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Findings on how to increase speed 5g on a BT/EE sim

Woodpecker01

Casual Member
So thanks to the forum i am a full convert to the 5g router lark :)
After a month of tinkering I thought i would share some of my failures and successes in the search of speed.

I have a Huawei 5g CPE Pro sat on a shelf in my loft cabled down via ethernet.
The mast that I connect to ( verified mast via cell mapper) is approx. 4.5 miles away
Theoretically I think that if the roof was transparent i would have LOS to the mast.

I am, on a good day getting 300 down and 45 up on a bad day 120 down 25 up ( my BT fixed BB is 38 and 8), the good and bad seemed to be heavily influenced by what sector or TAC-CID is indicated on the LTE H-Monitor. I have restricted the router to B3 and B7 bands as well.

In this period i have tried two aerials ( Huawei AF9E and the Poynting XPOL-1 V2 5g ) neither of which gave any improvement in either speed or signal strength on 5g and only marginal gains on 4g when compared to the built in aerials in the router.

The biggest result and my current setup is a home made reflector made from tin foil and a carboard box !

This contraption has a radius in the foil and is pointing in the direction of the mast, the router sits in focal point of this and after much trial and error i now get a consistent 20-21dB on 5g, I have proved to myself it makes a difference by altering the distance between the router and the reflector and can see definite link between the signal strength and the distance from the reflector. Wifi is also switched off on the router.

Just wanted to feed back as this forum has been a font of useful info and given my something else to be able to tinker with, if this helps anyone then great :)




 

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@Woodpecker01 have you managed to figure out how the "reflector" dB boost translates into speed? Sort of a before and after.
Hi @Lucian if I get a the time tomorrow I'll do some testing and report back, but the dB signal strength went from a fluctuating 8-13 to a far more steady 19-21, this was the main goal as on conference calls using it the signal would drop and the call would then drop as well, since the reflector go live not had a call drop on me. But to answer your question it was IRO 25-50 Mb gain.
 
@Woodpecker01 could I ask you if you changed you APN settings on your router or anything else?

I received today my EE Unlimited sim card and when I tested it in my iphone 12, I was getting 150dl/50up (funnily enough I get 100/100 in 4G-only), while in my Huawei CPE Pro 2 I get higher latency and roughly 50dn/50up.

Looks like it's my signal that is really bad with the huawei?

Screen Shot 2021-04-06 at 10.31.27 PM.webp
 
So thanks to the forum i am a full convert to the 5g router lark :)
After a month of tinkering I thought i would share some of my failures and successes in the search of speed.

I have a Huawei 5g CPE Pro sat on a shelf in my loft cabled down via ethernet.
The mast that I connect to ( verified mast via cell mapper) is approx. 4.5 miles away
Theoretically I think that if the roof was transparent i would have LOS to the mast.

I am, on a good day getting 300 down and 45 up on a bad day 120 down 25 up ( my BT fixed BB is 38 and 8), the good and bad seemed to be heavily influenced by what sector or TAC-CID is indicated on the LTE H-Monitor. I have restricted the router to B3 and B7 bands as well.

In this period i have tried two aerials ( Huawei AF9E and the Poynting XPOL-1 V2 5g ) neither of which gave any improvement in either speed or signal strength on 5g and only marginal gains on 4g when compared to the built in aerials in the router.

The biggest result and my current setup is a home made reflector made from tin foil and a carboard box !

This contraption has a radius in the foil and is pointing in the direction of the mast, the router sits in focal point of this and after much trial and error i now get a consistent 20-21dB on 5g, I have proved to myself it makes a difference by altering the distance between the router and the reflector and can see definite link between the signal strength and the distance from the reflector. Wifi is also switched off on the router.

Just wanted to feed back as this forum has been a font of useful info and given my something else to be able to tinker with, if this helps anyone then great :)



HI @Woodpecker01,

Well done, this is very interesting. Would you be able to provide me with more information, I would really like to know how the antennas were mounted whilst doing these tests. Can you confirm if the device was set to use the External antennas and then restarted afterwards.
 
HI @Woodpecker01,

Well done, this is very interesting. Would you be able to provide me with more information, I would really like to know how the antennas were mounted whilst doing these tests. Can you confirm if the device was set to use the External antennas and then restarted afterwards.
Sure, the antenna were all mounted as high as I could get them in the loft, they were attached to a wooden beam using a quick clamp ( wood working tool) . It was set to external and restarted each time.
The antenna's where first "sighted" in using a compass to the mast and then fine tuning via the 5g signal output in LH monitor prog on a laptop. The laptop was connected to the router via ethernet.
 
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@Woodpecker01 could I ask you if you changed you APN settings on your router or anything else?

I received today my EE Unlimited sim card and when I tested it in my iphone 12, I was getting 150dl/50up (funnily enough I get 100/100 in 4G-only), while in my Huawei CPE Pro 2 I get higher latency and roughly 50dn/50up.

Looks like it's my signal that is really bad with the huawei?

View attachment 1035
Hi @noway103 ,
I have set my APN to ipv4 and disabled wfi on the router.
Also I have used the LH prog to disable using the 800 band, always got slower throughput on that one.

Current output below.
Speeds just taken
Fast.com 240/22
speedtest.net 233/23
nperf.com 205/20

1617953471415.png
 
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