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3G router and antenna recommendations

My Vista machine has never been too happy with USB devices, so I'm looking to put an antenna on the chimney aligned to our nearest Three cell and share that connection with a wireless router. This should also speed things up a little.

This is timely as we were considering a Freesat satellite dish (since we've lived here, ITV channels aren't always available as the signal strength isn't great, that's not much of a problem since there's rarely anything worth watching on them, but the picture glitches on all channels every time an owl lands on the aerial and takes off again)

I'd prefer to have the router somewhere accessible e.g. in my office room upstairs. I can see that Three have a "D100" wireless router which you plug the dongle into.

However I won't need the dongle as I'll have the antenna instead. I think. So was wondering how this is done - can you put the SIM card in the router? If not, am I looking at a different router which does let you plug the SIM card in to it, perhaps more flexibly because it would work with other networks (the D100 is for the Three network only, apparently)

I don't need ADSL/cable fallback, print server etc on the router or any other features. It does need to have a pretty good wireless range as the house is stone built and signals don't travel through it very well.

So looking to see if anyone have any router and/or antenna pairing recommendations; the nearest cell is 2.8km away, gives 3 bar strength with the dongle at the moment. I *think* it will get perfect line of sight to the cell if it's mounted high enough on the chimney.

I came across this, which is very functional, but more so than I need, I doubt I'll ever need an ADSL capability:

http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=267&pl1_id=3&pl2_id=78

I'm assuming that if I obtain the GPS co-ordinates of the cell (after verifying with Three, as I'm waiting on a local cell upgrade to faster speeds, so given there's more than one cell, I'd like to know which one(s) are being upgraded) am I right in thinking that the antenna needs a satellite installer (as opposed to a radio/TV aerial installer) with a GPS device (e.g. the same installer who puts the Freeview dish up)

So many questions! Thanks.
 
Netgear has a 3G Mobile Broadband Wireless Router and like most of the consumer models I think the idea is that you just plug your USB dongle into the back. In fact a Google search shows that there are plenty of hybrid routers around. The downside of this is that the router itself may not contain the needed antenna port (CRC9 connector), although many USB Modems (Dongles) do have one tucked away. Do google searches alongside the modem or routers model number to find out if a CRC9 is attached.

The biggest problem is the antenna and modem quality. I suggest you take a read through these for our own experiences.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/09_Improve_Mobile_Broadband_Performance_Tips/

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/11_WiBE_Mobile_Broadband_Booster_Review/
 
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Hi Mark

There's some really detailed stuff in there, thanks.

I hadn't bothered upgrading my old E220 dongle until it failed, I bought an E367 and the speeds with the modem in the same place are now reaching 5Mbps/1.5Mbps so I think it's worth investing a bit of cash to see if I can get it to go any quicker. Unlike the old modem, this one does seem sensitive to positioning.

I'm not sure the WiBE thing is ideal. I'm thinking the antenna and router is the answer since there's only one cell anyway (as far as I know - 2.5km away) which it latches to anyway, so I'm thinking best to get an antenna exactly aligned to that cell. As we're on a slight hill we should get line of sight if the antenna is on the chimney.

I'm a bit puzzled about all the kit though. I can see the flat panel box things which sit round the modem but that seems a bit of a bodge job. I'd have thought full-on externally mounted antenna and indoor router, and you plug the SIM into the router which then provides wireless/wired connections for the house. OK, if the Three service falls to bits the antenna (positioning) is rendered obsolete overnight, but I don't really have any choice since all the other operators are pants anyway round here.

Knowing little about radio reception though I really haven't a clue what to choose and what's suitable for a 2.5km straight line "route" e.g. what shape and type.
 
You can definitely try one of those direction high-gain external antenna's, provided they come with the right connectors for your modem, but I'm not sure quite how effective they are. Then even if you do get a good connection the fact is that your cell will still be being shared by others and as a result any performance boost will probably be tempered by that.
 
This new dongle works really well.

If I clip it to the guttering outside the window I get between 5 and 6 meg down and 1.5 meg up.

Premusing the cell can do 7.2Mbps now I guess I'm getting most of the bandwidth available.

3G is a godsend in places with rubbish quality telephone lines, we'd have had to move house by now if it weren't for this thing ;)

I've had a chat with a couple of local engineers, so I have someone to come and fit the antenna.
 
Wow pretty good considering that Ofcom recently reported the UK average for Mobile Broadband downloads as 1.5Mbps.
 
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Hi DTMark

I am in a very similar situation to you. Lousy landline broadband and considering getting a dongle from 3.
Did you get an improvement when you installed an antenna? What sort of antenna did you use?

In reply to your router question, have you seen this one from Solwise which seems to do what you want:
http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-routers-434t.htm

Solwise also do a good range of antennas.
I would be grateful for any feedback before I spend money. Thanks.
 
Hi Malc

Sorry for the delay in replying. I wasn't aware that the PM was here, must have missed it.

Events took a turn somewhat last week when my PC died altogether (memory, I think) and given timescales I had to have it working the next day. So I ended up buying a new one.

Because the setup here relied in the past on the PC sharing the 3G connection round the house via a Netgear DSL router (bit of a workaround) so the phones and laptop could use it - on impulse I got a router too at Maplin, it's an Edimax 3G-6200n which does what it says on the tin. Surprised they had such a thing so decided to try it. It was about £40 I think. It needs the firmware updating to recognise the E367 modem.

It can only do 7.2Mbps but the cell can only offer that anyway as far as I know. I get around 3Mbps at worst, 5Mbps is average, 6Mbps occasionally all downstream and upstream seems to be either 0.7Mbps to 1.7Mbps most of the time. The router shows a signal strength of 47%. The speed improves radically when you clip the dongle to the guttering (it's not really guttering, more like a rain shield made of metal which runs along the top of the windows) which I suspect is acting as a signal amplifier, so the case for an antenna is good. At least it can stay outside when it's raining.

However that router still needs the USB modem plugged in. What you found sounds like precisely what I really need: I'm getting a new TV aerial put up next month (ours is loose so it makes the picture glitch) and I'm going to have the 3G antenna put up at the same time on the chimney.

A local firm has actually done this before - just once :) with a 3G antenna and thinks they can do it (e.g. align it)

I don't actually expect a great improvement from the antenna, as I'm already getting most of what's available. But it should squeeze out the last of what's possible. Our cell is 2.5km away (just slightly further than the phone exchange - go figure) and the extra height might just push it up another half meg maybe if it gets perfect line of sight.

That said, I think you can take the dongle back if it doesn't work out (as long as you do it quickly) and while Three is great here, all the other networks are poor. Move a mile to the east and Three would struggle, while O2 would be pretty good given where the cells are. Have found the coverage maps on all networks fairly truthful. (O2 says "not recommended for this location" and it's right, Three says indoor coverage and that's correct also, endearingly the map has one single square of that precisely where we are so given there are only 2 other houses, it must work off feedback from users)

So I reckon you can get a pretty good idea of what might be possible with a dongle, will get you maybe 1GB of data and a SIM to try it out. Unless you have a preference you want to try, do check the coverage maps. Three is great for us but I can't specifically recommend it to anyone else because, like DSL, whether or not it's any use depends precisely on where you are even if you can get a service. I wouldn't go for the more advanced setup just yet but if the dongle is encouraging and that seems to be the way to go then the antenna/router comes next :)

It does not however have any obvious protocol throttling, doesn't compress images (believe T-Mobile and O2 do), and to all intents and purposes - with the exception of the latency which is higher - behaves like quite a fast (cough) ADSL connection.

The final thing I would say is that my 3G experiences when out and about with my O2 mobile are generally pretty poor especially in built up areas. That might just be because O2 are a bit pants but they did recently get an award for best provider. I suspect the main reason 3G is pretty good here is that I'm one of a handful of people who use it (exchange it's next to serves 1300 premises) and as it's rural and there's not a great deal between us and the cell, interference sources are less likely.

Will post back on progress with the antenna.
 
Hi Mark

Thanks for your informative response. I have got my dongle from 3 and speed is twice that of broadband although it takes some time to connect.

Coverage map shows outdoor only, so that probably explains the delay. I will need to get an antenna so will be interested in your feedback on that. Are you going for a directional or omni antenna?

We are only 2km from the 3 mast but there are a few bumps in the way.

Also, please let me know how you get on with the Solwise router.

Regards
 
I'd also like to know how you get on with that Solwise router.
 
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I shall let you know how the experiments go - might make a nice article maybe, if you're interested (MarkJ) I can send you photos and some text, as there must be more than two people (those in this thread) contemplating doing something like this.

For the purpose of a baseline, here's what it has to beat:

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Pretty consistent on the downstream, upstream is the most variable and positioning sensitive - and that's the issue with the dongle, as it's hard to put it in exactly the same place every time facing exactly the same way. That's what the antenna should solve.

One thing did occur to me today: 3G is basically radio. And we have an unused FM antenna. Any radio experts here who can comment if that will work, as by a stroke of some luck and pure co-incidence, it does point almost directly at the cell. Rerouting the cable internally won't be much hassle and I can just plug it in then.

Here's a picture (featuring one of the birds that makes the TV picture glitch - only a collared dove though)

antenna.jpg
 
As I found out some years back, the design and construction of antenna's is actually very different depending upon your purpose. For example, I think the TV Ariel that you have at the top would be ok for analogue TV but isn't best placed to pick-up the modern digital terrestrial TV signals, although I could be wrong as the power outputs have changed a bit and so it may be less of an issue. DTV receivers usually have a bigger V wing at the back.

Like yourself I first assumed that radio is still radio, which makes sense, but those big antenna's are actually not well suited to 3G cell network reception (you need to speak with an expert as I've forgotten most of this stuff). I imagine you could convert them but I'm not sure if the booster and connector conversion kit exists for such a purpose (you can't just patch a Mobile Broadband connector on to the TV cord) and at the end of the day I doubt they'd make much of a difference.

It also depends upon which frequency you'd be looking to receive. A modern Digital Terrestrial TV antenna should be able to reach up to 800MHz (from about 300 or 400MHz), after that the 800MHz band is being set aside for future mobile services and after that you get 900MHz, which only O2 and Vodafone are slowly adapting for 3G (London and outwards). Then you leap up to 1800 and 2100 where 3G normally sits and for those the antenna designs really need to be specially suited.

So it's possible that you could use a TV antenna once 800MHz is being used for Mobile Broadband but that's not going to be the case until 2013/14.
 
Coming back to this, I'm sitting looking at two sites which seem to be the main suppliers for this kit. The setup I want is antenna and router, and to get rid of the E367 modem (the connectors are going a bit mouldy now since it isn't supposed to live permanently outside - don't recommend people do that, I'm on my second one so far, but the extra couple of meg it gives when you get the position just right is worth it here so I don't like to move it once it's in the right place!)

Antenna:

http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-antenna-yagi-ren11yg.htm
http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-antenna-lpda-0044.htm
http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-antenna-yagi-ren_15ysx.htm

I haven't a clue which to go for, my assumption is that the most expensive one is the best one, but that's only an assumption.. can anyone comment? The installer I have lined up isn't all that knowledgeable about 3G. The distance is 2.7km-ish, it will have near or full line of sight.

Router:

The two most obvious candidates seem to be:

Solwise NET-3G-434T
http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-routers-434t.htm

Billion 7800qz
http://www.billion.uk.com/product/3g/7800gz.htm

Both look good, albeit surprisingly expensive, both have DSL capabilities as well, but I'm not bothered about having that. What I really did want was an HSPA+ capable one which I understand is up to 21Mbps as opposed to HSPA which is only 14.4Mbps - so far as I know our cell is not HSPA+ yet, but given the cost of these things I ideally wanted the higher spec one so as not to have to replace it later.

Except I can't find any. Do these things exist yet, has anyone come across one?
 
HSPA+ can actually go a lot faster (see out 'Broadband' section) but 21Mbps is kind of "1st gen HSPA+".

Anyway I'd probably pick the NET-3G-LPDA-0044 because it's second frequency range goes up to 2800MHz, which unlike the other two means that it will also be able to get 4G services on the future 2.6GHz band. On the other hand that's more of an urban frequency so it might not meet your needs. The NET-3G-REN_15YSX would be my second choice.
 
Thanks Mark - antenna ordered, £91.74 on the way to Solwise now via Faster Payment - nice to see small companies who support this. Just the router to sort now. ISPReview doesn't appear in the drop down list of "Where did you hear about us" - but maybe it should... :)
 
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Had a chat with Solwise this afternoon:

The HSPA+ capable routers are in the pipeline, but there is little or no demand for them, and the cost is higher than the "normal" HSPA modems. So they do plan to offer them, but probably not until there's greater demand - but it's certainly something they have their eye on.

The conversation was more detailed than that, the above is the quick summary, and the guy knew his stuff and was very helpful, I was very impressed with them.

So perhaps I am looking to buy something that doesn't really exist, and I'll probably go for the Solwise router for now.
 
I called 3 last week and spent some time losing the will to live trying to find out what the cell's capabilities are, and when it might be upgraded - bear in mind the fastest speed I'd ever seen with it was 6.6Mbps and the average was around 5Mbps.

They weren't able to answer that, so I went ahead and ordered the 7.2Mbps capable router from Solwise to go with the big fat antenna that's sitting here waiting to be put on the roof on the 17th when the installer comes round.

From Saturday, the average speed I'm seeing is in the region of 8.6Mbps and I've actually seen just shy of 11Mbps. Long running downloads (not so long any more) hover consistently at around the 10Mbps mark. Almost consistently anyway as my E367 dongle drops now and again because it's on its last legs - but it's giving a good final gasp.

1576116594.png
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So while the 3 reps insisted that "nobody in the company can answer your question" - at more or less the same time, the cell was being upgraded.

So while the new setup will give a permanently sited external antenna that's fine in all weathers (unlike the E367 dongle living outside) and the new Solwise router will be (I hope!) very much better than the current Edimax router I have, I'll actually see a drop off in speeds.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry :) As I can't actually find any HSPA+ capable routers anyway. Both the Solwise and Billion ones only support 7.2Mbps. "Only" - can't believe I'm writing that now.
 
Some routers have USB Sockets in the back for 3G modems, which means you could buy an HSPA+ compatible modem and simply plug that into the router. Not sure how good those ones are though. Still, you're certainly getting some really impressive speeds from Mobile Broadband there DT, is that with the new antenna?

I'm not surprised the 3UK's customer support lines couldn't help with your question though, front line support are rarely able to handle engineering related issues and I doubt that an outsourced operator like three would have provisions for you to speak with an engineer. You could try tracking down the local base station, cutting the wire and then camping out until an engineer turned up but that's a bit extreme :) .
 
No - that's just the existing kit.

That said, the new antenna is lying on the floor of my office on the same side as the window, but it, and the modem, are separated by said window and about nine feet.

It sped up about the same time I put it there. But I can't imagine that's the reason. I might try putting it in another room and testing again!

The antenna has a more co-ax type of socket which plugs into the Solwise router I got, it won't plug into the dongle.

That has a much smaller socket more suited to those kind of "PC FM aerial" type things.

Though I suppose it might be possible to change the socket.
 
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