Newbie NOK 5G21 Troubleshooting. Router Suggestion$?

[JamesHomeNet]

Hello,

Totally newbie here. Tried multiple searches before posting. Thanks in advance.

Have the NOK 5G21 TMobile cellular router with about 120Mps download. The TV stops & pauses a lot, and I want to get the cheapest 2.4 and 5g WiFi router to look with WireShark or something at the devices on the network. I believe I need that "promiscuous mode?"

I would just use it for occasional troubleshooting, by plugging it into the NOK5G21 then going though this new device for 1h while I look at the traffic.

Currently, the interface on the cellular receiver/wifi (5G21) sucks. It only show the names of the devices as their last 4 of the Mac address. It has almost no statistic data. Zero data about any one device in particular. I can't even tell if they are all legit devices, ie not the neighbor's?

I only want to spend < $40 ish. It's that possible? Recommendations of routers that support Wireshark mode, cheap and have that 100/1000/ wan/lan stuff that's greater than my 120Mbps speed? Thanks!!!

It's in the best location. Only 2 bars, sometimes 3

Thanks,
James

 

[Tech Junky]

Having had TMHI the default they send for use is a dumb modem with an AP built in. It's a useless box to deal with. I don't know what the 5G21 is since Nokia has a couple of models in use with TMO and Arkaydian is the other option with Sagecom being the latest.

Bars don't matter on those diag screens as they're just to make you feel better/worse about your connection. If you have a phone w/ TMO that's more accurate at pulling site stats. WireShark only gives you packet info and won't do much for figuring out the latency issue.

The gateways need to be rebooted frequently to refresh the connection. There's an applet Nater Tater put out from YT that works well for this as you can then setup a scheduled service in Windows to do it in the background.

The next step would be to move it around and do a speedtest in those locations to confirm things. If it's still lackluster it might be the channel it's locking to on the tower causing the slow speeds. If I lock to 2/41 I can hit 300/70 but if I lock to 66/41 it's under 100/40. I figured this out by getting my own M2 modem and testing different configurations. You can get a modem and USB sled for under $100 o AliExpress for a basic 5G setup to plug into a router. The other option is to crack open the gateway and use pigtails to put some external antennas into play to try to get a better signal and speeds.

 

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