Official Magic Box discussion thread

[lilotimz]

What constitutes a business customer?  Would an HOA which would want one to cover basement of thousands of residents constitute as a "business customer"? 

"yes" [emoji6]

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[jordanlong20]

On 12/13/2019 at 11:07 AM, ingenium said:

The MB maxes out at about 85-90 Mbps, regardless of backhaul. It seems to be some kind of hardware limit, either on the LTE eNB or on the ipsec tunnel. The Airave 4 is exactly the same.

Both my Airave and MB are connected via Ethernet on a gigabit connection and max out at that.

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Interesting, Thanks for sharing @ingenium

We just moved and the new house merits a MagicBox. I have the Gold model.

We have gigabit (true 1000up and 1000down) ethernet and also observed a maximum DL speed of approx 60-70mbps IIRC w/ ethernet backhaul on the MagicBox Gold. 

Shame because I see regular DL speeds of 100-140mbps on Sprint LTE in the DFW area, including within .5 miles of my home. It was nice to have a fallback connection of 100+mbps at our old address on Sprint LTE. I have since left the MagicBox on LTE backhaul and seem to get about 40mbps max in limited testing. 

...You would think the MagicBox could output a higher speed when fed with 1gbps wired connection. 

edit: I could also try wifi backhaul, but I would guess it provides an even worse experience compared to ideal situation ethernet backhaul should provide. 

[crazy_vag]

47 minutes ago, jordanlong20 said:

 

Interesting, Thanks for sharing @ingenium

We just moved and the new house merits a MagicBox. I have the Gold model.

We have gigabit (true 1000up and 1000down) ethernet and also observed a maximum DL speed of approx 60-70mbps IIRC w/ ethernet backhaul on the MagicBox Gold. 

Shame because I see regular DL speeds of 100-140mbps on Sprint LTE in the DFW area, including within .5 miles of my home. It was nice to have a fallback connection of 100+mbps at our old address on Sprint LTE. I have since left the MagicBox on LTE backhaul and seem to get about 40mbps max in limited testing. 

...You would think the MagicBox could output a higher speed when fed with 1gbps wired connection. 

edit: I could also try wifi backhaul, but I would guess it provides an even worse experience compared to ideal situation ethernet backhaul should provide. 

Could you give WiFi a try and see what results you get on it?  (Bonus if you can try 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz, since I could only get it to connect to the 2.4 GHz channel to my Google WiFi).

[alphaalphagamma]

does anyone in the San Diego area with a magic box 3 gold have ethernet or wifi backhaul working yet? 

[ingenium]

 
Interesting, Thanks for sharing [mention=21091]ingenium[/mention]
We just moved and the new house merits a MagicBox. I have the Gold model.
We have gigabit (true 1000up and 1000down) ethernet and also observed a maximum DL speed of approx 60-70mbps IIRC w/ ethernet backhaul on the MagicBox Gold. 
Shame because I see regular DL speeds of 100-140mbps on Sprint LTE in the DFW area, including within .5 miles of my home. It was nice to have a fallback connection of 100+mbps at our old address on Sprint LTE. I have since left the MagicBox on LTE backhaul and seem to get about 40mbps max in limited testing. 
...You would think the MagicBox could output a higher speed when fed with 1gbps wired connection. 
edit: I could also try wifi backhaul, but I would guess it provides an even worse experience compared to ideal situation ethernet backhaul should provide. 

Yeah it should be able to go faster, but honestly does it really matter? On macros and SCs, the added speed is more about the capacity to handle more users. But on a MB where you'll likely only have a couple users (or at least only a couple simultaneous users), I don't know why faster would make a difference on a phone. I doubt anyone would notice 80 vs 140 Mbps outside of speed tests.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if something internally is limited to 100 Mbps. If it was, that, combined with the ipsec VPN overhead, might explain the ~80-85 Mbps max speed.

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[jordanlong20]

20 hours ago, crazy_vag said:

Could you give WiFi a try and see what results you get on it?  (Bonus if you can try 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz, since I could only get it to connect to the 2.4 GHz channel to my Google WiFi).

I'll try to do this week and report anything of note. I expect speeds in between ethernet and LTE

[jordanlong20]

2 hours ago, ingenium said:

Yeah it should be able to go faster, but honestly does it really matter? On macros and SCs, the added speed is more about the capacity to handle more users. But on a MB where you'll likely only have a couple users (or at least only a couple simultaneous users), I don't know why faster would make a difference on a phone. I doubt anyone would notice 80 vs 140 Mbps outside of speed tests.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if something internally is limited to 100 Mbps. If it was, that, combined with the ipsec VPN overhead, might explain the ~80-85 Mbps max speed.

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That's a good point about usability. I guess I was testing more so for proof of concept than "will my experience be better" b/c you're right....not much gained from normal phone usage for everyday tasks if you are at 80+ (or 140). Practically, average speeds on LTE backhaul across the home are between 20-80 with an average in the 30s I reckon. 

Like I replied above, I'll do some further testing - just because I'm curious, not because I'm troubleshooting per se - and add here. 

[alphaalphagamma]

great news... looks like they just enabled ethernet backhaul on the magic box 3 gold in San Diego... using spectrum cable isp for BH

 

Check out my Speedtest result! How fast is your internet? https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/5640195945

[though]

9 hours ago, alphaalphagamma said:

great news... looks like they just enabled ethernet backhaul on the magic box 3 gold in San Diego... using spectrum cable isp for BH

 

Check out my Speedtest result! How fast is your internet? https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/5640195945

That is connected to the MB Gold?

[alphaalphagamma]

2 minutes ago, though said:

That is connected to the MB Gold?

yes.  another test after rebooting router :

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/5640435048

[though]

Very Nice!

[DurhamHusker]

I was disappointed that while connected to wired Ethernet backhaul that volte would no longer work. Bummer.

 

I had to call customer support and have them reset a few things to get it to reconnect to lte so I could get volte back.

[ingenium]

I was disappointed that while connected to wired Ethernet backhaul that volte would no longer work. Bummer.
 
I had to call customer support and have them reset a few things to get it to reconnect to lte so I could get volte back.

VoLTE doesn't work if it's not using LTE backhaul? That would be really surprising if true.

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[though]

14 minutes ago, ingenium said:

VoLTE doesn't work if it's not using LTE backhaul? That would be really surprising if true.

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Ya why would backhaul matter???

[DurhamHusker]

On 1/14/2020 at 10:22 AM, ingenium said:

VoLTE doesn't work if it's not using LTE backhaul? That would be really surprising if true.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
 

I have an iPhone 8 and an iPhone X that wouldn't use volte over the magic box when it was using Ethernet backhaul. They do when using lte for backhaul. Just my experience.

I can see where maybe if Sprint doesn't have complete control of qos from end to end maybe they just won't allow it?? I don't know.

[though]

On 11/22/2019 at 8:46 PM, jasonsteele said:

My 2nd gen updated today and enabled WiFi backhaul.

SW Ver. 15.16.50.944

60.12.71.0

Does the MB Gen 2 and Gold units use the same software versions? Or does Sprint use diff versions for each box?

[ingenium]

Does the MB Gen 2 and Gold units use the same software versions? Or does Sprint use diff versions for each box?

All MBs have the same version in my experience.

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[though]

Just a heads to those that are in an area where Magic Box isn't/wasn't available. Try again.

I typed my address in the Magic Box checker page and it says it's available to use in my area now. Always said it wasn't available before (Lincoln, NE).

[though]

So I went on a short vacation and took my Magic Box with me. Now that I am back, the Magic Box (GPS location) is still reporting the City/State of my vacation spot. This is after several days and a few reboots??

Edit: The GPS location corrected on day 3.

[bigsnake49]

How many of you will not need the MB once T-Mobile's network is open for free roaming? I for one will be sending my MB once I can natively roam on T-Mobile. T-Mobile's signal is pretty strong in my condo unlike Sprint.

[jefbal99]

1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

How many of you will not need the MB once T-Mobile's network is open for free roaming? I for one will be sending my MB once I can natively roam on T-Mobile. T-Mobile's signal is pretty strong in my condo unlike Sprint.

I get parked on B66 frequently at home, however, its very inconsistent in performance.  I much prefer my MB and its performance.

[bigsnake49]

5 minutes ago, jefbal99 said:

I get parked on B66 frequently at home, however, its very inconsistent in performance.  I much prefer my MB and its performance.

According to the speed tests I have done on both networks they are about equal in speed at different places inside my condo and at different times. I am afraid the the LTE backhaul might go away if they use that spectrum for 5G.

[jefbal99]

Just now, bigsnake49 said:

According to the speed tests I have done on both networks they are about equal in speed at different places inside my condo and at different times. I am afraid the the LTE backhaul might go away if they use that spectrum for 5G.

me too...

[alphaalphagamma]

On 2/12/2020 at 11:34 AM, though said:

So I went on a short vacation and took my Magic Box with me. Now that I am back, the Magic Box (GPS location) is still reporting the City/State of my vacation spot. This is after several days and a few reboots??

Edit: The GPS location corrected on day 3.

How do you check the GPS  location for the magic box? 

[though]

8 hours ago, alphaalphagamma said:

How do you check the GPS  location for the magic box? 

WiFi toggled off.

When I am upstairs, my phone can pick up proper GPS location on it's own from outside.

In my very deep basement, my phone gets the GPS location solely from the Magicbox.

My weather app follows me where I go (uses GPS) so I could tell immediately when the weather conditions were way off.