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NSR: 5G modems

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Any experience of these? I’m in the slightly unusual situation of having good 4g reception in my flat (and claimed good 5G coverage although I haven’t tested it) but pretty bad broadband. No immediate prospect of fibre being available to me.

Would be using for streaming, home office stuff.

Cheers all
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@Arno, I use a 4G modem (from Three) and get a reliable 30Mb, peaking at 75Mb. Works fine for everything - work (quite intensive since all our systems are cloud, and I have streaming data etc.), zoom, 4K TV etc.

I also have a TP-Link load-sharing (not really a true load-balancer despite what it calls itself) router that shuffles load between landline and 4G if necessary, but usually I go straight onto the 4G router.

It's very cheap (£17/month from memory), I can take it on hols (free roaming) and works well. I would upgrade to 5G except Three wants about £150 for the upgrade as I'm still in a 24month contract.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@Arno, IIRC @admin has played with 5G gear. You'll want to put the antennas outside. Walls aren't good for it.
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 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
@HutToHut, hmm, I will await his comments. We have quite thick walls here. OTOH 4g seems fine so not sure if that penetrates better?@snowdave, thanks. I use my phone as a hotspot for some stuff and it works quite well but want something a bit more permanent
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
We've been using a lot of cell connections at work instead of broadband for small sites lately. Generally I'd say it is much more viable than it once was, but mileage definately varies. It's definately worth to avoiding metal objects - e.g. don't place it inside a metal cabinet. In principle outdoors is better, however this isn't always the case, we had a case recently where we improved performance by migrating from an external hi gain antenna to an internal paddle antenna - counter intuitive, but the external antenna was allowing the equipment to associate to a cell much further away and getting worse speed.
https://opencellid.org is a useful tool to identity local cells, and you can map the MNC code to find the operator at https://mcc-mnc-list.com. This may help you with which provider to use and where best to place the equipment (line of sight / minimum obstructions should give best performance). It's definately worth testing with a phone, or maybe grab a PAYG SIM for your chosen provider to test before comitting to a contract.

EDIT: Just to add that opencellid doesn't yet have 5G (NR) Cells listed, but does have 4G (LTE). It can still be useful though to identify cell sites which may be upgraded.
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 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
Arno wrote:
@HutToHut, hmm, I will await his comments. We have quite thick walls here. OTOH 4g seems fine so not sure if that penetrates better?@snowdave, thanks. I use my phone as a hotspot for some stuff and it works quite well but want something a bit more permanent
5G in Europe operates mostly in the N78 band at 3.4-3.7GHz and is certainly more attenuated by walls than 4G, which operates mostly in the 2.1GHz range. An outside antenna worth considering. You can expect to see speeds vary hugely, but can theoretically get up to about 1Gb*. All depends on how much spectrum the operator has bought and how much he is prepared to give you, and how strong the signal is where you live.

* I get 220Mb on LTE with O2 here in MUC!
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
This is good www.cellmapper.net/map for 4G and 5G. You can find your cells, masts and calculate the theoretical speeds.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Thanks all, I’m giving it a whirl. There’s a 14 day cooling off period to if it doesn’t work or is more trouble than it’s worth, I can get out of the contract.

The claimed speed in my area is up to 850mbps, compared with my broadband which claims up to 18mbps but is more like 10 in practice. I can still watch Netflix ok on this when it’s not cutting out so hopefully the 5g will be more consistent

Will report back
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 You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
So the Vodafone gigahub arrived a couple of days ago. Getting pretty steady 60-80 mbps which clearly isn't full 5G capacity, but it's much better than the 4G I can get in my flat (about 20 mbps) which in turn is much better than the wired broadband (10mbps or so.)

I use a power line network and do seem to lose a lot of speed from the front of my flat where the modem lives (that's the only place I can get decent 5G reception) and the back of the flat. Any ideas on how to improve that? I can run Netflix etc fine at the back but it would be nice to get as much benefit of 5G as possible throughout my flat
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Arno wrote:
I use a power line network and do seem to lose a lot of speed from the front of my flat where the modem lives (that's the only place I can get decent 5G reception) and the back of the flat. Any ideas on how to improve that?

Use proper Cat 5 Ethernet cables instead of the power line stuff.
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
@rjs, more hassle than I’m up for really. If that’s the only option I’ll probably just have to lump it
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Arno wrote:
I use a power line network and do seem to lose a lot of speed from the front of my flat where the modem lives (that's the only place I can get decent 5G reception) and the back of the flat. Any ideas on how to improve that? I can run Netflix etc fine at the back but it would be nice to get as much benefit of 5G as possible throughout my flat


If your power line adator has an app or webpage see what speed it is reporting, and how that compares to the maximum for that model. Try to avoid using extension leads. Try to use the same ring main if you can. Also, if you have an app see which power line adaptors are connected to your network. I found that mine had linked in one of the neighbours and I was getting a DHCP address from their network periodically (and then getting poor speed). I fixed that by changing the default power line network name from the default.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@Tubaski, cheers, I don’t use extension cables but will give the other tips a try
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Arno, powerline adapters can also be thrown by certain chargers/motors. I have a CPL link twixt my office and the main router and it's signal varies RAG for no apparent reason. It could of course be external interference.

But as my best ever ADSL speed is 12Mbps a decrease in CPL performance from a theoretical 500Mbps max isn't the bottleneck.

We have just acquired a Bouygues 4G box for a newly acquired studio and it's looking pretty good at 30-50 Mbps ... (I know, it's France and YMMV)
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