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Zyxel NR5101 on three

rob77

Casual Member
Hi guys

Three 5g went live in the area recently so thought I would test it out. I bought a pre paid sim and tested from my house. I wasn't expecting much but was surprised to see it getting around 600Mb download speed on my mobile phone (Samsung S21 Ultra). I thought I would buy a 5g router for access at home and received the Zyxel NR5101 yesterday, inserted the sim and fired it up. It is averaging 150Mb max. The light on the front was blue which says it is getting a 5g signal.

I have been in the settings and selected prefer 5g signal but it will not connect then. Only auto works. If I select 4g only it work at 4g speed of around 50Mb. I've also placed the router outside to test and it has a good signal but still much lower speeds than I get with my Samsung mobile?

Any idea why it would be performing much worse in the router? Could it be a band issue or compatibility with the three network?

Any advice would be much appreciated :)

Cheers

Rob
 
Hi guys

Three 5g went live in the area recently so thought I would test it out. I bought a pre paid sim and tested from my house. I wasn't expecting much but was surprised to see it getting around 600Mb download speed on my mobile phone (Samsung S21 Ultra). I thought I would buy a 5g router for access at home and received the Zyxel NR5101 yesterday, inserted the sim and fired it up. It is averaging 150Mb max. The light on the front was blue which says it is getting a 5g signal.

I have been in the settings and selected prefer 5g signal but it will not connect then. Only auto works. If I select 4g only it work at 4g speed of around 50Mb. I've also placed the router outside to test and it has a good signal but still much lower speeds than I get with my Samsung mobile?

Any idea why it would be performing much worse in the router? Could it be a band issue or compatibility with the three network?

Any advice would be much appreciated :)

Cheers

Rob
Hi Rob.

EDIT: (added the fact I’m on EE)

I also took delivery today of the same modem/router Zyxel NR5101.
I have been using the Huawei CE Pro 2 for a 5G connection to power my whole house due to having no broadband option.
speeds on 5G on the Huawei are around 450/500Mbps DL and 40Mbps UL.
This router is a beast but I do have some reliability with it having to reboot occasionally.

i was looking for some better stability and tried the Zyxel NR5101 today but on 5G I was getting maximum 101Mbps DL (on auto mode).
when I changed to 5G NR mode I had zero signal.
When deleting 4G I had LTE 4G+ aka LTE-A and hit 50Mbps.

This was using the internal antennas and in a good reception area. Signal was around ~72dbs (Excellent range).

I connected a 5G Poyting External Antenna 4x4 but it did not improve the signal at all.

I have come to the conclusion the Huawei outperforms this by a large margin.
Internal signal from this was ~65 vs the Zyxel at ~72dbs and speeds are considerably more. I will be returning the Zyxel and keeping my Huawei.

I hope this helps or at least confirm it’s not you or for me, it’s not me. We have the same experience with the same product.
 
Hi ooMAGIKoo

Thanks for the detailed reply. It sounds exactly the same as I am experiencing and I've given up on it to be honest.

I want to try another router but there isn't much choice out there. The cpe pro 2 sounds good but has no external antenna connections. I've see a guy on ebay who modifies them so you can add an antenna but it's another £100+.

The cpe pro has the external antenna connectors but I've read its unreliable.

I'm on another forum and a guy on there has the NR5101 and he's seeing speeds of 400Mb+ on EE.

Cheers
 
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Hi ooMAGIKoo

Thanks for the detailed reply. It sounds exactly the same as I am experiencing and I've given up on it to be honest.

I want to try another router but there isn't much choice out there. The cpe pro 2 sounds good but has no external antenna connections. I've see a guy on ebay who modifies them so you can add an antenna but it's another £100+.

The cpe pro has the external antenna connectors but I've read its unreliable.

I'm on another forum and a guy on there has the NR5101 and he's seeing speeds of 400Mb+ on EE.

Cheers
Hi.
I was hoping for great results with this but it totally flopped for me.
I’m getting better quality signal from the CE Pro 2 internal aerials that with the external on the Zyxel. Maybe I could look at this other forum! Do you she a link?

Maybe I shall give Zyxel a call tomorrow and see what they say.
 
Hi.
I was hoping for great results with this but it totally flopped for me.
I’m getting better quality signal from the CE Pro 2 internal aerials that with the external on the Zyxel. Maybe I could look at this other forum! Do you she a link?

Maybe I shall give Zyxel a call tomorrow and see what they say.
Sure it's over on the forum at overclockers.co.uk. in the network/Internet section.

Im running some tests tonight and averaging 200Mb download. If you do hear anything back from zyxel please update me :)
 
Sure it's over on the forum at overclockers.co.uk. in the network/Internet section.

Im running some tests tonight and averaging 200Mb download. If you do hear anything back from zyxel please update me :)
So I called and spoke to Zyxel today.
They was not very helpful at all and said that the connection is limited by the distance from the cell tower.
However, using my CE Pro 2 with internal ariels in the house, speeds are 5x that of the Zyxel.
I have since packaged it up and returned the modem.
Sorry to not bring any further good news but I wanted to share this with you.
Attached is the speed test on Wifi 5ghz from my Ubiquity AC Pro which is on WLAN from the CE Pro 2
 

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Thanks for letting me know mate :)

To be honest I think I will do the same (mines faulty anyway). I'll buy an network free CPE Pro 2 and stick it in Bridge mode. I have read the network locked ones have the bridge mode disabled.

Cheers
 
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Had the ZTE MC801A on for 24 hours now and speeds are much better. Going up as much as 400Mb on a good day. I never saw these speeds at all with the Zyxel. Ping tends to fluctuate from 45ms up to 150ms. I have bought an external antenna to try.

Things I don't like is you cannot view the ZTE GUI in bridge mode. There might be a way but I have not found one as yet. With the zyxel you just set a static IP different to your main router and it just opened.

I've the CPE Pro 2 on the way so will give that a go. It is running the same chipset as the ZTE so I think it may perform similar.

Cheers
 
The CPE Pro 2 is the best one I have tried although I do have 2 external antennas and the router is modified with 8 x antenna connectors.
 
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The nr5101 is fine for me. Actually better than the 5g cpe pro 2.

But it's been a couple months since last posted in this forum, and a couple updates too it.

Keep in mind the zyxel is meant for enterprise, so you need to change a bunch of settings for it to be stable and get the correct speeds.
You need to let it stay at auto instead of 5g, as the 5g settings is only the sa mode, and auto is "nsa"


And select the fastest 4g and 5g bands manually from your isp so you wont connect to the low speed bands.

Getting 300-400 down. ON 4G

On the 5g cpe pro 2 i only got 250 max.

Upload is between 20-50 on the zyxel & only between 5-20 on the 5g cpe pro 2.

Ping is between 10-30 ms on both routers.

I have also tested with 5g but set manually to 4g instead as the 4g is actually faster in my area for now.
 
I have one of these...

The external antenna connection only works on 5G bands higher than 3500MHz. This should cover the EE network as their 5G apparently makes use of 3540 - 3580 MHz. Interesting to read it didn't work for ooMAGIKoo though. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I get great indoor reception using the three network with download speeds reaching as high as 550MB but as low as 250MB at times too.

Only problem I have been experiencing with mine is with the WiFi. Basically, WiFi stops working after a few hours use! I have rolled back the firmware from v4 to v3 and hoping that resolves my issue but I'm not feeling very hopeful.


EDIT: Rolling back the firmware has resolved my WiFi problem. 👍
 
Last edited:
So, an update...

Rolling back the firmware did not resolve my WIFI issues, V1.00(ABVC.3)C0 was more stable than V1.00(ABVC.4)C0 but the WIFI lockups still occurred every 2 or 3 days.

I thought maybe the device was faulty so ordered a second one from Amazon. I set up the second device and sent back the first device for a refund. My second device also came with V1.00(ABVC.3)C0 installed out the box and although an update was available, I didn't update the firmware on the second device. I left everything at its defaults and proceeded to use the device as is...

Yea, WIFI locked up and became unresponsive on this one too! Just like the first device, every 2 or 3 days the WIFI just locks up and you have to hard power cycle the device before WIFI works again. I sent the second device back for a refund too!!!

I have been using a TP-Link Deco Home Mesh WIFI 6 system for the past week and that works 100%. No WIFI lockups, nothing! I mention this just in case anyone thinks that the issues with the Zyxel NR5101 might have been a result of a client device my end running old drivers or something.

A day after initiating a return on the second unit Amazon have dropped the price from £478.34 to £377.80. I would avoid the NR5101 even at that price though.
 
I've been testing an NR7101 and it's a similar story - in my view it's not fit for purpose.

The menu / console is very confusing and mine took several manual attempts to upgrade the firmware to the version that supports over the air updates.

The support process is not user friendly either - I've had more support tickets with the NR7101 in 2 weeks than any other consumer electronics purchase in the last 20 years.

Although the Zxyel units are slightly faster than the Huawei comparators, the Huawei ones are much more user friendly.
 
I was talking on another forum/page but wanted to update that:
I have both the ZTE MC801A and the Zyxel NR5103E

The zte outperforms the new zyxel by x2 on both dl and ul...
 
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So the ZTE is better because the chipset is better,correct?
No, the X55 is an established chipset, it arrived in 2019, and went mainstream with the iPhone 12.


The Zyxel nr5101 and 7101 also use the X55.

The Mediatek was announced 2021:

The equivalent Qualcomm would be the X65:

But Mediatek sell at a lower price and can get to market much quicker. When three deploys 5g on other bands than n78, the Mediatek will perform far greater than the X55.
 
No, the X55 is an established chipset, it arrived in 2019, and went mainstream with the iPhone 12.


The Zyxel nr5101 and 7101 also use the X55.

The Mediatek was announced 2021:

The equivalent Qualcomm would be the X65:

But Mediatek sell at a lower price and can get to market much quicker. When three deploys 5g on other bands than n78, the Mediatek will perform far greater than the X55.
Thats fantastic explanation thanks a lot.
Do you know when Three might deploy on other bands?
I need to return one of the modem soon.. would like to make the right choice! Right now I really want to keep the ZTE...
 
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