Howdy
Looking at 5G home internet plans, and it says the modem has to be in one fixed location only. I frequently move between two locations and was wondering if that could be bypassed through some sort of firmware flash, or if the location can be spoofed?
Thanks heaps
I was referring to one of these: https://www.optus.com.au/content/dam/optus/images/for-you/br…
Just a plug and play.
You referring to the Telstra 5G Home Internet, or any in particular?
None in particular yet I'm just chewing over a few provider/plans. Are you asking whether it's a generic or carrier specific modem, as that'd define the ease/possibility?
No
No. Because for 5G they can tell where you are by which of their cell towers you are connecting to.
Of course if both your locations use the same cell tower they can't tell. And they don't care, because the issue they are trying to control is ensuring you are connecting to a tower that has the right transmission equipment, but isn't already congested so you won't degrade the service other customers in that area get.
And if both your locations connect to towers that meet those criteria they may not care.
Sure I understand that.
How is a 5G home internet modem different to the network on my phone where I can roam freely as I please? When Vodafone gets a new 5G customer their warehouse sends out a modem to me, is there some sort of over the air update after connection has been established where the modem gathers and locks my initiated location?
And, I guess what happens if I take it to another location, will it just refuse to connect?
It's different cause it's sold at a discounted rate as a "fixed" connection based on the address you've registered it to during creation of the contract (ie account setup), not the first point of connection.
It'll probably connect, and work fine provided you don't abuse it, but do anything more than check a few emails and the vendor is likely to barest minimum contact you and ask you to stop, worst case immediately cancel your contract for breach of your contract terms.
I see, appreciate the explanation.
The question is actually two fold, my parent's NBN is shocking in performance for $80/month, they're just 100s meters away from an address that's eligible for 5G. I've just moved and plan to sign up for 5G for $60/month, and was wondering whether I can sign up and give the modem to them instead.
Suppose I could sign up for a month long freebie and see what happens?
@minty: $80/month for shocking NBN performance? Downgrade if the line is incapable of faster speeds.
I assume it's FttN. Has the internal phone line been replaced? That can make a pretty large difference in performance.
And speaking from experience, a quality modem like the Telstra TG799vac (it has the best performing chipset) can eke out another 1-2 mbps.
There is a hack for 5G in your parents scenario.
You can sign up for the neighbors address, but get the modem posted to your parents address.
@ESEMCE: I've seen the cable box for the building down in the store room and it's in an absolute spaghetti tangled old ass box of cables. (I stand corrected) my parents is currently on 50/17 plan for $90/month, they get very frequent disconnections, and the max I've ever been able to get is ~3MB/s down. I took my 4G portable work modem there and easily got 7MB/s all the time.
Your idea is not bad at all, thanks :)
@minty: Yeah, well we can all thank Tony and Malcolm for that.
Based on the download speed, you can probably downgrade to 25/10 plan to save some cash.
If dropouts are infrequent (according to NBN, this is less than 5 times per day which is absurd, thanks Abbott and Turnbull again!), you can call the ISP to put your parents on a "stability profile". It'll reduce their max connection speed, but that might resolve the stability issues.
If dropouts are frequent enough, NBN will come out and fix the line.
My line got really bad recently. We were getting 30mbps down 8mbps up (max speed), but at least stable, it then became completely unreliable, down for hours at a time, with multiple disconnections per day.
I called my ISP (Leaptel), they went through some basic troubleshooting (try a different modem, try a different cable, is the internal line already replaced?) and booked an NBN tech for a visit 2 days later (could have been next day, but I wasn't able to be home).
NBN tech, ended up moving us to a different copper pair AND replaced our lead in cable from the pit across the street to the fascia board of the house.
Our FttN is now stable and for the first time ever we're connected at above 50mbps!
@ESEMCE: Sorry to hear you had all these problems :c But yay for it being fixed! Is what they did just an optional addon-on in case of the standard way don't perform up to par or no one complains enough? I'm not familiar with what the long aging cables vs currend demand requires.
Telstra/Optus, can't remember which I went through the usual troubleshooting and they just never got back to me for anything further, and the price keeps going up. My parents do some video call with family/youtube/telly, 5-7GB/day absolutely tops, they're retired and whilst will try to save a buck here and there they don't mind paying but the price increase is just not doing justice. Thus my 5G investigation, and the subsequent road block.
@minty: They are obliged to fix a line that is not meeting the minimum specification specified by the government, which is typically 25mbps with less than 5 dropouts per day (I say typically, cause in some area's it's 12mbps).
FttN speed and stability is highly dependent on the quality of the copper telephone lines running down the street and into your house.
As you're aware, the copper lines are an absolute mess, so switching to a different line can make all the difference.
The repairs made to my line were standard, nothing special aside from the new copper lead-in running across the street replacing the old 50+ year old, undoubtedly sun-damaged, lead-in.
If the current ISP is giving you no support, time to move business, or at least threaten to, which might prompt them to start being more helpful.
Aussie or Leaptel both have Australian call centres and top tier support.
Superloop used to have Aussie Call Centres, I'm unsure if that remains the case.
I have my mum on Aussie Broadband 50/20 Build Your Own plan 100Gb downloads/month with PAYG landline included (she never calls out) for $70.
She could save another $10 bucks by dropping a speed tier to 25/10, but she can afford it and it's nice to have the extra speed for Windows Updates. etc.
For low users, like my mum and your parents, it's a good compromise plan.
@redforever: No, 25MB/s = Megabytes/second
After overheads, you might expect this on a 250mbps connection if you have FttP, but impossible on FttN.
25mbps = megabits/second which is the typical minimum on fixed line NBN. After overheads, you might expect 2.5MB/s downloads, so 3MB/s downloads is above NBN's minimum.
@minty: If you register both addresses with the provider you should be fine.
Providing both addresses have access to the 5G broadband. The mobile broadband offerings such as the pre-paid offerings from Woolworths or the post office don't have any restrictions. So you can use them wherever you like. That is another option.
Obviously though you still need mobile coverage for those prepaid options to work and you need credit on the device.
@Chaddy: It's solved now, I got Internode 5G (available at mine) but outside of the serviceable area map for my parents so they couldn't provide the service.
I took the modem over to them and they're using it just fine, and getting the max possible speed for the plan anyway.
@minty: All good. For the NBN side of things your Strata / body corporate might need to get a registered cabler to fix the wiring if its deamed outside of NBNco's control.
This presumes your setup on a strata. Which most apartments are, plus its harder to get fiber upgrades as well.
NBNCo will hopefully start working on upgrading these setups soon as FTTN just sucks.
I mean if you are close to the node its OK but not good if you are on a long cable length.
@minty: Just on the NBN issue do you know how far away your parents are from the node. If its only a short distance then as others have said its probably a line fault and can easily be fixed by making your ISP do some work and actually log the fault with NBN.
is there some sort of over the air update after connection has been established where the modem gathers and locks my initiated location?
No, the modem doesn't care where it is plugged in and turned on. It is the phone network that knows what cell tower you are connected to it using. If you sign up to one location, then move to another where the tower is not equipped with the frequency band data services use, or where there is already congestion, the phone company may block or terminate the service. If the new tower does have the right transmitters, and isn't congested, and you don't use a lot of data, they probably won't care.
The phone networks have all sorts of mechanisms built into them to prevent devices connecting on the basis of their IMEI, or restricting what frequency bands they can use, or limiting their speed.
Not just the same tower but the same sector on the tower. Mine was geolocked even though it hadn’t moved. It took 4 weeks to have it removed and that was after I escalated it to the office of the CEO. The cause was after they had done tower maintenance something happened
Yeah, I've experienced the silly buggarising around they do with the beamforming from the towers. I couldn't understand why I couldn't get 5G when I could walk out into the back yard and see the tower, and I could take my phone into the park next door and get 5G. Then one day there was a power outage, and the beamforming was off until someone powered it back up, and until they did I got 5 bars of 5G reception. Your hundred dollar router can do beamforming, what they can do in a million dollar tower is a lot more sophisticated.
Well, I am with Optus 5G and since then moved twice and just bring along the modem with me. Even now in an area without 5G, it continues to work. Dont really think they matter where you really use it.
Oh this is a good first hand perspective, how far have you moved, distanced enough can I assume?
Far. From 5G to 4G, more than 10km away.
@minty
When Vodafone gets a new 5G customer their warehouse sends out a modem to me,
Sounds like a lot of disappointed Vodafone customers where you have all their modems …
Hahaha, I found this much funnier than I should have
No idea about flashing firmware, but Telstra definitely track your location and cut you off if you're not where 'they' think it should be.
Telstra somehow randomly changed be to a super old address and my modem stopped working. It would connect for 2 seconds then disconnect. Contacted support and they said I moved my modem. After a few days of sending my invoice they raised the f'd up and finally fixed it.
Anyway, you won't be as impressed with the speed as they make it sound.
You're probably stuck with the Telstra Mobile 5G Broadband for $90/month (BYO Modem) - or if you don't need much data then do what I did and activate a mobile SIM plan with Belong. Then put it in the Modem and just occasionally buy more data through ebay https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/265818108297
Hi OP,
I recently signed up for Spintel and provided a relative's address which was eligible for 5G. Spintel allowed me to nominate the service address and deliver it elsewhere.
It's only been a day but working so far. Let's see if Spintel reach out to me :) (They use the Optus network so hopefully they also don't flag anything)
How did you go? Did they end up locking your modem?
Still going strong 6 months later!
Can confirm after 5months (fingers crossed) it's been working fine, with Internode 5G, distance is ~10km from signed up address.
Probably depends on the installer, and how easy it is to wire. Ours just put it as the closest point to the outside box, which was outside a bedroom. We now have to pay for a qualified electrician to run a cable to the central part of the house. We have a Mesh system in place currently.