GigaCube and similar router mod services on fleabay

I was listing my old GigaCube router on eBay and was doing a bit of research on what else is similarly listed, completed listings etc to get an idea of prices etc.

I came across these guys selling router mods for Huawei H112-370’s and the like.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MOD-SERVICE-8X-external-a...

The picture grabbed my attention as I hadn’t realised firstly that this was an actual service being offered. Secondly just how many MIMO antennas these boxes now sport - that’s eight on both 4G and 5G! Apparently just using the two factory external ports would appear…errr quite limited.

I had to do a double take on the price

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The picture grabbed my attention as I hadn’t realised firstly that this was an actual service being offered. Secondly just how many MIMO antennas these boxes now sport - that’s eight on both 4G and 5G! Apparently just using the two factory external ports would appear…errr quite limited.

Check the specifications of many mobile handsets where 4 antennas for transmit & receive (4T4R) is common to improve signal reception. Especially with high frequencies.

UK 5G deployment is currently on N78 which is 3.5 GHz, but lower band is just starting this summer.

Tell me about it. You'd also need to factor the cost of at least 4 antenna arrays or 2 cross-polarised ones for each frequency range. That gets a tad mental.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Check the specifications of many mobile handsets where 4 antennas for transmit & receive (4T4R) is common to improve signal reception. Especially with high frequencies.

UK 5G deployment is currently on N78 which is 3.5 GHz, but lower band is just starting this summer.

Indeed. I was reading about how they've been horse-trading their new spectrum allocations to get more contiguous blocks.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Indeed. I was reading about how they've been horse-trading their new spectrum allocations to get more contiguous blocks.

I read the Ofcom sponsored period to do the trading didn't achieve anything, so Ofcom has issued licenses. Since then Vodafone and O2 have agreed a trade, giving O2 an 80 MHz block.

This site (by Peter and Jake) has a good diagram of the N78 spectrum, and you can see the block problem (end of the page for N78):
https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-sp...

Bonkers! Ofcom should have just mandated adjacent contiguous blocks of spectrum for each operator. What benefit is that current situation to anyone - other than perhaps 3!?

Gosh that diagram just reminded me of Relish.....my god they were rubbish.

I could never get VoIP to work over their 'network'. Tried everything, in the end I just gave up with them. I just gave away the old Relish 'fixed 5G' router I had using Olio.

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 08-May-21 18:59:43)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Bonkers! Ofcom should have just mandated adjacent contiguous blocks of spectrum for each operator. What benefit is that current situation to anyone - other than perhaps 3!?

I agree, it appears to be a failure of regulaton.

I could never get VoIP to work over their 'network'. Tried everything, in the end I just gave up with them. I just gave away the old Relish 'fixed 5G' router I had using Olio.

I think Three have now taken over all legacy Relish infrastructure and incorporated it into the Three network. That is how they ended up with more than 100 MHz of the N78 band.

Yes they have to my knowledge. I was on the tail end of contract with R as Three bought them. I ran and didn’t look back.

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 08-May-21 20:20:26)

I was astounded that I made nearly £250 on a second-hand Vodafone-locked GigaCube on eBay.

For something that came bundled with a £50 pcm (that was admittedly discounted) 5G all you can eat contract, it payed off quite nicely.