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The story
Rakuten Mobile is said to have weak indoor signal due to its relatively small number of base stations. A thread appeared on 5ch started by a resident who tried to fix this. The original poster used a 10-meter LAN cable and an adapter to tether a phone placed outside the front door to a PC indoors via a wired connection, but the speed didn’t improve as much as hoped. The thread then split into debate over whether phones and home routers differ in signal reception performance, and how much money is worth spending on a fix.
What people said
Even if you change the phone's settings, it won't help.
https://imgur.com/yrN1WGG.png
And here's the after:
https://imgur.com/ZFEMXsU.png
and a LAN-to-USB-C adapter (3,000 yen),
hung a bag on the front door's doorknob, put my phone inside it, ran the cable through the mail slot, and gave it a try.
Phone was set to Ethernet tethering.
Result: no speed gain.
Even supplying separate power to the adapter didn't help.
Gotta respect that dedication.
https://imgur.com/PIf11C1.png
2 Anonymous sage 2026/07/27 (Mon) 00:15:49.82 ID:ifYKMt270
★This is what it takes to go full fixed-line★
Well, I'm renting though.
If you own a house, just get a real fixed-line connection.
This guy's doing it as a hobby.
There's basically zero cost-effectiveness — if anything it's a net loss.
Read the thread properly.
The indoor signal is weak.
To fix it, you receive the signal outside,
and then run a wire to the PC far away.
For that, you need to use a crazy-expensive 'active repeater cable.'
That's the key point.
Routers and phones have different signal reception capabilities.
Even among phones, it varies a lot by model.
Sometimes it's even listed in the specs.
Are you maybe stuck on 4G?
I'm on an iPhone 17 with Rakuten and getting over 400Mbps down indoors with 5G+ showing.
Let's say:
Phone = mobile router
Phone < home router
That's what the AI says, anyway.
And apparently home routers can't do eSIM switching.
Go read what the AI says.
Re: #89
Routers and phones have different signal reception capabilities.
Even among phones, it varies a lot by model.
Sometimes it's even listed in the specs.
Are you maybe stuck on 4G?
I'm on an iPhone 17 with Rakuten and getting over 400Mbps down indoors with 5G+ showing.
Calm down.
Let's go read what the AI says.
Routers and phones have different signal reception capabilities.
Even among phones, it varies a lot by model.
Sometimes it's even listed in the specs.
Are you maybe stuck on 4G?
I'm on an iPhone 17 with Rakuten and getting over 400Mbps down indoors with 5G+ showing.
Let's say:
Phone = mobile router
Phone < home router
That's what the AI says, anyway.
And apparently home routers can't do eSIM switching.
Go read what the AI says.
Re: #107
Phone = mobile router
Phone < home router
👆 that makes no sense, lol
There it is~~~~ the TP-Link guy~~~~
If they claim they're actually running this setup, all they have to do is name the router — that'd settle it.
It's the MH7150.
That brand's pricey too, huh.
Also doesn't seem like you can buy it in Japan.
Couldn't find the exact model number, but AliExpress has something similar going for the upper-60,000-yen range.
Tell me an eSIM-compatible router that costs a few thousand yen.
But it's 38,000 yen.
Can't afford that.
Skip the Fuji one. I had the previous model and switched within 2 days — it was that bad.
Seriously?
Re: #148
Wi-Fi won't cut it, has to be USB tethering.
There's a door between them, 10 meters apart, remember.
If you buy the cradle sold separately, you can connect via cable.
It's been sold out forever though.
It can do USB tethering too.
For calls I use my phone on the Docomo line.
For the router I carry around, I use a Dock 5G with a Rakuten Mobile SIM in it.
The Galaxy mobile router didn't run hot and was really stable, I liked it, but it didn't last long. Bought it twice, and both times it stopped catching signal after a little over a year.
Is there anything else unlimited for 3,000 yen?
Sounds like OP cares most about cost.
You mean he's broke?
Cheaper is better when it comes to phone/internet bills, obviously.
If cheap only gets you that speed, isn't the pricier option better?
What phone are you receiving on?
Not trying to troll, genuinely asking.
Given how hung up you are on that 3,000 yen Rakuten plan, I'm guessing you're using some ¥1 phone from a few years back that doesn't even support 5G.
Like a base-model Rakuten Hand or something, lol.
Over 50Mbps is plenty for me.
Nah, that's way too slow, that'd drive me crazy…
That's a tenth of what I get.
Lmao all you ever open is 5ch anyway.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Rakuten Mobile is still in the process of building out its own base stations even after the end of its KDDI roaming agreement, and there reportedly remain spots — even in urban areas — deep inside buildings or underground where signal has trouble reaching. What caught people’s attention in the thread was a report that a phone could pull over 400Mbps down indoors, yet wired tethering to a PC dropped the speed significantly — a phenomenon that happens because phones and home routers (fixed devices) differ in antenna setup and reception sensitivity, meaning results won’t necessarily be the same for every device or location. The thread also flagged a failed attempt using a cheap adapter as a cautionary example, pointing out that extending the distance in practice actually requires a power-amplifying ‘active repeater cable’ — a detail that’s easy to miss if you assume simply running a longer cable will do the trick.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed VIP) thread ‘Found a way to make indoor Rakuten Mobile 5 to 10 times faster lmaoooooooooooooo‘.
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