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

Ok, I’m trying the Zyxel to begin with. It should be fine, the mast is about 500m away, line of sight. Is there a site where I can check all the masts in my area and who uses what etc? I’ve been googling but seem to be directed towards apps or ofcom which hasn’t proved too fruitful as of yet.
 
Kol said:
Ok, I’m trying the Zyxel to begin with. It should be fine, the mast is about 500m away, line of sight. Is there a site where I can check all the masts in my area and who uses what etc? I’ve been googling but seem to be directed towards apps or ofcom which hasn’t proved too fruitful as of yet.
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Give https://www.cellmapper.net a go. Its what I used to find the masts in my area. Cannot vouch for the accuracy thouogh but it looks comprehensive.
 
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Kol said:
Ok, I’m trying the Zyxel to begin with. It should be fine, the mast is about 500m away, line of sight. Is there a site where I can check all the masts in my area and who uses what etc? I’ve been googling but seem to be directed towards apps or ofcom which hasn’t proved too fruitful as of yet.
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Cool. I have both the NR5101 and NR7101 so any questions just ask.
 
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Journey said:
In case anyone is looking for a cheap unlimited 5G deal, Three have their data only 5G SIM down to £5pm (24m contract) - it is a buiness deal but you can just apply as a sole trader using your name as the business.


Still on my £3 deal for a few more months, so hoping it will be around again then! :)
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What is the legality of doing this? What is the worst that could happen if you get a sim and they decide you are not a business?

Edit. Looks like the £5 business plan is actually £6 because they do add VAT. So you are not defrauding the Tax man.
 
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I went ahead and ordered a 3 5G Buisness sim. £6 a month. I just registered as a sole trader and it went through no questions asked.

My plan is to stick the sim in my phone and test the speed. If it is good keep the sim and buy a proper router and if not just cancel the sim within the 14 day initial period.

I only seem to be able to get 4G in my area. Are there any recommended cheap 4G routers people have used? The mobile mast is about 1 mile away, on top of a hill which I can see from my Window. I am getting up to 160mb/s on EE so hopefully 3 will be similar.
 
lovelyhead said:
I went ahead and ordered a 3 5G Buisness sim. £6 a month. I just registered as a sole trader and it went through no questions asked.

My plan is to stick the sim in my phone and test the speed. If it is good keep the sim and buy a proper router and if not just cancel the sim within the 14 day initial period.

I only seem to be able to get 4G in my area. Are there any recommended cheap 4G routers people have used? The mobile mast is about 1 mile away, on top of a hill which I can see from my Window. I am getting up to 160mb/s on EE so hopefully 3 will be similar.
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I have the same issue and went with EE. I bought a Huawei B535 4G Router for less than £100 which has been superb. Get the one with the bunny rabbit antennas, makes a difference . I then added a directional outdoor aerial which improved stability and speed but I was in a difficult area for 4g. If you have a strong 4g signal then you dont need it.

(I got mine from the rainforest place and got a one month payg sim from all the suppliers and tried them all before settling on EE for us. I figured if none of them were viable I would just return the router ;)).

One other tip, move the router around the house. Putting it in the window where you can see the transmitter aerial "should" in my head be the best and fastest signal. That isnt always the case and you might find the other side of the room works better (soemthing to do with metal frames around window openings messing with the signal and also signal bouncing off walls in the corner of a room improving things.
 
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Greebo said:
I have the same issue and went with EE. I bought a Huawei B535 4G Router for less than £100 which has been superb. Get the one with the bunny rabbit antennas, makes a difference . I then added a directional outdoor aerial which improved stability and speed but I was in a difficult area for 4g. If you have a strong 4g signal then you dont need it.

(I got mine from the rainforest place and got a one month payg sim from all the suppliers and tried them all before settling on EE for us. I figured if none of them were viable I would just return the router ;)).

One other tip, move the router around the house. Putting it in the window where you can see the transmitter aerial "should" in my head be the best and fastest signal. That isnt always the case and you might find the other side of the room works better (soemthing to do with metal frames around window openings messing with the signal and also signal bouncing off walls in the corner of a room improving things.
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Thanks for the tips.

This could be a bit of a gamechanger if it works. The cheapest home broadband we can get for 80mb/s is £22 a month with a 2 year contract. If we can get similar speeds (faster would be a bonus) for only £6 per month that will be a saving of £384 over the two years.
 
Yeah it wasn't so much cost for us as EE was £30 per mth for unlimited sim but we could get 30-40Mb in an evening at peak and 150Mb during off peak on 4g compared with 12Mb via landline. Tidied us over for a year or two until we got FTTH last mth and a proper 1gb.
 
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lovelyhead said:
What is the legality of doing this? What is the worst that could happen if you get a sim and they decide you are not a business?

Edit. Looks like the £5 business plan is actually £6 because they do add VAT. So you are not defrauding the Tax man.
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Legality? Wouldn't even worry about it full stop.

Mine rolled over at £2.50 + VAT again, so well happy with that, I'll be keeping all of them at that price for the foreseeable future. :)
 
Bah. Looks like something has died on my NR7101. It is just over 2 years old and frustratingly, 1 month out of warranty. :( I've rasied a support ticket for an RMA/Replacement but not holding my breath.

However in case it is a simple fix, I've took a punt and bought a new Zyxel POE12-30W 2.5-Gigabit injector. The original one that came with the unit was actually an EU molded plug all in one jobby, so at least this way it'll have a UK plug and I won't need an adapter. Gamble at ~£40 but better than splashing out a ten times that amount on a new device. Fingers crossed.

Ironically the NR5101 backup router which is on the floor in the loft (not receiving full signal) is seeing better speeds on EE than Smarty on the outside NR7101....! :eek:

Speedtest.jpg
 
lovelyhead said:
Talkmobile have a deal for £16 per month for unlimited data and they use the Vodafone network. I can't vouch for the quality of service or anything though.
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Yea, I switched from Voxi to Talkmobile £16 unlimited recently. Initially to use in a 5G router which worked great. In the end I kept the sim and transferred my number as it was just the same.

I did some speed tests of 5g on my iPhone - same speeds for both, usually around 300mbps down and 100mbps up at the same location. Sometimes a bit more sometimes a bit less.
 
Firegod said:
Bah. Looks like something has died on my NR7101. It is just over 2 years old and frustratingly, 1 month out of warranty. :( I've rasied a support ticket for an RMA/Replacement but not holding my breath.
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I've always had good CS with them for switches etc. so hopefully you'll get the same level of service. No other PoE devices to test in the house?
 
Journey said:
I've always had good CS with them for switches etc. so hopefully you'll get the same level of service. No other PoE devices to test in the house?
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Seems like the good customer service has put me in a conundrum. lol :D So they basically just replied with RMA details straight away and they've put a "Y" as to being in warranty still, and are using the "professional" type service which is to ship me out a replacement within 10 business days and includes a free returns label for the defective device. Which is awesome, but, I've bought the POE injector to test which arrives today. D'oh. I didn't think they'd be so efficient in their response.

So I'm not going to open the POE injector. I'll wait until the new unit arrives (as I did ask for an FWA710 as a replacement) and see what's what. I might keep the POE injector as it is the 2.5GB model which if I were to get an FWA710 would be compatible. We shall see how this pans out. If it is just an NR7101 I can return the POE injector for a refund within 14 days (unopened).

Thanks Zyxel!
 
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