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Zyxel NR5103e - no 5g

Gandi69

ULTIMATE Member
Is there a fix at all for the faulty units that won’t connect to 5g or is it RMA only?
Reason being I’ve been given an NR5103e from a friend but it simply will not connect to 5g at all - hence then giving it away. I’ve tried locking the bands etc with no joy. my own h112-370 happily blasts away at 800/900mbit on 5g in the same location on smarty. Same sim in the zyxel and it’s 250mbit max as it’s only connecting on 4g+/LTE.
 
Is there a fix at all for the faulty units that won’t connect to 5g or is it RMA only?
Reason being I’ve been given an NR5103e from a friend but it simply will not connect to 5g at all - hence then giving it away. I’ve tried locking the bands etc with no joy. my own h112-370 happily blasts away at 800/900mbit on 5g in the same location on smarty. Same sim in the zyxel and it’s 250mbit max as it’s only connecting on 4g+/LTE.
Hi Gandi69,

I don't think anyone at all had any joy with the faulty batch, they all had to return them for another router.

Not sure if anyone kept them long enough for a firmware update to see if it made any difference, is it on the latest b14?

I too was a little worried that all 4 of mine were faulty as I had no 5G (n78) to confirm all was well.

What made it worse was that my local mast had a false 5G signal added quite recently and my mobile, tablet and Huawei CPE Pro 2, even the EE NR5103 all showed they were receiving 5G, but the three NR5103E never showed 5G was available at all, that made me suspect the worse.

When EE added n28 5G in the other end of town, I could band lock and I could receive n28 5G ok, but I don't know if the main problem with the faulty units was just that they couldn't receive n78 5G.

Quite recently I noticed a blue globe on my three router which I hadn't ever seen before, so I assume some distant PoW must have had a bit of a power boost, and on checking the router, sure enough, it is indeed n78 5G which made me very happy. 🥳

I still haven't got round to checking the other 3 routers with a three sim yet though, will do that when the next firmware update arrives as you need a three sim inserted to actually receive the firmware update. :rolleyes:

As far as I know, we never discovered what was actually wrong with the faulty units though.🤷‍♂️
 
Funnily enough I tested this using an ee sim in a 5g capable ee area and no joy there either, it’s odd because it does say it’s connected via 5g/nsa but the little icon in the gui doesn’t light up.
It’s downloaded the latest firmware too - version 14.
I have a blue globe lit up on the top panel too, not that means very much really? Speeds are still 4g+ type stuff
 
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Funnily enough I tested this using an ee sim in a 5g capable ee area and no joy there either, it’s odd because it does say it’s connected via 5g/nsa but the little icon in the gui doesn’t light up.
It’s downloaded the latest firmware too - version 14.
I have a blue globe lit up on the top panel too, not that means very much really? Speeds are still 4g+ type stuff
The blue globe is supposed to indicate 5G I think, I'm taking it mine is working ok though as the router UI does indicate 3 bands aggregated including n78 and both 4G and 5G GUI icons are illuminated.
 
It doesn't seem to be play nice with my outdoor 5g Nedis antenna (cheap one I know but the Huawei cpe seems to like it)
On internal antennas and a bit of fiddling around with placement the Zyxel can manage about 300mbit at very best but its also got a really good upload speed compared to the H112-370 - about 70-80mbit rather than 28-30. Just wish I could get the download speeds up.
So I wonder if its truly broken or not? Metris from it are as follows:

  • Access Technology
  • NR5G-NSA
  • Band
  • B1,B3,B28,n78
  • RSSI
  • -74
  • Cell ID
  • 12823625
  • Physical Cell ID
  • 195
  • UL Bandwidth (MHz)
  • 10M,100M
  • DL Bandwidth (MHz)
  • 10M,15M,10M,100M
  • RFCN
  • 99,1392,9360,641376
  • RSRP
  • -84
  • RSRQ
  • -9
  • SINR
  • 16
  • RSRP-NSA
  • -150
  • RSRQ-NSA
  • 48
  • SINR-NSA
  • 40
  • TAC
  • 6500
 
It doesn't seem to be play nice with my outdoor 5g Nedis antenna (cheap one I know but the Huawei cpe seems to like it)
On internal antennas and a bit of fiddling around with placement the Zyxel can manage about 300mbit at very best but its also got a really good upload speed compared to the H112-370 - about 70-80mbit rather than 28-30. Just wish I could get the download speeds up.
So I wonder if its truly broken or not? Metris from it are as follows:

  • Access Technology
  • NR5G-NSA
  • Band
  • B1,B3,B28,n78
  • RSSI
  • -74
  • Cell ID
  • 12823625
  • Physical Cell ID
  • 195
  • UL Bandwidth (MHz)
  • 10M,100M
  • DL Bandwidth (MHz)
  • 10M,15M,10M,100M
  • RFCN
  • 99,1392,9360,641376
  • RSRP
  • -84
  • RSRQ
  • -9
  • SINR
  • 16
  • RSRP-NSA
  • -150
  • RSRQ-NSA
  • 48
  • SINR-NSA
  • 40
  • TAC
  • 6500
Weird Gandi69, everything seems to be OK.🤷‍♂️
Does the internal external switch make any difference?
 
Much worse on an external antenna but then I have only got one and not two fully utilise the 4 ports on the zyxel as the H112 only has two inputs.
About 70-80mbit on external antenna which is roof mounted on a pole with a good line of sight to one of the local masts. LTE-A only on that, never sees 5g.
Even thought the zyxel is apparently reporting 5g I don't ever get the 5g signal strength icon lit up in the gui, its always grey.
 
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I am some distance from any published 5G coverage as displayed by Three. I did however get a sniff of 5G on my 'phone at times. Got my 5103E from eBay knowing the potential of it being duff so had to test it. Into the car with the gadget and a wee 12/220v invertor and off to the edge of a 5g area where I proved it worked on 5G.
Back to the house and eventually found a location where I "hid" it from my 4G mast which is congested during the summer months and where it did get a usable 5G N28 signal from another mast. In my case positioning is critical to avoid it receiving the stronger but unusable service from the other mast.
 
5G routers wise I've pretty much tried most the easily obtainable ones too (that aren't Huawei or Chinese brands from aliexpress ) I've had the ZTE MC801A, TCL HH500E and this Zyxel unit and none can match the H112-370 for download speeds in my area at least.
The only other ones I can think of are the Netgear stuff but they are far too much money for my tastes.
 
I've had 2 NR5103e from 3 and neither would pick up 5g sent both back.
Tried ZTE MC801A and 5g works perfect except the odd disconnect.
 
We were using a H112-370 as a backup connection at one of our site offices, so as I had to go over there today I took the Zyxel with me as there is 5g on three and EE in that aera.
I've popped in the EE sim card into the Zyxel and band locked it to 3,7 and 20 and added n28 (for EE) and n78. Now I get the 5g icon lightning up in the gui?
So question is - do some of these "faulty" routers have a problem connecting to band n78? I'd be inclined to think thats the case.
Its connecting on N28, b3 and b7 according to the metrics
 
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We were using a H112-370 as a backup connection at one of our site offices, so as I had to go over there today I took the Zyxel with me as there is 5g on three and EE in that aera.
I've popped in the EE sim card into the Zyxel and band locked it to 3,7 and 20 and added n28 (for EE) and n78. Now I get the 5g icon lightning up in the gui?
So question is - do some of these "faulty" routers have a problem connecting to band n78? I'd be inclined to think thats the case.
Its connecting on N28, b3 and b7 according to the metrics
Screenshot_20230803_142013_Edge.webp

I thought it was probably an n78 problem too Gandi69, it seems that way going by your results.

My soap dispenser is still hanging on to that very weak n78 signal just fine.
 
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