New monopole switched on

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eccles
 
 
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New monopole switched on

Post by eccles »

Veterans of the last board will no doubt remember my boring interesting story of how I ditched Virgin Media fixed line rental for phone and internet for a solution based on mobile technology. I have a mains powered 5G capable router that has a standard sim in it and receives a mobile signal. From there on it acts like a normal router with ethernet and wi-fi. I have no home phone, just an Android phone with its own sim.
Yesterday I noticed some new activity when using a mobile monitoring app on my phone which turned out to be a newly activated 5G mast. Entering the details in the router set-up gave me some impressive data throughput. Download speeds have doubled and uploads trebled all courtesy of Three Mobile.
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Post by eccles »

Boy is my face red. I entered wrong data in a hack parameter and bricked my 5G router. A paperclip in the little reset hole didn't work. It is a late router. It is no more. It has gone to meet its maker. I've ordered a replacement. Oh well, it's only money. :sob
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Post by Patience »

You did an Oopsie! 😱🤣
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Post by Furby »

I don't understand what Eccles is doing or what he's done but can understand the it doesn't work bit. Is is plug and play when you buy a new one with only money or will it need lots of setting ups.

Lesson is never be saying how wonderful things are going because it's just an invitation to them to stop being wonderful and turn evil.
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Post by eccles »

Yes, Patience, I did an "oopsie". What I called it was a "buggerit buggerit buggerit!"
And you're also right Furby. It taught me a lesson didn't it.

Today, I've been "chatting" on a messaging app called Telegram to a guy in Russia who knows quite a lot about this box. Google translate has helped a lot here. I expect MI5 and the FSB are listening in.

The easy fix is to connect the box to a PC with a USB cable and reflash the firmware.
The more difficult fix is when simply connecting to a PC doesn't work. This involves taking the box apart. A nice Italian guy showed some pictures of him removing a rubber anti-scratch ring from the base to reveal half a dozen little screws. What he DIDN'T show was that there was an air vent in the top which had to be prised off to reveal four more screws. He also didn't show that a side panel had to be levered off as well to allow data and antenna sockets to pass when the case was removed. Then there was a big heatsink with more screws. Finally there were two little test points with a paperclip that had to be bridged to force it to connect.
The firmware upload didn't work, but at least once the connection was made I didn't have to keep messing with the paperclip and I was able to reassemble the box ready for another go tomorrow. I don't really expect it to work again but it's worth trying. I have a replacement on order and I don't really want to be walking on eggshells with it. If I can get it to work I can sell it on ebay. I might do that anyway offering it sold-as-seen as a DIY project.
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Post by merry »

Oh Eccles!!!!

Bad luck!! I hope you can fix it, just for the satisfaction of it.
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Post by eccles »

The Russian guy fixed it this morning. I had to install Telegram messaging and Teamviewer and hand over my PC's control to a Russian!
The guy was an absolute whizz. I watched in awe as he wiped the router, installed partitions, bootdriver and finally firmware. This is unstandard firmware that isn't freely available so how he got it gawd knows. He then popped in the IMEI number with another little tool and told me to connect an ethernet cable and reboot. And that was that. When he finished he messaged me his paypal id. He was happy with $15 US for about an hour's work, a bargain!
Cheekily I asked if he could let me have the firmware so I could do it myself if it happens again. Nope, copyright T-Mobile Germany and not in the public domain. Never mind I'll hang onto Telegram and keep him as a useful contact.

Then I checked my emails to find Sotel Electronics had just dispatched my new router. Ho hum. I'll decide later whether to send it back for a refund or just keep it as a spare. If so, my existing spare 4G router that I'd been using as a backup can go for sale on ebay.
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Post by eccles »

Looks like the replacement firmware isn't copyright T-Mobile Germany but that of the restorer who put in a lot of time and energy into developing it. So hats off to him. The problem of bricked routers beat a lot of clever people, and it's understandable that he doesn't wish to give it all away in an instant.
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Post by Furby »

Why doesn't he just sell it to needy people who bricked routers rather than have people risk being caught as spies talking to Russians to find it anyway in a roundabout way. Is he being paid by the router selling people not to so that people have to buy new ones.
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Post by eccles »

If he sells it to anyone then that person could easily spread it around for nothing. I suppose Sotel Electronics might be tempted to lean on him to keep it secret if they knew where he lived but I don't imagine he'd care. In any case Sotel would probably sell a lot more devices if it was well known that a crashed device could be rescued. The manufacturers freely distribute the software tools to do it; they just don't have the custom firmware for this particular version.
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Post by eccles »

I shall be talking to our friend again tomorrow as the router has bricked again. As Pratchett might have said, Buggerit.
Incidentally it would appear that he may not be Russian but Ukrainian as he set a time to meet in Kyiv time.
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Post by eccles »

A second reflash has been done to my router by my expert friend. The router wasn't quite bricked this time so the reflash was quicker. Firmware updates have been disabled. I have set the preferred settings and it will now be untouched. All a bit of pain but it is blisteringly fast when it works.
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Post by OurCreature »

I hope this has cured the trouble, Eccs!
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Post by eccles »

Thanks OC. Me too. It will have to be less of a plaything to try things out and more of a tool that keeps me connected. It'll now be set and left alone. If the expert could be persuaded to part with that firmware I might change my mind but there's little sign of him (or her) budging on that score.
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Post by merry »

Fingers crossed, Eccs :hugs
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Post by eccles »

Thanks Merry So far, the reflash appears to be holding.
I have decided to keep the replacement that I ordered last week when I believed the original was irretrievably bricked.
A few days ago that one suddenly came up and prompted for a firmware upgrade, nagging frequently whenever I used the homescreen. uh-oh.. I thought, but I made some enquiries, found the update had already been done elsewhere so I allowed it to do its thing this morning. After 10-15 minutes of anxiously watching the front LEDs cycle as it did its thing it sprang into life saying congratulations etc..
So now I have two working boxes plus a third that I used last year. That one is 4g only and slower but still marketable so I dropped it off at my local British Heart Foundation shop. I support two charities and that is one of them. I said if they didn't want to sell it themselves the CEX shop two doors up would buy it for about £50. So that was my little good deed for the day. The BHF has an ebay shop so I imagine that is where it will go. With a bit of luck they should get at least double that £50.
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Post by eccles »

Who needs fibre? :)
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Post by eccles »

I've been squeezing a bit more performance from the mobile internet. I think I'm getting close to the limits of my gigabit ethernet.
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Post by eccles »

Well, those heady days when the new monopole was switched on have gone as users with new 5G phones and routers piled onto the expanded network. Also I believe Three Mobile have cut the output power of the new mast. However, as the performance of the new mast has dropped, the original tower where I first got a whiff of 5G has stabilised and slightly improved; presumably some of the load has transferred to the new monopole. This suggests that overall capacity is quite good. I now have the rather good situation of a choice of two 5G internet sources, one giving about 350mb/s download and the other a bit better at around 450 mb/s. Reliability has been much better over the last 18 months with no loss of service.
My neighbour who is still using Virgin Media complains occasionally about the latest price increase. 18 months ago my costs went down (£10 a month for broadband internet, unlimited calls and texts using sims in router and mobile phone) and have been fixed for that period.
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