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

[Psy-Blade]

No CGNat, public IPv4 assigned to my WAN interface - I've maxed my USG-3 throughput at quiet times:

Insane, I was wondering how much more speed I might get with an external antenna... now I know! I didn't see in your posts that you're using an antenna so you must be pretty close to a mast?

When you say public IP4 is assigned to your WAN interface - do you mean the WAN interface of your router? That's the part I can't get to work.

 

[Psy-Blade]

I don’t think anyone is using a 5G router outdoors. External antennae certainly (that’s all that needs to be outside) and mobile phone handsets are generally what people are using for ‘outdoors’ speed testing.

https://imgur.com/a/4FNNiLN

edit - I give up with the image tag!

 

[Cenuij]

Insane, I was wondering how much more speed I might get with an external antenna... now I know! I didn't see in your posts that you're using an antenna so you must be pretty close to a mast?

When you say public IP4 is assigned to your WAN interface - do you mean the WAN interface of your router? That's the part I can't get to work.

Yeah, the public IPv4 addr is assigned to the WAN interface on my router. I think it can be a bit buggy though, once or twice in testing some settings it assigned a local private IP, not sure if it's a real bug or whether it was something to do with the settings I'd applied. In this case, unplugging the ethernet cable from the router WAN interface rebooting the ZTE and plugging it back into the LAN1 port was required, you could probably just do a DHCP release/renew if you can get a shell on your router.

I have very narrow line of sight from the window in the room with the network gear, but it's not convenient to have the ZTE on that window sill so I bought a poynting XPOL-1-5G and some SMA -> TR9 adapters (Eightwood brand), ultimately to have the antenna mounted on the rear wall with clearer line of sight to the mast. I'm about 450 meters from the mast.

 

[Cenuij]

Insane, I was wondering how much more speed I might get with an external antenna... now I know! I didn't see in your posts that you're using an antenna so you must be pretty close to a mast?

When you say public IP4 is assigned to your WAN interface - do you mean the WAN interface of your router? That's the part I can't get to work.

Someone suggested fast.com can be a bit generous on speed calcs, here's the ookla/speedtest just after I saw that 1.2Gb/s result:

 

[Psy-Blade]

I have very narrow line of sight from the window in the room with the network gear, but it's not convenient to have the ZTE on that window sill so I bought a poynting XPOL-1-5G and some SMA -> TR9 adapters (Eightwood brand), ultimately to have the antenna mounted on the rear wall with clearer line of sight to the mast. I'm about 450 meters from the mast.

You've seen my ZTE sitting in a plastic box outside my window right? . Ah so the external antenna does work on the three ZTE... same day delivery on a XPOL-1-5G if I order in the next two hours!

edit: could you link the SMA > TR9 adapters you used please? The spacing looks a bit tight on the ZTE.

 

[Cenuij]

You've seen my ZTE sitting in a plastic box outside my window right? . Ah so the external antenna does work on the three ZTE... same day delivery on a XPOL-1-5G if I order in the next two hours!

edit: could you link the SMA > TR9 adapters you used please? The spacing looks a bit tight on the ZTE.

It's "Eightwood 4G Antenna SMA Female to TS9 Male Adapter Cable 15cm 2PCS for External Antenna Router" on the rainforest

 

[Cenuij]

You've seen my ZTE sitting in a plastic box outside my window right? . Ah so the external antenna does work on the three ZTE... same day delivery on a XPOL-1-5G if I order in the next two hours!

edit: could you link the SMA > TR9 adapters you used please? The spacing looks a bit tight on the ZTE.

I found that the signal strength varies a lot relative to small position adjustments. For example I'm currently using the window sucker mount and even 1 notch rotation either way or just 2cm up/down/left/right can affect gain/strength/quality by a few dBm.

 

[Psy-Blade]

I found that the signal strength varies a lot relative to small position adjustments. For example I'm currently using the window sucker mount and even 1 notch rotation either way or just 2cm up/down/left/right can affect gain/strength/quality by a few dBm.

Thanks, antenna is on the way!

Seems like pfSense isn't getting on with bridge mode. Everytime I reboot the router, interface, or just unplug the cable between pfSense and the router pfSense broadcasts a DHCP request, the router responds on its internal IP (192.168.1.2) and pfSense gets a local IP address.

 

[Caged]

Have you got a switch you can put in between the router and the pfSense appliance? This will stop it seeing the interface state change so it won't request a DHCP address.

 

[Psy-Blade]

Have you got a switch you can put in between the router and the pfSense appliance? This will stop it seeing the interface state change so it won't request a DHCP address.

So this might be my lack of understanding but don't I want pfSense to request a DHCP address - that request should be bridged by the 5G 'modem' to the ISP?

 

[Caged]

I'd be inclined to point the finger at the 5G router here, it should be passing the address it gets from the network through to the pfSense box, and the only way to do this is with DHCP. If it's issuing LAN addresses then something is wrong with the way it's configured or there's a bug.

This is how my MikroTik router in LTE passthrough mode presents that 'public' (CGNAT) IP to a firewall - a DHCP lease that renews every 30s.



Putting a switch there would at least allow you to reboot the router without pfSense requesting a new IP as soon as the link comes back up.

 

[Psy-Blade]

Ok, ignore the previous posts, I plugged a laptop in and it got the external IP address. Looks like a pfSense issue!

 

[Kam89]

I don’t think anyone is using a 5G router outdoors. External antennae certainly (that’s all that needs to be outside) and mobile phone handsets are generally what people are using for ‘outdoors’ speed testing.

Tbh i didn't think they were initially lol... I should have researched more and maybe got a 5g external antenna.

 

[Caged]

Ok, ignore the previous posts, I plugged a laptop in and it got the external IP address. Looks like a pfSense issue!

It's possible that the device boots and hands out an address in the private subnet before the 5G connection comes up, at which point it then switches to bridge mode. It's not really a pfSense problem - it's asking for an IP address and is being given one. A better way for the 5G router to function when in bridge mode would be to only bring the DHCP server online once the 5G connection had been established.

What might be worth trying is ticking the "advanced configuration" box on the interface and then putting the LAN IP of your 5G router in the "reject leases from" box. Just double check that the lease comes from a different place when the passthrough is active vs. when it isn't - you can run ipconfig /all on your laptop to see where the lease has come from.

 

[Psy-Blade]

It's possible that the device boots and hands out an address in the private subnet before the 5G connection comes up, at which point it then switches to bridge mode. It's not really a pfSense problem - it's asking for an IP address and is being given one. A better way for the 5G router to function when in bridge mode would be to only bring the DHCP server online once the 5G connection had been established.

What might be worth trying is ticking the "advanced configuration" box on the interface and then putting the LAN IP of your 5G router in the "reject leases from" box. Just double check that the lease comes from a different place when the passthrough is active vs. when it isn't - you can run ipconfig /all on your laptop to see where the lease has come from.

I've disable the internal DHCP service on the 5g router, but if it's buggy this may be true however... I think I found the issue.

When the interface comes up pfSense is sending a DHCP request with a preferred IP. I can see in the logs that the ISP's DHCP server is responding and declining the request:
Mar 7 14:29:01 dhclient 4993 DHCPREQUEST on hn1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Mar 7 14:29:01 dhclient 4993 DHCPNAK from 94.196.144.198

Not sure why pfSense is sending out a request with a preferred IP - at least my guess is that is why the DHCP server is declining the request. Could be something else. Anyway I don't want to hijack this thread I'll edit this comment with a new threat soon.

 

[Psy-Blade]

So.. the 5g antenna arrived at least one thing is going well… accept there’s no difference in signal when I attach it!

I’ve switched on the external antenna via the hidden page but I’m still stuck on 4G now that the router is inside. Mounted the antenna in the same place as where the router was outside. Any ideas?

 

[Firegod]

@Firegod is most certainly using an out door router.

Thanks mate. Yes External router user here. *waves*

@Kam89 the unit is all ready weatherproof. So it is storm tested to certain windspeeds (~193 KM/h). Can tolerate various temperature swings (-40ºC to 60ºC). And is all water tight - IP68 rated.

It had a pretty rough start as well to life - it contented with the 3 storms that battered us in the last 3 months (we had wind speeds over 100MPH). It's tolerated some pretty heavy rain during that time. And last few days it has had a taste of -5ºC chilly mornings.

Working like a charm

 

[Psy-Blade]

Thanks mate. Yes External router user here. *waves*

Which external router is it? I am tempted so that I can just run ethernet inside.

 

[Firegod]

Which external router is it? I am tempted so that I can just run ethernet inside.

Zyxel NR7101.

 

[Kam89]

https://imgur.com/a/4FNNiLN

edit - I give up with the image tag!

Innovative. Have you noticed a big difference in stability and speeds for both DL/UL?

Has it also stood the test of the British weather?

Thanks!