Rain 5G great, but it is the reason Rain LTE is now slow!

[TheSentinel]

It is great that Rain has launched 5G in certain areas but this might mean continued poor Rain LTE speeds going forward. This is due to their 5G network architecture which is built on top of their existing LTE network.

“Technically, this is called a non-standalone (NSA) 5G network and allows the operator to drive the costs of production down.” - mybroadband



This allows ISPs to launch 5G faster and cheaper but it consumes their existing LTE network resources.

This is why lately people all over the country have been complaining about terrible Rain LTE speeds even with full network signal & coverage.

Simply put, there is no “network congestion” as Rain Support claims, just 5G nodes consuming most of the LTE bandwidth. If you have been following Rain 5G progress you will realise that their network quality (speeds) have slowly been degrading since they started testing 5G.

Maybe they will upgrade their LTE network to handle 5G bandwidth but the more Rain 5G users grow the worse LTE experience might get.

Here is a video showing the same kind of NSA 5G architecture and poor LTE speeds in USA.

Sprint 5G test

Lets hope they upgrade their LTE to support the added 5G bandwidth, until then we will have to endure the snail LTE speeds.

Update Video Confirming that Rain uses 4G antennas to accelerate 5G coverage. So like it or not, it will affect the LTE users as we now have less Rain antennas serving LTE users.

 

[backstreetboy]

Nothing wrong with my speed and I have two uncapped sims.

 

[Swa]

This is how all existing operators are doing it as it's simply not feasible to roll out 5G everywhere anywhere. It does not result in poorer LTE speeds but rather the other way around by offloading users onto 5G in high density areas. The one can't affect the other as they are two different network technologies running on different frequencies. The problem in SA however is that we don't have the necessary 5G spectrum assigned yet to take maximum advantage of this. It's still better though as 5G has a 2-3x higher throughput than 4G.

I wish people would learn the technologies and how they really work before shouting inaccuracies. The speed and congestion issues on Rain have also been massively overstated.

 

[TheSentinel]

Nothing wrong with my speed and I have two uncapped sims.

Location also matters, find that your area does not have 5G nodes yet.

 

[TheSentinel]

This is how all existing operators are doing it as it's simply not feasible to roll out 5G everywhere anywhere. It does not result in poorer LTE speeds but rather the other way around by offloading users onto 5G in high density areas. The one can't affect the other as they are two different network technologies running on different frequencies. The problem in SA however is that we don't have the necessary 5G spectrum assigned yet to take maximum advantage of this. It's still better though as 5G has a 2-3x higher throughput than 4G.

I wish people would learn the technologies and how they really work before shouting inaccuracies. The speed and congestion issues on Rain have also been massively overstated.

You are the one who has to do the research before jumping to comment.

Rain 5G is not standalone, it uses their LTE network resources as shown in the picture. There is no offloading LTE users onto 5G as devices are not compatible. If that was possible it would be useless as it would mean they are routing LTE users to 5G that still uses the same LTE resources as the backbone.

Yes it is different frequencies but the 5G nodes connect to LTE data plane then broadcasts 5G frequencies to user devices. That is why they say 700Mbps max and 200Mbps real world. Those are not real standalone 5G speeds.

Watch the video and also do more research about NSA 5G.

Your argument is basically like saying that you have fibre in your home, then users connect to it via WiFi. You can't then say you will offload direct fibre users to the WiFi as your WiFi router uses the same fibre anyways.

 

[Quicks]

Rain sucks plain and simple!

 

[cavedog]

Rain sucks plain and simple!

Well I guess it depends on the tower you connect to. I've noticed in suburbs where the whole suburb has fibre the towers are pretty much epic on all networks. In areas where there is no fibre and just adsl you will see degraded performance.

 

[Quicks]

Well I guess it depends on the tower you connect to. I've noticed in suburbs where the whole suburb has fibre the towers are pretty much epic on all networks. In areas where there is no fibre and just adsl you will see degraded performance.

More like I switch to fibre because of that.

 

[Swa]

You are the one who has to do the research before jumping to comment.

Rain 5G is not standalone, it uses their LTE network resources as shown in the picture. There is no offloading LTE users onto 5G as devices are not compatible. If that was possible it would be useless as it would mean they are routing LTE users to 5G that still uses the same LTE resources as the backbone.

Yes it is different frequencies but the 5G nodes connect to LTE data plane then broadcasts 5G frequencies to user devices. That is why they say 700Mbps max and 200Mbps real world. Those are not real standalone 5G speeds.

Watch the video and also do more research about NSA 5G.

Your argument is basically like saying that you have fibre in your home, then users connect to it via WiFi. You can't then say you will offload direct fibre users to the WiFi as your WiFi router uses the same fibre anyways.

"There is no offloading LTE users onto 5G as devices are not compatible."
What is that even supposed to mean? If you can't offload users then there's no issue. If you can then they're just using 5G instead of 4G. Like my one friend used to say same sh|t different spelling. The one doesn't influence the other.

The reason you won't see 700Mbps is not because of an LTE backbone (technically it's not an LTE backbone but rather a shared application agnostic backbone like 2G, 3G and 4G also shares the same) but because of bandwidth constraints. It makes no real sense to have separate backbones as you're simply duplicating infrastructure then where you could be supplementing one's capacity with the other when needed. 5G will only come into its full capacity when the spectrum is available for micro and nano cells.

No your analogy is flawed. It's like being in a neighbourhood with congested 2.5GHz wifi and then offloading onto 5GHz. Because 5GHz is underutilised it's a better experience plus it alleviates congestion on 2.5GHz for everyone and not just you. This is why I say learn the basics of the technology first instead of coming with inaccuracies that simply spreads falsehoods.

 

[crowbar2008]

I have to agree with Mr Maph. I have had RAIn LTE for about a year and half. I have never ever experienced speeds or disconectivty lower than 25ms and 45Mbps down and around 10Mbps Up.

All of a sudden the last two weeks with a full 100% signal and a router that has been connected to the tower (which btw is around 300m from my house) for more than 3days, I dont even get 1.2Mbps down and 0.45Mpbs up.

And the connection is all over the show its constantly disconnecting every minute or two. This in turn makes it impossible to just browse a plain website cause it times out.

Now I dont mind getting 4Mpbs but at least it should be a stable 4Mbps. But RAIN is going on about their 5G all over social media and avoid the questions you ask and brush you off like you should just be happy that at least you get someting from them. I have 2 SIMS that I use. One at my house for our home network and 1 in my laptop cause I travel all over to my customers. So I have tested it at customers and get the same results. Constant disconnections. 70% of the time.

I will upload some snapshots a bit later when I get back home.

 

[Polymathic]

Somebody who knows more about networking infrastructure might be able to explain it better than myself.

The congestion (if there is any because of 5G) is not because 5G is causing congestion on the towers, because it can't they are two very different frequencies but more likely on the backbone level. It's possible traffic from 5G towers/poles is getting priority over traffic from 4G towers in order to give 5G customers the best possible speeds possible.

This could be for PR reasons to ensure the early adopters and media testing their 5G get the best possible speeds

 

[TheSentinel]

Somebody who knows more about networking infrastructure might be able to explain it better than myself.

The congestion (if there is any because of 5G) is not because 5G is causing congestion on the towers, because it can't they are two very different frequencies but more likely on the backbone level. It's possible traffic from 5G towers/poles is getting priority over traffic from 4G towers in order to give 5G customers the best possible speeds possible.

This could be for PR reasons to ensure the early adopters and media testing their 5G get the best possible speeds

Read my post well, I said it consumes their existing LTE network resources. Not LTE spectrum, The spectrum is so it can broadcast to your 5G devices. But the network resources (data plane) it uses to send data back and forth to the rain data centre and thus the internet is the same one used by the Rain LTE, so the LTE bandwidth is eaten up by the 5G bandwidth requirements.

 

[TheSentinel]

Guys read this article, at least there are some network companies that tell the truth about this NSA 5G architecture.

5G on stage in Barcelona - Ciena

 

[cavedog]

Well if you are talking backhaul Rain won't install 5G and then backhaul it with Microwave links. Just not going to happen they don't have that kind of capacity so they are obviously using fibre. Now since Rain does not carry voice, 2g and 3g on their towers they only have 4G and 5G traffic to carry.

Give the spectrum allocation and how they setup their 4G the max bandwidth for 4G per tower would be in the range of ~220Mbps for 4x4 mimo on Band 38/41 and ~180Mbps for 4x4 mimo on Band 3 when upload and download channels gets maxed.

So that is roughly 400Mbps - 500Mbps on 4G only. If they backhaul with fibre and use a 1Gbps link that still leave 500Mbps.

They are likely using DFA which probably offers them a scalable solution based on their demands per tower because a tower in the City centre will always be congested vs a tower in a less populated area.

Backhaul congestion won't be an issue and very unlikely to congested the 4G network unless they do some sort of aggregation with 4G. That is way out of my knowledge space so won't know. I did read that US carriers use 4G as the upload channel to maximize download speeds on 5G. Very interesting times indeed.

 

[TheSentinel]

"There is no offloading LTE users onto 5G as devices are not compatible."
What is that even supposed to mean? If you can't offload users then there's no issue. If you can then they're just using 5G instead of 4G. Like my one friend used to say same sh|t different spelling. The one doesn't influence the other.

The reason you won't see 700Mbps is not because of an LTE backbone (technically it's not an LTE backbone but rather a shared application agnostic backbone like 2G, 3G and 4G also shares the same) but because of bandwidth constraints. It makes no real sense to have separate backbones as you're simply duplicating infrastructure then where you could be supplementing one's capacity with the other when needed. 5G will only come into its full capacity when the spectrum is available for micro and nano cells.

No your analogy is flawed. It's like being in a neighbourhood with congested 2.5GHz wifi and then offloading onto 5GHz. Because 5GHz is underutilised it's a better experience plus it alleviates congestion on 2.5GHz for everyone and not just you. This is why I say learn the basics of the technology first instead of coming with inaccuracies that simply spreads falsehoods.

5G will only come into its full capacity when it has it is standalone also refered to as 5G Core. That is 5G infrastructure from end to end, no utilisation of EPC lte infrastructure at all.

I see your knowledge is limited to basic home networking.

Real 5G Core network architecture needs its own network infrastructure from end to end. Then they would start advertising 5G speeds above 1Gbps.

If you don't understand that picture above then its not our problem. It explains itself.

 

[cavedog]

5G will only come into its full capacity when it has it is standalone also refered to as 5G Core. That is 5G infrastructure from end to end, no utilisation of EPC lte infrastructure at all.

I see your knowledge is limited to basic home networking.

Real 5G Core network architecture needs its own network infrastructure from end to end. Then they would start advertising 5G speeds above 1Gbps.

If you don't understand that picture above then its not our problem. It explains itself.

But it's not realistic. Maybe for new towers and future rollouts. The NSA model will work where there is sufficient capacity mainly in large metros they can deal with capacity issues.

 

[TheSentinel]

Well if you are talking backhaul Rain won't install 5G and then backhaul it with Microwave links. Just not going to happen they don't have that kind of capacity so they are obviously using fibre. Now since Rain does not carry voice, 2g and 3g on their towers they only have 4G and 5G traffic to carry.

Give the spectrum allocation and how they setup their 4G the max bandwidth for 4G per tower would be in the range of ~220Mbps for 4x4 mimo on Band 38/41 and ~180Mbps for 4x4 mimo on Band 3 when upload and download channels gets maxed.

So that is roughly 400Mbps - 500Mbps on 4G only. If they backhaul with fibre and use a 1Gbps link that still leave 500Mbps.

They are likely using DFA which probably offers them a scalable solution based on their demands per tower because a tower in the City centre will always be congested vs a tower in a less populated area.

Backhaul congestion won't be an issue and very unlikely to congested the 4G network unless they do some sort of aggregation with 4G. That is way out of my knowledge space so won't know. I did read that US carriers use 4G as the upload channel to maximize download speeds on 5G. Very interesting times indeed.

Most of these carriers just want the glory of launching 5G first and all that comes with it. But the consequences remain with the end user of their LTE. 5G devices are expensive and once that is solved the speed and bandwidth expectations from those using uncapped 5G which will ultimately lead the worst experience for those who remain on LTE devices.

Rain ended Fixed LTE and wanted to end their Uncapped LTE for this reason, it will reduce the expectation of users getting over 30-50Mbps download speeds on LTE so they can use that bandwidth for 5G users.

With a data cap in place users will focus more on that cap than on the download speeds their getting.

 

[TheSentinel]

But it's not realistic. Maybe for new towers and future rollouts. The NSA model will work where there is sufficient capacity mainly in large metros they can deal with capacity issues.

Yeah, 5G Core is currently expensive and most ISPs plan to roll out NSA 5G then in the near future when the 5G Core equipment becomes affordable they will start rolling out a 5G Core network.

Then this is when things will get interesting. For this they will need to install more towers at street level as 5G Core on millimetre wave has a short range and higher speeds. Only a few will enjoy that privilege like with fibre currently.

 

[Swa]

I have to agree with Mr Maph. I have had RAIn LTE for about a year and half. I have never ever experienced speeds or disconectivty lower than 25ms and 45Mbps down and around 10Mbps Up.

All of a sudden the last two weeks with a full 100% signal and a router that has been connected to the tower (which btw is around 300m from my house) for more than 3days, I dont even get 1.2Mbps down and 0.45Mpbs up.

And the connection is all over the show its constantly disconnecting every minute or two. This in turn makes it impossible to just browse a plain website cause it times out.

Now I dont mind getting 4Mpbs but at least it should be a stable 4Mbps. But RAIN is going on about their 5G all over social media and avoid the questions you ask and brush you off like you should just be happy that at least you get someting from them. I have 2 SIMS that I use. One at my house for our home network and 1 in my laptop cause I travel all over to my customers. So I have tested it at customers and get the same results. Constant disconnections. 70% of the time.

I will upload some snapshots a bit later when I get back home.

Anecdotes. Whether at home or elsewhere where there's coverage most people's connections are just fine. Think about it for a sec. 5G has just been launched with very few users so even if this was a possibility it could not be affecting anyone yet.

Guys read this article, at least there are some network companies that tell the truth about this NSA 5G architecture.

5G on stage in Barcelona - Ciena

Which does not back up your claim and only briefly mentions the part you're latching on to. And I just wasted 5 minutes reading it to prove that.

5G will only come into its full capacity when it has it is standalone also refered to as 5G Core. That is 5G infrastructure from end to end, no utilisation of EPC lte infrastructure at all.

I see your knowledge is limited to basic home networking.

Real 5G Core network architecture needs its own network infrastructure from end to end. Then they would start advertising 5G speeds above 1Gbps.

If you don't understand that picture above then its not our problem. It explains itself.

It's your knowledge that's limited to nothing more than a home router setup. Your analogy proves it. You're viewing it as a case were you have direct access to the backhaul and now some 5G users are interfering with this. You're even nonsensically blaming 5G for your Rain experience for the time when 5G wasn't even available yet. LOL

It's not the backhaul that's the issue here but spectrum. 4G backhaul is underutilised because of insufficient spectrum that's the real bottleneck. 5G can only help that. I can tell you it will be a long time (if ever) before there's a standalone 5G network. It's simply not how things work. Even 4G still shares capacity with 2G.

What you're looking for is for LTE to have its own 1Gbps backhaul and 5G to have its own 10Gbps where it's much more feasible to just have 10Gbps shared between both. Apart from new deployments this won't happen.

5G will only really achieve its full potential when we have the spectrum for 10-100m micro cells. Then we will see it alleviating strain on the 4G and LTE networks rather than the other way around. It has nothing to do with not sharing a network but only having sufficient backhaul.

 

[TheSentinel]

Anecdotes. Whether at home or elsewhere where there's coverage most people's connections are just fine. Think about it for a sec. 5G has just been launched with very few users so even if this was a possibility it could not be affecting anyone yet.


Which does not back up your claim and only briefly mentions the part you're latching on to. And I just wasted 5 minutes reading it to prove that.


It's your knowledge that's limited to nothing more than a home router setup. Your analogy proves it. You're viewing it as a case were you have direct access to the backhaul and now some 5G users are interfering with this. You're even nonsensically blaming 5G for your Rain experience for the time when 5G wasn't even available yet. LOL

It's not the backhaul that's the issue here but spectrum. 4G backhaul is underutilised because of insufficient spectrum that's the real bottleneck. 5G can only help that. I can tell you it will be a long time (if ever) before there's a standalone 5G network. It's simply not how things work. Even 4G still shares capacity with 2G.

What you're looking for is for LTE to have its own 1Gbps backhaul and 5G to have its own 10Gbps where it's much more feasible to just have 10Gbps shared between both. Apart from new deployments this won't happen.

5G will only really achieve its full potential when we have the spectrum for 10-100m micro cells. Then we will see it alleviating strain on the 4G and LTE networks rather than the other way around. It has nothing to do with not sharing a network but only having sufficient backhaul.

Hahaha, so with that you are saying Rain 5G since is on their LTE infrastructure right now is sharing the same the same capacity as 2G?

Wow where did you get that?