topic Re: Upgrade from 4g to 5g in Mobile Broadband

Upgrade from 4g to 5g

WillJones9988 — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 10:52:21 GMT

My current set up is EE 4G mobile broadband. I have the router with external antenna mounted on a small tower I built at a hight point in my garden and power via PoE over a ethernet in a conduit from the house. The antenna has line of sight to a phone mast and I get around 80/40Mbs, which is great.

I recently noticed I can now get 5g on my phone in the garden, so I am considering upgrading my contract to 5g.

Some questions, that I cannot find the answers to from EE:

1. Which of the 5g routers have an ethernet port and what power input do they each need?

2. Is there a download speed limit on the 5g plan. I believe its 100mbs on the 4g plan.

3. Do I even need to upgrade my contract to get 5g? Could I just get a router?

4. Is there anyway for me to pre-emptively test if I will get a better speed from upgrading?

Thanks in advance - and any other thoughts welcome!

Will

Re: Upgrade from 4g to 5g

bristolian — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 11:03:09 GMT

@WillJones9988 wrote:

3. Do I even need to upgrade my contract to get 5g? Could I just get a router?

4. Is there anyway for me to pre-emptively test if I will get a better speed from upgrading?

In order to access 5G services, you need 1: A 5G-enabled plan, 2: 5G-enabled hardware (phone or router), 3: Be within 5G coverage

EE phones & routers use the exact same network signal, so testing on one would be applicable on the other. 5G is not the only panacea for increased speeds, additional 4G carriers will achieve the same thing - both solutions work in parallel.

Re: Upgrade from 4g to 5g

WillJones9988 — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 12:55:41 GMT

Thanks for getting back to me. By 'additional 4g carriers' do you mean that other 4g suppliers might give better speed at the same location?

Re: Upgrade from 4g to 5g

bristolian — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 14:38:19 GMT

I may have used misleading terminology in my previous post.

4G is provided across different frequency bands, and in some bands there are multiple chunks of spectrum available for use. Each of those chunks is known as a carrier - for example Band 3 contains 35Mhz of 4G bandwidth that is usually deployed as a 20Mhz carrier (EARFCN-1617) and upto 2 additional 10Mhz carriers.

Additional carriers are available on Band 1 & Band 7 depending on the area. 5G then has its own set of spectrum that follows an identical principle.

Thus a 5G-addition is one way of increasing speeds, as are 4G-spectrum-additions.