Verizon 5g

[Ellenswamy]

Hello,

i just signed up for a free trail of Verizon 5g internet. They said this wont work with my existing ASUS router but I don’t know if I believe them without looking. Just curious if anyone is using ASUS router with verizon 5g internet for the home.

 

[RobJack]

Hello,

i just signed up for a free trail of Verizon 5g internet. They said this wont work with my existing ASUS router

As long as their ONT provides an ethernet output, there should not be any compatibility issues.

 

[Tech Junky]

ONT

5G doesn't use an ONT.... It's a Cellular modem + gateway in a single box.

If it's like T-Mobile it's simple to plugin and go. The issue might be that double NAT might prevent some things from working properly but, I run a DIY setup and Nordvpn 24/7 anyway so it didn't make much of a difference.

ISP <> NAT <> NAT <> VPN cuts through all the NAT's and provides IPv4

There's a lot of weird Ipv6 <> Ipv4 translations going on with TM for about 5 hops to get out to the wild and then it switches to IPv4.

As long as the router is set to DHCP on the WAN it should work just fine. I would suggest disabling the WIFI on the VZW box though to not compete with your router WIFI or test the VZW WIF and see if it performs better than the Asus. The TMHI gateway does WIF6 / 80 but my WIFI AP does WIFI6 / 160 which provides higher throughput to the LAN. The WIFI signal from the TMHI gateway though is slightly stronger for some reason

 

[Ellenswamy]

5G doesn't use an ONT.... It's a Cellular modem + gateway in a single box.

If it's like T-Mobile it's simple to plugin and go. The issue might be that double NAT might prevent some things from working properly but, I run a DIY setup and Nordvpn 24/7 anyway so it didn't make much of a difference.

ISP <> NAT <> NAT <> VPN cuts through all the NAT's and provides IPv4

There's a lot of weird Ipv6 <> Ipv4 translations going on with TM for about 5 hops to get out to the wild and then it switches to IPv4.

As long as the router is set to DHCP on the WAN it should work just fine. I would suggest disabling the WIFI on the VZW box though to not compete with your router WIFI or test the VZW WIF and see if it performs better than the Asus. The TMHI gateway does WIF6 / 80 but my WIFI AP does WIFI6 / 160 which provides higher throughput to the LAN. The WIFI signal from the TMHI gateway though is slightly stronger for some reason

Yea they said you just plug it in and go. I was going to disable the Wi-Fi on it and then I guess I plug it from one of the Ethernet ports on the modem to the wan on the router and that’s it?

 

[Tech Junky]

Pretty much.

When you get it do a search for the model number and scripts and there should probably be something to tweak it.

If the VZW box is as dumb as the TM one then the options are limited for what you can do from the GUI and in general.

 

[Ellenswamy]

Pretty much.

When you get it do a search for the model number and scripts and there should probably be something to tweak it.

If the VZW box is as dumb as the TM one then the options are limited for what you can do from the GUI and in general.

Awesome. I will probably have it wed or thurs of next week. It looks like you plug the wan into the TM and then you have your network. Curious if you can skip the router entirely and treat the TM like an ONT and plug that directly into the wan port on my router.

They just finished putting up a tower right next to my house, and i get 30 days free. If i like it is 25 a month for unlimited, and they pay off my xfinity contract.

 

[Tech Junky]

ONT

There's no ONT... ONT = Fiber

The Cellular modem is located inside the ISP equipment. It pulls the WWAN from the tower and then converts it to Ethernet to plug into devices directly / WIFI is internal to the box as well.

$25/mo is a good deal if it delivers decent speeds that are livable. I went TM because I test them all of the time with different MVNO's and consistently got 500+/100 speeds when testing. TMHI however the best I've hit so far has been 350/100 and it does vary depending on time of day. When testing VZW though with their in house MVNO Visible though the speed wasn't really there maxing at 20/10 maybe 25 DL at the right moment. When traveling around the city though and testing randomly it varied quite a bit and in Best Buy 2-3mbps which is ridiculous. Even in a VZW store with a micro-cell in the store it was pitiful. Having worked on several different carrier networks over the years though with some inside knowledge of how they operate helps in figuring out the perks and pitfalls of each of them. They've changed quite a bit over the last 10 years though and especially with LTE / 5G being implemented. The VZW tests though were within the last year or so and it was a bit shocking after seeing speed tests standing next to VZW engineers and seeing the results I expected them to be much better.

Now, they might have been reducing speeds by throttling the Visible SIM vs their in house VZ Red. I went to BB to check the speed issue with a VZW approved phone model they sell and the results were the same which ruled out being a HW issue. Things are always evolving though.

I'm finding some quirks with these gateway devices though the more I test and use them. This morning I was downloading a bunch of stuff and it was hitting ~70mbps and I was wondering if it was a source issue or the service. I rebooted the gateway and it shot up to ~350mbps instantly. So, with a cable modem that's usually not the response or case but, these gateways seem to like to be power cycled often for some reason.

BTW I ripped the gateway apart before even plugging it in to see if it worked to get a grasp on how things got jammed into the case and any improvements I could make. It's still sitting w/o the casing on it and I hooked up some different antennas to it to position them better than the PCB slabs they had inside. I disabled the WIFI on it to not compete and keep it running cooler.

So, the quirky thing about this particular device is 4 antennas on both LTE/5G and WIFI6. 2 antennas are for the LTE side and 2 for 5G. Same on the WIFI side for 2.4/5. For some reason there's a GPS / BT antenna as well. They don't make sense to me as the device doesn't need either of those for any particular reason. But I used some pigtails to extend the wiring out to the antennas and some flexibility in placement. By moving the placement of the antennas different aspects of the signal change accordingly. I started with all of them UP in a vertical position and that was worse than their current positions in the photo. Testing different positions ranged from 200mbps up to the current 350mbps. I'm still trying to pin down the LTE side though as there's a note on the monitoring tool I'm using that CA (carrier aggregation) should be available to get even higher speeds. Also, the specs on the modem inside is capable of 2.5gbps / 300mbps so, there's room for growth in terms of bandwidth.

 

[Ellenswamy]

So I just got it in the mail, put it on a shelf that was close to the window. It has 2 LAN ports on the bottom and plugged it into the WAN on the router and picked the internet right up. Had to turn on QOS. my download was around 240mb and between 10-25 upload, so we will see how that goes.

 

[Tech Junky]

Yeah, the OEM antennas are a bit funky in their placement as well. Give it a 1/4 turn and test again until you find the right orientation for the best speeds. Find a script if there's no apparent settings in the web GUI and kill the WIFI to make it run cooler / keep the performance up.

With the TM one it likes to be rebooted periodically to perform well so I added a powershell script to task scheduler to do it automatically every 8 hours which also keeps the monitoring API alive which tends to die.

I don't bother with QOS but, when doing a heavy download things do slow down in other places a bit. It's just part of the game coming down from gigabit speeds.


Oh, and with TM I found the phone app has more settings than the web GUI for the WIFI to turn off the broadcast and limit it to a single band. Why that's not on the web GUI I have no idea because most people wouldn't go digging in the phone app to make that sort of change.

 

[Ellenswamy]

Yeah, the OEM antennas are a bit funky in their placement as well. Give it a 1/4 turn and test again until you find the right orientation for the best speeds. Find a script if there's no apparent settings in the web GUI and kill the WIFI to make it run cooler / keep the performance up.

With the TM one it likes to be rebooted periodically to perform well so I added a powershell script to task scheduler to do it automatically every 8 hours which also keeps the monitoring API alive which tends to die.

I don't bother with QOS but, when doing a heavy download things do slow down in other places a bit. It's just part of the game coming down from gigabit speeds.


Oh, and with TM I found the phone app has more settings than the web GUI for the WIFI to turn off the broadcast and limit it to a single band. Why that's not on the web GUI I have no idea because most people wouldn't go digging in the phone app to make that sort of change.

yea for this there is no web GUI, I did turn off the wifi through the my Verizon app. I will try and turn it

 

[Tech9]

It's still sitting w/o the casing on it and I hooked up some different antennas to it

You live alone. No wife will accept this modern art at the window.

 

[Tech Junky]

You live alone. No wife will accept this modern art at the window.

I could put the case back on it and mount things a bit more permanently. In the situation you metion I would go with the 8" antenna pigtails to run them down to the bottom of the case the bottom it up a bit.

 

[Ellenswamy]

So it does have a web interface, and i was able to turn on iPad pass-through which I assume is safe since my router has a firewall..correct?

 

[sfx2000]

Now, they might have been reducing speeds by throttling the Visible SIM vs their in house VZ Red. I went to BB to check the speed issue with a VZW approved phone model they sell and the results were the same which ruled out being a HW issue.

Rate/Comm plan determines the data rates and traffic priorities via PCRF/PCEF...

(I'm also a telco veteran, for me, it was Leap Wireless and ATT)

MintMobile on TMO is similar what was mentioned with Visibl vs full service Verizon. You'll always get better performance on a MNO full-service account - but one also pays handsomely for that level of service.

Within the constraints - TMHI is a very good value, as long as one is good with the 464XLAT implementation and the impact to IPV4 services (e.g. no port forwarding for example) and savvy on IPv6, where performance is generally better. Quick tip - on the Nokia unit, aka the trash can, WIFi cannot actually be totally disabled - one can turn of the SSID, and turn down TX power (min is 12.5% relative to max power).

 

[sfx2000]

So it does have a web interface, and i was able to turn on iPad pass-through which I assume is safe since my router has a firewall..correct?

yes

 

[sfx2000]

BTW I ripped the gateway apart before even plugging it in to see if it worked to get a grasp on how things got jammed into the case and any improvements I could make. It's still sitting w/o the casing on it and I hooked up some different antennas to it to position them better than the PCB slabs they had inside. I disabled the WIFI on it to not compete and keep it running cooler.

I would leave the antennas (antennae?) alone - they're well matched for both the Arcadyan and the Nokia units for both the WiFi and 5G/4G radios.

I know there's a lot of chatter on Reddit regarding using external antennas by non-RF engineers - I've read the FCC reports, reviewed at the technical data, plus I know people over on the TMobile device team - these units are very good radio wise for both WLAN and WWAN.

 

[Tech Junky]

@sfx2000

Having a background in the companies mentioned here I'm not just going off of what's on reddit or YT posts. It's more of a tinker approach to the antennas to see what can actually be done vs what it's designed to do. I like to take things down to the low level design and reimagine them into something better. Sometimes it's a big gain in performance and other times it's a wash or worse performance tan designed. If you don't try you won't know though.

Through playing with the antenna arrays though I've seen decreased performance with some of them like attenuation from longer leads to a puck vs short pigtails and direct attachment to the device. Some higher DB antennas with a more focused pattern vs lower DB patterns to catch a broader signal.

Digging through the device API's to figure out what it's capable of from an EU CPE perspective for monitoring / configuring the dumb device that it is. Finding the additional options in the phone app that should be in the GUI in a browser makes me scratch my head as to why.

I was alluding to your PCRF comment w/o getting too technical about the end to end setup with MVNO vs MNO. Lots of gadgets in play when it comes to the backend that unless you've been hands on you wouldn't know about as a consumer.

Getting more diversity on the RF side for the 5G/LTE outside of the compact configuration inside the black box though has produced higher speeds. The best I've gotten so far is 434/92 which is approaching the max I can get out of my phone on the same tower. My phone can hit just over 600/100. Getting over 400 w/ the stock setup isn't possible.

 

[Ellenswamy]

Well I had to switch back to my xfinity. For basic web surfing and even streaming it was good. But I went to download the latest Merlin firmware which is 67mb and it took 23 min. I can’t work with those speeds…

 

[Tech Junky]

Hop the fence to T-Mobile $50 all in each month.

 

[sfx2000]

Through playing with the antenna arrays though I've seen decreased performance with some of them like attenuation from longer leads to a puck vs short pigtails and direct attachment to the device. Some higher DB antennas with a more focused pattern vs lower DB patterns to catch a broader signal.

At the same time - consider the RF Engineers at both the of OEM's as well as Verizon and T-Mobile - they're pretty good at what they do, and have matched the antenna platform to the design requirements.

Just saying...

Lay people should just leave the antennas alone...