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Cellmapper Questions - Does my Tower have 5G?

nimdy

Pro Member
I can't work out from Cellmapper if my tower has 5G on the Three network. It's labeled 10601 and I'm around 500m away from the tower but there are tall trees between me and it. I want to see if 5G home broadband from three (or buy the modem outright and get a SMARTY SIM) is feasible in this area. I don't get 5G on my phone (Pixel 5) in the house but do when I'm out on a dog walk connected to nearby towers. Is it just bad luck that my phone latches on to a tower that doesn't support 5G?
 
Cellmapper cannot tell you whether the Masts are Transmitting 5G only 2, 3, 4G, this because the 5G Signal currently hangs off the 4G Network (NR NSA)
 
As its Three, you can usually say if there is 5G (or not) as there'll be some smaller active antennas present for n78. If there aren't then almost certain there won't be 5G, or at least not the 'fast' 5G that you'd likely want for home broadband use
 
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Cellmapper cannot tell you whether the Masts are Transmitting 5G only 2, 3, 4G, this because the 5G Signal currently hangs off the 4G Network (NR NSA)
Thanks, that makes sense. The first thing I filtered for was Three masts for 5G and got nothing, anywhere!
 
As its Three, you can usually say if there is 5G (or not) as there'll be some smaller active antennas present for n78. If there aren't then almost certain there won't be 5G, or at least not the 'fast' 5G that you'd likely want for home broadband use
Do you mean from looking at the tower itself, or something I can see on the cell data in Cellmapper? Sorry I usually pick up all things tech quite easily, but LTE frequencies and bandwidths throw me.

I get 50meg FTTC at the moment, so I'm not on a super slow connection, but I want to find something that can give me a speed bump as the kids get older and do more streaming and homework. I'd go with something like Virgin, but upload speed is important to me too. It seems crazy that some Virgin products are 100meg down and 2 up! I get 17 on my FTTC connection, so want to get at least that on an alternative.
 
What does the Three coverage map look like for your location?
What does the Three coverage map look like for your location?
'Outdoor only' for my actual postcode. The 'Outdoor and indoor' areas look to be the radiation of the other two masts in and around town, but there isn't the same patch for the mast my phone latches on to at home. I guess that may be my decider.

Still considering getting a 5G modem to test with before I commit to something longer term.
 
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I'm outside of all 5G coverage according to charts (inc outdoor), but bought a 5G hub and can get varying degrees of 5G reception from EE, 3 and Vodafone on some windowsills.
 
Do you mean from looking at the tower itself, or something I can see on the cell data in Cellmapper? Sorry I usually pick up all things tech quite easily, but LTE frequencies and bandwidths throw me.

I get 50meg FTTC at the moment, so I'm not on a super slow connection, but I want to find something that can give me a speed bump as the kids get older and do more streaming and homework. I'd go with something like Virgin, but upload speed is important to me too. It seems crazy that some Virgin products are 100meg down and 2 up! I get 17 on my FTTC connection, so want to get at least that on an alternative.
Yes, the antennas on the actual tower - take a photo of it and share it here and someone will confirm
 
Here it is. Not really looked at it in much detail. The pole itself is quite bland. Maybe the cabinets give some clues?

Screenshot_20230414_083932_Gallery.webp

Wonder if this is it, band 3 and 20 if I have the correct mast.
Looks like a Vodafone monopole but selecting Vodafone it disappears from Cellmapper. :giggle:

Looks like No 5G unfortunately nimdy. :(

My detective work will probably be completely wrong, but hey, at least I tried. 😁
 
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@The Wee Bear nimdy does say its 10601 in their first post, so I think you're right ;)

Its a classic Phase 5 streetworks site, and is very more than likely to have only B3+20 (so no 5G), it might not even have B1 re-farmed yet either.

It also doesn't have a GPS antenna sticking out the side/top so it wont be EN-DC enabled either and therefore it can't act as the 4G anchor for a 5G connection (5G from another site).

As for the original question, if that site is the 'default' connected then it should be possible, providing the router hardware allows, to force using band-locking to connect to a more distant B1 (North West of Campton village https://goo.gl/maps/sa5Sb3dSU6fC1Jct7, or South East of Shefford https://goo.gl/maps/mS5FMaBcLXRwbVZJA) or B28 site (South of RAF Henlow https://goo.gl/maps/q8y8PceWrT1Pjy7F9). But none of that guarantees a 5G connection.

My guess would be that only the RAF Henlow site would have 5G of those three, as it has B28 logged on cellmapper and the others don't, though North West of Campton also seems to have B32, so that might perform quite well even without 5G. New photos of the sites would help try identify the antennas - some streetview pictures aren't newer than 2009!
 
@The Wee Bear nimdy does say its 10601 in their first post, so I think you're right ;)

Its a classic Phase 5 streetworks site, and is very more than likely to have only B3+20 (so no 5G), it might not even have B1 re-farmed yet either.

It also doesn't have a GPS antenna sticking out the side/top so it wont be EN-DC enabled either and therefore it can't act as the 4G anchor for a 5G connection (5G from another site).

As for the original question, if that site is the 'default' connected then it should be possible, providing the router hardware allows, to force using band-locking to connect to a more distant B1 (North West of Campton village https://goo.gl/maps/sa5Sb3dSU6fC1Jct7, or South East of Shefford https://goo.gl/maps/mS5FMaBcLXRwbVZJA) or B28 site (South of RAF Henlow https://goo.gl/maps/q8y8PceWrT1Pjy7F9). But none of that guarantees a 5G connection.

My guess would be that only the RAF Henlow site would have 5G of those three, as it has B28 logged on cellmapper and the others don't, though North West of Campton also seems to have B32, so that might perform quite well even without 5G. New photos of the sites would help try identify the antennas - some streetview pictures aren't newer than 2009!
I should have gone to SpecSavers Gavin.🤓 :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for that, very informative. I'll get some snaps of the other towers next time I go on a long dog walk.

Would something like a Huawei CPE Pro allow me to lock on to another further away tower?
 
Thanks for that, very informative. I'll get some snaps of the other towers next time I go on a long dog walk.

Would something like a Huawei CPE Pro allow me to lock on to another further away tower?
Huawei CPE's typically only allow band lock, opposed to cell lock, CPE Pro only allows band locking. I don't know off-hand exactly which routers allow cell lock (or on which firmware); I'm sure others will chip in with their knowledge here...

Band lock you set which bands you wish to include/exclude but then your device/network still decides upon the strongest signal from the available ones (i.e. it might not be the one you 'want' it to). Cell lock would allow for specifying the exact cell on a given site to lock to. The downside there is that if that cell was to go offline for some reason you'd likely lose connection as it wouldn't/couldn't automatically search for another site to connect to.
 
Huawei CPE's typically only allow band lock, opposed to cell lock, CPE Pro only allows band locking. I don't know off-hand exactly which routers allow cell lock (or on which firmware); I'm sure others will chip in with their knowledge here...

Band lock you set which bands you wish to include/exclude but then your device/network still decides upon the strongest signal from the available ones (i.e. it might not be the one you 'want' it to). Cell lock would allow for specifying the exact cell on a given site to lock to. The downside there is that if that cell was to go offline for some reason you'd likely lose connection as it wouldn't/couldn't automatically search for another site to connect to.
My ZTE MC801A with T-Mobile firmware allows cell locking via the secret debug menu or the Miononna Java script. It has recently updated to B16 and the feature still works. Without cell locking mine keeps flipping between masts with very different performance. However, as @GavinAshford says, cell IDs sometimes change even when the mast doesn't go offline. I regularly check that cell IDs are up to date.
 
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I've borrowed a CPE Pro 2 from a friend to do some testing before I commit. I've placed it in the front bedroom window pointing vaguely between the Phase 5 pole in town and the one SE of Shefford. I'm getting speeds of 300-400Mbps down which I'm happy with, but the upload barely pushes 3Mbps. Browsing also seems slugish, though I guess I should expect that a little with increased latency on 4G/5G over FTTC.

I've downloaded the app mentioned on another thread. It looks like its latching on to the tower SE of Shefford (eNB ID 6602). Is there anything I can do to improve upload speed?

1681546767043.webp
 
Upload might improve a little if you band locked to B3 (remove B1) and if it remained connected to 6602 (there's another third more theoretical bandwidth on B3), but in doing that you might find it then prefers a different mast on B3, one that doesn't have 5G or isn't EN-DC enabled
 
Upload might improve a little if you band locked to B3 (remove B1) and if it remained connected to 6602 (there's another third more theoretical bandwidth on B3), but in doing that you might find it then prefers a different mast on B3, one that doesn't have 5G or isn't EN-DC enabled
I'll give that a go. If that doesn't work I think I might just have to be a little more patient in waiting for FTTP
 
I've borrowed a CPE Pro 2 from a friend to do some testing before I commit. I've placed it in the front bedroom window pointing vaguely between the Phase 5 pole in town and the one SE of Shefford. I'm getting speeds of 300-400Mbps down which I'm happy with, but the upload barely pushes 3Mbps. Browsing also seems slugish, though I guess I should expect that a little with increased latency on 4G/5G over FTTC.

I've downloaded the app mentioned on another thread. It looks like its latching on to the tower SE of Shefford (eNB ID 6602). Is there anything I can do to improve upload speed?

View attachment 6025
Do the signal parameters look bad such that the 20 MHz of n48, that Three UK apparently has, is not helping? https://3g.co.uk/guides/what-frequencies-does-three-network-use

Is 4G-only measured upload throughput better?
 
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