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

[Firegod]

Hi,

Hoping someone might be able to help me

Ive had a ZTE MC801A from Three for a month or so. Not in an area they say is supported but my friend bought his around mine to test before I ordered one and I got great speeds 400-600 in multiple window sills in my house and its been great since i've had it.

Since Sunday ive had terrible connection and speeds. It changes from 5G to 4G+ to 4G constantly (every few seconds), flicking between all 3.
CA Status keeps changing from CA Active to NO CA to CA Inactive. Not sure if this is relevant?

Only thing I can see which has changed since Sunday is an automatic firmware update at 02:30 in the morning, and ive had issues since.

Ive tried the device in every window now and its the same throughout.

Any suggestions of things to try? Ive tried factory reset.

Thanks in advance.

Probably best to reach out to the Three to see if there are any problems with their service. Especially if it is flicking between 4G+ and 4G as well. Perhaps there is an outage or work going on. How has connectivity been on your mobile phone to compare? Try the Three SIM in your phone and see how it behaves.

Have you tried powering off the device for a few minutes?

Hope this helps.

 

[MD1096]

Hi,

Hoping someone might be able to help me

Ive had a ZTE MC801A from Three for a month or so. Not in an area they say is supported but my friend bought his around mine to test before I ordered one and I got great speeds 400-600 in multiple window sills in my house and its been great since i've had it.

Since Sunday ive had terrible connection and speeds. It changes from 5G to 4G+ to 4G constantly (every few seconds), flicking between all 3.
CA Status keeps changing from CA Active to NO CA to CA Inactive. Not sure if this is relevant?

Only thing I can see which has changed since Sunday is an automatic firmware update at 02:30 in the morning, and ive had issues since.

Ive tried the device in every window now and its the same throughout.

Any suggestions of things to try? Ive tried factory reset.

Thanks in advance.

Hi

I am having the exact same issue.

Put the sim in a phone and a Huawei 5G CPE 1 and it works fine.

I think it must be a software update.

Update me if you have more information?

 

[kevrae]

Hi,

Hoping someone might be able to help me

Ive had a ZTE MC801A from Three for a month or so. Not in an area they say is supported but my friend bought his around mine to test before I ordered one and I got great speeds 400-600 in multiple window sills in my house and its been great since i've had it.

Since Sunday ive had terrible connection and speeds. It changes from 5G to 4G+ to 4G constantly (every few seconds), flicking between all 3.
CA Status keeps changing from CA Active to NO CA to CA Inactive. Not sure if this is relevant?

Only thing I can see which has changed since Sunday is an automatic firmware update at 02:30 in the morning, and ive had issues since.

Ive tried the device in every window now and its the same throughout.

Any suggestions of things to try? Ive tried factory reset.

Thanks in advance.

found this forum post and bookmarked, then reading this article this morning. looks like they've messed up the Sunday update.

Three UK Botches Firmware Update for New 5G Hub Router UPDATE

Some customers on Three UK's 5G based unlimited Home Broadband packages, specifically those who recently joined and received the latest ZTE MC801A based 5G Hub

www.ispreview.co.uk

I'm in the same boat and was running 4g speeds up until this morning, now i have no internet at all and sitting with the power light only. No access at all not even to router config page to help diagnose.

 

[Journey]

@mrk You should probably look in this thread for 5G home broadband advice.

If you really want to know why you get 5G but Three state no coverage it is due to their maps not be updated at the same rate as their coverage is increasing. I have been using there 5G service on a home broadband router for well over a year, even though it claims I had no coverage until a couple of months ago, and then it claims only out doors.

If you want to try it cheaply then you can use your phone SIM in a decent 5G router, something like a Huawei CPE Pro (112-370), you can buy them used locked to Three for only £170 from CEX, you have a returns policy on it if you find it no good. I get a stable 700+Mbps the majority of the time with 60Mbps upload (capped due to NSA). I pay the whopping sum of £3 for totally unlimited data, and I have crossed the 2TB per month threshold several times with no warnings from Three at all. Nothing is throttled, and I have experienced no downtime, other than one day of mast maintenance. If you prefer not to sign up to a contract you can get SMARTY Unlimited 30-day pre-pay for £16 per month, should you decide to stick with it.

 

[MD1096]

@mrk You should probably look in this thread for 5G home broadband advice.

If you really want to know why you get 5G but Three state no coverage it is due to their maps not be updated at the same rate as their coverage is increasing. I have been using there 5G service on a home broadband router for well over a year, even though it claims I had no coverage until a couple of months ago, and then it claims only out doors.

If you want to try it cheaply then you can use your phone SIM in a decent 5G router, something like a Huawei CPE Pro (112-370), you can buy them used locked to Three for only £170 from CEX, you have a returns policy on it if you find it no good. I get a stable 700+Mbps the majority of the time with 60Mbps upload (capped due to NSA). I pay the whopping sum of £3 for totally unlimited data, and I have crossed the 2TB per month threshold several times with no warnings from Three at all. Nothing is throttled, and I have experienced no downtime, other than one day of mast maintenance. If you prefer not to sign up to a contract you can get SMARTY Unlimited 30-day pre-pay for £16 per month, should you decide to stick with it.

How have you managed to get unlimted data sim for £3 a month? Thats an absolute bargain.

 

[Journey]

How have you managed to get unlimted data sim for £3 a month? Thats an absolute bargain.

Three were doing a promotion earlier in the year, I actually have several of them as it was a multi-buy offer, 24 month contract, so £72 per SIM plus a few % uplift for RPI or CPI which ever it is these days. You had to do it through Three UK Business, you didn't actually need to be a business, just say you are a sole trader trading under your own name and they were satisfied with that. It was on for a good 4 weeks or more, and I helped quite a few people get them.

 

[TheGreatDivide]

Hi guys,

I’m looking for an external antenna and I’m not sure which one to buy, would appreciate some suggestions.

I’m on Three and have a ZTE MC801A router, this is what I’m currently getting:

And I’m very happy with it (wish the upload was a bit better tho!). It’s a huge upgrade over my 33 Mb/s connection (I’m in a bad area for fibre), but heh, I’m curious about the outdoor antennas and the difference they can make.

I have been looking more at omnidirectional antennas because there’s only one side of the house where I can have the antenna, and I'm not sure if it'll be facing a 5G mast.

 

[sandys]

I'm thinking of ditching my cable internet stuff for 5G alone, been using it as a fall back and it has been great, one drawback I have found though is getting my home phone to register up to sipgate through my current 5G router the VN007, anyone else using VOIP on 5G ( I have a linksys pap2 adaptor for my home phone) what do I need to look for in a router? Three is not the problem I can run my home phone on my mobile, seems to be router specific issue no doubt NAT related that I can't find a solution too.

Are there 5G modem routers out there than work in modem mode that would give me direct access or have SIP compatibility?

 

[Journey]

And I’m very happy with it (wish the upload was a bit better tho!). It’s a huge upgrade over my 33 Mb/s connection (I’m in a bad area for fibre), but heh, I’m curious about the outdoor antennas and the difference they can make.

I have been looking more at omnidirectional antennas because there’s only one side of the house where I can have the antenna, and I'm not sure if it'll be facing a 5G mast.

Have you done any research to check which mast you are connecting to now, and where that mast is in relation to your property?

 

[TheGreatDivide]

Have you done any research to check which mast you are connecting to now, and where that mast is in relation to your property?

I’m not sure which mast I’m connected to, I don’t know how to find out, but there’s only one that’s local to me and it’s about 0.5 miles away.
In one of the rooms upstairs, I’m getting around 600-700 Mb/s down and 60-70 Mb/s upload.

I’m not sure how accurate OOKLA’s 5G map is, but the room with the highest speeds is the closest to my local 5G mast according to that map.

I’m in Broseley, Shropshire:

Now that I’ve thought about it more, I think a directional antenna will be fine. I should be able to point to the mast, but maybe it’s not worth it given the speeds I’m getting now?

 

[Journey]

Now that I’ve thought about it more, I think a directional antenna will be fine. I should be able to point to the mast, but maybe it’s not worth it given the speeds I’m getting now?

Yeah, I mean those speeds if stable are great. You are very close to your mast in what looks like a quiet area, so don't see the point in the extra expense of the external antenna.

If you install Cellmapper on your phone and run it in the neck ground and do a tour around your town/village it will update the locations if they are off by much. Cellmapper website is mainly crowd sourced data these days, but you should at least take a look.

 

[TallPaul_S]

I’m not sure which mast I’m connected to, I don’t know how to find out, but there’s only one that’s local to me and it’s about 0.5 miles away.
In one of the rooms upstairs, I’m getting around 600-700 Mb/s down and 60-70 Mb/s upload.

I'd 100% try and locate your mast, then play with the router location. Remember also that upload is handled by 4g so you might find that your router connects to a different mast for 5g and 4g.

As a comparison, I'm 300m away from my 5g mast and see 750-800mbps download and 40-60mbps upload. I doubt you'll need an external antenna if you're that close to the mast.

 

[sandys]

I'm thinking of ditching my cable internet stuff for 5G alone, been using it as a fall back and it has been great, one drawback I have found though is getting my home phone to register up to sipgate through my current 5G router the VN007, anyone else using VOIP on 5G ( I have a linksys pap2 adaptor for my home phone) what do I need to look for in a router? Three is not the problem I can run my home phone on my mobile, seems to be router specific issue no doubt NAT related that I can't find a solution too.

Are there 5G modem routers out there than work in modem mode that would give me direct access or have SIP compatibility?

Seems this is firewall related, no matter what ports I forwarded I couldn't get it to work but put the router in IP passthru mode and everything works fine.

 

[Journey]

Seems this is firewall related, no matter what ports I forwarded I couldn't get it to work but put the router in IP passthru mode and everything works fine.

Is that result good enough for daily use, or not ideal for your configuration?

 

[sandys]

I'll be honest I don't really understand what IP passthrough is, if it is like modem mode that would be fine that's how my VM router works but there seems to be a distinct difference between this and modem or bridge mode.

It gives me an odd 10.xx.xx.xx IP address where normally my gateway would be a 192.168...

 

[TheGreatDivide]

Yeah, I mean those speeds if stable are great. You are very close to your mast in what looks like a quiet area, so don't see the point in the extra expense of the external antenna.

If you install Cellmapper on your phone and run it in the neck ground and do a tour around your town/village it will update the locations if they are off by much. Cellmapper website is mainly crowd sourced data these days, but you should at least take a look.

Another member in the household is having rubber banding issues in games. Ping is worse than our old fixed line connection (about 30 ms vs 10 ms). I knew the ping was going to be worse, but I didn't think it would create issues. 30 ms still seems okay to me... but heh, I don't play anything super fast paced.

It looks like I'm going back to 33 Mb/s down. Damn

 

[Journey]

Another member in the household is having rubber banding issues in games. Ping is worse than our old fixed line connection (about 30 ms vs 10 ms). I knew the ping was going to be worse, but I didn't think it would create issues. 30 ms still seems okay to me... but heh, I don't play anything super fast paced.

It looks like I'm going back to 33 Mb/s down. Damn

I'd hardly call 30ms bad, as for the issues with some games perhaps look for the cause, not just blame the connection first and foremost, it could be a setting in the router, it could be many things.

 

[TheGreatDivide]

I'd hardly call 30ms bad, as for the issues with some games perhaps look for the cause, not just blame the connection first and foremost, it could be a setting in the router, it could be many things.

yeah 30ms seems perfectly fine, or at least I wouldn't expect rubber banding issues. Well, I think it's natural to blame the connection when going back to a fixed line resolves the issue, but I sure do hope it's just a setting or something in the settings.

What would you advise? I phoned up Three and they couldn't help.

 

[Journey]

yeah 30ms seems perfectly fine, or at least I wouldn't expect rubber banding issues. Well, I think it's natural to blame the connection when going back to a fixed line resolves the issue, but I sure do hope it's just a setting or something in the settings.

What would you advise? I phoned up Three and they couldn't help.

Well have you looked at your signal data inside the router stats? This will tell you about the quality of the signal being received, which can have a much bigger effect on something like a game than just ping. Also are you suing the Wi-Fi on the supplied router, or going via ethernet? It could be the 5G connection is fine you are just having Wi-Fi issues which is a different issue.

 

[TheGreatDivide]

Well have you looked at your signal data inside the router stats? This will tell you about the quality of the signal being received, which can have a much bigger effect on something like a game than just ping. Also are you suing the Wi-Fi on the supplied router, or going via ethernet? It could be the 5G connection is fine you are just having Wi-Fi issues which is a different issue.

Ethernet
I have, but tbh I don't understand any of it: