5G router only connecting to weak cell

[Hopey99]

Hi, just joined three a couple of weeks ago with the 5g ZTE hub.  The router always connects to a band 3 4g lte mast nearest me about 500m away even though the signal is reported as "terrible" and usually around -115 - -118dbm.  I get around 10-15mbps download and 1mbps upload. There are trees and a housing estate between the mast hence bad signal.

However sometimes when I reboot the router it connects to another mast about a mile away on high ground in line of sight and I get 4g+ at -95dbm and a steady 5g a bit weaker. I get speeds of 50mbps+ download and 15mbps upload.

Thing is it doesn't last more than half an hour then it reverts back to the mast near me which is basic 4g very weak signal and the 5g and 4g+ signals are not visible at all.

Rebooting usually doesn't help. Tried changing to three.co.uk APN and it picked up the 4g+ again but then reverts me back to 3internet and doesn't seem to let me change the APN anymore

Is there any way at all to select bands or mast? I'm guessing probably not

Do three software try and route to the nearest mast to the registered home address even if the signal is worse than other masts further away? Anything I can do to get it to find the 5g and 4g+ masts with a stronger signal again?

Thanks

[Ender3]

I was having a problem with speeds. Down around 40-50. Up around 20. I had read a reply on here that suggested changing ANP to three.ac.uk. And pdp to IP 4 only. Changing to 4 only resulted in no internet. Changed back to ipv4 & ipv6 but kept ANP three.ac.uk. speeds now Down: up to around 300. Up: around 70. Only changed the ANP a couple of hours ago. Can't believe the difference! Maybe worth giving this a try.

[FraserC]

Thanks for getting in touch, and sorry to hear your speeds aren't too great, even after rebooting. There's no way of selecting masts, unfortunately, but it's true your device will normally try to connect to the nearest available mast. Have you taken a look at our coverage checker already? You can view it here https://bit.ly/2ZkY51r. Let us know if you see any problems. 

[Hopey99]

Thanks, coverage checker shows no issues. If I tweak settings in the router like disconnecting and reconnecting then I very briefly get 4+ plus with full signal bars but after 10 seconds it just drops back to the 4g mast nearest me that is weaker with just 1 bar.  I don't know much about mobile networks but can only assume that even though the signal i receive from that mast is weaker maybe it gets the strongest signal from my router with it being closer therefore it always links to that mast even though there is a much stronger 4g+ signal available from a mast that is further away

[JonathanB · Accepted solution]

Hi @Hopey99,

I don't think APN changes will affect this, but it's worth checking if you can find options for manual band selection, or cell locking in the router admin. It sounds a bit like this topic 5G Home Broadband router keep selecting a mast far away from my home 

Hope this helps,
Jonathan

[Hopey99]

 I figured out how to find the band selections in admin, unticked Band 3 and now it's connecting to the other masts with 4g+ and it's also picking up 5g again. Thanks

[JonathanB]

Awesome glad to hear that you managed to get this working again!