I can vouch for 5ber. They were so good that I had to buy another one - to fill up both slots lol.
Speaking of the phone route, I have a Moto g84 5G and got really lucky with the features. Although it doesn't support eSIM, it does allow band locking on both 4G + 5G through the *#*#4636#*#* diagnostics menu. I even managed to force SA only with Vodafone through that menu. Overall, it's great for cellmapping/testing with the Snapdragon modem and the extra options exposed by Motorola.
I would still recommend the NR5103E + 5ber for best results. A proper router can pick up 5G in surprising places. You can go from having sub-1Mbps 4G on your phone to 300Mbps on n78 5G with the router. Both in the exact same place and conditions.