****The Official 5G Home Broadband Thread**** (Three/EE/Vodafone/etc)

[Mr Carrot]

I'm on Vodafone (unlimited) and Vodafone max red for my handset - I am supposedly able to get 5g up to 2 gig/s and have managed 500ish on the road outside my house (property is surrounded by offices), on their service map it's 5g good internal and external.

I get 350 meg in the sweetspot internally - which is exactly where I've positioned the router (mid window top floor) I've basically put the router on a bunch of boxes and it's getting 79-150meg a second - I tried the huwai little 15 aerials but they led to a slower speed so took them off.

For me it's a toss up that the broader spectrum on the newer router might be more effective than better reception.

I've tried three different 5g handsets and they all manage 300+ within a few cm of the router.

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

I've just ordered an EE 5GEE home broadband package for the business, as I'm sick of VM unreliability but unable to order another connection with a house move imminent.

Depending on where I place my phone, I can get 100mbps or so. Can I expect better from the router supplied by EE?

Is it better to buy a router that supports an external antenna and look for a sim only plan? Who offers sim only for mobile broadband?

 

[WJA96]

I've just ordered an EE 5GEE home broadband package for the business, as I'm sick of VM unreliability but unable to order another connection with a house move imminent.

Depending on where I place my phone, I can get 100mbps or so. Can I expect better from the router supplied by EE?

Is it better to buy a router that supports an external antenna and look for a sim only plan? Who offers sim only for mobile broadband?

It's impossible to say what speeds you will achieve as the mobile providers play games with what bands they will allow you to use and what level of channel aggregation they offer for modems rather than mobile phones.

Your best bet is to go down to Tesco (or other supermarket) and grab a handful of the data SIMs by the till and try them all out. The one that uses up its data fastest is generally the winner.

In Salford Quays I can get faster speeds on EE using an LTE12 modem with external antennae than I can with a Vodafone 5G router (Huawei). And even then we still pay hundreds of pounds a month to Daisy for our leased line because anything based on radio is at the mercy of the elements and will therefore always be unreliable.

 

[Journey]

If using a Huawei modem/router, you can force CA on several bands using LTE-h-Mon, or HUActrl. I found this very useful when playing with the 4G with Three as their band B20 actually made the speeds worse than just aggregating B1 and B3 which produced much faster and more consistent results.

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

Well I ended up ordering EE's package with Huawei 5G CPE Pro.

£55/m for 1TB.

For me, it's not a long-term 24/7 solution but I'll make good use of it once I move as a WAN failover.

I just hope the speeds are decent so I can call VM's bluff and cancel unless they give me significant discounts.

 

[Mr Carrot]

After a week of struggling with the Vodafone 5g gigacube service I returned it and went with -

Vodafone 5g unlimited data only sim
Huewai unlocked CPE Pro 2

I'm still struggling to get 5g speeds similar to my handsets but the huewai unit is far better in "locking" into fast 4g speeds and maintaining them over time.

Also the unlocked unit has no issues with bridge mode into my WiFi 6 orbi mesh. Which the Vodafone badged router **** the bed over.

Even though the outlay is significantly increased (£370 for the unit Vs 50 upfront), the monthly charge is £15 for six months then £30 rather than £60. So I'm making a saving Vs Vodafone service after 9 months.

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

Well it arrived this morning.

I've done a bit of testing around the house and seem to have settled on the upstairs Bedroom for the best result

Now I just need to figure out how to get that connection back to my router so I can switch WANs at will.

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

I've got slightly slower speeds but better and more consistent latencies on IPV4 only and bridge mode to my existing router. Now I can failover to 5G the moment VM starts playing up!

Does anyone know the IP address on which to access the Huawei CPE Pro 2 when in bridge mode?

 

[Firegod]

So my setup is now done. Took a bit longer than planned. But for a first stab with no antenna adjustment, just rough guess towards where I think nearest cell tower is. And this is what we get...

Router in the loft.

And these are my before speeds with the internal antenna.

And now with the antenna. Ran 3 quick random tests.

All on EE 4G. Pretty pleased! My values for the connection seem better too.

• RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality) -7.0dB = Excellent
• RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power) -82dBm = Good
• RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) -55dBm = Excellent
• SINR (Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio) 3dB = Fair

https://wiki.teltonika-networks.com/view/Mobile_Signal_Strength_Recommendations#4G_.28LTE.29

 

[Journey]

And now with the antenna. Ran 3 quick random tests.

Nice improvement, and reasonable stats as well.

 

[Firegod]

Nice improvement, and reasonable stats as well.

Thanks - saying as copper broadband can only give me 2Mbps, I'll take 160ish any day. haha. No where near reaching some of the awesome speeds people are achieving in this thread, but I'm happy.

Can't wait to try the new Router next.

 

[Caged]

Have you checked what speeds you can get cabled into the Huawei router? It's possible your powerline network is being a limiting factor.

 

[Duke]

Nice improvement, sounds like you might get a bit more with some adjustment as well?

Have you checked what speeds you can get cabled into the Huawei router? It's possible your powerline network is being a limiting factor.

Good point, is it possible to do a cable run? I'm guessing its not straight forward if you're using powerline adapters

 

[Firegod]

I might give that a try thanks. Next time I'm up I'll plug my laptop direct and see what it says, but yeah with it being situated in the loft the powerline adapters are kind of needed. Thankfully all on one circuit which helps. I did buy the quickest ones I could at the time, 1300Mbps models.

 

[sandys]

Yup powerline manufacturers figures are often fantasy, so it is worth checking you haven't left anything on the table.

 

[Efour]

Urgh well i dunno if its a network operator or saturation thing but my connection seems almost locked to 250/75Mbps speeds now.... Which is still absolutely fine for my home usage but its not the near 800 i was getting just last week... Damn

 

[Journey]

Well I spent some further time tweaking my setup, before I find a permanent position for the 5G modem/router. It seems I may be hitting the peak ability of my dual router setup, and paltry 1GbE connectivity as I've had speeds hit 900Mbps with some consistency now, but it can't go any faster due the the 1GbE limit. Sadly I don't have a Wi-Fi 6 device at home right now, well not one that is built anyhow. Still won't grumble, never though I'd see the day I could saturate a 1GbE link from a WAN connection for less than £4pm

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

Well I spent some further time tweaking my setup, before I find a permanent position for the 5G modem/router. It seems I may be hitting the peak ability of my dual router setup, and paltry 1GbE connectivity as I've had speeds hit 900Mbps with some consistency now, but it can't go any faster due the the 1GbE limit. Sadly I don't have a Wi-Fi 6 device at home right now, well not one that is built anyhow. Still won't grumble, never though I'd see the day I could saturate a 1GbE link from a WAN connection for less than £4pm

What are you using to do it for £4/m?

 

[Journey]

What are you using to do it for £4/m?

Three.

 

[mikehhhhhhh]

Three.

When I looked, the cheapest I could find was £20/m for unlimited data. Any chance you can share some more info?

Does anyone have a good source for 5G routers?

I’m really finding my EE 5G useful as a backup with an unreliable vm line but £55/m is too steep really!