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5G Router - relocated to the UK - renting in a new built house - no internet

Updates:
I got the NR5103E and have tried the following sims (North Finchley):
Sims4home (O2) - came with the device - not even good for simple browsing, less than 1Mbps for up and down (NR5G-NSA, but actually the device says it's only connected to 4G).
Smarty (Three) - better then O2, around 10Mbps/1Mbps, still not good enough for work (LTE-A).
Lyca (EE) - better with 20Mbps/3Mbps, but unstable and again not good enough for work.
Voxi (Vodafone) - 15Mbps/1Mbps, seems more stable but another one that is not good enough for work.

I have a Lebara sim, with iPhone 12 Pro Max, outside the door in specific directions I'm getting 5G signal with around 180Mbps/20Mbps.
My wife with iPhone 15 is getting 5G inside the house with 100Mbps/7Mbps.

I put the external antennas that came with the device, but there isn't much difference with and without them.

Any help here will be grateful.
 
Updates:
I got the NR5103E and have tried the following sims (North Finchley):
Sims4home (O2) - came with the device - not even good for simple browsing, less than 1Mbps for up and down (NR5G-NSA, but actually the device says it's only connected to 4G).
Smarty (Three) - better then O2, around 10Mbps/1Mbps, still not good enough for work (LTE-A).
Lyca (EE) - better with 20Mbps/3Mbps, but unstable and again not good enough for work.
Voxi (Vodafone) - 15Mbps/1Mbps, seems more stable but another one that is not good enough for work.

I have a Lebara sim, with iPhone 12 Pro Max, outside the door in specific directions I'm getting 5G signal with around 180Mbps/20Mbps.
My wife with iPhone 15 is getting 5G inside the house with 100Mbps/7Mbps.

I put the external antennas that came with the device, but there isn't much difference with and without them.

Any help here will be grateful.

Try the Lebara sim
 
Have you got access to the loft space? If you do try taking it up in the loft and get it up as high as possible. The loft is almost as good as putting it outside so you should get a better signal there. You'll also find if you can place it centrally in the loft it will cover your home really well with WiFi. WiFi tends to go through the ceiling and floor a lot easier than it does through the walls.
 
Try the Lebara sim
But Lebara is Vodafone as well, and according to the spreadsheet someone is maintaining here it’s capped, so maybe I’m missing something but sub companies under the same major network shouldn’t have such a big differences, right?
 
Have you got access to the loft space? If you do try taking it up in the loft and get it up as high as possible. The loft is almost as good as putting it outside so you should get a better signal there. You'll also find if you can place it centrally in the loft it will cover your home really well with WiFi. WiFi tends to go through the ceiling and floor a lot easier than it does through the walls.
No loft space, I need to think if there is a space high enough that I can leverage for that.
 
But Lebara is Vodafone as well, and according to the spreadsheet someone is maintaining here it’s capped, so maybe I’m missing something but sub companies under the same major network shouldn’t have such a big differences, right?

I was thinking if your Voxi sim was so bad but your Lebara sim was so good, then switch them and see if there is a change.
 
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No loft space, I need to think if there is a space high enough that I can leverage for that.
You could possibly put the router outside. Put it into a waterproof plastic box and then power it with POE. Just use 2 x gigabit POE injectors to do it, one to inject the power with its own psu and the other one the other way round with a male to male barrel adapter on it to power the router up. Mikrotik do some nice gigabit POE adapters a seller on eBay was selling them really cheap.
 
My wife with iPhone 15 is getting 5G inside the house with 100Mbps/7Mbps.
on which network? have you tried the 5G modem in the same location on the same network? Usually the higher up the better, like in your loft. You could also look at locking the bands/cell but you'd have to get it to join that one first to lock it to that.
Best thing you can do is try the modem in as many places as possible. Usually near windows is good.
 
on which network? have you tried the 5G modem in the same location on the same network? Usually the higher up the better, like in your loft. You could also look at locking the bands/cell but you'd have to get it to join that one first to lock it to that.
Best thing you can do is try the modem in as many places as possible. Usually near windows is good.
Vodafone as well.

I experimented with the router location and found a 5G sweet spot on the freezer, near a rooflight window - 100Mbps/2Mbps.

If I open the window and hang the router as far as I can, I get 280Mbps/10Mbps.

I have ordered the Poynting 4x4 Omni antenna, and I am going to attach it to the window from the inside, hopefully it will do the trick.

I don’t understand why the upload speed is so low, even when the download speed is good?
 
Vodafone as well.

I experimented with the router location and found a 5G sweet spot on the freezer, near a rooflight window - 100Mbps/2Mbps.

If I open the window and hang the router as far as I can, I get 280Mbps/10Mbps.

I have ordered the Poynting 4x4 Omni antenna, and I am going to attach it to the window from the inside, hopefully it will do the trick.

I don’t understand why the upload speed is so low, even when the download speed is good?
For the same money you could have got a ZTE MC7010 outdoor router off ebay, given you more flexibility and easier to pull cables.

Anyway, the poor upload speed is - off the top of my head - likely because you do not have line of sight (-ish) to the mast, so the router:
1) uses a low & slow band (b20?) - yes, 4G is used for uploads - and
2) 4G/5G ferquencies work well with reflections off buildings - it's how the signal reaches you, but your router doesn't really have enough power to send a signal that can do that reliably and still reach the mast properly.

Go to cellmapper.net, put your address in and search Vodafone masts, see which bands are available, most often then not it will be LTE band1 and band20, try to unselect band20 in the router, forcing it to lock on to band1 - if the signal is not really dead/faint on this band it may help you get better speeds.

All of the above is "imho" and what I would try, not an expert in any way, shape or form.
 
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For the same money you could have got a ZTE MC7010 outdoor router off ebay, given you more flexibility and easier to pull cables.

Anyway, the poor upload speed is - off the top of my head - likely because you do not have line of sight (-ish) to the mast, so the router:
1) uses a low & slow band (b20?) - yes, 4G is used for uploads - and
2) 4G/5G ferquencies work well with reflections off buildings - it's how the signal reaches you, but your router doesn't really have enough power to send a signal that can do that reliably and still reach the mast properly.

Go to cellmapper.net, put your address in and search Vodafone masts, see which bands are available, most often then not it will be LTE band1 and band20, try to unselect band20 in the router, forcing it to lock on to band1 - if the signal is not really dead/faint on this band it may help you get better speeds.

All of the above is "imho" and what I would try, not an expert in any way, shape or form.
I wish I have done more research, watching the ZTE MC7010 installation now...

I have installed the Poynting 4x4 Omni antenna from the inside on the skylights window (hope it will holds), now I'm getting 315Mbps/5Mbps.

By the way after some experiments, I actually locked the band to n78 and b20, that gave me the best results.

Now I need to see what I can do with all those cables so it will look better.

Note that since we both work in tech and from home, I don't care to spend more to get more since it's critical to us, I just couldn't believed this is going to be such an issue.

Update: after changing the cell antenna connections to the Poynting (apparently it seems the order does matter) and playing with the different bands, this combo gave me the best stable results (but not the fastest unfortunately):
Port4(top): Cell1 Main
Pot3: Cell1 Div
Port2: Cell2 Main
Port1: Cell1 Div
B8 + N1
50Mbps/20Mbps

If I choose n78 I get much better speeds, but the upload is much lower.
 
Last edited:
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