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New router worth it?

Duckz

Casual Member
Hello I'm new to the whole fixed wireless broadband thing and still trying to learn all about it. I mainly use my Internet for watching TV and gaming and I know very well that 5g broadband is not ideal for gaming but I am only able to get ADSL at my home and although the low ping and stability are nice the download speed is horrible!!!
I have placed my 5g router High up in the loft and my house is within about 100m of the mast and although I get good speed (about 300 - 400 mbps) my ping is what I would call high and seems rather unstable.

My ping sits around 40ms in games but seems to get spikes in the 100's quite often.

The router is connected to my computer by ethernet cable and here is the signal readings from my hub ( I don't know what they mean)

RSRP
-50 dBm

RSSI
-56 dBm

Band
B3+B3+n1


Is there anything I can do to lower my latency and make it more stable? what readings am i looking for to get best speeds and Will a better router help or is it just luck of the draw and this is the best I can get?
 
Wireless is not and will never be as good for gaming. As the connection to the tower is shared with other users and also subject to environmental factors, there will never be consistency in latency.

You'll need to keep your ADSL if you want to have a good connection for gaming, and use the 5g if you need download speeds.

Your signal strength readings are as good as you can get.
 
Until FTTP is installed in my area (around 2026 or so they say) I'm trying to make the best of a bad situation. I think we have determined my router is receving as good a signal as possible and I would not benefit from getting a new 5g moden or antennas however In my prasut for the lowest latency as possible I am looking into the idea of putting my 5g in passthrough mode and installing a more capable WiFi router.

My theory for doing this is that a better preforming router with a more powerful brain and better Qos (or just having QoS features) will help reduce any latency from an inferior isp provided router.

To test this theory I have plugged in my ADSL router with a cat6 cable direct to my computer and ran a latency test on waveform.com to get a baseline on speed and latency of a ADSL connection as seen in the picture below:

20231119_151639.webp


Next I swapped out my ADSL router for my 5g router plugged into the computer with the same cat6 cable as you can see from the results my speed is greatly improved as to be expected and my ping stay relatively low however my ping with load on the network shoots up and sits relatively high.

20231119_144944.webp


I read somewhere that reducing bandwidth to the device can help reduce latency for some unknown to me wizardry reason so the next step was to reduce my bandwidth to the same speeds I was achieving with my ADSL router and here are the results below:
 
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Until FTTP is installed in my area (around 2026 or so they say) I'm trying to make the best of a bad situation. I think we have determined my router is receving as good a signal as possible and I would not benefit from getting a new 5g moden or antennas however In my prasut for the lowest latency as possible I am looking into the idea of putting my 5g in passthrough mode and installing a more capable WiFi router.

My theory for doing this is that a better preforming router with a more powerful brain and better Qos (or just having QoS features) will help reduce any latency from an inferior isp provided router.

To test this theory I have plugged in my ADSL router with a cat6 cable direct to my computer and ran a latency test on waveform.com to get a baseline on speed and latency of a ADSL connection as seen in the picture below:

View attachment 9230

Next I swapped out my ADSL router for my 5g router plugged into the computer with the same cat6 cable as you can see from the results my speed is greatly improved as to be expected and my ping stay relatively low however my ping with load on the network shoots up and sits relatively high.

View attachment 9231

I read somewhere that reducing bandwidth to the device can help reduce latency for some unknown to me wizardry reason so the next step was to reduce my bandwidth to the same speeds I was achieving with my ADSL router and here are the results

(Carrying on as I could only post 2 pictures)


20231119_150549.webp


As you can see the loaded latency has drastically reduced aswell as the min amd max latency. I may have got the complete wrong idea so please do correct me but I'd suggest with these results by reducing the load on my current 5g router I have drastically reduced latency and improved stability so with that in mind I belive having a better router would improved my experience with 5g broadband.

I suppose next step is fork out some £££ and put my theory into practice?
 
Replacing the 5G router at great expense isn't going to make things much if any better, nor using passthrough mode.

The vast majority of the latency comes from the 5G radio access network / cell tower and beyond especially when under load.
 
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I agree getting a new 5g router will probably not help me in this situation as it appears im getting the best 5g signal to my home as possible however I'm still undecided on weather using it as a pass through into a better WiFi router to connect all of my devices to is still worth it as how come if I limit the bandwidth to my computer the latency drops? From my understanding and research this sounds like bufferbloat?

To test this I put battlefeild 2042 on earlier with my computers bandwidth limited to 40mbps and my latency was around 40ms, I then ran a speed test from my computer and mobile at the same time and my latency didn't really move and I fealt no lag spikes however when I did not limit my bandwidth I get 400ish mbps with my ping still in the 40's but when I ran just 1 speed test it would fluctuate well over 200ms resulting in feeling physical lag/ stuttering in game.

It seems to me the 5g router is struggling to send packets efficiently under load and potentially a better router would eliminate this? Or maybe it wouldn't help at all and my best option for stable and low latency on a 5g network is with limited bandwidth whilst playing games then unlimiting it for any updates/ downloads so I can make use of the far superior downloads speeds 5g provides over ADSL?
 
I agree getting a new 5g router will probably not help me in this situation as it appears im getting the best 5g signal to my home as possible however I'm still undecided on weather using it as a pass through into a better WiFi router to connect all of my devices to is still worth it as how come if I limit the bandwidth to my computer the latency drops? From my understanding and research this sounds like bufferbloat?

To test this I put battlefeild 2042 on earlier with my computers bandwidth limited to 40mbps and my latency was around 40ms, I then ran a speed test from my computer and mobile at the same time and my latency didn't really move and I fealt no lag spikes however when I did not limit my bandwidth I get 400ish mbps with my ping still in the 40's but when I ran just 1 speed test it would fluctuate well over 200ms resulting in feeling physical lag/ stuttering in game.

It seems to me the 5g router is struggling to send packets efficiently under load and potentially a better router would eliminate this? Or maybe it wouldn't help at all and my best option for stable and low latency on a 5g network is with limited bandwidth whilst playing games then unlimiting it for any updates/ downloads so I can make use of the far superior downloads speeds 5g provides over ADSL?
5G in the UK is non standalone therefore relies on 4G heavily, which may be your issue.

Does it solely stick to b3 and n1 or does it move around to another mast?

Does it hop to n78 at all? Have you tried band locking to b3 and n1 to remove any unnecessary connections?

Also, have you tried 4G?
 
The tower I'm connected to only shows band 3 on cell mapper, there is another tower that shows band 3,7 and 20 however my router will not connect to that tower. I believe it stays on band 3 without hopping around and my router dosent the have band locking function available, cell mapper dose not show any mast with n78 near me.

I have tried 4g but only tested the DL speed as I was curious the difference between 4g and 5gNSA as I understand we don't truly use 5g yet, the speed was significantly slower on 4g however perhaps with the lower speed the latency will be more stable? I think this is what I'll test next that you.


I appreciate your input and any help, I'm probably nitpicking with my speeds and latency however I'm determined to get the best out of what I have because why not!!
 
The tower I'm connected to only shows band 3 on cell mapper, there is another tower that shows band 3,7 and 20 however my router will not connect to that tower. I believe it stays on band 3 without hopping around and my router dosent the have band locking function available, cell mapper dose not show any mast with n78 near me.

I have tried 4g but only tested the DL speed as I was curious the difference between 4g and 5gNSA as I understand we don't truly use 5g yet, the speed was significantly slower on 4g however perhaps with the lower speed the latency will be more stable? I think this is what I'll test next that you.


I appreciate your input and any help, I'm probably nitpicking with my speeds and latency however I'm determined to get the best out of what I have because why not!!
Cellmapper won’t show any n28/78/1 etc as it’s reliant on 4G, but having seen you’re connected to 5G locally it’ll be from one of the nearby masts.

4G may work better if it’s from a closer mast, sometimes 5G comes from a mast afar, like mine does on O2, and my 4G is far more impressive than my 5G as it uses low band n28.

EE has a good 4G network, probably better than most other networks, so it may work in your favour going that way.
 
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