By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
m0ney said:
EricHiggin said:

Congrats.

Any idea how far from the tower (distribution point) you are and how strong is the signal is?
How much does the speed vary? (peak time and weather)
Did your install require an exterior antenna or dish?
What's the highest speed offered?
What's the latency/ping like? (gaming)

A locally and federally funded internet program has led to the largest com co bringing Huawei 5G to certain rural areas with the worst service, and we're one of them luckily. The fiber line is being laid to the tower right now and is supposed to be hooked up and operational in a few months. The cell tower already exists and is about 100ft tall and is about 2.0km away. As far as I know they only offer one package of 25mbps down, 1.0mbps up, 350GB cap, $80 per month. Also requires a dish and install fee of some amount. Curious to know from people who have 5G what's its like in general.

I have simply a wi-fi router in my room and I live around 1km from the tower. When I tested the speed it was 25Mbps (3 MB/s) down and 9Mbps (1 MB/s) up, but as I said my game download was much much faster, at 13 MB/s. I was downloading Rocket League and with the old net it took half a day or more, now it took just a few minutes.

I played Rocket League and ping was good.

I pay 17 euro (19 usd) per month and I'm not sure if there is a cap, if there is it must be at least 200 GB I think.

That's pretty darn good for the price. 200GB cap seems low but depends on what and how much you use your internet for, and how many people are using it. Right now I have a 5.0mbps down, 0.5mbps up, 400GB cap, for $40 per month. If the ping is decent like you say, in comparison to my DSL right now which is quite low, then it sounds like it might be worth the transition. It would be 5X the speed for 2X the price. 

I've heard from quite a few people that wireless usually means no free download time though. Do you get any free download time? With my DSL I can download from 2am-8am free, which comes in super handy for game downloads, like this week in which over 4 nights I downloaded a game without having to use any data at all. 350GB cap without any free downloading could be a problem for me though since overage charges here are even more ridiculous on top the the plan fee's already.

CuCabeludo said:

The speed decreases a lot when far from a point. A guy tested it standing in front of a 5G point, got 2Gb/s+ down speed, having the best plan available. After that he just tested behind a wall, and got 400Mb/s download. The waves are very limited by anything that blogs its signal, like walls and trees. You need to be as close as possible to a 5G signal point.

At 1km from a 5G point, you will get almost nothing.

I talked to a neighbor today who stopped and talked to the foreman for the fiber install who works for the ISP, who also owns the tower. He asked about the coverage area and was told that the tower would offer 5G up to at least 10km, 15km max. He also said it requires line of sight sort of, or at least for full proper consistent signal and speed. Maybe that's why the ISP requires a dish install I'd assume? Maybe they're using a more powerful frequency? Even from on top of our 50ft TV antenna tower, I can't see the cell tower through the tree's, and yet the grade in the general area is fairly flat, so I don't know how exactly it'll work for everyone within a 10km range.

Last edited by EricHiggin - on 29 August 2019