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New Three 5G Hub (NR5103E)

Maybe I didn’t explain very well.

If I choose b20 and b3, but b3 isn’t available locally, will it still try and connect to b20? Even though the aggregation of the two isn’t available locally?

Or if it was, will it connect to:

B20 alone
B3 alone
B20 + B3 CA

Maybe I didn’t explain very well.

If I choose b20 and b3, but b3 isn’t available locally, will it still try and connect to b20? Even though the aggregation of the two isn’t available locally?

Or if it was, will it connect to:

B20 alone
B3 alone
B20 + B3 CA

A mixture of either of the bands I selected.
It's not quite that simple.
My ZTE probably performs similarly to the Zyxel with band locking:
The default is to select the mast with the strongest 4G signal. If you select a combination of bands the router will drop any selection that is not on that mast. It will only select a different mast if none of your selections are on the preferred mast.
Consider my location below (arrowed).
NB1020 carries B1+B3 and also links to NB6786 for N78. By default, my router selects this because NB1020 has line-of-sight and carries the strongest 4G signals.
My preference is for NB52036 because it is closest and has the best 5G signal, but the 4G antennas are lower down and their signal is lower, partially obscured by housing. It carries all Three 4G bands, B20, B28, B32, B1 and B3 plus 5G N78. If I simply select B28+B20+B1+B3 the router will only see the strongest 4G bands, B1 and B3 and drop the others, latching onto NB1020 again.
It isn't intelligent enough to recognise the stronger 5G on NB52036. If I only had band selection I would have to select only B28 in order to get the better 5G. Either Three or my router won't aggregate B20 and B28, or B32 and N78.
Fortunately I can cell lock to NB52036 B1 and with no band locking my router will aggregate B28+B1+B3+N78 on that mast.
I told you it's not that simple. :eek:)
location.jpg
 
It's not quite that simple.
My ZTE probably performs similarly to the Zyxel with band locking:
The default is to select the mast with the strongest 4G signal. If you select a combination of bands the router will drop any selection that is not on that mast. It will only select a different mast if none of your selections is on the preferred mast.
Consider my location below (arrowed).
NB1020 carries B1+B3 and also links to NB6786 for N78. By default, my router selects this because NB1020 has line-of-sight and carries the strongest 4G signals.
My preference is for NB52036 because it is closest and has the best 5G signal but the 4G antenna are lower down and blocked by housing. It carries all Three 4G bands, B20, B28, B32, B1 and B3. If I simply select B28+B20+B1+B3 the router will only see the strongest 4G bands, 1 and 3 and drop the others, latching onto NB1020 again.
It isn't intelligent enough to recognise the stronger 5G on NB52036. If I only had band selection I would have to select only B28 in order to get the better 5G. Either Three or my router won't aggregate B20 and B28, or B32 and N78.
Fortunately I can cell lock to NB52036 B1 and with no band locking my router will aggregate B28+B1+B3+N78 on that mast.
I told you it's not that simple. :eek:)
View attachment 9366
I was just trying to understand in layman’s terms, not necessarily about specific masts.

In such, is it ALL selected bands, and if at least one of those isn’t available, will it connect to any mix of them.

The answer was yes, it would connect to all and any available that you select.

But thanks for expanding 😅
 
The answer was yes, it would connect to all and any available that you select.
My answer was intended to explain that it isn't necessarily so. If the strongest 4G signal is on a mast that doesn't carry the biggest selection of bands you won't get all the ones you select even if they are available on another mast. Your router selects by signal strength only.

The purpose of band selection isn't to select particular bands but to block them by leaving them out, and by consequence forcing your router to a different mast.

If you have two nearby masts, 1 and 2 where mast 1 has b1+b3 and mast 2 has B1+b3+b32+b28 you can force to mast 2 by selecting only B28+32, thereby blocking b1 and b2. If you select all four bands your router may or may not drop to mast 1 if its b1 or b3 has a stronger signal.
 
Further, I suppose it is possible that you might have congestion problems on a particular band and get better performance by not selecting it and aggregating different bands on the same mast, but still, the purpose of band selection isn't selection but blocking.
 
My answer was intended to explain that it isn't necessarily so.
Kinda is though.

Example:

If my selection is b1, b3 and b32.

My nearest mast only has b1 and b3.

The strongest signal comes from my nearest mast, so it’ll likely go there, connecting to the 2 strong options vs the further away mast that has all 3.

My device wouldn’t force to the furthest mast away just because it has all 3, as you say, goes with the strongest signal, likely the nearest, ignoring b32 even though it’s further afield and possible, it’ll go to just two bands from there.

So it’d be a mash of all 3 potential options, not forced to use all 3 at the same time if only 1 or 2 bands were stronger nearby.

I do see what you’re saying, but the simple answer to my query is the fact it’ll use any to reach best signal, not force all bands I’ve told it to.
 
Newbie here, been signed up with 3 for a few days and quite impressed by the download speeds I'm getting inside on my phone (Poco F3) ~ 350Mbps, less so with upload ~ 5 to 10Mbps which from reading here is likely to be as its defaulting to 4G for that. Want to do a more detailed post on my set up later but here are some more stats, 1.2km from the mast that cellmapper is showing, My house is -29m elevation from the mast and not quite line of sight. I got ~650Mbps / ~90Mbps standing nearby the mast the other night.

Thinking about buying a router/soap dispenser from Cex mainly as I need my phone back (just learnt about dual standby sims) and I want to see if I can improve the upload speed. From my reading then it feels like the NR5103E is still the one to buy given the external antenna connections and its fairly recent. Am I correct in this understanding?
 
Newbie here, been signed up with 3 for a few days and quiet impressed by the download speeds I'm getting inside on my phone (Poco F3) ~ 350Mbps, less so with upload ~ 5 to 10Mbps which from reading here is likely to be as its defaulting to 4G for that. Want to do a more detailed post on my set up later but here are some more stats, 1.2km from the mast that cellmapper is showing, My house is -29m elevation from the mast and not quite line of sight. I got ~650Mbps / ~90Mbps standing nearby the mast the other night.

Thinking about buying a router/soap dispenser from Cex mainly as I need my phone back (just learnt about dual standby sims) and I want to see if I can improve the upload speed. From my reading then it feels like the NR5103E is still the one to buy given the external antenna connections and its fairly recent. Am I correct in this understanding?
Post in thread 'Nr5103 versions' https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/nr5103-versions.40874/post-332542

Welcome along to the forums welshblob.

I posted the above earlier for someone who was enquiring about the same router, you might have already seen it, it's very popular router and is really good value I think from CEX for what you are getting. :)
 
Newbie here, been signed up with 3 for a few days and quite impressed by the download speeds I'm getting inside on my phone (Poco F3) ~ 350Mbps, less so with upload ~ 5 to 10Mbps which from reading here is likely to be as its defaulting to 4G for that. Want to do a more detailed post on my set up later but here are some more stats, 1.2km from the mast that cellmapper is showing, My house is -29m elevation from the mast and not quite line of sight. I got ~650Mbps / ~90Mbps standing nearby the mast the other night.

Thinking about buying a router/soap dispenser from Cex mainly as I need my phone back (just learnt about dual standby sims) and I want to see if I can improve the upload speed. From my reading then it feels like the NR5103E is still the one to buy given the external antenna connections and its fairly recent. Am I correct in this understanding?
I'm in a very similar situation, 0.9mls from the mast which I think they recently upgraded, can't see it, but there isn't anything that would obstruct the signal. I get over 400 down/80 up most of the time from my soap dispenser. And Three won't supply me with a router because I don't have 5g in my area 😂
 
I've got the 5103e set to reboot daily via a smart plug. But does it actually do any good?
1000007478.jpg

I've never had any need to reboot any of them PaulodiComio.

So far Vodafone is still winning, only because I haven't been stealing or swapping the Vodafone SIM. :giggle:

Are you having connection problems requiring reboots?

None of my routers ever disconnect on their own and happily just carry on working without reboots.

I guess if you feel it's required it won't do any harm. 🤷‍♂️
 
View attachment 9417
I've never had any need to reboot any of them PaulodiComio.

So far Vodafone is still winning, only because I haven't been stealing or swapping the Vodafone SIM. :giggle:

Are you having connection problems requiring reboots?

None of my routers ever disconnect on their own and happily just carry on working without reboots.

I guess if you feel it's required it won't do any harm. 🤷‍♂️
 
I read somewhere that they benefitted from rebooting but seeing as you don't bother I'll cancel it and see if it makes any difference. Thanks.
Yeah some routers do have that feature built in PaulodiComio, but not the NR5103E.

As I said earlier I've never needed to reboot them, apart from the 3 router yesterday, I had no clue what was going on. 😁

Post again if you notice any difference not rebooting daily.
I'm quite confident you won't though.:giggle:
 
It must be great @The Wee Bear to have your own personal mast. :cool:
1000007484.jpg

Well it's not exclusively mine Interested, the mast is in a field in the country and the sheep use it too, I don't mind too much, as long as only one of them use it at a time. (y)
 
@The Wee Bear
That equipment cabinet is nearly as big a folks' houses in many parts of London. :eek:
1000007488.webp

I think it's nuclear bomb proof too, because when you see the door open, its about a foot and a half thick. 😁
 
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