4G or 5G Mast?

[Kinky]

I'm looking at possibly moving from BT fibre broadband (with c. 72MB connection) to a 5G mobile option.

We had a mast local to me, of which I've kind of got line of sight to, which has been there for a few years. Earlier this year it was replaced. My assumption (probably wrong) is that it would be a 5G mast. I've googled images to find something similar but can't.

On CellMapper it does appear, as mast # 11271

But it does not appear to support 5G. I've checked around the mast to see if there's any clues and all the stickers/labels around the mast all state "51282 EE & Hutchison 3G Ltd"

When I use the EE coverage checker it only shows 4G support with 32MB speed. Three does show with 5G coverage, but I appear to be on the edge of coverage. Therefore I'm guessing there's a 5G mast somewhere local, but not this one.

Anyway, my question is if anyone is able to definitively confirm what it is. If it's 5G then I'd sign up immediately with whomever.

Here's an pic of it, and one of the stickers on it:

[Radec]

Not sure about the mast but what I can say is pay no attention to where it says Hutchinson 3G as that's their actual company name and doesn't have a baring on what the kind of tower it actually is.

[nebpor]

Stick with fibre - that isn’t slow

You’ll find a much more variable experience on any kind of wireless access

[CharlieH89]

Is it worth trying a sim card first?
https://www.three.co.uk/Support/Free_SIM/Order

[anonymous-user]

Before I answer I need to supplement this with the fact I'm not a network engineer, I work with phones and network operators to obtain data and analyse the movement of phones so my expertise is more with the legal interception and the analysis side of things. There is someone on here with a better understanding of this than me and hopefully he'll be along to assist.

That site is owned by EE and Hutchison 3g who operate the EE and 3 networks respectively. The site contains a number of sectored cells, that is one cell covering a range of 120 degrees shared over a given azimuth so three cells would cover a full 360 degree area around the cell, you can sometimes see this in the panels facing in different directions on top of the cell tower. This site appears to cover three different technologies; 2g, 3g and 4g and across both networks so it has 18 cells. Unfortunately 5g does't appear to be one of them.

However...

The phrases of the different technologies 4g and 5g for example are purposefully delineated for marketing reasons, the truth is somewhat more nuanced. 4g technology has the ability to use 4gLTE (long term evolution) which is a kind of step up from 4g but not quite 5g. Equally 5g can be (remember I'm not a network engineer so could be off here), depending on the type of 5g technology used rely on the core 4g network for initial call connection before handing over to the 5g network for the remainder of the call. It gets even more muddy when we look at 4gLTE advanced which is another step in the technology chain. So it's perfectly possible that 5g is supported in that area but not at that site but a little bit by some of those cells.

[NorthDave]

Like the chap above says - just buy a £10 PAYG SIM and try it? You can do as much research as you like but there is no substitute for standing where you need signal and seeing what happens.

[xx99xx]

And bear in mind 5G is weaker inside buildings, unless you get an external antenna connected to an internal router.

[nebpor]

Agreed on getting a SIM and trying it. If your phone can get a decent speed, your router can get a decent speed - in fact it should get a better speed, as the router will typically have more transmit power than your phone and thus have more upload bandwidth.

Whatever you do, don't use 3 for broadband - there are numerous stories of the speed being diabolical.

I use an EE 5G "unlimited" normal phone SIM in my home router. There is effectively no cap. It's 30/month if you are an existing EE customer. No 5G here, so i'm just using it for 4G. It's much cheaper than EE's "home broadband" SIM cards as well. I have lots of devices connected at home, I'm an internet security pro for a living. It just works

It's much faster than my phoneline (which can only get about 16Mbit/sec), but as I indicated, the connection is not as stable.

Edited by nebpor on Thursday 9th September 09:41

[camel_landy]

sebdangerfield said:

The phrases of the different technologies 4g and 5g for example are purposefully delineated for marketing reasons, the truth is somewhat more nuanced.

^^^ This...

Don't get hung up on whether it's "4g" or "5g", what you need to look at is network latency and the upload/download speeds.

You also need to bear in mind that if your tower is in a busy location, you'll have to deal with network/cell contention too.

M

[Kinky]

Folks,

Thanks all for the responses; certainly food for thought.

Of course, the obvious answer is to get a 5G sim and test it on a 5G phone ..... if I had one, or know someone locally who does.

Seb, your insight is pretty clear and concise (and easy to understand)

But taking in all the above I do now wonder if mobile is the way to go, as I just kinda figured that 5G was the magical solution. We've also just had fibre installed in the area, so I could upgrade to FTTP via GigaClear or Trooli. I'm not aware of anyone that has actually done that yet. But that opens up a whole other discussion about moving my landline number to VOIP so I don't lose it, etc, etc!

Again, thank you all. It really is so much appreciated.