No 5G but getting 5G??

[Clarkster]

I am in a semi rural village called Mark Cross in East Sussex, TN6 3P* postcodes. Outside and in the loft our phones are saying 5G. Me on EE, the Missus on O2. BB is copper and about 35mb. With that supposed 5G we see 25-30mb. I have acquired a directional 2x Mimo antenna and with no real directional input we can get 25-30mb on that qat ground level. We potentially have line of sight to a tower but I assumed it was 4GLTE. I am learning this stuff slowly, so go easy. With that 25-30mb the upload never goes beyond 1.5mb which would be carnage for me in my business.

Just wondering how I am certain where the 5G / 4G masts are and what I might realistically expect from an antenna, especially for the crucial upload. Is there a more scientific device for pointing my directional antenna.

[Peter_W · Accepted solution]

Hey there @Clarkster, welcome to the EE Community 😊

Whilst you can get a general overview of signal in your area via our coverage checker, this won't give specific details of site locations and line of sight. 

If you contact our technical support team though, they'll be able to take a closer look at things, and make recommendations on the best orientation to try with your aerial. 

Peter

[bristolian]

EE operate both 4G & 5G services across numerous frequency bands. 4G is the base layer and is a standard deployment, 5G is deployed on increasing numbers of sites, but local variations all depend on specific site configs.

One complication with using directional antenna is that you could point it towards a site which currently carries 4G/5G service at the expense of another which may give better RX but where 5G is then later added. Also to add that 4G itself is capable of much better speeds than those you are quoting, so 5G alone is not the panacea but a part of the mix.

[Clarkster]

That makes perfect sense. Going to temp mount the antenna on a fibreglass mast so I can look at all options 360degrees. 

The close, line of sight option is offering about 40-45mbs down and 20-35mbs on 4G but upload dies to 1.5mb on the 5g. 

I'll check the levels on other known towers and see if I can improve on things. 

[Clarkster]

As an update. 

I mounted the Poynting 5G XPOL - 2 V3 antenna directly at the Tower I can see, which is exactly 1500m away. I have approx line of sight, but have a lofty hedge to lower. The mast is in a wood and I do see fluctuations with rain and wind, which suggests trees. Local load can be an issue too.

When all is quiet I achieve 25-40 mb down and 45 mb up. The connection is Band 3 4G LTE. When I try the 5g I get similar, if not lower download speeds but only 10% of the upload. I can go a little higher with the antenna and hope to be able to 360 test from the chimney stack to ensure this is the best option. 

At this sort of distance is this the best I can hope for? I have been testing via data sims from EE and also other companies partnering EE's network. I see no difference. 

The router is a TP Link Archer NX 200 with the twin external antennas connected. I have the router set to 4G only which appears to offer the best results. 

[bristolian]

---

@Clarkster wrote:

When all is quiet I achieve 25-40 mb down and 45 mb up. The connection is Band 3 4G LTE. 

At this sort of distance is this the best I can hope for

---

Those speeds are realistic to achieve with light load on 5Mhz of bandwidth, or some load over a 10 or 15Mhz carrier.

Band-3 4G comes with a base 20Mhz carrier, and additional 10Mhz or 20Mhz second-carriers depending on local config.

Your village has 2 serving sites - one to the north has a single 20Mhz 1800Mhz carrier alongside 5Mhz of 800Mhz Band 20. To the south, another site is single-carrier Band 3-only.