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

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 :)

Voxi and Lebara are also worth looking at, VOxi is basically Vodafone, and Lebara sometimes have some great offers, there was £11.25 for 6 months not long ago, they also piggy back Voda.
 
Lads - I finally installed the 5G Router. The ZTE 5G CPE MC801A. I'll post some of my tests below to see what you have to say about signals and what I should do about the bands. I got close to 300MBIT on every Speedtest I did which is VERY good.

To start with. I tested the three 4G bands (B3, B7 & B28) I got access to individually w/ N78 and forced the router to do NSA only. I seem to get 5G NSA only every single 4G band selected from above ones with N78. On all three bands selected individually I got speeds similar to below.

However I also saw that out of the box that the router seemed to aggregate the above bands. I'll post the signal results as well below to see what I actually should proceed with in terms of limiting the band selection etc.

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Telenor 2022-01-10 5G NSA – B28 + N78 (Above pic speedtest)
3G/4G Frequency: 9460
3G/4G Connected Band: AC700MHz(B28)
3G/4G Signal Strength: -72 dBm
3G/4G ECIO/SINR: 6.6 dB
4G RSSI: -47 dBm
5G Connected Band: N78
5G Signal Strength-99 dBm
5G SINR19.0 dB

Telenor 2022-01-10 5G NSA – B3 + N78
3G/4G Frequency: 1750
3G/4G Connected Band: 1800MHz(B3)
3G/4G Signal Strength: -84 dBm
3G/4G ECIO/SINR: 8.6 dB
4G RSSI: -52 dBm
5G Connected Band: N78
5G Signal Strength: -99 dBm
5G SINR: 21.0 dB

Telenor 2022-01-10 5G NSA – B7 + N78
3G/4G Frequency: 2850
3G/4G Connected Band: 2600MHz(B7)
3G/4G Signal Strength: -93 dBm
3G/4G ECIO/SINR: 1.4 dB
4G RSSI: -62 dBm
5G Connected Band: N78
5G Signal Strength-99 dBm
5G SINR: 17.0 dB

Telenor – 2022-01-10 5G – All B3, B7, B28 + N78
3G/4G Frequency: 1750
3G/4G Connected Band: 20.0MHz@1800(B3) + 20.0MHz@2600(B7) + 10.0MHz@AC700(B28)
3G/4G Signal Strength: -83 dBm
3G/4G ECIO/SINR: 8.2 dB
4G RSSI: -52 dBm
5G Connected Band: N78
5G Signal Strength: -99 dBm
5G SINR: 19.0 dB

It would be nice as well to see from your point of view if an external 5G antenna would work directed towards the cell tower based on above results (signal / RSSI etc)
 
I have 3 masts near me (encompassing the property in a circle almost).

B3 = 1800Mhz (20Mhz) = DL 200-250Mbps | UL 35-40Mbps (LTE RSRP -98, RSRQ -9, SINR 10) | 2KM
B1 = 2100Mhz (15Mhz) = DL 300-350Mbps | UL 35-40Mbps (LTE RSRP -114, RSRQ, -10, SINR 6) | 3.8KM
B7 = 2700Mhz (15Mhz) = DL 250-280Mbps | UL 35-40Mbps (LTE RSRP -115, RSRQ -9, SINR 2) | 3.5KM

I'm using B1 at the moment but if I turned the directional antenna around (as it faces away from the mast hosting B3) then I may flick to band B3 and get me some better signal quality. Not much in it either way for me. B1 and B7 are pretty much cell edge at nearly 4KM.
 
I have 3 masts near me (encompassing the property in a circle almost).

B3 = 1800Mhz (20Mhz) = DL 200-250Mbps | UL 35-40Mbps (LTE RSRP -98, RSRQ -9, SINR 10) | 2KM
B1 = 2100Mhz (15Mhz) = DL 300-350Mbps | UL 35-40Mbps (LTE RSRP -114, RSRQ, -10, SINR 6) | 3.8KM
B7 = 2700Mhz (15Mhz) = DL 250-280Mbps | UL 35-40Mbps (LTE RSRP -115, RSRQ -9, SINR 2) | 3.5KM

I'm using B1 at the moment but if I turned the directional antenna around (as it faces away from the mast hosting B3) then I may flick to band B3 and get me some better signal quality. Not much in it either way for me. B1 and B7 are pretty much cell edge at nearly 4KM.

I find it odd that each mast only has one band, that doesn't seem normal, you'd normally see at least one mast with two or more bands on it. I assume you are on EE or Voda giving the bands on offer?
 
I find it odd that each mast only has one band, that doesn't seem normal, you'd normally see at least one mast with two or more bands on it. I assume you are on EE or Voda giving the bands on offer?

Yeah EE mate. So, the B3 mast closest to me is only B3. :)

For the other two, the one which I use for B1 also has B3 and B7. The one which I use for B7 also has B3. Haven't checked on their direction though.

However,I don't quite understand, so excuse my ignorance but even with B1, B3 and B7 enabled on my router, it connects to the mast closest to me (and chooses therefore soley B3).

So the only way I can get on to those further masts is to utilise just the one specific band. Either B1 or B7. As soon as I use B3, it connects to the mast 2km away. Even with the directional antenna pointing away. I wish the closer mast had more than one band. :(

I'd imagine if perhaps I was closer to those other towers and had all 3 bands enabled, that I'd get better speeds? Not that a few hundred Mbps is anything to sniff at. :)

Cheers!
 
Yeah EE mate. So, the B3 mast closest to me is only B3. :)

For the other two, the one which I use for B1 also has B3 and B7. The one which I use for B7 also has B3. Haven't checked on their direction though.

However,I don't quite understand, so excuse my ignorance but even with B1, B3 and B7 enabled on my router, it connects to the mast closest to me (and chooses therefore soley B3).

So the only way I can get on to those further masts is to utilise just the one specific band. Either B1 or B7. As soon as I use B3, it connects to the mast 2km away. Even with the directional antenna pointing away. I wish the closer mast had more than one band. :(

I'd imagine if perhaps I was closer to those other towers and had all 3 bands enabled, that I'd get better speeds? Not that a few hundred Mbps is anything to sniff at. :)

Cheers!

Well if you are using 5G you are on n78 regardless of the mast for download, NSA uses the 4G for upload only, and n78 is the only band that EE use currently for 5G. What mast are you connecting to according to Cellmapper?
 
Well if you are using 5G you are on n78 regardless of the mast for download, NSA uses the 4G for upload only, and n78 is the only band that EE use currently for 5G. What mast are you connecting to according to Cellmapper?

Based on my post above, with aggregated 4G Bands, and as you see the 5G N78 Band used in NSA mode, are you saying that my connection is only using 4G for upload and 5G N78 for all that download speed?

So if I would get myself an antenna and direct it towards my tower (900m birds way) would this increase my speeds dramatically?
 
Well if you are using 5G you are on n78 regardless of the mast for download, NSA uses the 4G for upload only, and n78 is the only band that EE use currently for 5G. What mast are you connecting to according to Cellmapper?

OMG really. I had no idea! Yeah 5G NSA (so the fake 5G not full fat) :) That might explain the router stats why the NSA signal stats for N78 never changes regardless of the LTE changes I make. Hah!

So for 5G, using my phone (as also on EE), I connect to that mast 2km by looks of it, the one with B3 only mentioned earlier.

I best turn my antenna to face that mast then!

Sorry @Nucky for interrupting your post and questions. @Journey is just too helpful. :)
 
How do you find out where masts are, which provider uses them & what band they're using? I know there used to be a site that had them on but thought that stopped being updated a few years ago?
 
Yeah I think maybe coincidence but when people started burning down 5G masts the gps info stopped getting accurate... maybe its a GDPR/asset thing now! :cry:
 
I tried using Cellmapper but some of the data on there is just hilariously wrong.

It is crowd sourced data, and so few people use it in the UK so the info isn't always great unfortunately. You can install it on your phones and it will upload your data, which helps make it better. I covered a fair few masts in my local area using it to get more accurate data, just because I could really.
 
Based on my post above, with aggregated 4G Bands, and as you see the 5G N78 Band used in NSA mode, are you saying that my connection is only using 4G for upload and 5G N78 for all that download speed?

So if I would get myself an antenna and direct it towards my tower (900m birds way) would this increase my speeds dramatically?

I'm not sure how the masts are setup and in what configuration in Sweden, sorry. The 5G bands tend to be much larger, as an example the 5G n78 band I use with Three UK is 100MHz contiguous, and as such I get 800+ Mbps down, but as it is stuck on 4G upload I only get a capped 70Mbps
 
Well after a couple of days of O2, yesterday the speeds were all over the shop. More like a sine wave between 60Mbps and 3Mbps. It dropped out once yesterday during a zoom call as well..

So tried the vodafone sim last night. Couldnt get better than 20Mbps but was peak time (8pm ish) and sort of knew from my mobile that i really need an external aerial to get decent connection on vodafone.

So tried the EE sim. Wow. Was peaking at over 100Mbps last night during peak time. On av was 80Mbps. Upload is a bit slower than O2 at 14Mbps but thats still miles better than the 0.5Mbps we get on the FTTC atm.

Checked it early this morning before work and was getting 150Mbps :eek:

My only issue with EE is the ping. Its okay (ish) at an average of 39ms but the jitter is awful compared to either O2 or vodafone.

Would an external aerial improve the jitter or is there something else I should be looking at please? Or is that just down to EE and their equipment at the mast?

is it down to my awful RSRP on EE? Or will the router be using CA in order to achieve 150Mbps and the ping jitter would improve if I lock it to one cell?

  • RSRQ (Reference Signal Received Quality) -8.0dB = Excellent
  • RSRP (Reference Signal Received Power) -102dBm = Disconnection??????
  • RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) -60dBm = Excellent
  • SINR (Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio) 20dB = Excellent
 
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Well after a couple of days of O2, yesterday the speeds were all over the shop. More like a sine wave between 60Mbps and 3Mbps. It dropped out once yesterday during a zoom call as well..

So tried the vodafone sim last night. Couldnt get better than 20Mbps but was peak time (8pm ish) and sort of knew from my mobile that i really need an external aerial to get decent connection on vodafone.

So tried the EE sim. Wow. Was peaking at over 100Mbps last night during peak time. On av was 80Mbps. Upload is a bit slower than O2 at 14Mbps but thats still miles better than the 0.5Mbps we get on the FTTC atm.

Checked it early this morning before work and was getting 150Mbps :eek:

My only issue with EE is the ping. Its okay (ish) at an average of 39ms but the jitter is awful compared to either O2 or vodafone.

Would an external aerial improve the jitter or is there something else I should be looking at please? Or is that just down to EE and their equipment at the mast?

What is the jitter as proportion of the ping? 10%, 20%? Anything more than 30-40% and it could be an issue if you are doing VoIP or video calling.

As far as I'm aware there is nothing you can do about it - it's just that the cell tower is very busy usually and they're processing the data as fast as they can. Quiet cell towers usually have good jitter in my experience. The reason that the EE jitter is worse than Vodafone and O2 may be that EE is just a busier network.
 
What is the jitter as proportion of the ping? 10%, 20%? Anything more than 30-40% and it could be an issue if you are doing VoIP or video calling.

As far as I'm aware there is nothing you can do about it - it's just that the cell tower is very busy usually and they're processing the data as fast as they can. Quiet cell towers usually have good jitter in my experience. The reason that the EE jitter is worse than Vodafone and O2 may be that EE is just a busier network.

Jitter is as much as the ping! so 100% :(
 
That can't be right, surely? As I understand the term, jitter is the amount of variability in the latency. How are you measuring it?
 
That can't be right, surely? As I understand the term, jitter is the amount of variability in the latency. How are you measuring it?

nperf.

Was only a few quick tests last night. The ping fluctuates from 20ms to odd peaks approaching 100ms and a av of 39ms with jitter of 37ms.

On both o2 and vodafone it was pretty stable with jitter of only 7ms.

I still have MTU set for my O2 sim, would that affect it?

to be fair that was over wifi as well so should test properly this weekend over ethernet plus try various locations around the house.

Now I know that 4g is going to viable I have an external aerial coming tomorrow as well.

Well retest all three networks on external to decide.
 
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Was only a few quick tests last night. The ping fluctuates from 20ms to odd peaks approaching 100ms and a av of 39ms with jitter of 37ms.

That is a lot of jitter, and anything above about 25-30ms will make VOIP and video calls really not great.

Can you run the EE SIM in your phone and do the same speed/jitter test outside, and then again inside still using the phone?

The RSRP you had is basically useless, so an antenna should help a lot, it was probably bouncing all over the place.
 
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