Anyone else experience unexplainable Motorhome MiFi roaming connection failures when in Europe?

Chris_H

Chris_H

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We have found that the newer Motorhome ZTE MiFi 5G unit experiences frequent connection failures due to the inability for certain SIMs to connect to European telecom networks in some areas. In particular, we have found that problem occurs more often when using a Smarty SIM in a Motorhome ZTE 5G router. Swap out either the SIM or the router and we have connectivity.

For instance, if we swap out the Smarty Sim for an O2 Sim or EE Sim, it connects, and we have data. Or put the Smarty SIM in an older Motorhome Huawei 4G router, it works. But put the same Smarty SIM back in the ZTE router and it will not connect – the combination fails!

Yet, if we move down the road to a different EU mobile network, the combination that previously failed, will now probably work!

IMO there appears to be some incompatibility caused with certain SIMs and router combinations that prevent a connection to some European phone networks. However, we have not experienced this problem in the UK!

Anyone else having similar connection problems in Europe?
 
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Mifi needs the correct APN, user name and password to connect the SIM and local network.
There are plenty of posts here that may give you the correct settings for your SIM.
My ee SIM worked initially in Belgium then stopped in Germany - contacted the call center for the correct settings then worked without further problem.
 
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berni109 said:
Mifi needs the correct APN, user name and password to connect the SIM and local network.
There are plenty of posts here that may give you the correct settings for your SIM.
My ee SIM worked initially in Belgium then stopped in Germany - contacted the call center for the correct settings then worked without further problem.
Click to expand...
The APN settings are provided in the Motorhomw WiFi handbook.
 
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I noticed this more and more the longer I was away earlier this year.

There are a number of issues. First, the in roamer status you have is fragile. When you’ve consumed a certain amount of data on a certain network, it starts throttling the service. Manually roam onto a new network and it will usually perform better.

Then you have traffic shaping. This hits you and throttles your data download speed. We are third country nationals now, not part of the club and we get treated as such. The UK networks are putting zero effort into negotiating reciprocal roaming agreement anymore. When we were still in the EU, these were largely templates and driven by EU regulations, so easy to execute.

I see no way any of this will improve anytime soon, so I’ve solved the problem with Starlink!

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If the system (sim + mifi) works in some places but not others then my guess would be Smarty have only negotiated access through a limited number of operators and in places where none of them have a signal it naturally can't connect.

My experience in Spain this year was Vodafone in my phone was excellent and frequently found 5G connections. EE wasn't bad either but didn't find 5G but only because the router the sim lives in can only 4G.
 
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Smarty uses the Three network in the UK.
I always find Three a bit of a PIA when roaming. Often it's partner networks give very slow connection, normally solved by switching to another network.
When moving location sometimes only a few miles it loses a connection and you have to search for another network.
 
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Partner network deals have changed in the past few years. Foreign roaming traffic often doesn't get the equal status it once did. But that doesn't explain why one device works and the other doesn't.

Networks often use multiple frequencies. Some modems don't support all the frequencies of some networks. It's less of an issue than it used to be, but a router that's built for the Asian market might be missing some common European frequencies.

If the new modern is able to see 5G, it might be trying to grasp at those connections, even when better 4G ones are available.

It's also possible that the old router just had better processes for dealing with a bad connection in its software. Maybe it has a different threshold for when to disconnect and renegotiate the connection? Or a hundred other strategies that mean it copes better in this particular situation.

One thing you can try is switching the network you are roaming on. So your APN still stays the same, but manually select a different local mobile network. Often the network you phone or MiFi locks on to doesn't provide the best service.
 
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Have you changed the APN settings for the Smarty, to roam it needs different settings to uk ones but it will work in uk with roaming apn
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Guigsy said:
Partner network deals have changed in the past few years. Foreign roaming traffic often doesn't get the equal status it once did. But that doesn't explain why one device works and the other doesn't.

Networks often use multiple frequencies. Some modems don't support all the frequencies of some networks. It's less of an issue than it used to be, but a router that's built for the Asian market might be missing some common European frequencies.

If the new modern is able to see 5G, it might be trying to grasp at those connections, even when better 4G ones are available.

It's also possible that the old router just had better processes for dealing with a bad connection in its software. Maybe it has a different threshold for when to disconnect and renegotiate the connection? Or a hundred other strategies that mean it copes better in this particular situation.

One thing you can try is switching the network you are roaming on. So your APN still stays the same, but manually select a different local mobile network. Often the network you phone or MiFi locks on to doesn't provide the best service.
Click to expand...


I agree with most of what you say, but the deficit in performance is centred around the service being delivered (in roamer operator) not usually the hardware.
 
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Carpmart said:
I agree with most of what you say, but the deficit in performance is centred around the service being delivered (in roamer operator) not usually the hardware.
Click to expand...
That doesn't explain why the newer 5G router performs worse than the older 4G model.
 
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In our experience, we have have found that the Hauwei 4G router often outperforms the newer ZTE 5G router.

The Huawei router also includes a WiFi extender - which works great on sites that offer a good WiFi service.
 
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Chris_H said:
In our experience, we have have found that the Hauwei 4G router often outperforms the newer ZTE 5G router.

The Huawei router also includes a WiFi extender - which works great on sites that offer a good WiFi service.
Click to expand...
Much to everyone's annoyance, Huawei have been leading the mobile technology race for several years, particularly at the mast end of the network. Many of the later "5G" LTE cat revisions to the standards are pretty much a copy and paste of the standards that Huawei were proposing. Which they already have working hardware for, while other companies like Nokia play catchup.
 
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I have 2 gripes with the Motorhome wifi ZTE unit I have
1/ The defaults for Smarty on the sim (given it's provided iwth one) do kind of make sense, however I have an unlimited uk three not smarty data sim as part of my contract which performs ~ 3x-4x better at all locations tested with a speedtest if replaced with the Three data APN settings (the auto detect on it assumes Smarty so you get bad performance). (Set APN to three.co.uk with no username and password on a Three sim for FAR better performance). If you have a Three SIM, not a SMARTY one, be sure not to use the smarty settings, as although they work, they are limited to snail like performance.

2/ Another thing worth noting with Motorhome wifi units, which is annoying, is that they do not change APN until you disconnect then reconnect manually. It looks like you've done it in the app/website, but it won't until you actually force disconnect. So I was assuming I had a fault until I twigged the above given the sim performed fine on a different mi-fi device.

Ref; roaming we have not done that yet, but I expect to buy local sims due to the above speed limiting that goes on being far too common on roaming from experience. That said, in Fjords in Norway last week on my own handset on same contract the performance was acceptable.

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wfdTamar said:
5G can be flaky because it's high speed, but short range. 4G is slower, but longer range. Good 4G is enough for 4k tv (probably most peoples most demanding requirement. Even a so so 4G signal will do HD tv.
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5G isn't even really a standard beyond the marketing, it's all just LTE. 4G has been continuously evolving and adding new features in each new 'cat' release. At some point, they decided to start calling it 5G, but there's not really a hard line between 4G and 5G. 5G can work at all the same frequencies and will slowly replace older masts. It's largely backwards compatible, so lesser end devices should still get a signal. 5G isn't really even much faster, it's mainly about coping better with interference and allowing a load more devices to connect per mast.

At the moment, 5G signals are separate as the mast end requires different architecture for the way it connects to the core internet, but that'll change over time.

You're correct about bandwidth requirements. You don't actually need that much to stream TV or join a video call. What you do need is a reliable signal that doesn't have too much lag or drop outs.
 
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Hi All,

I did some testing on the ZTE MU5001 last year when looking at 5G router options for Maxview. One thing I found out is that the external antenna ports are for 5G only, so I wonder if this would contribute to some of the issues people are having, such as:

Chris_H said:
In our experience, we have have found that the Hauwei 4G router often outperforms the newer ZTE 5G router.

The Huawei router also includes a WiFi extender - which works great on sites that offer a good WiFi service.
Click to expand...

Regards,
Lee
 
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Lee Rasberry said:
Hi All,

I did some testing on the ZTE MU5001 last year when looking at 5G router options for Maxview. One thing I found out is that the external antenna ports are for 5G only, so I wonder if this would contribute to some of the issues people are having, such as:



Regards,
Lee
Click to expand...
This could answer a lot of questions. Very interesting. Have you tested out any Peplink routers?

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