wedding so you know when the 100 guests enter the room, they are all playing with their phones ..that's when things go wrong! I have done quite a few beach weddings where the signal drops off drastically as you descend the steps down to the sand so a really tall lighting stand up on the dunes and cabled with 20m of Cat5e the the only way to do it. My router (same as Andrew's) claims a 45m wifi range but if the wifi is flaky you are wasting your time!!

July 20th, 2017, 07:23 PM	#10
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,065	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps I think we were doing about 6 hours per day of streaming (3 matches with 15min quarters) and the data used would be well beyond 5Gb. Probably around 20-25Gb but that's just off the top of my head. Worth remembering is that you also need to use additional data somewhere for monitoring the stream. Attached are the stats that you would want to see in answer to the question of what resolution the stream is being viewed at. This is for one of the games. Unable to split down to mobile devices only. Andrew Attached Thumbnails

July 20th, 2017, 07:29 PM	#11
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,065	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps Viewing of the stream by device type: Andrew Attached Thumbnails

July 20th, 2017, 07:34 PM	#12
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,065	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps On the topic of wifi connections, the device in the original photo does support it but I don't use it at all. It's network cabling all the way to the device and then it's 4G/X cellular signal from there to the mobile network base station. Don't use wifi in your streaming workflow. I do not use wifi at all for this. Andrew

July 20th, 2017, 08:16 PM	#13
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps Me too Andrew .. Haven't used wifi for ages now ..it's simply too unreliable! I think that wifi has been the downfall of Livestream's MEVO cameras ...they seem to have complaints pouring in daily about connect issues and probably all wifi related!!

July 22nd, 2017, 05:26 AM	#14
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Double your cell uplink speed in 4 or 5 easy steps When I sold my stedicam I kept the docking stand which folds up quite neatly but can extend up to around 5' which isn't much help so I grafted on a two section cheap lighting stand and bolted an old mobile phone clamp (used as a hands free car kit) on the top. I now have a stand that can extend about 11' up in the air and have the router right at the top ... works a treat!!!