NR7101

PeterCabus

Good afternoon,
I have WindTre (Italy) as a provider.  The closest tower supports 5G SNA SSD.  When I make a connection with my Pixel4 (5G) phone I get download speeds of 200 mbps.  When I use the NR7101 I barely get 35 mbps.  The upload speed is higher, 70 to 100.

I've updated the firmware to 100ABUV7C0 and the LTE module to RG502QEAAAR11A06M4G-R11A07.

If I cannot get higher speeds I'll send it back.  I have two other LTE routers connected to Windtre (Huawei) & Vodafone (Zyxel LTE7480) that give me 70 to 80.

All advice and tips are very welcome.

Thanks,
Peter

SELBERG

It's very important to point it exactly, 1 milimeter wrong and you have bad connection. You can also lock to 4G high speed band.

tonygibbs16

Hello @PeterCabus

Welcome to the forum Peter.

It is good that you have done the upgrades.

It could be worth you making sure that the Preferred Access Technology is set to Auto and Band Auto Selection is also enabled under Cellular Band configuration, as per the guidance at item F for NR7101 at https://support.zyxel.eu/hc/en-us/articles/4404106191890-NR-5G-Series-Basic-Troubleshooting 

This has worked for other users who have experienced slow connections with NR7101.

I hope that this helps.

Kind regards,
     Tony

PeterCabus

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your reply.

I have already tested with everything on auto.  It did not make a real difference.  
Is it possible that the router has a hardware problem?  I think it has several antennas inside.  What if one or more are not working properly?  Is there a way to test that?  The router arrived in a box that was slightly damaged.  I guess it got dropped during transport.  The major speed difference compared to my mobile phone could be explained by an antenna not receiving a proper signal.

Do you know a way to see which bands are used on an android phone?  This ways I can compare the bands used by the router vs those on the phone. 

Another thing that I can try is to downgrade the LTE module firmware to the previous version.  Apparently there are some users that said that the latest version actually caused connection and speed problems.  

Thanks,

Peter

SELBERG

1. You can´t downgrade module from 7 to previous version.

2. You can log in to web GUI with your mobile and wifi....

3. First of all, modify values in user account, go to "Maintenance/User account/modify" change values and hit "Apply"



4. Go to "Network Settings/Broadband/Cellular Band" Uncheck Band auto selection and add bands added in pic, also "Disable UMTS".
Important, don´t add BC20...... Finally Apply.....



5. Go to "System Monitor/Cellular WAN Status" Change Refresh Interval to 5 seconds.



6. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see something like this.
Use Speedtest at the same time while seeing this pic because otherwise modem can go down to energy spare mode.



7.  Try add BC20 in Band selection table and see if there is any changes in speed and CA Combination.

8. Try also change value to 4G in band selection and check Signal information table and speed..... Try with both BC20 added and without BC20......

9. Please let us know then......

PeterCabus

Here is an update. 

I made some progress.  I managed to get speeds similar to my mobile phone.  It is possible that the network cable that I previously used was faulty.  I have also used another laptop for testing.  

Anyway, I hooked up the NR7101 to my Edgerouter.  I have also locked down the LTE bands.  I'm using 5 bands:



Yesterday, but that was before the band locking, it dropped from 5 to 2 bands only.  Connection speed went down as well.  Not sure what was going on there.  

So the jury is still out if it works properly.  

Many thanks for the help so far.

SELBERG

Did you do as i described?

Go to "System Monitor/Cellular WAN Status" Change Refresh Interval to 5 seconds.

Do speedtests @ the same time as it refresh signal information table every 5 seconds.....

Let us know your result......

PeterCabus

I did like you described.  System seems stable for the moment.  The Signal Information Table did not change at all during the speed test.  4 LTE bands + NR_N3 (5G NSA).

SELBERG

So Sinr i zero @ BC3, BC20, BC1 now or not?

You need to do many speedtests, not only one while watching because of that energy spare mode.

PeterCabus

Correct SINR is zero for the non-primary bands.  
I also noticed that when I switch to router mode, the number of bands drops from 5 to 2. When I activate IP passthrough mode, all bands show up again.  Is this a bug?  

SELBERG

Probably!

I have the same symptoms but not every day.