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

[TallPaul_S]

Just tested the 5G router in the new place - coverage checkers on 3 and nperf both say no coverage at all.

2 rooms face the front of the house, pointing in the general direction of a couple of known masts. First location I tried, almost instant 5g signal locked....

Speed test run and:

Then tried the upstairs room:

Signal level in the upstairs room:

Very happy with that!

Currently we're around 900m away from the closest Tower, and get 100-150mbps reliably. At the new place, it's 2.4km from the same tower which the router is connecting to - the difference being that the new place is much higher up and has pretty much direct line of sight to the same cell tower.

I'll be looking into an external aerial for the new place. Also the single thread test on speed test still gave 153/23 at the same location that gave 270+ multi threaded.

FTTC at the house is around 50mbps.

Few tests and an hour or 2 later, seeing 270-300/25-30mbps consistently in the upstairs room.

 

[TallPaul_S]

And in even more good news, there's a new 3/EE 5g mast going up literally right now (work being done over the next few days), 300m away from the new house in the other direction - we'll be above/level with the mast top (there may be some trees/houses between us) but once that goes live I'll try connecting to it!

Guessing it'll be a month or 2 after the mast is installed that it goes live.

And I can see the top of the existing mast from an upstairs window. Woohoo!

 

[TallPaul_S]

Make sure the Hue Bridge has a static IP set in the router. Not had any issues with mine.

 

[TallPaul_S]

EDIT
Also to mention the Hue is the only wired connection, everything else is wireless.

Thanks man. Something i havent done before though. Any tips?
Current settings:

Connection Modes = Auto (set) / LAN only / PPPoE + Dynamic / PPPoE / Dynamic IP / Static IP
PPPoE = blank
Dynamic IP = Set DNS Manually = off

When i go into the DHCP settings on the Hue phone app it shows the IP address / Netmask / Gateway numbers.
do i need those to input on the router?

Nah, go into the router settings - Advanced, Router, DHCP - then under IP and MAC Address Binding list, click the + and choose the hue hub.

I don't use the wifi on the router as I have a mesh wifi system, but the router still assigns the IP addresses. Best to set a static one for the hue hub as you may have issues with the hue app not being able to see the hub. The 3rd light is the hue portal light, which is app control (and therefore, Alexa/smart control).

 

[TallPaul_S]

Sorry I'm sure it's been discussed but what's gaming ping like?

I'm getting 14ms ping on normal speed tests, warzone etc all perfectly fine with no issues.

I'm still connected to the mast 2.4km away with direct line of sight, and getting a consistent 150-200mbps down and 7-10mbps up. There's planned work on my new mast location starting tomorrow, fingers crossed it's for the monopole to be craned in!! Looking forward to the speed increase with a mast 300m away

 

[TallPaul_S]

That's pretty impressive.... might test it if we ever get 5g in town

5G is highly dependent on anything blocking the path to the mast, I literally have some light foliage, and maybe a single house roof between the current router location and the mast. Moving the router 10ft upstairs I've seen up to 300/30... 2.4km is way further than a lot of people say you should get a 5g signal, and I'm outside any coverage checkers...

I should have almost perfect line of sight to the new mast too, hoping for at least 350mbps when that goes live.

 

[TallPaul_S]

So my new 5G mast has been installed (Wednesday, mid install):

The planned work ended on the 30th and yesterday, my cell ID on the router changed from my normal mast 2.4km away to a new ID which doesn't appear on cellmapper but is tied to the current (new) mast site.

My upload speed has gone up a little (15-20mbps vs 10mbps), ping has increased by 10ms to around 24ms, and my 5G speed has stayed the same.

Old mast speed:

Moving the router to a windowsill with direct view of the mast (which now has the 5G antennas installed at the top) I get zero signal.

So, it seems that the 4G on the new mast has been turned on, but not the 5G - I'm connecting to the new mast 300m away for 4G but still connected to my normal mast 2.4km away for 5G.
I'd imagine when the new mast does have 5G turned on I'll get sudden jump in speed even though the router is the 'wrong' wide of the house, due to being so close to the mast.

 

[TallPaul_S]

My Three 5G (unlimited data & phone £40pm) through a personal Hot Spot on my Samsung A90 5G..



If only upload speeds weren't so sucky...not bothered about Ping Times, too old & slow for online gaming thesedays

And at my address city fibre installed a full 1GB FTTH connection last year, but don't really need anything faster than this ATM.

Upload speeds are dependent on your 4G signal as it still uses this 4G for this, not 5G.

Going by your ping I'm guessing your a distance away from your 5G mast, and your 4G mast. I get 15mbps upload with 160 download.

Still waiting on 5G to be turned on on my new mast but I get full 4G signal that side of the house so should see 25mbps+ upload, and hopefully well north of 350mbps download.

 

[TallPaul_S]

Still hit a fixed 70Mbps upload on the CPE Pro, wonder when they will swap to a solution that uses 5G for upload, then I can send stuff at 800Mbps too

Isn't that all to do with the UK 5G solution being NSA (Non stand alone), in that is needs the 4G backbone to work.

Don't expect that to change any time soon.

 

[TallPaul_S]

So there was work being done on my new mast last night and today, 4g had been enabled but not 5g as of yet. I was still connecting to my old mast 2.4km away, giving a respectable 160-200mbps download and 15mbps upload.

Finished work at 8pm tonight and moved the router 4ft away it's normal location, from the window looking towards the old mast to the floor so without direct LOS to the old mast - the new mast is the complete opposite side of the house, but is only 300m away.

Result:

Oh hello there, new 5G signal!!

The upload is pants but I know I can get 25mbps upload from a better router position on the correct side of the house.

And after a quick and dirty 2 min test of the router in a random location the side of the house facing the new mast... And on Wifi:

 

[TallPaul_S]

Welcome to Club 5G. Now see if you can beat the 1Gbps barrier with something.

Well, the mast is literally 3 minutes walk away. Shouldn't be too hard!

I was already part of the club, I mean I started this thread!!

But over my 5G life I've gone from 30mbps FTTC, to a reliable 100mbps 5G, to 180mbps 5G, to... well, we'll see - probably 500mbps+ reliably. That's in the course of less than a year, and over 2 masts. Ultimate speed is nothing without a stable connection, so I'll need to have a play with location.

 

[TallPaul_S]

TBH if you can only get 50mbps on FTTC then you're probably not going to get much more on a different ISP, as they all use the same Openreach infrastructure.

Deffo worth looking into 5G. In my current house, FTTC at around 50mbps is also my only fixed line option, no virgin media or FTTP coming due to us being on a private road. I brought the 5G router with me when I moved, in the old house I was getting a reliable 100mbps on 5G to a mast 500m away and through houses/trees. The new house is 2.4km from the same mast but with an almost direct unrestricted LOS, and I've been on 160-200mbps for the past couple of months. A new mast has just gone live 300m away and I'm seeing 500-700mbps download speeds.

First things to check is finding out where your mast is. If it's recently been installed, check your local council planning applications as it'll be on there. Once you know the location, you'll also know how far away it is, what is blocking it etc which will basically determine what sort of speed you can get. Under 500m with nothing in the way - 500mbps+ Same distance with houses and trees - 300-400 highly depended on router location. If you've got land mass and a lot of trees/houses blocking LOS, and 1000m away then you're probably only going to see slow speeds or poor signal.

The key thing is finding that mast.

 

[TallPaul_S]

This is incorrect. While some use BT’s equipment (EE, Plusnet, BT), Vodafone have different (overloaded) equipment in the cabinets. So switching to a BT based service might well yield a significant improvement.



While I don’t disagree about investigating 4G or 5G I would argue it’s not really suitable for running a business and it’s relatively expensive to get geared up to get it working.

Speeds might be a bit better on another isp but it's not going to be more than 10 or 20% at very most.

5G really isn't expensive. Three's current deal is £0 up front and £30 a month. I'm paying £27 a month with the first 6 months of that half price. And if you're willing to pay for a router outright there's sim only deals which cost a few £ a month.

And as for reliability, I've had zero down time in the past 11 months on 5g compared to numerous drops in connection on my old fttc broadband, with the copper from the telegraph pole to the house being replaced along with the internal master socket.

Oh and to get 5g up and running, you plug in the router. That's it. No appointments for an engineer to visit. No waiting for your line to activated.

5g doesn't have to rely on aging copper lines, if you have a decent signal you'll have a connection with very little to zero downtime. And if it's a good signal then it's going to be a lot faster than FTTC.

 

[TallPaul_S]

Welcome to Club 5G. Now see if you can beat the 1Gbps barrier with something.

Almost there...

Haven't tried upstairs yet either, this on the ground floor

 

[TallPaul_S]

I missed the bit about him needing a landline phone, but just because his phone doesn't get a 5g signal in the house, doesn't automatically mean he'll need a external antenna.

It's why I suggested finding the mast. Once the location of this is known we'll be able to say whether it's actually a viable option. If he doesn't need an external antenna, the upfront cost is nothing.

Another option would be to look at business broadband which will typically have guarantees of uptime.

What speeds do you get at 9:30am with lots of users on the cell tower? I find my speeds vary between 200Mbps during the day and 450Mbps in the small hours where I’m pretty much the only user on the cell tower.

Not sure yet as I'm only testing the locations right now, I've got a switch arriving today so I'll be moving the router to its new location in the next few days.

Currently I see 180mbps at peak time during the day and 210 at midnight. I actually find 5pm is the worst time for speed.

 

[TallPaul_S]

What speeds do you get at 9:30am with lots of users on the cell tower? I find my speeds vary between 200Mbps during the day and 450Mbps in the small hours where I’m pretty much the only user on the cell tower.

Ok, router now in it's final position, last night at 11pm I was getting 750/38 consistently, peaking at over 800 on some tests. Done a couple of tests just now at 8:30am, and same speeds basically. In fact just seen one of the fastest speeds at 885 down/40 up.


So yeah it's pretty consistent!

 

[TallPaul_S]

Speaking of consistency, what's the ping jitter like? I've connected my laptop to my phone via hotspot a few times to test EE 5G and the pings are horrible. Sometimes it's 40ms to bbc.co.cuk, and then it'll jump to 230ms and back down.

Had a ping trace running while doing these tests, to google.co.uk - 12 to 15ms and zero packet loss. To some speed test servers I've seen 10ms ping.

 

[TallPaul_S]

That's really, really good! I don't have good line of sight to the tower despite it being on a large block of flats. It's also fairly far away (950m) with lots of houses and trees in the way.

Obstructions and distance are the 2 main things that will limit your signal, the old mast I was connected to was 2.4km away but I had basically a 99.9% clean LOS (a small bush in the way) and was getting 20-25ms ping and 160-200mbps download. I've also found that window frames mess with the signal, or anything large and metal. You'll also find there's a sweet spot for router location. 3ft one way and your signal/speed can be completely different.

 

[TallPaul_S]

There are much better deals that that to be had if you keep your eye open on the deals sites, I am paying less than £4 per month for the same Unlimited everything SIM, courtesy of Affordable Mobiles and Quidco, that's a 12 month contract, it was such a good deal I got two. Pretty sure I linked the deal some where back in this thread.

I'll be looking at doing this when my initial contract is up as the router will be mine then, will just need a sim. Also my phone EE contract ends around the same time and as EE are terrible for 5G here I'll look to get 2x Three sims at the same time.

 

[TallPaul_S]

just found this thread being on a old copper line and getting a max of 8 up and 0.75 down i took a gamble on the three 5g hub and wow fallen back in love with gaming, 25 mins for a 40 to 50gb game to download instead of 12 hours, i now need a bigger hard drive for my games, had it for a week now and super impressed

What speeds are you seeing? I'm still seeing 7-800mbps down and 30+ up pretty much all the time.

However PSN downloads on new games seem to 'only' hit around 5-600mbps down, with patches/updates much slower at 300mbps max roughly.