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ZTE MC8010CA 5G Router -Is it right for you? - Setup Tips and performance Tweaks!

Foonus
Ambassador

This is intended as both a review and a guide for anyone with a rural plan trying to set this up. We'll cover setting up the modem to best suit your service area, the limitations of the network and Internet plans, and finally some tips you will not find anywhere else!

I'll start by suggesting you archive this information locally if it is of use to you, read it from start to end before you hook up power to your modem and especially before you install the SIM card, I've had threads of this sort vanish in the past.


5G Hype & Your Service Plan

Don't fall for the hype of 5G. The current Telus rural plans only allow a maximum of 25Mbit down, which is 1/4 of the maximum theoretical 4G speeds. If the backbone or service plan aren't allowing more than 25Mbit, switching your connection to the tower to 5G will not change any of this. In short, they could offer you a plan for 50Mbit right now with the current 4G technology, but they won't because of lacking bandwidth / infrastructure and return on investment to upgrade it. This is further proven by the fact that even at 25Mbit they STILL throttle services like YouTube down to 5Mbit in some locations, capping you at 1080P resolution to save strain on the network... (we'll fix this later!).


Initial Modem Setup

This is why we didn't insert the SIM card into our modems yet right 😉

The firmware this modem ships with by default does not have the debug page locked down, you DO NOT want it to connect to the network and download Telus's firmware that locks this out.

Hook up your new modem to a pc or laptop and power it on with no SIM card installed. Sign into the admin page and head to Advanced Settings>Update, make sure that "Auto-check for update" is disabled to prevent you from loading the locked firmware when you first connect to Telus. You can now power off the modem and insert the SIM card without fear of being locked out of the diagnostics page by any rolled out firmware updates.


Tuning / Band Locking

Sign into the modem's Admin page. Note the top of the screen you will see either 5G, LTE, or LTE+ Whichever of these you see, the key is to make sure they aren't changing from one to another. Each time this happens you will have a huge slowdown and potential lose connectivity. If you are seeing these change, you will want to lock your band to one of them so that you aren't constantly bouncing around. This is where our diagnostics page comes in.

http://telus.smarthub/index.html#debug_page

You will find this accessible only through the URL, as the Telus UI has any links to it removed. Also why we disabled the firmware updates so that this can't be "fixed" with a later firmware update as per their usual tactics.

You now should be able to lock to a specific band, my example the LTE signal was the stronger than the LTE+ and it was necessary to lock it that one to get my full speed without disconnects or interruptions. This is what it looks like with my configuration:

dp1.jpgdp2.jpg
You will want to use the status indicator on the main page to compare your signal strength and then do a speed test to see the result. You want to make sure you lock your modem to the strongest band available to you.


Youtube Throttling

How do you know if your YouTube is being throttled (capped at 5Mbit 1080P), and that it's not just bad latency? Since Telus has not invested in DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) we can encrypt our traffic with a VPN and find out!

 

1080throttled.jpg

1080P- Default connection - Capped aprox 5Mbit

4kthrottled.jpg

4K attempt- Default connection- Data transfer does not increase as required to stream. Still capped @ 5Mbit

1080vpn.jpg

1080P- VPN Encryption - Double speed of throttled connection!

 

4kvpn.jpg

4K - VPN Encryption- Data streams with no Throttling, Image shows 18Mbit. content finally playable when backbone isn't over saturated.

 

Reflections / Hindsight

As mentioned in the "5G Hype" section, upgrading your 4G modem to a 5G will not increase your speed when it is limited by the speed of your service plan and the local network backbone. If you are already in an area where you are being throttled with your 25Mbit (theoretical) connection, its due to network backbone saturation. Changing the way you connect to that saturated backbone will not increase your speeds.

 

I hope this puts some more information out for the community, as I stated earlier I don't expect for it to last long before it's removed.

*Edited to add text description for Images showing as "Unmoderated".

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

I'll preface this reply with the fact that I have not been on this forum for several years since the last thread I created attempting to help users navigate the technical support system was removed completely with no explanation or notification despite several comments and upvotes.

 

When I created this one, everything worked great, pictures showed right on 2 different browsers - one logged in one not. Several hours later I checked the post and every picture that showed Telus throttling YouTube was replaced with an unmoderated image icon. Whether it was a physical mod that selected only these 3 of all 6 images or the forum system itself, the result was still the same - an image that was previously showing not showing any more.

 

"If you edit the post that contains images, that will result in delays and is likely what's going on now."- This is why I created the second post with the screenshot purposely not editing a thing. It showed up instantly as "unmoderated image".. didn't even show up correctly the first time as the others had.

 

It was at this point I posted it on DSLreports, both to make sure that the information would not disappear completely, and to alert whoever may be possibly be censoring the information that it will be available regardless of their actions.  Several hours later the images depicting the YouTube throttling reappeared on this forum.. we'll just call it coincidence...

 

I have edited the title of that post on DLSreports this morning, as both of the goals were accomplished.

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3

Foonus
Ambassador

Not sure why the last 3 Images are showing as "unmoderated", and if thats what everyone else is also seeing.. This is what it is supposed to look like.

ss.jpg

*Edit I see some shenanigans going on here as well. I will post the same info here:

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r33530069-ZTE-MC8010CA-5G-Router-Tips-and-Performance-Tweaks#335300...

Nighthawk
Community Power User
Community Power User

It's curious how you just shout on DSLReports that Telus is censorng you. Considering the mods are human and aren't here 24/7, images can take time to all be moderated and approved. If you edit the post that contains images, that will result in delays and is likely what's going on now.


If you find a post useful, please give the author a "Like" or mark as an accepted solution if it solves your trouble. 🙂

I'll preface this reply with the fact that I have not been on this forum for several years since the last thread I created attempting to help users navigate the technical support system was removed completely with no explanation or notification despite several comments and upvotes.

 

When I created this one, everything worked great, pictures showed right on 2 different browsers - one logged in one not. Several hours later I checked the post and every picture that showed Telus throttling YouTube was replaced with an unmoderated image icon. Whether it was a physical mod that selected only these 3 of all 6 images or the forum system itself, the result was still the same - an image that was previously showing not showing any more.

 

"If you edit the post that contains images, that will result in delays and is likely what's going on now."- This is why I created the second post with the screenshot purposely not editing a thing. It showed up instantly as "unmoderated image".. didn't even show up correctly the first time as the others had.

 

It was at this point I posted it on DSLreports, both to make sure that the information would not disappear completely, and to alert whoever may be possibly be censoring the information that it will be available regardless of their actions.  Several hours later the images depicting the YouTube throttling reappeared on this forum.. we'll just call it coincidence...

 

I have edited the title of that post on DLSreports this morning, as both of the goals were accomplished.