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

[WJA96]

Did your speeds return to normal?

I have the same problem right now. ZTE MC501A, speeds went from ~800mbit to 70mbit. Connected to the same bands and signal strength is still good (-79).

edit: Just stood outside with a mobile and easily got 800mbit+... time to replace this router I think.

edit2: Nevermind, for some reason my firewall had switched the lan port to 100mbit .

Which does raise another question about upgrading to a 2.5gbit router... and associated LAN components.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record but no-one in their right mind should voluntarily be using ZTE equipment. They are genuinely operated and controlled by the Chinese Army and they routinely test positive for hidden back doors and vulnerable-by-design features.

In short they are absolutely what Huawei are accused of being except with ZTE it’s all true. ZTE were the first Chinese company banned by the U.S. as a danger to national security and they really are not a vendor whose equipment you want to pass any data through.

 

[Psy-Blade]

I don’t want to sound like a broken record but no-one in their right mind should voluntarily be using ZTE equipment. They are genuinely operated and controlled by the Chinese Army and they routinely test positive for hidden back doors and vulnerable-by-design features.

In short they are absolutely what Huawei are accused of being except with ZTE it’s all true. ZTE were the first Chinese company banned by the U.S. as a danger to national security and they really are not a vendor whose equipment you want to pass any data through.

I think there's some valid points here, but when a major ISP provides them as default gear there's not a lot the majority of users can do.

For me the ZTE/5G is a second line and only certain traffic is routed down it (Netflix, Steam, Xbox Downloads etc). Both routers sit behind a firewall and DNS is handled by AdGuard over HTTPS, so the impact is minimal.

I had my eye on the Zyxel 7101 however just noticed it only has a gigabit ethernet so might not be worth the investment for future proofing.

 

[Firegod]

I had my eye on the Zyxel 7101 however just noticed it only has a gigabit ethernet so might not be worth the investment for future proofing.

I believe there are a few new models coming soon so probably best holding off - the NR7501 has a 2.5G POE port.

 

[WJA96]

I think there's some valid points here, but when a major ISP provides them as default gear there's not a lot the majority of users can do.

For me the ZTE/5G is a second line and only certain traffic is routed down it (Netflix, Steam, Xbox Downloads etc). Both routers sit behind a firewall and DNS is handled by AdGuard over HTTPS, so the impact is minimal.

I had my eye on the Zyxel 7101 however just noticed it only has a gigabit ethernet so might not be worth the investment for future proofing.

When you say they’re behind a firewall, you mean the ZTE back door is inside your firewall or in a DMZ outside the firewall?

 

[Psy-Blade]

When you say they’re behind a firewall, you mean the ZTE back door is inside your firewall or in a DMZ outside the firewall?

Bad wording on my part - the ZTE is in bridge mode on the WAN side of the firewall.

 

[Journey]

I believe there are a few new models coming soon so probably best holding off - the NR7501 has a 2.5G POE port.

This is what I need, as I am maxing out the 1GbE on my current modem, and can easily see 1200Mbps+ via wireless so I am missing out on a good chunk of bandwidth. Still have not decided on what antenna setup to go for (external) as keep changing plans, such is life.

 

[Psy-Blade]

I believe there are a few new models coming soon so probably best holding off - the NR7501 has a 2.5G POE port.

That sounds perfect. I had found an 'industrial' with 2.5gbe but that would mean routing the antenna outside. I'll wait for this.

This is what I need, as I am maxing out the 1GbE on my current modem, and can easily see 1200Mbps+ via wireless so I am missing out on a good chunk of bandwidth. Still have not decided on what antenna setup to go for (external) as keep changing plans, such is life.

Tell me about it, my ZTE is still mounted to a mast in an electrical box almost a year later now...

 

[ChrisD.]

I don’t want to sound like a broken record but no-one in their right mind should voluntarily be using ZTE equipment. They are genuinely operated and controlled by the Chinese Army and they routinely test positive for hidden back doors and vulnerable-by-design features.

In short they are absolutely what Huawei are accused of being except with ZTE it’s all true. ZTE were the first Chinese company banned by the U.S. as a danger to national security and they really are not a vendor whose equipment you want to pass any data through.

People on this forum will buy hideous routers with antennas the size of a donkeys **** over looking into the security history of a vendor.

 

[WJA96]

That seems a bit harsh. Possibly true, still harsh.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

People on this forum will buy hideous routers with antennas the size of a donkeys **** over looking into the security history of a vendor.

Me not being very good with this stuff can you explain like I'm 5 years old?
If I was to have a ZTE 5G modem, which there's no chance I'll be having any, what is the worst scenario of having one?
Could the Chinese military get hold of my Granny Porn on my NAS?

 

[Caged]

The point is that nobody knows. You're putting a device that you have to trust - because it sits between your LAN and WAN and all your internet traffic passes through it - into your home. You have to trust the companies building the devices you use, and if you can't then you need to stop using them. It would be trivial for a zero-day Windows bug to be exploited via a firmware update to redirect DNS requests for common sites to one that drops malware onto your device. Is it likely? Probably not. But how sure are you?

 

[WJA96]

Me not being very good with this stuff can you explain like I'm 5 years old?
If I was to have a ZTE 5G modem, which there's no chance I'll be having any, what is the worst scenario of having one?
Could the Chinese military get hold of my Granny Porn on my NAS?

Yes, and all your passwords and the hashed encryption keys for your online banking and they can also turn your system off remotely. They basically have a back door into the router software and it’s generally not just your external traffic that goes through your router, all your internal traffic goes through it as well. So they potentially have everything.

Suppose they decide to start a cyber-attack on the UK. The UK can close off traffic from geographical locations outside the UK but you’re inside the UK so they can stage attacks of your router (and all the other routers they control).

In some ways it’s not a big deal, but if they decide to get nasty, potentially anyone with ZTE gear has a fifth columnist hooked up to their network.

 

[WxM_IeuaN]

I'm guessing your in or near Brecon the same as me. I was in contact with Three last week regarding the 5G issue as their coverage checker was showing 5G in the area and my phone was picking up what I thought was 5G but later found out was just LTE-A but Samsung shows that as 5G, they confirmed full 5G was being installed and should be done by today. I also noticed that it was up and running yesterday but at the time of writing this post they have switched it off again. The highest speed I have got on my samsung s22 with the 5G was 580 down and 29 up that was parked in a layby about 500m from the mast, at home my nr5103e managed 480 down and 34 up that's without a clear line of sight and about a mile away. The highest I have got on 4+ on the router was 336 down and 40 up at 5am. I have bought a blue spot 5g antenna to stick on the roof so will see what difference that makes.

Have you tried out the antenna yet? How did you get on?

 

[macuk83]

Have you tried out the antenna yet? How did you get on?

No i sent it back and got a Poynting XPOL-1-5G V2 4x4 instead, I haven't set it up yet. I am going to take the router apart and install some ufl to sma connectors as the external antenna ports are crap. I got rid of the Bluespot as I realised I would need 2 of them so got the Poynting for a fraction more than what I paid for the Bluespot. Just gotta work out what each internal antenna does.

 

[Troop]

No i sent it back and got a Poynting XPOL-1-5G V2 4x4 instead, I haven't set it up yet. I am going to take the router apart and install some ufl to sma connectors as the external antenna ports are crap. I got rid of the Bluespot as I realised I would need 2 of them so got the Poynting for a fraction more than what I paid for the Bluespot. Just gotta work out what each internal antenna does.

Someone posted on Ispreview that the bottom two ts9 are the 5G ones. (zyxel NR5103E)

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[Troop]

Borrowed a Three 5G router to see if it is worth swapping over to 5G from 4G+
Bit faster download, slower upload.

Stats from the 5G part of the router, good/bad?

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

No i sent it back and got a Poynting XPOL-1-5G V2 4x4 instead, I haven't set it up yet. I am going to take the router apart and install some ufl to sma connectors as the external antenna ports are crap. I got rid of the Bluespot as I realised I would need 2 of them so got the Poynting for a fraction more than what I paid for the Bluespot. Just gotta work out what each internal antenna does.

The MIL lives in Brecon (outskirts) and has just moved house (still within Brecon area). We thought she could have initially got FTTP/FTTC but turns out not so she has been waiting to get a 4G system installed instead.

Is 5G now reliably on offer in Brecon? I remember going up about 3-4 weeks ago and was getting sporadic 5G signal on my mobile but wasnt aware it was being more widely rolled out.

The company doing the install haven't done anything yet but she was given the greenlight for the gov funding to pay for the kit and install so i'm just wondering whether I should ask the company to fit 5G kit rather than 4G? Or is it going to be a case of that the 4G reliability, signal and speed is going to get even better so just stick to that (just had a look and 5G kit is quite a bit more costly than 4G).

 

[macuk83]

The MIL lives in Brecon (outskirts) and has just moved house (still within Brecon area). We thought she could have initially got FTTP/FTTC but turns out not so she has been waiting to get a 4G system installed instead.

Is 5G now reliably on offer in Brecon? I remember going up about 3-4 weeks ago and was getting sporadic 5G signal on my mobile but wasnt aware it was being more widely rolled out.

The company doing the install haven't done anything yet but she was given the greenlight for the gov funding to pay for the kit and install so i'm just wondering whether I should ask the company to fit 5G kit rather than 4G? Or is it going to be a case of that the 4G reliability, signal and speed is going to get even better so just stick to that (just had a look and 5G kit is quite a bit more costly than 4G).

There is 5g coverage with Three and EE in Brecon. The Three coverage checker is an absolute mess atm, sometimes it shows 5G coverage and sometimes says there is no 5G, the fastest speed I have got on my Samsung S22 is 550down and 30up on the 5G.

 

[WJA96]

Speed isn’t everything. I would much rather have a rock-solid 50/30Mbps 4G connection than a flaky 500/30 5G connection that conked out every time it rained.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

Speed isn’t everything. I would much rather have a rock-solid 50/30Mbps 4G connection than a flaky 500/30 5G connection that conked out every time it rained.

I'd agree to be fair. But surely if 5G is in the area there should be much more stable 4G+ connections available?