Phone 4g faster than router 4g

Sorry if this is a stupid question, my s10 gets a speed of around 70meg down on three and my unlimited sim in the router from three gets around 35meg down.
Why is my phone faster that the router? Even with an external antenna it makes no difference. Thanks for any help.

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-May-19 15:05:54)

The S10 supports Carrier Aggregation (up to 7 channels I think), whereas the router doesn't.

If you are in an area that Three supports CA then that would explain it.

i) check on different speed test sites like rootmetrics, MLab & Thinkbroadband etc - do you get the same difference in results?

ii) understand that your phone isn�t a router, so the Speed testing apps functions differently - particularly not having to share bandwidth with anything else. If you tether a PC to the phone via WiFi or USB do you get the same test results?

iii) the router connection stats may be different to your phone, you could be attached to a different sector on the mast or even a different mast on each device so getting different results. The connection stats (Cell ID, RSRP, RSRQ and SINR) can tell you this info, if you want to dig deeper.

iv) your mobile is likely a different Category of modem to your Router. An S10 is a CAT 20 device while an iPhone5 was still a CAT4 LTE device, most low cost routers are CAT3 or at a push CAT4. Also the router processor is pretty small, compared to a smart phone processor. You can get a CAT11 4G Router if you want to spend ££££, but it is important to consider that the system design for a device using a CAT11 or CAT20 modem, will be scaled to handle those maximum possible LTE speeds with both processor, clock speed and memory, but a CAT3 device is going to be build to a price, so will have a smaller, slower processor and is unlikely to be designed for maximum possible performance. For example there are many CAT4 Routers which only have 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports, despite a headline speed of 150Mbps on LTE.

v) WiFi & LAN performance - testing via the router if other devices are connected via wired or wireless will effect the results. Testing via 4G on your phone all other background apps are disabled.

vi) Power - The biggest flaw with low cost hardware is the power supply. Running a Speedtest loads both the modem chipset and the processor heavily, which also increases the strain on the power supply by a big %. A failing or undersized power supply will struggle to cope and that can seriously effect the speed. Battery powered devices are less susceptible to this issue and can cope with the peak demand better.

So there are lots of reasons you can get different results, but for most home users there is no need to spend £1000+ on a 4G router, but don�t expect a £100 4G router to match the performance of a £800 - £1000 smartphone.

In reply to a post by TechServ:

So there are lots of reasons you can get different results, but for most home users there is no need to spend £1000+ on a 4G router, but don�t expect a £100 4G router to match the performance of a £800 - £1000 smartphone.

No need to spend as much as an S10 or iPhone XS to get a modern LTE radio in your device. The problem is that most home routers are as you said Cat3 or at best Cat4, so do not really handle CA or the other modes of LTE-Advanced.

All 4 networks in the UK have CA deployed depending on area. Even my local mast for EE went from 1x20mhz to 1x20mhz+1x10mhz in the last three months. My old iPhone SE can't take advantage of this, nor can my legacy Vodafone USB dongle.

However the Huawei desk mounted LTE-routers are often under-spec for the price, you can easily get more capable LTE radios in similarly "cheap" devices. Much of the problem is the free devices supplied by the networks are likely old stock!

This TP-Link for example is only Cat3/4 but this Huawei is likely better looking at max speeds.

But actually this Netgearunit for £297 covers Gigabit LTE so is pretty close to the performance of the S10 / iPhone XS and a lot cheaper.


It pays to do your research as always.

To understand just how fast 4G is, we need to put the technology into perspective against the older mobile network technologies, namely 3G and 3G HSPA+. To do so we'll look at the theoretical and real-world performance of 4G LTE, as well as looking 4G speeds on the UK's mobile networks.

Thanks all for all the help and information, to answer a few of the questions.
I get an extra 30 meg down using the speed test on here with my phone next to the router and If I tether to my pc it�s the same.
I have just purchased the nighthawk in the post above I will update this post when it comes.

Quick update on this in the end I purchased a Huawei B715, straight out the box I have full 4g bars. I�m now getting about 80meg down so my speed has more than doubled.