Possibility of removing ISP-imposed speed restrictions for 4G LTE home broadband connection

[Keyser Tomassi]

Hey guys!

I use a 4G LTE home broadband connection. My ISP uses LTE CAT 4 (150 Mbps down / 50 Mbps up) over LTE Band 3 (FDD). I also have my cell phone plan with the same ISP. Both my iPhone & Huawei 4G LTE home broadband router receive the exact same signal.

However, my ISP caps my home broadband connection speed to a maximum of 90 Mbps down / 10 Mbps up despite claiming that there are no limits/restrictions on the connection speed - the package is advertised as 'Max 4G speed'. I confirmed with customer support that 90/10 are indeed the limits imposed.

On the other hand, speed tests on my iPhone's LTE connection show that speeds of up to 145 Mbps down / 40 Mbps up are actually possible, especially during off-peak hours. Once again, both my iPhone & home router receive the exact same signal, and I conduct the speed tests on both devices from the exact same spot at my place to ensure consistency.

My question is: Is there a way (hack/workaround) for me to remove these speed restrictions imposed by my ISP? If so, how?

 

[DelJo63]

The ISP usage of QOS will control your access at all times -- you're up a creek

 

[Gabriel Pike]

This could be related also to the category of device. Your phone may have a better LTE modem than the one in the hotspot. Either way if it is QoS or hard coded as @jobeard said above you are pretty much stuck.

 

[neeyik]

Not sure how it is in other countries, but in the UK the 4G LTE routers supplied by ISPs are universally rubbish. I replaced this:

Most popular pay monthly mobile broadband

<div>Discover mobile broadband on pay monthly at EE, including 5G and 4G Wi-Fi broadband. Browse our range of home routers and WiFi dongles today.</div>

shop.ee.co.uk

With this:

HUAWEI B525s-23a White : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Buy

www.amazon.co.uk

Went from 15-20 Mbps downstream to 76 Mbps; on a good day, it will hit 110 Mbps (upstream improved too, but by a smaller factor). Stability was much better, as well. My ISP was convinced that the original router wasn’t faulty and that my connection was as good as it could possibly be, considering where I lived. Ahhh, no.