Cellular modem with 5G support inhouse - effective?

[SolidPaint]

Recently the 5G cellular network has become widespread.
Even some routers support "cellular 5G".
But due to the nature of higher frequencies, which cannot penetrate walls very well, then I find it questionable whether it is effective to buy such a device to be used inside a house?

For example, if a 4G/LTE modem costs 200 USD while the 5G modem costs 400 USD, then it is a significant price difference.
If the 5G won't work well inside the house, then I'd better buy the 4G/LTE modem.

Not to mention possible health risks?
(Would it constantly transmit radio frequencies? Or only sometimes, like the smartphone?)

 

[Tech Junky]

T-Mobile / VZW offer 5G FWA and work just fine provided you have decent coverage to begin with.

I have TMO and consistently get 200/70 speeds and if I move things around outside of the building can hit 600/100. The higher speeds are due to the angle of which I'm located to the cell site antennas being too close to them when indoors.

As to what you're talking about though I'm guessing you're talking about a dongle with either 4G/5G enabled. $400 for 5G is a good price as I was looking at modems in 2022 to potentially hack the TMO GW and internalize it to my server in a PCIE slot and for a quality modem with the right bands they were upwards of $700+. After some testing with the sim in my phone vs the GW I couldn't get it to pass traffic as I think it might be bound to the IMEI of the modem inside the GW.

The service you pick though determines the bands in which it connects to. The lower bands 600-800mhz provide more distance / signal strength but lack speed. For 5G I tend to be on 2.5ghz mostly and that provides the speed. When you connect to 5G FWA though you need a LTE connection that then enable the 5G to connect. Think of 4G as the anchor point for some of the basic connectivity that then allows 5G to kick in and boost the bandwidth.

 

[SolidPaint]

T-Mobile / VZW offer 5G FWA and work just fine provided you have decent coverage to begin with.

That's the key point of this thread

I have TMO and consistently get 200/70 speeds and if I move things around outside of the building can hit 600/100. The higher speeds are due to the angle of which I'm located to the cell site antennas being too close to them when indoors.

What is TMO?

About the last sentence:
Are you sure about that? (for real ; without arrogance.)
My logic would have guessed that the higher speeds are due to having less interference (i.e. there are no walls) when the cellular modem is outside of the building.

Also, it seems that you're achieving these speeds only because of being really close to the antenna.
What is the distance of your modem from the cellular antenna?
But, what if the closest antenna is in a distance of more than 1km?
I don't know from which range I should get what speed?
Is there data on that..

As to what you're talking about though I'm guessing you're talking about a dongle with either 4G/5G enabled. $400 for 5G is a good price as I was looking at modems in 2022 to potentially hack the TMO GW and internalize it to my server in a PCIE slot and for a quality modem with the right bands they were upwards of $700+. After some testing with the sim in my phone vs the GW I couldn't get it to pass traffic as I think it might be bound to the IMEI of the modem inside the GW.

What is TMO GW?
I think, generally speaking, it is more effective to have a router which has also the cellular modem and all the connectivity instead of using a PCIe slot on a server.
Because that the router provides connectivity to all of your devices.

The service you pick though determines the bands in which it connects to. The lower bands 600-800mhz provide more distance / signal strength but lack speed. For 5G I tend to be on 2.5ghz mostly and that provides the speed. When you connect to 5G FWA though you need a LTE connection that then enable the 5G to connect. Think of 4G as the anchor point for some of the basic connectivity that then allows 5G to kick in and boost the bandwidth.

So, every cellular operator has its own frequency bands?
In that case, I have no option except of to choose the bands which I deem to be optimal to our inhouse 5G modem.

 

[Tech Junky]

What is TMO?

T-Mobile

Are you sure about that? (for real ; without arrogance.)

Yes, I took the TMO GW outside with a power bank and tested it about 50ft from the building and got those speeds.

Also, it seems that you're achieving these speeds only because of being really close to the antenna.
What is the distance of your modem from the cellular antenna?
But, what if the closest antenna is in a distance of more than 1km?
I don't know from which range I should get what speed?

I have the cell site on top of my building and my unit is directly under it.

Getting some distance from the antenna allows for the RF to transmit better. I have 2-3 other cell sites around me within a mile though as well.

https://www.opensignal.com/networks -- this is how you can pinpoint which towers / providers are around you

I think, generally speaking, it is more effective to have a router which has also the cellular modem and all the connectivity instead of using a PCIe slot on a server.
Because that the router provides connectivity to all of your devices.

My server is my router and some other functions. I rolled 5-6 devices into the single case instead of upgrading multiple things at a higher expense when something new comes along and my system is a lot less buggy than stuff you buy off the shelf.

So, every cellular operator has its own frequency bands?

Every provider in every market uses different bands depending on the license they hold. In general though most devices have the capability of hitting all the bands used. VZW though being the holdout for CDMA/mmWAVE though has slightly different requirements.

Cellular Phone Frequency Bands Guide 2022

This updated cellular phone frequency bands guide explains this information in simple terms for mobile phone users in 2022.

blog.surecall.com

My stats on the GW

Though it's showing B66 for the channel in use for both LTE/5G it's actually using N41

"signal": {
"4g": {
"bands": [
"b66"
],
"bars": 4.0,
"cid": 6,
"eNBID": 150114,
"rsrp": -86,
"rsrq": -12,
"rssi": -74,
"sinr": 1
},
"5g": {
"bands": [
"n41"
],
"bars": 5.0,
"cid": 0,
"gNBID": 0,
"rsrp": -69,
"rsrq": 0,
"rssi": -69,
"sinr": 21
},

I tested it and fooled it into using N71 which is the 700mhz for TMO and the speed wasn't great. Depending on the placement and antennas I was testing I could force it to connect on different bands and test different configurations to get the best possible results. Over time I figured out for monitoring it needs to be rebooted every ~8 hours ot so to keep the API functioning and it also allows for refreshing the speed ability w/o needing to manually reboot it by hand.

 

[jsz]

FWA works great on C-Band N77. Not sure how Tmobile's 2.5G N41 does, but I'd assume higher ping.

I tried it for a bit, but my ISP caved and dropped my bill from 75> 50 bucks to match a FWA competitor. (Verizon).

 

[Tech Junky]

Here's a short list of what I found while looking for 5G modems....

5G CPE or 5G Mobile WiFi Router:

D-Link DWR-2010 5G NR NSA Enhanced Gateway
HTC 5G Hub (mobile hotspot with 5” media display)
Huawei 5G CPE Pro
Huawei 5G CPE Pro mmWave
Huawei 5G CPE Pro sub-6GHz
Huawei 5G Outdoor CPE
Huawei 5G Mobile WiFi (mobile hotspot)
Inseego R1000 5G Home Router
Inseego 5G NR MiFi Hotspot
Netgear Nighthawk M2 5G mobile hotspot
Netgear Nighthawk M5 Fusion MR5000 5G mobile hotspot
Nokia FastMile 5G home gateway
Samsung SFG-D0100 5G home gateway
TCL Alcatel 5G mobile hotspot
Gemtek WLTFDQ-154AX Gigabit LTE & 5G CPE
ZTE MC801 5G Indoor WiFi Router
FRITZ!Box 6850
Vodafone GigaCube 5G Router


5G Modules/Data Cards:

Quectel RG510Q 5G NR sub-6GHz and mmWave module
Quectel RM510Q 5G NR sub-6GHz and mmWave module
Quectel AG550Q 5G C-V2X Automotive Grade Module
Sierra Wireless AirPrime 5G module (M.2 form factor)
Telit FM980 5G Module
Telit FM980m 5G Module
Fibocom FB101 5G Module
Fibocom FB150 5G Module
ZTE 5G RF module (series)
SIMCOM SIM8300-M2 5G Sub-6Ghz and mmWave Module
SIMCOM SIM8300 5G NR Sub-6GHz & mmWave Module
SIMCOM SIM8200G-M2 5G NR Module
SIMCOM SIM8200EA-M2 5G NR Sub-6GHz Module
SIMCOM SIM8200G 5G NR Sub-6G Module
LongSung EX510 5G/LTE-FDD/LTE-TDD/HSPA+ Module
LongSung EX520 5G NR M.2 Module
LongSung EX610 5G NR Module

 

[Tech Junky]

FWA works great on C-Band N77. Not sure how Tmobile's 2.5G N41 does, but I'd assume higher ping.

I tried it for a bit, but my ISP caved and dropped my bill from 75> 50 bucks to match a FWA competitor. (Verizion).

I wouldn't be able to compare that but, when using a VZW sim on my phone the speeds were absolute garbage compared to TMO.

Pings though don't matter to me as much as speed. My monitoring though usually is about 30ms to google.com from my "server/router". With that sort of ping though it should be sufficient for all traffic to be functional including voice/video.

I could've fought for lower pricing and kept cable but it's a constant fight to keep the bill down w/ annual price increases and all of the "taxes" they add on top of the monthly charge.

Not to mention if I want internet in the car I just grab the GW and don't have to burn my data plan on my phone for maps / streaming. Still a little irked about 3G being shutdown as my car doesn't have a LTE/5G option based on the HW in the MMI, I did rip it apart and looked at the actual connectors to see if I could put something in its place as an upgrade which is how I went down the rabbit hole with the modems posted above. I ended up putting in an Android head unit spliced into the OEM system instead. Works great and can connect out through the 5G GW or Phone over wifi. It does have a SIM slot though on the HU that could be used instead but, that's just another data package to spend money on.

I should mention while road testing the TMO 5G service around town in the car though the speeds were consistent. Of course different cities will have different results even different neighborhoods could as well.

 

[jsz]

I wouldn't be able to compare that but, when using a VZW sim on my phone the speeds were absolute garbage compared to TMO.

Pings though don't matter to me as much as speed. My monitoring though usually is about 30ms to google.com from my "server/router". With that sort of ping though it should be sufficient for all traffic to be functional including voice/video.

I could've fought for lower pricing and kept cable but it's a constant fight to keep the bill down w/ annual price increases and all of the "taxes" they add on top of the monthly charge.

Not to mention if I want internet in the car I just grab the GW and don't have to burn my data plan on my phone for maps / streaming. Still a little irked about 3G being shutdown as my car doesn't have a LTE/5G option based on the HW in the MMI, I did rip it apart and looked at the actual connectors to see if I could put something in its place as an upgrade which is how I went down the rabbit hole with the modems posted above. I ended up putting in an Android head unit spliced into the OEM system instead. Works great and can connect out through the 5G GW or Phone over wifi. It does have a SIM slot though on the HU that could be used instead but, that's just another data package to spend money on.

I should mention while road testing the TMO 5G service around town in the car though the speeds were consistent. Of course different cities will have different results even different neighborhoods could as well.

Yeah, it's unfortunately going to depend on local coverage.

For me, N77 was almost matching my cable ISP for ping times. Was impressed. The router portion itself was garbage though.. Passthrough was/is kind of required for the VZN cube.

 

[Tech Junky]

Yeah, it's unfortunately going to depend on local coverage.

For me, N77 was almost matching my cable ISP for ping times. Was impressed. The router portion itself was garbage though.. Passthrough was/is kind of required for the VZN cube.

Yeah, the fwa situation at this point doesn't allow for a true bridge for a couple of reasons.

Both use ipv6 on their core and they don't have or want to deal with putting customer devices on ipv4. So, the way around this if you need external access in is with a VPN that gives you ipv4 to tunnel back in. Otherwise port forwarding isn't a thing with this type of service. Your IP when checking from different sites with be their load balancer IP which then gets converted to a cgnat 100.x.x.x which isn't routable over the internet like your average RFC1918 you have on your LAN.

Now a v6 and bridge mode device might come in the future but that also poses problems as a good chunk of sites don't support v6 either.

 

[jsz]

I believe Vrz gives a true Ipv4.. Tmobile is CGNAT

https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/s85u95

 

[sfx2000]

I believe Vrz gives a true Ipv4.. Tmobile is CGNAT

TMO is not CGNAT, it's 464XLAT

 

[Tech Junky]

I believe Vrz gives a true Ipv4.. Tmobile is CGNAT

https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/s85u95

Verizon, like T Mobile and AT&T, uses what's called a carrier-grade NAT to map a single WAN/internet-level IPv4 address to multiple devices (users) on Verizon's/T-Mobile's/AT&T's network.

Quote from your reddit.