5G mobile router (1 Viewer)

[Newfie]

This morning I was looking for a 5g mobile router found & ordered this on Amazon arrived about an hour ago

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C37FRYV5/?tag=mhf04-21

I have a smarty unlimited SIM card.
So some questions while I charge the battery
Does anyone have & use one of these?
I’m not in a 5g area so are they any good at 5g?
Thanks

 

[Newfie]

So far , the wifi 6 is great & I can connect to the router throughout the house
I’m only getting about 3mb download speed but I’m not in a good reception area even for 4G
Battery at 60% I will take it out tomorrow to check both reception & battery usage

 

[zac]

I have the 5G ZTE MU5001 which is very good, my one has 2 antenna ports on which I use for the roof antenna. It was cheaper than the one listed though so not sure why that's so expensive but the brand is ok.

Just checked the prices of the one I have and by the looks of it they've gone up in price as well.

 

[Newfie]

Ok tried this in a local field now getting 10mb download 2mb up on 4G battery down 5% after an 1.5-2 hours looking good need to check it on 5G to see if that’s ok

 

[zac]

Ok tried this in a local field now getting 10mb download 2mb up on 4G battery down 5% after an 1.5-2 hours looking good need to check it on 5G to see if that’s ok

that sounds pretty poor to be honest but that will depend on how many bars/signal you have

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[Guigsy]

that sounds pretty poor to be honest but that will depend on how many bars/signal you have

It's not great. But as long as it's reliable at that speed, it's enough for video calls or HD streamed video. If it's a portable device, I'd be perching it on different window ledges (or on the roof though a skylight) to try to improve it, but it's livable.

 

[ChrisL]

If you put an EE as fast as available sim in it you'll probably get much faster speeds and better coverage.

 

[zac]

If you put an EE as fast as available sim in it you'll probably get much faster speeds and better coverage.

Good point, i've tried all the networks over the years and only EE have given the best coverage and download speeds. I found Three the worst by a long shot with o2 next followed by Vodafone then EE.

 

[Newfie]

Another update
4G 4-5 bars 19mb down 2mb up
5G 3 bar 102mb down 4mb up

 

[Newfie]

First real test in the Motorhome in Norwich at the mo getting 5G 4bar with the following results, wifi covers about 50 yards
Test Date: 4 May 2024 07:00
Download: 667 Mbps
Upload: 45.8 Mbps
Ping: 31.0 ms
Connection Type: Wi-Fi

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[Jev88]

I've tried O2, Vodafone and EE Simms in my Huawei router and often get faster upload speeds than download!!! Can't work out why.

 

[MikenPauline]

I've tried O2, Vodafone and EE Simms in my Huawei router and often get faster upload speeds than download!!! Can't work out why.

You’ve put the sim in back to front

 

[Jev88]

You’ve put the sim in back to front

If only.

 

[Guigsy]

I've tried O2, Vodafone and EE Simms in my Huawei router and often get faster upload speeds than download!!! Can't work out why.

Might be because the network is congested. But there's still plenty of bandwidth on the cell tower on the upload side. When network operators planned out their bandwidth requirements several years ago, I'm not sure they realised how much video people would be watching from their mobiles in 2024. TikTok has a lot to answer for.

 

[Gellyneck]

I've tried O2, Vodafone and EE Simms in my Huawei router and often get faster upload speeds than download!!! Can't work out why.

Could it be it's because folk are more interested in what you're saying rather than the other way around?

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[Jabstatt]

I have the Avtex 4g system.

IMHO it’s all about the external antenna.

Ang only marginally more expensive thank yours.

Great performance on a EE card!

Tony

 

[gus-lopez]

battery down 5% after an 1.5-2 hours looking good

can't you run it permanently plugged in on the van?

 

[starquake]

One warning on the MU5001 and similar varients ( I was looking at getting them) they don't support some of the frequencies Three use on 4g at present. That means you may get a lower performance than some of the older ZTE devices that are 3/4g only in congested areas. The gap on Three coverage for reference is B32, which I have seen used at 2 campsites recenctly. The issue is Three are using these frequencies prior to 5g install in some rural areas now.

I'm probably still going to upgrade to it myself for the 5g support sometime this year, but I've so far only stayed at 2 out of around 40 campsites where my phone has showed a 5g signal on Three (and I have it on the use 5g ALWAYS mode if avialable, not the power saving). So I'm not missing too much at moment.

So it IS worth mentioning some 4/5g router combos do miss some frequencies (B32 in particular) that older 4g chipsets support today.

 

[starquake]

I have the Avtex 4g system.

IMHO it’s all about the external antenna.

Ang only marginally more expensive thank yours.

Great performance on a EE card!

Tony

Exactly! - Worth mentioning you may want to swap the Avtex device (which is a Teltonica) RUT device in reality for a different model howeever in future -> that was a cat4 only device when I last checked which will limit performance notably in congested areas as you are limited to a single band (usually 3 or 20 on Three). (Most campsites are not congested so I wouldn't say do it immediately). CAt 4 devices cannot use the additional frequencies such as B32 for additional "download" bandwidth in congested areas (as these only work when bonded with B28 or B3 for "upload", and a cat4 can only join one frequency at a time". The avtex is a good device, it's just not good in congestion situations...

EE is the least congested network so don't take this as a negative, just if you go to a busy festival type site, you'll probably find you may suffer more than someone using a cat6 or cat12 device.

The positive is the routers that fix this are cheap these days, around £80 ish for a cat12 from amazon, but don't do it until you find you need it.

 

[Riverbankannie]

One warning on the MU5001 and similar varients ( I was looking at getting them) they don't support some of the frequencies Three use on 4g at present. That means you may get a lower performance than some of the older ZTE devices that are 3/4g only in congested areas. The gap on Three coverage for reference is B32, which I have seen used at 2 campsites recenctly. The issue is Three are using these frequencies prior to 5g install in some rural areas now.

I'm probably still going to upgrade to it myself for the 5g support sometime this year, but I've so far only stayed at 2 out of around 40 campsites where my phone has showed a 5g signal on Three (and I have it on the use 5g ALWAYS mode if avialable, not the power saving). So I'm not missing too much at moment.

So it IS worth mentioning some 4/5g router combos do miss some frequencies (B32 in particular) that older 4g chipsets support today.

I marked this as i formative but in reality didn’t understand much of it
I have a 2016 era Huawei E5372 in which I recently used a IQ Go data sim. We toured Spain and Portugal. In some places it worked perfectly but always said 3G in the little window, and in some places just no service. I place it in the rooflight but don’t have an antenna.
At the same time we both have iphones and were getting 4G.
I was about to purchase a new mifi thinking that my old one 3G only and maybe 3G being switched off but I now realise that it is a 4G lte device.
Your post above would seem to imply I am not better off with a newer one?

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[starquake]

I marked this as i formative but in reality didn’t understand much of it
I have a 2016 era Huawei E5372 in which I recently used a IQ Go data sim. We toured Spain and Portugal. In some places it worked perfectly but always said 3G in the little window, and in some places just no service. I place it in the rooflight but don’t have an antenna.
At the same time we both have iphones and were getting 4G.
I was about to purchase a new mifi thinking that my old one 3G only and maybe 3G being switched off but I now realise that it is a 4G lte device.
Your post above would seem to imply I am not better off with a newer one?

So the E5372 is a LTE cat4 device, it supports many of the frequencies in use in 4g these days. However it does not support frequency bonding, which is how "busy" cell towers now split load across multiple frequencies at same time to improve performance. This is important as some frequencies (B32 for Three as one example) are "one way" meaning downlink only, so they only work when bonded with another frequency to send data. Effectively at moment you are losing access to a widely deployed frequency which has lots of capacity to send you data today.

My advice to you would be to look to get either a MU5001 5g device (about 200 quid these days) or a ZTE MF986D cat12 device (about £60-80). The latter is what I have today (a MF986D) and it supports both 3 and 4g at cat12 level, which is the best you get rurally at present. The MU5001 5g supports 5g frequencies, but loses some of the cat12 4g frequencies as a compromise, meaning rurally it may be slower than the 986D in situations where Three or EE have added freqencies that are supported by the 986D but not the 5g device until they upgrade the tower to 5g.

Should add both of these support and external antenna and will work better with one. Your choice on if required or not -> we find it very benefitical rurally. I was streaming TV this weekend watching Ipswich get promoted at Campervan Campout. My phone on the same network could not even load pages on 4g at the same time. That is the diffence a external antenna makes at "busy" times.

 

[Gellyneck]

So the E5372 is a LTE cat4 device, it supports many of the frequencies in use in 4g these days. However it does not support frequency bonding, which is how "busy" cell towers now split load across multiple frequencies at same time to improve performance. This is important as some frequencies (B32 for Three as one example) are "one way" meaning downlink only, so they only work when bonded with another frequency to send data. Effectively at moment you are losing access to a widely deployed frequency which has lots of capacity to send you data today.

My advice to you would be to look to get either a MU5001 5g device (about 200 quid these days) or a ZTE MF986D cat12 device (about £60-80). The latter is what I have today (a MF986D) and it supports both 3 and 4g at cat12 level, which is the best you get rurally at present. The MU5001 5g supports 5g frequencies, but loses some of the cat12 4g frequencies as a compromise, meaning rurally it may be slower than the 986D in situations where Three or EE have added freqencies that are supported by the 986D but not the 5g device until they upgrade the tower to 5g.

Should add both of these support and external antenna and will work better with one. Your choice on if required or not -> we find it very benefitical rurally. I was streaming TV this weekend watching Ipswich get promoted at Campervan Campout. My phone on the same network could not even load pages on 4g at the same time. That is the diffence a external antenna makes at "busy" times.

Our Huawei E5577cs is starting to have battery problems (I think) and wondering if the ZTE model you mention would be a sensible replacement unit?
If so, any pointers as to where we could get one at your mentioned price of £60-80 as best I can find is more like £120-140?

 

[ChrisL]

I have an unlocked MF286D which is also a ZTE CAT 12 device with external antenna connections and two external antenna if you choose to use them, with an EE unlimited sim card I'm currently getting 75 Mbs down and 15 up in St Leonards Dorset without the antennas attached, and 75 down and 38 up with them attached. It supports bands 1,3,7,8,20,28 and 38. They are available on ebay and will run on a stabilised 12 volt supply, they won't run directly off a battery as the voltage will be higher than 12 volts when the batteries are charged.

 

[starquake]

Oh wow just checked and they have increased rather rapidly in last few weeks. (Maybe shortage of supply).

You right it's £129 at moment even on ebay. The 286D mentioned by ChrisL isn't bad above if you can get cheaper than a 986D but it's also significantly larger in size and also missed B32, but does support rather more than your cat4 device would (it does support frequency bonding, which is what you really want, as even in bad locations Three usually have B1/B20/B3 support meaning you bond 3 frequencies at once). Either are good choices (or an equivalent cat12 Huawei device). Cat18 or higher exist too, but offer limited benefit rurally at campsites as usually you get cat18 when they do a 5g upgrade, in which case you'd be better to buy a 5g device. At moment we are in a weird place where the networks in UK at least are doing 4g upgrades rurally for capacity but not yet putting 5g in frequently. If you camp in cities, you would benefit more from 5g than the 4g bands. It's worth mentioning I've only seen my router use Band 32 in 3 rural campsites so far, of about 40... so it's being deployed as we speak but is still more likely not to find than you would the B28, B1, B3 and B20 frequencies, which are the common ones EE, Three and Vodafone use.

Worth noting the cat number also increases the amount the antenna can send you per "timeslot" and a cat12 device is about 4 times faster roughly than a cat4. So I'd say find whatever Cat12 device you can for your budget, and go from there. Avoid anything under cat12 these days as you already have a cat4 device.

Bear in midn if you getting close to the 5g price, just buy a 5g router, it'll be useful in some places today and those will only increase over time.

 

[RowleyBirkinQC]

Given the growing reliance on interweb connectivity, we recently replaced our aging HUAWEI Mifi with a Teltonika RUTX50 because we got a deal from Solwise. We’ve also changed the old puck antenna with a Poynting Mimo-3-17 antenna for the same reasons. Will now test a new IQ Go (EE) sim against old Smarty (3) unlimited sim. Not bothered about ultimate max speed, more the reliability of a usable connection for streaming/browsing etc.

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[starquake]

Given the growing reliance on interweb connectivity, we recently replaced our aging HUAWEI Mifi with a Teltonika RUTX50 because we got a deal from Solwise. We’ve also changed the old puck antenna with a Poynting Mimo-3-17 antenna for the same reasons. Will now test a new IQ Go (EE) sim against old Smarty (3) unlimited sim. Not bothered about ultimate max speed, more reliability of a usable connection for streaming/browsing etc.

The RUTX50 should 100% meet that - > with it being dual sim, I'd personally grab a cheap prepaid (UK) only Three sim + a EE one for sure. TBH, it's on my shortlist of routers, but it is as you say on the more expensive side of routers these days.

I have to say, being able to watch football over the mobile network for the tv at an actual motorhome event where every van and their dog is using their phone is the ultimate test of any setup... IF anything can handle that, it can likely handle a rural campsite.

You know you can get a 100Gb (per month) prepaid 3 sim for buttons now on amazon? £2 a month equivalent or about £60 for 3 years service prepaid. Way cheaper than Smarty for a backup sim.

 

[RowleyBirkinQC]

You know you can get a 100Gb (per month) prepaid 3 sim for buttons now on amazon?

Is that via ‘Scancom’? I was looking at some of their reviews recently, which were somewhat ‘mixed’. Do you buy your sims from there?

 

[starquake]

Is that via ‘Scancom’? I was looking at some of their reviews recently, which were somewhat ‘mixed’. Do you buy your sims from there?

Yeah, we've been using their EE unlimited sims since about 2020 (only work in UK), can't beat their pricing, we pay sub £10 a month for unlimited EE. Three I deal with Three business directly (I have a Ltd and multiple sims), as they are very reasonable (as in sub £5 a month per unlimited sim) when you have a few.

For EE I cant fault scancom, and have dealt with them for at least 5 sims now since 2020... they worked exactly as they said they would until the date they said they would, and arrived pre-activated (initially direct, now from amazon as quicker).

 

[Riverbankannie]

Yeah, we've been using their EE unlimited sims since about 2020 (only work in UK), can't beat their pricing, we pay sub £10 a month for unlimited EE. Three I deal with Three business directly (I have a Ltd and multiple sims), as they are very reasonable (as in sub £5 a month per unlimited sim) when you have a few.

For EE I cant fault scancom, and have dealt with them for at least 5 sims now since 2020... they worked exactly as they said they would until the date they said they would, and arrived pre-activated (initially direct, now from amazon as quicker).

I tend to deal with EE direct and cannot get a good deal like that but I did get roaming included. I have EE home broadband too but this morning little signal from home router so had to use phone hotspot on ipad.

Many thanks for your suggestions above. In the UK, phone data tends to be enough for us, I just went back to my Huawei for our recent trip and was actually amazed it worked first time with the new sim from IQ when I activated it in Spain for the first time since 2016 ! It just didn’t get any signal at all in some places when phones did.

I don’t fancy drilling a hole in the roof for an antenna, I suppose it might be worth getting a magnetic one as the mifi already lives in rooflight (and have a PVC).

 

[starquake]

I don’t fancy drilling a hole in the roof for an antenna, I suppose it might be worth getting a magnetic one as the mifi already lives in rooflight (and have a PVC).

It's worth it due to the larger "groundplane" it will give however Magnetic one should work similarly, bear in mind you need one able to handle two seperate antenna for anything modern - have no experience of mag antennas, but the one rowan mentiions above from Poyntng is regarded as good by many on this forum (for one needing a hole). Groundplanes are very important and may be worth a google!. It is the largest impact you can have, as only a small increase in signal can improve the data you are sent per timeslot by several multiples. (less loss = a better CQI score = a significant larger datarate). In "good" signal a roof antenna has zero impact at best, and conversely, oddly can make things worse as it picks up further away antenna interferance in effect. Given we tend to go to UK rural suffolk and Norfolk (and Wales) a fair amount, the antenna gives us signal in places our phones have zero (same network), and suffient to watch netflix or sky sports via the roof antenna.

As a good example I use profesionallly some LTE antenna that look like Sky dishes to pull in signal in an area with zero cell coverage from 2 networks, yet manage to get > 100Mbit via these. Unfortunatly you can't put something like that on a motorhome due to wind shear factor... IT would be my ideal setup so I make do with a similar antenna to the Poynting, which offers acceptable performance without the risk of pulling the motorhome apart. (No one produces one of these larger antenna in a dome antenna like Sky Dishes... yet).

Ref deals with EE, we don't go to Europe enough to need roaming, but equally I'm quite comfortable swapping sim's on arrival and APN etc if we do. Free in France have 200Gb prepay deals for 20 euro one off, so it's (in my mind) reasonably not sensible to pay for roaming on a UK sim, given I don't care about phoen calls to the sim (and we can temporarily get by with our phones until we do this, which we do need inbound calls on on the UK number). I agree it's easier to roam, but for us, we don't need it really -> I've been buying local sims on arrival in countries for many years now (Thailand as a notable place where you really have to as roaming is around £1 a Mbyte).

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