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

[Journey]

Hmmm only issue i have with vodafone is i dont know how good it would be as would definitely need an external aerial. Its only a decent signal in the garden. Shame to get the Gigi cube unlocked costs £50. With the sim and the £100 up front I am it ebay used prices for one.

I did see on a forum earlier this week they messed up and had the 5g gigacube on the 30 days tariff for £100 up front and £30 for the month as well. Lasted one day before they changed it to £325.

that was a steal for anybody who grabbed it.

Ah well they used to be unlocked on Vodafone, at least the B818's did, if it comes down to it though I doubt you'd struggle to sell it for £100 if you couldn't use it with another provider. Where did you see £50 for the unlock code btw?

You can pop your phone SIM in the B525 and see how Vodafone is in the house for you I guess, I am sure the offer will still be on.

 

[Greebo]

Well rrefurbed router and all the sims arrived today.

big problem is I can’t get the router to register any sim card being inserted no matter which one I use

new router coming from Amazon tomorrow, they had the 535-333 router on offer for £99.

tried the SIM cards in my iPad.

Surpising results.

EE was disappointing and fluctuated wildly between 5Mbps and 20Mbps but may be more stable on the router especially when I check locations round the house.

O2 was impressive. 30Mbps download on the sofa with 3/4 bars and a solid 50Mbps and 22Mbps upload with the iPad in the window and 5 bars. Ping solid at 50ms which isn’t the best but will cope.

so looking like O2 is going to be the one.

can’t wait for the new router to land tomorrow. Did a speed test on my landline and today I am getting 17Mbps download and 0.7Mbps upload. Ping all over the place.from 20ms to 100ms.

 

[Greebo]

Ah well they used to be unlocked on Vodafone, at least the B818's did, if it comes down to it though I doubt you'd struggle to sell it for £100 if you couldn't use it with another provider. Where did you see £50 for the unlock code btw?

You can pop your phone SIM in the B525 and see how Vodafone is in the house for you I guess, I am sure the offer will still be on.

I was only going on people on forums asking how to unlock them but maybe they aren’t? Maybe the 5g ones are?

was a Google search and first hit, sorry can’t remember what they were called. Thought £50 was steep anyway

 

[Journey]

Well rrefurbed router and all the sims arrived today.

Great news.

big problem is I can’t get the router to register any sim card being inserted no matter which one I use

Not such great news.

EE was disappointing and fluctuated wildly between 5Mbps and 20Mbps but may be more stable on the router especially when I check locations round the house.

O2 was impressive. 30Mbps download on the sofa with 3/4 bars and a solid 50Mbps and 22Mbps upload with the iPad in the window and 5 bars. Ping solid at 50ms which isn’t the best but will cope.

so looking like O2 is going to be the one.

Looking at the cells for O2 you've got 10MHz of B20 (800MHz) so that is great for indoor use, but is half what EE have on offer, however EE is at a higher frequency in the 1800MHz (B3) range so not as good for in doors.

Will be interesting to see what your router shows once you find the best location for it.

 

[Greebo]

EE should have a cell at 800Mhz covering me as well as the 1800Mhz cell.but only 5Mhz of bandwidth.

might come down to whether I bother with an external aerial as to which comes out top.

looking forward to tomorrow.

 

[Greebo]

New router arrives and it works. Being playing around with the o2 sim so far and best I can get is a steady 70Mpbs dl and 20Mbps upload.

RSRQ -13dB

RSRP -93dBm

RSSI -65dB

SINR 12dB

shouldn’t I be getting more than this? I thought the it would do up to 400Mbps. Okay I didn’t expect anywhere near that. Or is it because I am only connected to one cell? or is it a limit of the bandwidth on that one cell?

 

[Journey]

New router arrives and it works. Being playing around with the o2 sim so far and best I can get is a steady 70Mpbs dl and 20Mbps upload.

RSRQ -13dB

RSRP -93dBm

RSSI -65dB

SINR 12dB

shouldn’t I be getting more than this? I thought the it would do up to 400Mbps. Okay I didn’t expect anywhere near that. Or is it because I am only connected to one cell? or is it a limit of the bandwidth on that one cell?

You can't get 400Mbs from 10MHz and one band., you need CA to be active across more than one band for that. 70/20mbps is nothing to be sniffed at with 4G on a low(ish) end router.
The RSRQ is good, the RSRP is alright, not great not terrible, and the SINR is pretty good too, this is where an external antenna can improve the connection stats and stability, but you'll need to evaluate the stability without one first, before you find out if it is worth while getting one. You can buy outdoor routers which use PoE if you want also, but they can be expensive and you'd want to get a 5G ready model really. I tested a Huawei 5G CPE Win and it was great, but cost way too much for almost no benefit in my instance.

 

[Greebo]

I’ve got my SINR to 22dB now by moving it around a bit

I thought I might need more than one band for the ca. no point going for any better router is there? This is cat 7 and I am not even using a fraction of it.

will mess around with the ee sim next week but leaving the o2 for now and keeping logs on it.

thanks for all your help

 

[Journey]

I’ve got my SINR to 22dB now by moving it around a bit

I thought I might need more than one band for the ca. no point going for any better router is there? This is cat 7 and I am not even using a fraction of it.

will mess around with the ee sim next week but leaving the o2 for now and keeping logs on it.

thanks for all your help

That is a great improvement for the SINR. Obviously if O2 only have one band you'd have to have intra-band CA for that to work, and I don't believe that O2 offer than on 4G, in fact I am not sure if any network in the UK offer it. Theoretically a CAT7 LTE modem should be capable of 301mpbs (64QAM) down and 102mbps up, based on 2-4 layers of SM, but again you'll be limited by the carrier cell setup.

Still I can't help but think 70/20 must be still a big improvement for you?

 

[Greebo]

That is a great improvement for the SINR. Obviously if O2 only have one band you'd have to have intra-band CA for that to work, and I don't believe that O2 offer than on 4G, in fact I am not sure if any network in the UK offer it. Theoretically a CAT7 LTE modem should be capable of 301mpbs (64QAM) down and 102mbps up, based on 2-4 layers of SM, but again you'll be limited by the carrier cell setup.

Still I can't help but think 70/20 must be still a big improvement for you?

Massive. Just need to make sure stability is there and I will be more than happy. Key is going to be bad weather. Fingers crossed.

RSRP is probably the most I can get it as the O2 is labelled as that maximum on the cell tower. Only vodafone offers more, -116dB from memory.

 

[Journey]

Massive. Just need to make sure stability is there and I will be more than happy. Key is going to be bad weather. Fingers crossed.

I'm up on a hill only 142m, not probably as high as you are but even in torrential rain, and heavy snow I've not seen disruption that cuts off the signal, nor reduces it to an un-usable state. Hopefully you'll get a nice snow storm to help you make some informed decisions.

What is the ping like? I was managing 30-40's on 4G most of the time, with 5G it is much lower, and feels more like using Virgin but not quite FTTC speeds.

 

[Greebo]

Since moving things around i have got ping down to an av of 33, fluctuates between 25 and 40. Not bad I thought.

I have also changed the MTU from the default 1500 to 1450. 1460 and above showed fragmentation.

We are at 740 ft here and the mast is on another higher hill above 1000ft

We are sure to have some more snow soon

 

[Journey]

Since moving things around i have got ping down to an av of 33, fluctuates between 25 and 40. Not bad I thought.

I have also changed the MTU from the default 1500 to 1450. 1460 and above showed fragmentation.

We are at 740 ft here and the mast is on another higher hill above 1000ft

We are sure to have some more snow soon

Totally forgot to say but IIRC the B535 can do VoLTE/VOIP for so you can connect a telephone to it via RJ11 if your provider of choice supports the calling type. Not really that useful if you already have a landline, but handy if you want another number to give out for spam etc.

 

[Greebo]

Totally forgot to say but IIRC the B535 can do VoLTE/VOIP for so you can connect a telephone to it via RJ11 if your provider of choice supports the calling type. Not really that useful if you already have a landline, but handy if you want another number to give out for spam etc.

What number would that use? The one from the sim? I presume if i get a pay monthly data only sim then there wouldn't be a number and I couldn't use VOIP?

Thinking of binning the landline. The only reason we have it is for the internet.

Curveball last night, vodafone might be even better than o2. I put my mobile sim into the router and was getting better and more consistent speeds than O2 and more importantly even better latency.

Hence why it was a good idea to buy pre paid sims from each network and test them all in the router. I didnt buy a vodafone one as knew i could use my mobile sim but data speeds werent great on the mobile in the house so didnt have much hope for it but they are much much better in the router. Going to buy a vodafone sim so I can do a proper long term test.

 

[Journey]

What number would that use? The one from the sim? I presume if i get a pay monthly data only sim then there wouldn't be a number and I couldn't use VOIP?

Thinking of binning the landline. The only reason we have it is for the internet.

Curveball last night, vodafone might be even better than o2. I put my mobile sim into the router and was getting better and more consistent speeds than O2 and more importantly even better latency.

Hence why it was a good idea to buy pre paid sims from each network and test them all in the router. I didnt buy a vodafone one as knew i could use my mobile sim but data speeds werent great on the mobile in the house so didnt have much hope for it but they are much much better in the router. Going to buy a vodafone sim so I can do a proper long term test.

If Vodafone turned out to be the best then taking there bargain priced £100 router must be an option? You could return the other one you just bought.

As for the phone side of things it uses VoLTE so it's data, however I'm not sure if you need minutes included. My SIM had the lot included so can't say from a personal perspective.

 

[Greebo]

If Vodafone turned out to be the best then taking there bargain priced £100 router must be an option? You could return the other one you just bought.

As for the phone side of things it uses VoLTE so it's data, however I'm not sure if you need minutes included. My SIM had the lot included so can't say from a personal perspective.

Indeed thats the beauty of 30 day returns on Amazon

Yeah i know VoLTE uses data but data sim cards dont have numbers allocated to them so wondered what it would use if it did work?

 

[Journey]

Indeed thats the beauty of 30 day returns on Amazon

Yeah i know VoLTE uses data but data sim cards dont have numbers allocated to them so wondered what it would use if it did work?

Yes they have numbers, check inside the router webpage it will show the phone number of the SIM.

 

[Greebo]

Yes they have numbers, check inside the router webpage it will show the phone number of the SIM.

Thanks for that. I did wonder as one of the sims I was testing has a mobile number on the card it came with whereas I had a 30 day data only sim for another network and there is no mention on a number anywhere in the packaging.

 

[Journey]

Thanks for that. I did wonder as one of the sims I was testing has a mobile number on the card it came with whereas I had a 30 day data only sim for another network and there is no mention on a number anywhere in the packaging.

Yeah, no idea why some providers show the number and others don't.

If you do opt to use Vodafone don't forget to consider using Asda Mobile SIM only, they use Voda, and the unlimited SIM (150mbps speed cap) was only £15 per month with no contract, FUP is something silly like 9TB.

 

[Greebo]

Yeah, no idea why some providers show the number and others don't.

If you do opt to use Vodafone don't forget to consider using Asda Mobile SIM only, they use Voda, and the unlimited SIM (150mbps speed cap) was only £15 per month with no contract, FUP is something silly like 9TB.

Top tip there! Thanks. Now is the time for testing before I commit.

I see its only £15 per month for the first three months and now £30 per month normal but did notice that its only 5g speeds that is capped. All sim cards offer 4g 60Mbps DL and 30Mbps upload even on the 2Mbps 5g capped data card.

So should be good to go at £20 per month (half price fo 3 months) cheapest card