Pedantic, but -50 is bigger than -80, so a bigger number is better in both negative and positive numbers.
I do know what you mean though.
6 posts were split to a new topic: ClĂ´ture en PVC
So, back in France and, as previously thereâs no sign of fibre (the building is still âciblĂŠâ but no sign of an actual date). Might have to see if the mairie knows anything.
Which means Iâm still using the Frankenbox.
Not Frankenbox 5G because, although that was put together and works OK back home, it flatly refused to work over here - I have no idea why. Bands etc looked compatible, tried all the SIMs that I had, including the Lycamobile one. I need to find another compatible 5G modem to try but having identified what looked like an OK candidate and ordered it of AliExpress the vendor wound up refusing to ship it (I kid you not).
There is a change though, in that I brought a directional antenna to try. Hence the update.
One of these.
The good news is that the signal strength numbers are significantly âbetterâ with RSRP -72dB, and RSSI -45dB. The signal âqualityâ numbers are sometimes âworseâ but I suspect the modem is trying more bits per symbol at those points.
So that lifts things from âgoodâ signal quality to âexcellentâ and the card now solidly reports â100%â signal as well.
So the speeds are massively better - no?
Well, ish
Not exactly the upgrade I was hoping for 
To be fair Iâm hoping I might see more even speeds and fewer dips down to < 10Mbps so will see how things go, and it is probably worth trying the Lycamobile SIM as this is from the Tesco one but it has not revolutionised my setup.
Would it have anything to do with speeds being capped by networks for visiting roaming users or not, possibly, provisioning them access to 5G even where it exists?
I remember encountering this sort of thing a lot when roaming in the US. Depending where, sometimes you could overcome it by manually switching to a different network than the default, sometimes you couldnât.
Could well do which is why I need to swap to the French SIM and see if that gives better speeds - though ISTR it was about the same on my phone.
In 2024 I tried a Lyca SIM - absolutely no connectivity for data. Generally I find my O2 SIM (and before that Giffgaff, also running on O2) offered decent data rates, generally through Orange
Have you tried Frankenbox with a SIM from the operator of your local serving cell?
I ask as, depending on what arrangement your UK operator or MVNO SIM provider, youâre very likely to be throttled on maximum allowed throughput.
Do you know what IMEI and capabilities your device is reporting to the network during registration? Based on what the serving networkâs lookup table thinks Frankenbox might be, it might get treated very differently to a known device type/model using the same SIM.
I agree that all of the above are relevant.
The only French SIM that I have available is the Lycamobile one. Iâve a couple of UK ones to try.
The SIM in the Frankenbox is my Tesco one (O2 MVNO in the UK), my phone has an iD Mobile SIM (Three MVNO) and I have a spare Lebara UK SIM.
Running two speed tests on my phone back-to-back, one via WiFi and one via the iD 4G connection gave ~70Mbps and ~55Mbps respectively. On my desktop the last two checks were ~60 and ~55Mbps. The Lycamobile SIM in an old Motorola (so the phone is 4G only) is getting about 55Mbps.
The Tesco SIM in the Frankenbox is registered with Free, the Lycamobile one Bouygues and the iD mobile SIM is also currently registered to Free.
All of which is to say that - within the usual short term variations - everything is running at about the same speed regardless of operator, SIM, or means of connecting.
Not really - well I know the IMEI but not whether I could glean useful info from from that.
Itâs the Quectel EP06 so Cat6/rel 11 and 2x2MMIO - in theory up to 300Mbps download/50Mbps upload.
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Do you have a neighbour that would let you borrow their Free or Bouygues SIM for science and a pastis as you have coverage with both networks?
The one combo you donât appear to have tested is French physical operator SIM on its home network from what I gather.
Roaming users didnât used to get the same bang for their buck as local users the last time I did cellular testing as a day job and Iâm not sure that âlocal breakoutâ where the host network allowed roamers to access the internet via their gateways rather than the old arrangement of using their home gateways ever became a thing despite lots of discussions on the matter.
Sadly not.
Although I agree that a ânativeâ SIM would complete the set the Lyca SIM is French, just that itâs an MVNO - never say never as the saying goes but I canât see that it should give lower data rates
As for throttling UK operators that was definitely a thing back in the day but Iâm not sure itâs so much of an issue de nos jours either.
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Physical operators always used to cap data rates for MVNO partners which is why all the throughput testing used to be carried out with native SIMs on their home networks.
Itâs possible that they might also restrict Carrier Aggregation for MVNO users, but itâs been 8 years since I saw inside of the connection establishment negotiation signalling messages and that was for 4G/LTE.
Sounds a bit anticompetitive TBH
The fact that improving the signal did not improve speeds suggests something else is at play - which could be throttling or it could just be that this particular tower canât really do any better to a single device (I would absolutely consider building a device with two LTE cards and bonding the connections). Both the Motorola phones** report âterribleâ signal parameters compared with the LTE card but get about the same speed as each other (one has the Lyca card, the other the iD Mobile card) and as the LTE card in the Frankenbox.
iD Mobile say that there is no throttling of connections when roaming, and I got 150Mbps on the phone sitting outside a cafĂŠ in Vannes this lunchtime - that was 5G, however. Tesco make the same claim.
It is possible that cheaper operators do not buy as much carrier bandwidth so at times of high use congestion could affect an MVNO more than a âhome operatorâ connection - which could then be confused for throttling.
Iâm wondering where to go from here. A second French SIM would not be a bad idea (giving me one for voice/SMS and one for data, and I can ditch the Tesco card to save money) - I can go for one with a lot of data such as the Free offer of 19,99⏠a month for 350Go but thereâs no guarantee Iâd get a physical SIM in time (they quote 5 business days). Or I could just get a cheap one without much data for voice only, same shtick with delivery though .
I can get an eSIM immediately - but, although the EP06 can use eSIMs in principle I know I need a firmware update at the very least for my card.
So an eSIM would be limited to the Galaxy A56** - which might not be too bad, at least I could see if I got better speeds as per @NotALotâs theory but then Iâd have to get a new physical SIM for the Frankenbox if it turns out that it is faster.
Hmmm, decisions.
**: I normally try to use my âoldâ phone as a spare - which was the Moto g8 plus but that is 4G only and wonât be getting any more firmware updates. So I decided to buy a âcheapâ replacement. That wasnât so cheap in the end but bought an A56 on the basis it seamed a reasonable phone, does 5G and Samsung promise 6 years of software updates. OK, buying a Samsung is entering a pact with the devil and makes me feel distinctly unclean but it was the best deal that wasnât stupid money.
Anyway what actually happened is that I now have two spare phones 
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If youâd spent billions of Euros rolling out a 4G network, youâre not going to allow MVNOs the same performance and youâre not legally obliged to IIRC.
MVNOs can still make profits with cheaper data bundles because they only have to operate the market and customer support part of running an actual network, so spending a few millions and not tens of billions.
You might want to check that Frankenbox and the A56 have similar UE Category support before spending any more money.
Pretty certain the A56 is massively more modern than the EP06 (checks âŚ) yes, LTE Cat 18.
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How much speed do you actually need?
Thatâs not the point . We strive for more. 
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To save some money I went from 220Mbps to 100 and havenât noticed any difference. In France we get about 30-35 and that still allows streaming of Netflix etc.
Like the sign says, âSpeedsâ just a question of money , how fast do you want to go?â. (Mad Max, 1979)
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Wot Hairbear said 
Ideally enough that my wife can watch some catch-up TV and I can watch some YT or be on the work VPN at the same time - so north of about 40Mbps. the problem has been that, although I get that some of the time itâs closer to 20Mbps as a long term average and dips down to < 10Mbps are fairly common when streaming TV starts to be compromised.
Iâm not likely to spend much more money at this point. The Frankenbox 5G prototype works, just not in France, but there is not much point doing more until/unless the local tower is upgraded to 5G and then I can get a compatible modem card.
What I might do is go for a Free (or other primary network operator) eSIM for the phone and use the Lycamobile card for data - I can ditch the Tesco card which will then save money. It is (almost) unique in being genuinely unlimited data even when roaming but that does come at a cost,
The other disadvantage is that the Tesco card needs to go back to the UK every other month, which the Lycamobile card would not.
Also it would let me test @NotALotâs theory as I said.
The only question is whether I would have enough data - The Lycamobile card is payg 9,99⏠a month for 250Go - an average weekâs data use would be 100-150Go, so a two week stay might be tight, not sure if I can top it up more than once a month (though I could opt for 300Go for 11,99âŹ).
TBH Iâm viewing the whole exercise as interesting but ultimately negative - or mostly so. There have been a number of discussions about how to obtain Internet access and problems with 4G/5G reception have not infrequently been mentioned. We have certainly suggested more than once that an external antenna is considered.
This exercise shows that it is certainly possible to improve signal strength with one - but not necessarily network speeds depending what other factors (over which we, as users of the network, have little to no control) are in play.
The Frankenbox will remain mostly âgood enough for my needs. I remain hopeful the village will get fibre and I can avoid Starlink.
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I know you are trying hard to work out what the issues might be and why not. We get at best a 4G signal often dropping back to 3G. The original yagi aerial was no good as the service swapped between masts so I have a new Omni to go on the building, hopefully on next trip.