Miracle Deltenna WiBE UK Mobile Broadband Signal Booster Review - Page 2
WiBE UK Mobile Broadband Signal Booster REVIEW
By: Mark Jackson - February 1st, 2011 : Page 2 -of- 5
"automatically identifies the mobile cell with the fastest available download speed and then configures its 4 internal antennas to achieve the best possible connection"

Deltenna WiBE urban test What sets the WiBE apart from other devices that distribute Mobile Broadband connections over Wi-Fi (sending the signal to laptops and Smartphone's etc.) is the wizardry inside. According to the PR blurb, it automatically identifies the mobile cell with the fastest available download speed and then configures its 4 internal antennas to achieve the best possible connection. Everything is then controlled from a simple browser based control panel (picture below).

Deltenna WiBE admin interface

Deltenna certainly makes some bold claims in support of the WiBE and states that it can deliver data throughput 30-times greater than a standard 3G USB Modem (Dongle) in areas of weak signal. It achieves this by having an allegedly 3 to 5 times greater connection range than traditional Modem's and their tests have allegedly even demonstrated a typical download speed of 2.8Mbps in rural areas.

It's worth remembering that mobile signal / reception quality by itself is not a perfect benchmark for actual performance and so, even if it works, sometimes merely improving your signal will not result in better speeds. Many mobile operators run with limited capacity and existing HSPA Mobile Broadband technology isn't terribly good at managing more than a few users in any given area.

However if your reception is already extremely poor or even none existent then just being able to receive Mobile Broadband will always be infinitely better than no connection at all, which is where the WiBE comes in. But does it work?

Performance Testing

To begin with we ran a number of benchmarks using a Vodafone Mobile Broadband connection. In order to give the WiBE a fair chance we selected two indoor locations, one in an urban area and one rural. The urban location had a good, if not great, 3G+ (HSPA) signal, while the rural location could only manage a 2G (GPRS) data link that was usually too slow to be usable and is not considered to be even remotely Mobile Broadband (more like dialup).

The mains powered WiBE may or may not work better outside but at temperatures of -4c we didn't think that any normal home users would be planning to sit outside in the icy cold just to get online, although there are always exceptions. Similarly it's supposed to be situated near a window, although Deltenna suggest that the ideal location is actually in the middle of your roof/attic (we were unable to test that).

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