5G or not 5g

[dwizzo]

We signed up to a 5G gigacube even though only 4g in our area at the time...wanted the unlimited data package and also hopeful of the in our area at some point over 18m contract period. While service has been mostly good, noticed recently that the network status checker was showing good the coverage indoors and out in our area (CR5 3EZ)...and not just where we live but for quite a way around us. However, gigacube still showing 4g light (actually connecting to 4g+, but still 4g. Phoned help desk and they said that the network status checker was wrong...I suggested that an occasional error was fine, but the page had been showing 5G for several days now and as said above, not just a small mistake but seemingly covering quite a large area around us. I appreciate the disclaimer on the checker page, but I have no other way to check whether it is the router / sim ie need deprovisioning / reprovisioning as per other queries on the forum or the checker page is having a fail moment. Person I spoke to on help desk suggested I made a formal complaint as his view was showing no 5G on masts near us...I did ask if he could raise the issue but apparently not!

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Mark]

If your neighbour is able to pick up a 5G service using their phone and GigaCube at your property @dwizzo and you're still unable to do this, the problem you're experiencing maybe connected to your SIM or GigaCube. Would you be able to ask your neighbour to try their SIM in your GigaCube, or your SIM in theirs. This would help us identify where the issue may lie and offer a resolution.

[dwizzo]

Mark, thanks for coming back. Just to clarify, neighbour has same gigacube issue as us...no 5g....even though he has same 5g contract as us.  However, he has just got a 5g phone, so tried out his gigacube sim in the phone and he got 5g at his house...and then even better reception when stood outside our house. With lockdown a bit awkward to do sim / phone swaps (we have no 5g phone to be able to test). As you say, for us would seem either issue with gigacube, or sim...but no real way for us to isolate the issue. Any ideas on best way forward...outside of waiting for lockdown to finish!

[Evie]

Thank you for clarifying @dwizzo - So, using the Gigacube SIM in a 5G enabled phone works fine and can connect to 5G?

After doing a little more digging on our network systems, you live slap bang in the middle between 2 masts, and 1 of them (ID: 87865) has 5G 'cells' but the other 1 (ID: 31517) doesn't have 5G enabled and it's most likely, albeit highly unlucky, that you're connecting to the one without 5G 'cells'. 

I would suggest to reboot your Gigacube a couple of times day just to see if you can connect to the 5G mast and keep trying the 'band switching' as discussed in our previous posts.

[dwizzo]

Evie, thanks for that...somewhat frustrating but there you have it. Are you able to tell me which bands each of the masts use? If there are differences I could maybe use that to try to force the gigacube to connect to the mast with the 5g cells. At the moment I am restricting to bands 1 and 20 and this gives me good aggregation (4g+) with download at present around 70 and upload of c.50. Nothing to complain about, especially when reading lots of others comments on the forum, but I just want to try to get 5g to see the difference.

[Evie]

Sorry @dwizzo, we you say what 'bands' do each of the masts use, do you mean what speeds should you expect? We're unable to see what speeds individual masts give off as this can fluctuate but in your area, on 4G you can get up to speeds of 60.0 Mbps and on 5G you can get up to speeds of 255 Mbps.

The masts that doesn't have 5G cells at the moment, could have it enabled in the future and as soon as it has, your Gigacube will be up and running on 5G. 

[dwizzo]

Evie, when I mentioned bands I was referring to info I can pick up on cellmapper. Combining this with the huactrl app I can see our gigacube is connected to the mast with the iD 11698 which uses bands 1 (800mhz frequency) and band 20 (2100mhz) for the 4g connection. I think this is the mast that you referred to as 31517. The other mast you referred to (as did your colleagues on Twitter) 87865 only seems to have band 20 so unfortunately I think my idea of restricting bands to force the gigacube to connect to the 5g mast will not work. As such, I think II will just have to wait for VF to upgrade...dull but hey ho. Thanks again for your help