For a cellular ‘mini homelab’ venture I am engaged on, I wished to make use of 5G Web as a major ‘on-to-go’ connection, however nonetheless have the power to plug in one other Web connection once I put the cellular rack I am constructing in a set location.
I am going to have extra on that venture quickly, however I figured this venture was a great way to take a look at Ubiquiti’s options, particularly contemplating a lot of their smaller gear suits properly inside the dimensions of a mini rack (the 3U DeskPi RackMate TT is pictured above).
I made a decision to check the UniFi 5G Backup, which is a small PoE-powered 5G RedCap-enabled machine good for as much as 220 Mbps of downlink bandwidth. It takes a SIM card, and since different 5G merchandise record AT&T and T-Cellular community help, I assumed this machine would work with an AT&T Enterprise ‘AIA’ plan (which differs from the patron 5G plans, and helps 5G RedCap).
Afterward, I did discover this warning of their machine FAQ:
Does the U5G help AT&T information plans?AT&T client plans don’t at present help 5G RedCap, which is required for U5G operation. Assist could grow to be obtainable as carriers increase 5G RedCap choices. For rapid connectivity, UniFi eSIM Information Packs are really helpful.
I assumed the particular callout relating to client plans meant that enterprise/enterprise AIA plans would nonetheless be supported. Particularly for the reason that Technical Specs on the product web page record AT&T alongside T-Cellular underneath ‘Certifications’.
However I bumped into a couple of points:
The Cloud Gateway Fiber would not connect with it; as soon as I adopted it, it obtained caught in an replace loop. I needed to put it in restoration mode then use TFTP to add newer firmware—a course of and not using a progress bar, you simply should cross your fingers and hope it really works (it took about 5 minutes to switch).My AT&T Enterprise 5G SIM would solely work on 4G LTE, not 5G.After I contacted my AT&T rep, he tried including the U5G Backup’s IMEI to my 5G SIM, however obtained the error message “The entered IMEI just isn’t eligible for AT&T Web Air for Enterprise”.
5G RedCap (5G Decreased Capabilities), which is all of the Quectel modem contained in the U5G Backup helps, limits the utmost efficiency you get with a module like this, but it surely must be adequate for backup Web—precisely what this machine is meant for.
Besides, in response to my expertise and others, AT&T to date would not help this machine on their community. I suppose, I am shocked even 4G LTE works in that case, but it surely does.
However that limits the utility of this stick, as I am solely capable of get a most of about 30 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up—assuming a powerful sign (< 90 dBm). In any other case the obtain tops out round 10-12 Mbps.
Debugging the Mobile Connection
I wished to doc how I used to be debugging the mobile connection on the U5G Backup for my very own reference.
UI gear might be set to permit direct SSH connections. As well as, in the event you go into the machine settings within the Community UI, there is a ‘Debug’ hyperlink that opens up a debug console, which drops you in as root on the machine itself.
This may be harmful, as you possibly can doubtlessly break issues—so do not run instructions willy-nilly in right here.
However some of the helpful instructions to see the present state of the U5G Backup is mca-dump. Here is some instance output:
{
“structure”: “armv7l”,
“gateway_ip”: “192.168.1.1”,
“hostname”: “U5GBackup”,
…
“mbb”: {
“geo_info”: {
…
“isp”: “AT&T Wi-fi”,
“group”: “AT&T Enterprises, LLC”
},
“imei”: “[redacted]”,
“radio”: {
“5g_sa_mode”: false,
“band”: “eutran-30”,
“ca_lte”: [
{
“band”: 30,
“dl_bw_mhz”: 10.0,
“dl_earfcn”: 9820,
“primary”: true,
“ul_bw_mhz”: 10.0
}
],
…
“networkoperator”: “AT&T”,
…
“rat”: “LTE”,
“rat_5g_uw”: false,
“rat_caps”: [
“5gnr-sa”,
“lte”
],
“rat_mode_active”: “LTE”,
…
“rsrp”: –95,
“rsrq”: –12,
“rssi”: –68,
“sign”: 3,
“signal_percent”: 100,
“snr”: 13.800000190734863
“mannequin”: “U5G-US”,
“model_display”: “U5G-US”,
…
“uptime_str”: “28m23s”,
“model”: “1.4.3.360”
}
The variable rat_mode_active exhibits LTE, which matches what I see within the UI. And 5g_sa_mode being false may imply one in every of two issues:
5G Standalone just isn’t supported on the cell tower I am related to (i.e. it solely helps 5G Non-Standalone/NSA).My AT&T SIM just isn’t licensed for 5G Standalone on the U5G Backup.
Because the U5G Backup tech specs explicitly record FCC, IC, PTCRB, GCF, AT&T, T-Cellular underneath ‘Certifications’, I assumed it was set to work on AT&T’s 5G community. However that appears to not be the case.
Conclusion
The identical 5G AT&T SIM in a U5G Max works wonderful on the AT&T 5G community, and will get speeds in extra of 500 Mbps down from the identical location:
It appears the U5G Backup solely absolutely helps 5G speeds on T-Cellular’s community presently.
I missed it at first look, however digging by means of the product pages, underneath the “Provider Setup Tutorials”, Ubiquiti notes:
Please test along with your provider to make sure your charge plan helps 5G RedCap.
AT&T has supported 5G RedCap nationwide for over a yr, however apparently this explicit machine may nonetheless want approval to hop on the community.
I am hopeful my discussion board submit asking about AT&T 5G help for the U5G Backup will get some traction with the UI staff. However till then, I suppose I am going to should accept 4G LTE speeds on my U5G Backup!
