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4G Home Broadband setup - the best way?

Hello all,

I'm am in a fairly unique position I would imagine. My home is less than 0.3 mile from a 4G mast, and I only get 2G EE properly at home (have had 1 bar 4G on iPhone 6 EE). I want to know what my set up should be - I did a speed test on my phone literally 40m away from home and got 97Mbps download! Unbelievable to me when I'm used to 0.5Mbps on ADSL! I want to try and achieve somewhere near 40Mbps download at home, but the reason I don't is because my home is tucked under a hill from the mast. If you ascend about 10 metres from my roof I reckon you could see the mast.

I'd like to know if it's worth setting up an entire station where I know I can achieve 97Mbps download and running it back to an access point at home via cat6 Ethernet.

OR try and get a router and external antenna on my roof, elevated as much as possible and gamble that I get 40ish Mbps?

I'd like to know everybody's thoughts on these 2 setups and what gear they would recommend. I'm really unsure about external antennae, what type and how strong and beam widths is baffling me. And what router also, I've looked lots but have found negative reviews on all, so am unsure.

Many thanks in advance
 
I am sure the mobile vetrans will be here to give advice soon; but until then - take negative reviews on equipment with a pinch of salt.

Read them carefully to see if there is a pattern;

I have come across 1 star reviews where the person actually LOVED the device (so why 1 star?).

Where they bought the wrong item (this isnt a phone like I thought it was).

Where they didnt understand how to use it.

Bought something entirely different, but left their 1 star review on THIS product page.
 
These guys might also be of interest to you, although they're fairly new and so we don't know much about them.

http://notspotbroadband.com/

Essentially they harness EE's network to deliver 4G Home Broadband, albeit with specialist hardware. It's likely they may be able to help.
 
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First things first, work out what height above ground level you need to be if on your roof. Solwise Elevation Tool.
The antennas used for 4G have relatively low wind load, so having a 6m pole mounted on TV aerial brackets is possible.
If roof+6m is less than required for LoS, I'd recommend building the remote station.

The Huawei B593 is the most recommended that I have come across and know people who have been using them for years without issue. PoE is possible but I'd recommend that if you're running ethernet, you may aswell also run some form of power, be it 12v DC or mains.
 
Based on how close you are to the cell, I'd suggest that you start with seeing what you can get at home.

A Huawei B593 modem will make more of a signal than a mobile phone will. Might be enough by itself.

If you can put that high up in the house then a relatively cheap omni-antenna clipped to the eaves could be run to it, again minimal cost and time to try it.

Where we are, EE is not reliable for voice use inside the house and won't pick up 4G on a mobile. The B593 modem will achieve 3 or 4 bars and over 20 Meg on a window sill by itself with EE 4G which is solid, no drops to 3G.

Perhaps a couple of hundred pounds to test the theory might see you with something you can happily live with for now. The hill makes a directional antenna unlikely to work well but you're so close to it that I suspect simply getting your receiving device high enough in the house may be enough.

Though you are right to determine that height is a critical factor: even if you could get 20 Meg symmetrical that would be a huge boost for relatively little outlay.
 
Thanks all for your useful advice. I decided to use the power over Ethernet (75m) and have a router stuck up in a tree (I mean mast ;) ) and am achieving really good speeds. I found that the adsl was using the optimum channel and was punching my new 4G one on to rubbish ones. Turned the ADSL off and bam 93Mbps download and 45up :) but actually it's not all plain sailing. Actual browsing one some web pages has been virtually unusable. On iPhone and laptop also. But loading videos is fab. I am using a TP-Link MR200 in the tree, running back to a TP-Link Wa901. The hardware I know is not what you all advised but I wanted to save a bit of money and reviews were good. I don't know if the slow browsing on some web pages if the fault of the hardware or not. For example google home page loads super fast, along with Facebook and most other sites. However amazon, Vodafone, and a couple of other were desperately slow, right throughout yesterday. Very odd. Also I had a couple of drops yesterday, laptop said "limited access", but I got the router a bit higher up (still not quite in sight of mast but I will getting it even higher soon, with external antennae also), this I believed helped solve this problem.


My second question to you mobiles broadbanders is how the hell do you buy enough data to lay a month. Just trying out an EE sim and it's EATING data! Bit of browsing and a few vids/programmes and a coupe speed tests and I used like 2.5GB last couple days. Anyone reccomend a sim to put in the router? It's unlocked so I'm open to all. Can you put a phone sim in it? I was hoping so, I'll explain now -

Giff Gaff do a thing called "Always on" data. You get 6GB and then afterwards it's limited to 256kbps, between 8am and 12 pm I believe. (The rest of the time is full speed) Now I was thinking if I changed the time settings on the router could I convince giff gaff that actually the time when they limit the speed is my day time, by putting the time forward on the router 12 hours or whatever.

Please enlighten me on all this many thanks!
 
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Thanks all for your useful advice. I decided to use the power over Ethernet (75m) and have a router stuck up in a tree (I mean mast ;) ) and am achieving really good speeds. I found that the adsl was using the optimum channel and was punching my new 4G one on to rubbish ones. Turned the ADSL off and bam 93Mbps download and 45up :) but actually it's not all plain sailing. Actual browsing one some web pages has been virtually unusable. On iPhone and laptop also. But loading videos is fab. I am using a TP-Link MR200 in the tree, running back to a TP-Link Wa901. The hardware I know is not what you all advised but I wanted to save a bit of money and reviews were good. I don't know if the slow browsing on some web pages if the fault of the hardware or not. For example google home page loads super fast, along with Facebook and most other sites. However amazon, Vodafone, and a couple of other were desperately slow, right throughout yesterday. Very odd. Also I had a couple of drops yesterday, laptop said "limited access", but I got the router a bit higher up (still not quite in sight of mast but I will getting it even higher soon, with external antennae also), this I believed helped solve this problem.


My second question to you mobiles broadbanders is how the hell do you buy enough data to lay a month. Just trying out an EE sim and it's EATING data! Bit of browsing and a few vids/programmes and a coupe speed tests and I used like 2.5GB last couple days. Anyone reccomend a sim to put in the router? It's unlocked so I'm open to all. Can you put a phone sim in it? I was hoping so, I'll explain now -

Giff Gaff do a thing called "Always on" data. You get 6GB and then afterwards it's limited to 256kbps, between 8am and 12 pm I believe. (The rest of the time is full speed) Now I was thinking if I changed the time settings on the router could I convince giff gaff that actually the time when they limit the speed is my day time, by putting the time forward on the router 12 hours or whatever.

Please enlighten me on all this many thanks!
 
Are you using NoScript (or similar), an Ad blocker etc?? Some sites have dozens of active scripts and trackers that make the pages slow to load, or even time out.
 
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Hi, some help appreciated.

I get 0.5mbps from BT fixed line, and found out last week I might get EE 4G Broadband, so I went to EE shop and bought one of their black and yellow wifi mini to test it. I get really good internet if its either outside and pretty good still on the window sill. I rang EE to say that's great, is there a hub I can buy with an external aerial to put on my roof? Their answer was no, and their home hub will not have this issue so I should just buy that. I do not really believe him, I literally spent 1hr on the phone to this guy at EE, first he said BT should never have sold me broadband (not helpful) then insisted their homehub was the only solution, me saying I would rather an antenna for various reasons was totally ignored.

Anyway, can you advise if I can buy the 50gb a month home hub from EE, take the SIM and put in another router with an external aerial?

I cannot believe no one has a company that comes and fits a permanent home 4G system, seems a missed opportunity!
 
There are a number of threads covering 3/4G for home use; you will discover that there are plenty of routers either offering 3/4G dongle support (ie you plug in a dongle), or with the circuitry inside, so only needing a SIM to work; some of these also allow external antenna.

TPLink do various flavours of router, from specific 3/4G as mentioned above, to VDSL/ADSL routers with 3/4G dongle support; the majority of these have sma antenna mounts, so you can remove the fitted jobs and wire in some roof mounted ones quite easily.
 
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