₦airaland Forum

Obviouslyblunt:
Please I want to buy the ODU today. Which is the best one to buy? They said what they have is the eSIM version, should I get that?

Huawei but if not available, you can get anyone they have. eSIM is not an issue you can easily swap to physical SIM later.

Runsboi:
Oh really?

Oh I saw somewhere on this thread that the ones with physical sim tend to experience less issues than the other.

Hope its safe to use the powerbank thingy (ups) ob the go? as in I can be charging and using simultaneously

That's why it's designed as a UPS. It's very safe. Just make sure it's placed in such a way it can easily disperse heat.

Runsboi:
Everything happened fast, I didn’t even check

If you can easily get to where the ODU is, it's not that hard to locate.

paparazy06:
I don't know anything about band, Where can I check and locked for that

Which of the ODUs do you have?

Runsboi:
He just finished fixing it now. This is what he came with

If you can access the ODU, check if there's a SIM in the SIM slot. If not, you have to do a SIM swap if you prefer physical SIM.

Runsboi:
Hello... My Chiefs

So I just did Kyc for the Airtel ODU today (the lady actually came to mine, which was pretty impressiv), the installer said he'd be around to install tomorrow, he wanted to come today but he was asking for extra kudi, me wey nor get shimgbain 😭 However, since I've been here, I've come across several suggestion that one should insist on getting an ODU with physical sim, something laidat. I asked the lady this earlier, she said all the ODU are e-sim, so I'm confused.

Yes. Most are eSIM but come with slot for physical SIM.

Starlord99:
1Gbps is actually bare minimum for a family in this current digital age. Tech bros cringe at even 300 Mbps lol.

You have to divide by 8 to know how many megabytes you can download per second. A 20 Gb file with Airtel’s 50 Mbps will be downloaded at ~6MBps, and would take up to 1hr of your time. As opposed to 7 mins with global standard of 50 MBps (400 Mbps)

1Gbps is not bare minimum for a family. It's enterprise level now increasingly made available for homes.

Not everyone is a tech bros that's into some sort of streaming or graphics or heavy downloads. Most tech bros are even fine with 50-100 mbps.

1Gbps is enough for more than 20 people streaming 4K at the same time.

No permanent friends or foes. No specific ideology. Just permanent interests of chop make I chop. National cake must be shared.

Nigerian politicians for you.

morikee:
The 1Gbps plan is available for everyone and doesn’t have to be limited to enterprises, but the price is quite high compared to other markets, which is largely due to the current Nigerian economy.

Yes, it's available for everyone but too much for most households (bandwidth and price), so it's majorly for businesses that truly needs it and can afford to pay for it.

olujosh301:
Mtn mostly uses their own erected polls for the fibre layout. Government(ncc) can actually regulate all these but they aren't helpful.

They still lay underground fiber cables across major locations then deploy poles in areas they cover.

olujosh301:
It actually doesn't make any sense and isn't competitive with the likes of starlink, they also have 100k for 300mbps. The target audience isn't the general public.

You can't compare Starlink to Fiber. In terms of quality, Fiber is superior.

The major advantage of Starlink is coverage.

And yes, 1Gbps is an enterprise plan and not tailored for the general public.

dustmalik:
Why should anyone pay 200k for a 1Gbps plan? In Europe, you can get up to 10Gbps for less than 30k in some countries. That's 10x the speed of 1Gbps.

We have been conditioned by these service providers to believe they're doing us a favor or that we don't deserve better.

Well, considering the current realities and market offerings, I think it's a fair price if the 1Gbps is guaranteed rather than best effort.

OHIsIManuEL:
If I get the ODU, can I use the sim on the old 4g Smart box?
Also, how do I ensure I get the physical sim version?

Yes. It should work.

nairalanda1:
Just like the APC supporters.

I deal in reality, whatever the government, and laugh at magical thinking, again whatever the government.

Continue your peak fooling, data boy.

nairalanda1:
Yes you do. I believe in reality.

It's obvious you're disingenuous by altering my reply.

Keep fooling.

nairalanda1:
Well, I know that revenue from ten million is not sufficient for 220 million

If you think your government is not doing well, then run for office and do a better job, or keep quiet please.

More jargons.

moremuch1:
Think it was a glitch cause it's no longer working

Maybe you have some free data on the SIM. The plan is locked to IMEI. If it's a glitch and it works for you, it will most likely work for others with the same Mifi as yours.

nairalanda1:
If you were paying one third of your income, and some politican was looting like alpha beta, you think you and millions would sit down and watch?

Also, do you think that it is possible for a country to have enough money when only ten million out of 230 million are paying tax.

I no dey support government, but let's be serious here.

Story.

Am I paying tax? Yes.
Are politicians stealing our money? Yes.

Some individuals don't even pay income tax in some countries. Asides income tax, there are others like VAT, import duties and the rest.

All you said is jargons.

More tax so politicians will have more to steal.

You only see what you choose to see no matter what is placed in front of you.

michlins:
I don't really bother myself with such details but the installer said it's esim only

Thank you.

michlins:
I have it. It's the lower version of the former ZLT router. If you ask me why Airtel went from top to bottom, I cannot make sense of it.

There's no NFC on it like the former and the bands aren't that much. One good thing about it is the battery life. It lasts about one hour longer than the first one

It's normal for Airtel to want to keep costs low since their speed offerings will still be met by this. More devices will still come and you may never see some again.

You didn't confirm if it uses physical SIM.

ZombieDredd:
Which bank?

I know of 343k entree level

Lol. Don't mind that guy. I don't think any entry level employee earns that much in any bank in Nigeria. I don't know about the IT guys though.

So Dangote doesn't pay income tax on cement exports?

If that's the case, then the government has to find a way to make the price lower in Nigeria. It's embarrassing that what we produce is being sold cheaper outside the country than here. That means there's more incentive to produce for export than meet local needs which should actually be prioritized.

Starlord99:
Exactly boss 🤝
I just say make I send my oga on errand small 🫠

FAFO😂

Starlord99:
You can't switch to only 5G on Huawei ODU. It operates on 5G NSA (Non-Stand Alone) meaning it must be paired with 4G to work.

However, you can attempt to change it by going to Advanced -> System -> System Settings -> Developer Options -> Network Mode.

Among the options you'll see:
SA (Stand Alone),
NSA (Non Stand Alone) and
SA+NSA
...
...

SA is 5G only. Default is NSA. If your connection stops working you can go back to Default.

Airtel 5G doesn't run as SA. They use NSA so selecting SA only will not work. It has to be NSA.

Starlord99:
Oh wow, I have been looking for B1 over here 🤣

But yeah combining more than one band seems to be the best way to go.

Also I noticed my ODU doesn't get registered on the network after restart when locked to just B7. That's the main reason I looked to aggregate more bands while prioritizing B7. I suspect B7 is majorly used for high speed data transfer and struggles with mundane tasks like network user authentication.

However, it's still the fastest, especially EARFCN 3256 compared with EARFCN 3400. When I lock to Band B7 alone, it defaults to 3400 which is 10MHz, slower than B7 3256's 20MHz. Another reason I had to go deeper into the locking 🤣

Maybe the B7 reception is weak in your location.

When I'm not using 5G, I use the 4G+ with B7 3256 locked to a cell as primary and 3400 is automatically chosen as secondary (for aggregation) and the ODU connects almost instantly as soon as it boots. This alone gives me stable UL and DL speeds 24/7.

B1, B3 and B8 don't give me good results or stability when I use alone or combine with 5G. depending on how the device connects, UL may not be good or its the DL or latency is really poor.

Starlord99:
I have spent over a month with Huawei ODU around Osapa/Jakande/Agungi area, here is my overview.


NETWORK CONNECTION (LTE_CA + 5G NR)
1. Very Stable

2. Available Bands:
LTE Band B7, B8 and B3 (Carrier Aggregated)
5G-NR Band N78

3. Average Speed:
52 Mbps Up & Down (Quick burst to 160 Mbps down & 75 Mbps Up before equalizing at 52 Mbps)
17 ms Ping,
32 ms Download lag,
47 ms Upload lag.


INDOOR UNIT (Huawei AX3S)
1. Blazing fast router (Supports WiFi6 Speeds)
All my devices can take advantage of WiFi 6 and have tx/rx speeds up to 2400Mbps, although limited by Airtel's 50Mbps cap.

2. Robust Setup Options.
The config on the indoor router is superb, allowing me to map my apartment and visually position the antenna for best wireless reception. I can configure the network distribution on all my devices, allocating 2.4/5GHz bands to individual devices, as well as limiting their bandwidth usage. I am also able to turn off the annoying LED lights on the unit 🤣

3. Up to 160MHz of 5GHz WiFi
The device also allows up to 5GHz 160Mhz super fast bands for my heavy data-use devices. However, enabling this draws a lot of power and kills battery quick. So I stick to 80Mhz now, 160 was overkill with no added benefit.

4. Configure WiFi Signal Power
The router also allows me to set how powerful the WiFi signals are. Because I stay in a small apartment and need all the battery I can get, I set the power output to low. I am also able to separate 2.4GHz bands from 5GHz for devices that are far away, struggle to connect to 5GHz and waste battery trying to stay connected.

5. Power Usage is a lot
The speed and efficient wireless distribution of the router is unfortunately one of its Achilles hills. When connected to the included powerbank, I am able to get up to 4-5hrs of use of the whole system. However, that amount almost doubles when I use the 2.4GHz router of the ODU alone (more on that later)


OUTDOOR UNIT (Zowee H362-383, CPE 5G Max 6)
1. Super Robust Setup Options
I spent a long time configuring this unit to my image and likeness 🤣. From scheduled restarts (very important for continued performance) to locking the very cell towers I get signals from.

2. In-Built 2.4GHz WiFi
The unit has an in-built WiFi Router that supports only 2.4GHz WiFi6 and is intended for configuration only. However, I find that using that WiFi alone is able to almost double my powerbank's battery life in dire times. I am able to manage ~30 Mbps up/down given the extended battery life.

3. Lock Cell Towers for Carrier Aggregation
I observed the router has an equilibrium state of selecting Band B7 as the Primary Cell and then aggregating it with the super reliable Band B8 and the ever-ready supporter Band B3 along with the always on 5G Band N78. I noticed the fastest bandwidths and ping times with this combo. However, the system takes a very long time to reach that state after powering on.

When I locked to B7 alone + N78, I got fairly good bandwidths (not energetic enough to bounce from 190 Mbps down to 50 Mbps). However, the pings were comparatively bad at 73 ms ping and up to 300 ms upload delay. Locking bands alone wasn't able to give me that equilibrium state until I PCI (Cell Tower) Locked to Band B7 with 3256 EARFCN and a particular cell tower nearby, Band B8 with 3500 and Band B3 with 1873 both from the same cell tower. Now the system reaches equilibrium almost immediately after powering on and giving me those energetic speeds.

4. Receive OTP
This device can receive OTP which is a plus for MTN or other network users who want to set up myAirtel and SmartCash (just received my cool N2500 10% discount😁)


MISCELLANEOUS
1. Able to continue the fun outside with a particular mobile phone (I won't elaborate on this thank you 😁)


So far so good with this setup. Feel free to ask me related questions and I'll respond when I am able to.

Thank you for all the help provided in this forum. Pheranmi, Osyxcel and NSEstudent you guys are the real MVP 🙌

Nice one.

Initially, I locked to only 4G+ because the 5G was not stable especially at nights.

Currently, my 4G is locked to B7 as primary and B1 as secondary. I also locked the 5G and this has reduced the way the signal disappears at will. This combination gives me stable speed + lower latency.

Band 8 and 3 are not that good here but band 7 is the best and most stable. 5G NSA cannot work alone without 4G so your 5G is as good as the 4G receptions you get.

dustmalik:
That's 3Gbps vs 1.5Gbps. But then again, we are using it with a 50Mbps plan, so ultimately, it won't matter

It's sufficient even for Starlink so far performance is similar on both for sub-1.5Gbps bandwidths.

NSEstudent:
Can someone get it for someone?

It's restricted actually because it must be registered.

NSEstudent:
Owerri

Oh... It's still available in Lagos.

NSEstudent:
My sub will expire tomorrow and I want to buy another ODU instead of just subscribing. I want Huawei but it's not in my location.

What's your location?