Any ideas why a Nokia Fastmile 5G Router won't connect to 5G?

airborne

airborne

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I've been trying to help a friend with a Nokia Fastmile 5G Gateway (5G-04W-A) router released in 2019, that won't connect to 5G, it's being used with MTN.
They got it secondhand and didn't realise that it has probably only been connecting to 4G the whole time.
The phones get strong 5G signal in the location of the router and the sim card being used with it is definitely 5G enabled because it will pick up 5G if it's put in a phone.
There's not much info on the internet about these devices but apparently they are beast mode routers with Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 modem that supports a huge range of bands and they have 4GB of ram.

Any ideas what could be the issue?
Can the 5G modem die independently of the 4G modem?
 
Does anyone have any ideas or what I can try to troubleshoot it?
 
airborne said:
Does anyone have any ideas or what I can try to troubleshoot it?
Click to expand...

Go to a paki phone repair shop and get a RICA'ed Telkom and Vodacom SIM to test, you wont need to buy data to see if it connects to 5G.

Pro tip, put the new sims in your phone and wait a bit while at the shop to see if they are actually RICA'ed. No signal after 5 min = not registered on the network.
 
Rickster said:
Go to a paki phone repair shop and get a RICA'ed Telkom and Vodacom SIM to test, you wont need to buy data to see if it connects to 5G.

Pro tip, put the new sims in your phone and wait a bit while at the shop to see if they are actually RICA'ed. No signal after 5 min = not registered on the network.
Click to expand...
How is using a Telkom and Vodacom sim going to help, it’s not network locked?
 
cavedog said:
That LTE signal is poor. Are you sure there is 5G coverage even?
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Well our phones standing right next to it show the 5G connected icon but I suppose that's not conclusive but I would have thought the router would at least show some 5G even if very little signal. The area is also in the middle of MTN 5G coverage.
Is there any app or ways check if there is in fact 5G in the location?
 
Rickster said:
You asked. :ROFL:

That's one way to find out.
Click to expand...
Ok I see your logic, I should test with a different network sim to check if maybe the 5G modem is blacklisted?
But that being said it only as one IMEI number so if the router was blacklisted on MTN then both modems shouldn't be connecting
 
cavedog said:
That LTE signal is poor. Are you sure there is 5G coverage even?
Click to expand...
What a waste of time, I took the router a few km's away where I know there is very good 5G signal and it connects to 5G, the icon lights up and the speeds increased dramatically. I think the phone is talking sht because a speedtest at the original location was near the same on both the phone and router despite the phone showing the 5G icon.

Still at the location with good 5G the router was running at half the speed of my phone doing a speedtest at fast.com, iPhone 310Mbps Router 150Mbps, but it definitely was on 5G because it would drop to a third of the speed once it fell back to 4G.

Why are 5G routers so rubbish, I have experienced the same thing with a Huawei 5G router, not the best speeds and very poor signal?
 
airborne said:
What a waste of time, I took the router a few km's away where I know there is very good 5G signal and it connects to 5G, the icon lights up and the speeds increased dramatically. I think the phone is talking sht because a speedtest at the original location was near the same on both the phone and router despite the phone showing the 5G icon.

Still at the location with good 5G the router was running at half the speed of my phone doing a speedtest at fast.com, iPhone 310Mbps Router 150Mbps, but it definitely was on 5G because it would drop to a third of the speed once it fell back to 4G.

Why are 5G routers so rubbish, I have experienced the same thing with a Huawei 5G router, not the best speeds and very poor signal?
Click to expand...

It's usually signal related. The high frequency causes signal and speed to drop quite fast.
 
cavedog said:
It's usually signal related. The high frequency causes signal and speed to drop quite fast.
Click to expand...
How do people get real 5G speeds with 5G routers, do they need tower line of sight and to be quite close by?
 
airborne said:
How do people get real 5G speeds with 5G routers, do they need tower line of sight and to be quite close by?
Click to expand...

Probably close to the tower. The Nokia Fastmile also scans prior to find the best antenna combination to use. Not sure if that is the best solution to be honest.
 
cavedog said:
Probably close to the tower. The Nokia Fastmile also scans prior to find the best antenna combination to use. Not sure if that is the best solution to be honest.
Click to expand...
That's what the "Antenna sweeping time" setting must be for, you can set it to rescan on a preset schedule.
Is the Nokia Fastmile supposed to be any good, it seems very well specced?
 
I also found out that when phones show the 5G icon that doesn't necessary mean the phone is connected to 5G, just that there's 5G in the general vicinity. That would explain why the phone and router were doing near identical speeds on a speedtest in the original location, despite the phone showing a 5G icon both were only connecting to 4G.
 
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