Really struggling with slow 5G speeds - please help?!

Hi,


I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to get better 5G speeds with my new mobile router setup but it’s really mashing my melon now!

So I’ve got a 5G router (TP-Link Archer NX200) paired with an external 5G antenna (Poynting XPOL-1-5G V2). This is then using a Lebara sim.

So the bit I can’t understand is that in various places outside my house at ground-level I can get 5G speeds of 300mbps on my phone using a Vodafone sim, yet when I installed the antenna up on a mast on the roof the maximum I get on the router is 50mbps.

I tried swapping my VF sim over and put it in the router - still 50mbps. If I put the Lebara sim from the router into my phone I get 200mbps. Spent hours trying the antenna in loads of different spots on the roof and at any spot the router was getting no more than 20-50mbps, whilst standing next to it I could easily get 200-300mbps on my phone.

I could see the router signal strength light was fluctuating between 50% - 75%+ even when the antenna was fixed in position and nothing was moving.

I’m running out of ideas and just wondered if it could be a setting on the router, currently everything is just on its default, out-of-the-box settings? Or is the antenna I’m using just no good? Surely a dedicated 5G antenna should get better speed than my iPhone, or is that not the case?

Would be really grateful for any help or ideas?

have you tried the NX200 on its internal aerials, since those are 8x8 where as external its only 2x2. Also try the unit in every place in your house and try rotation of the unit..

Then go back to the external aeiral and you may find you need to move the external aerial

Use a site such as Cellmapper to determine which mast transmitter is serving your location.
Check the frequencies in use, e.g. n1 (2100 MHz) or n3 (1800 MHz) or even n78 (3300 to 3500 MHz). Check your external antenna is capable of working with the frequencies for your site, and chosen network. Don't assume all EE or all O2 is the same frequencies, deployments are different. Some phones can show you what they are connected on, so might help debug.

External antenna are often only good for certain frequencies, and 5G NR is a protocol that works all the way from 600 MHz to 6000 MHz (6 GHz) in different countries. 4G LTE is similar, but in the UK we don't see it higher than band 7 (2600 MHz)

@MonkeyMalloo,

What type device are using to do your speedtests on? Are you connected to the router via ethernet? If you're testing via wireless then there is a HUGE difference in specifications of wireless cards and it might be this that is affecting your speed.

HTH,

In reply to a post by MonkeyMalloo:

Hi,


I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to get better 5G speeds with my new mobile router setup but it’s really mashing my melon now!

So I’ve got a 5G router (TP-Link Archer NX200) paired with an external 5G antenna (Poynting XPOL-1-5G V2). This is then using a Lebara sim.

So the bit I can’t understand is that in various places outside my house at ground-level I can get 5G speeds of 300mbps on my phone using a Vodafone sim, yet when I installed the antenna up on a mast on the roof the maximum I get on the router is 50mbps.

I tried swapping my VF sim over and put it in the router - still 50mbps. If I put the Lebara sim from the router into my phone I get 200mbps. Spent hours trying the antenna in loads of different spots on the roof and at any spot the router was getting no more than 20-50mbps, whilst standing next to it I could easily get 200-300mbps on my phone.

I could see the router signal strength light was fluctuating between 50% - 75%+ even when the antenna was fixed in position and nothing was moving.

I’m running out of ideas and just wondered if it could be a setting on the router, currently everything is just on its default, out-of-the-box settings? Or is the antenna I’m using just no good? Surely a dedicated 5G antenna should get better speed than my iPhone, or is that not the case?

Would be really grateful for any help or ideas?

You may simply have too much cable between the antenna and your modem/router thing. If n78 is the band in use, 3000 MHz (3 GHz) is a tricky beast to work with from a radio perspective.

The closer you can get your modem and the antenna with shorter cable MAY help.

You could test in your living area, with a short cable from antenna to modem; even outdoors if you have an extension lead and its not raining.