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3G/4G mobile broadband with an antenna . . . ?

I tend to use Ofcom Sitefinder to start with, then try and correlate that to centres of coverage as coverage overlap can make finding mast locations very difficult on the providers' maps.

EE charge £30 per 25GB whether on a 30day rolling system or a twelve months locked in contract. The other providers are mostly not worth looking into.
 
Hi Wizard,

I hope I am not too late ...

The process you are going through seems very frustrating, complicated and too some extent unnecessary. Although the Huawei router you have been recommended is okay, what you are experiencing with it is very typical. Unfortunately adding yagi antenna's to the outside of the building isn't going to improve matters significantly, you'll probably lose all the antenna gain in the cable run.

If you can't get 4G and you have some 3G coverage, I would suggest the better option is a WiBE (The indoor unit retails for approx £348, so is more expensive than the B593 but you don't need to worry about the cost of external antenna's, buying the right ones or installation).

The WiBE router, includes four high gain antennas built into the unit itself, hence why there's no need for external antennas. The antenna's are also self optimising as the unit scans for the fastest connection and focusses the antenna gain in that direction. So if your network provider decides to move tower locations, you don't need to worry about realigning directional antennas. (A technology video for WiBE can be found on youtube here -> http://rgxd.at/v1).

If you have got some indoor 3G coverage, then WiBE should be sufficient. If you have no indoor coverage but 3G signal outside, then WiBE Extreme would be the better option. (This customer story maybe relevant from a WiBE customer in Cornwall who's also on EE -> http://rgxd.at/tol)

Please be aware that I do work for the manufacturer of WiBE (RangeXD is a sister company to Deltenna and handles sales and marketing of the WiBE portfolio -> http://rangexd.com), so you probably won't consider me independent, but I did want to point out an alternative option. Please do take a look at one of our stockists, ruralBroadband.co.uk (tel:01485572253) who are offering a free trial of WiBE at the moment, so you do have a no risk option to benchmark performance. They also stock the B593 so they will also be to provide guidance on how to improve the performance of the B593.

I'm happy to be contacted if you have any questions. Just drop an email to info@rangexd.com.
 
The Aerial outside will likely improve things a lot and the drop of cable will likely have little to no effect as it's shielded coax. While the wibe does use direction aerials, their gain, so far as I can garnish is not as good as a proper aerial.
 
Is the WiBE 3G+ (DC-HSPA) capable now? (4G capable would be nice too)

Used to be the case that it was only 3G capable and so the advantages of the receptors in the unit were offset by a long way by the fact that it could never achieve anything like top speeds because it was single channel only, that's what made me rule it out as an option for here.
 
Hi RangeXD,

Thanks for the advice, you're right it is frustrating, it makes me want to pull my hair out, I sort of feel better about things because I'm not dealing with BT anymore as they were a complete nightmare, I loathe their incompetence, that's why I wanted to go down the mobile broadband route & to an extent have a bit more control, plus the fact my landline broadband left me no choice . . .

I'm willing to try anything really, obviously trying to spend the least amount of cash possible in the process . . .

I'll drop you an e-mail . . . .
 
Hi Again . . .

My aerial gets fitted on Monday, so I was thinking since I'm now going to be using an external aerial, will it be ok to leave the B593 up the loft as opposed to sitting it next to a window ?
I'm just not sure if the cable will reach if I keep the router in the bedroom . .

Thanks again . . .
 
Thanks to this thread I recently completed a project (as a complete novice) to ditch my copper connection (0.3 to 0.6mbps) and am now using the setup described below to get average 5mbps using the single bar of 3G connectivity available on my rural property.

I am in rural Surrey where we live on a 40-acre site. 99% of the site has no mobile coverage and we are 4-5 km from the exchange on copper. Basically it seems that we will never be upgraded to Fibre, so after a short time trying to run my business on a dire 0.3mbps connection, I thought I needed to go with Satellite or else somehow lasso the one stable 3G signal I could find and somehow wrangle it into my home office.

[as an aside, I rang Bentley Walker recently and they basically said wait a month or so for their new service, coming from a new satellite, on which the speeds will be better because it is not shared so widely by people in the South East of England...the new service is in final stages of release]

Anyway, back to the setup.

I used the following, based on recommendations on this discussion thread:
1: Huawei B593s-22 LTE/4G Router
2: 2 of TP-LINK CPE210 2.4GHz 300Mbps Outdoor Customer Premises Equipment
3: One pole to attach the office-end CPE to
4: Some Ethernet cable (Cat5e shielded) at both ends to connect the Routers to the CPEs
5: Home Router (in this case a Timecapsule)

About 300m from my office is an old stables, at one corner of which (about a 20q/ft area) there is a consistent 1- or 2-bar 3G mobile signal. It is literally one of only 2 or 3 spots on the site that has coverage. Over the past year I have had to dash out there on occasion to get a text message out or in...so I know it is a consistent signal and not weather or climate dependent.

Short version of this story: I plugged in the Huawei (arrived from Amazon in 1 day) and put an EE sim in it. One bar of signal lit up.

I set up the CPEs - they are looking at each other over about 300m from the stables to my office and line of sight is clear with only some branches in the way. The setup is somewhat technical but all I did was follow the instructions in the little pamphlet and they JUST WORKED. The documentation says that they can work line-of-sight over several kilometers.

I plugged in the Office-end into my Apple 3rd gen Timecapsule and within seconds I had proper broadband. It is averaging about 5 to 6mbps, with occasionally blinding 20 or 30mbps.....nevertheless it has changed things dramatically here as I can now work using my web applications without spinning cogs of death every minute.

EE are running a business deal at the moment: 50GB a month for £50, 24 month contract.

Sorted!
 
My parents will be moving to a rural property in Higher Ansty, DT2 7PU in the next few weeks. Being a rural property, the broadband options for them are very limited with the current landline being capable of no more than 1Mbit down.

I've been investigating the possibility of 3G/4G broadband, and on our last visit to the house I purchased pay&go data sims for all providers (Three, EE, Vodafone, O2) to compare coverage; EE came out on top by quite a margin, most other networks provided no coverage at all! The best I could get with an iPad Air was 3 bars of 3G from EE in a top bedroom:
fpL5lY3.jpg


Not ideal, but then again it's the only real option! Which of these will likely yield the best signal:

1) Asus RT-AC3200 router with compatible 3G/4G USB dongle (preferably one which allows external antenna)

2) Huawei B315 to serve as antenna / modem with the RT-AC3200 providing routing via WiFi and Wired

The Huawei B593 seems to be raved about on here for it's excellent internal antennas, making it appealing. I'm aware this has been superseded by the B315, but is it worth considering still? I'm thinking number 2 will provide better coverage considering the internal antennas will be bigger :).
 
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I would probably go for option 2. I've looked up terrain between you and the Winterborne Stickland mast (fairly major 4G transmitter) and unfortunately it's obstructed, so you're unlikely to get 4G even with an external antenna.

Dorset is a beautiful place though, went there on holiday recently.
 
Hi Pedrostech! Thanks for getting back so promptly. May I ask how you know the EE masts nearby? How do you examine the terrain? I'm intrigued!

I'm going to invest in the Huawei B315 and an external antenna. Any recommended?
 
Hi Will

I know the mast locations because I visited a lot of them while staying in Moreton, Dorset. Also some are on Ofcom's sitefinder. Terrain I check using Megalithia's terrain checker. I have pictures of some on my website: Pedroclarke's transmitter library

In terms of aerials, solwise 3g-ant-1921-16yn and net-3g-lpda-0092 are well rated. The latter supports the 800MHz band which will be good if EE does 4G on 800. There are also some good ones on eBay.
 
There was a recent topic on here comparing the B593 with the more recent B315.

We've had a B593 for years. Works perfectly, never crashes, nice web interface, does what it's supposed to do, and must have decent internal antennae as it does get good speeds even with weaker signals.

So if there's one of those going cheaply versus a full price B315, I'd suggest the B593 is the one to go for.

Bearing in mind that I haven't tried the B315 but I remain happy with what we have.
 
I'm assuming the B593 and B315 have the options to switch off all routing functionality, effectively making them function as modems? Ideally I want to connect one of them to a cable router via WAN port. The house they're moving into has pretty thick walls and a big garden, hence wanting superior WiFi coverage from another router.
 
Take care with the B315, as per other thread, the internal antenna doesn't work as well as that in the older B593 and its software lacks the 'force 4G' option so it just sat giving me 3Mbit/s on 3G when I can get 28Mbit/s on 4G by forcing that network type on the B593.
 
We ordered the modem today, we decided against the Huawei models and opted for the Netgear AirCard AC785 with the DC113a dock. After talking to my parents they felt much more comfortable with this over the Huawei due to the colour display on the outside which displays the data usage and signal etc. Being technophobes I think it's the easiest way for them to monitor their data usage and know it's connected at a glance. The AC785 seems to get good reviews, the docking station not so much. We bought it purely for the Ethernet connection, so we can connect a superior AC router for better house coverage! We're looking at the TP-Link P5 Touch Ac1900 router, again due to its display / touchscreen.

They're hoping to move in January, but I'll be testing it out prior locally. I'll let you know how it goes :).
 
Hi DTmark

Really appreciate your knowledge on this topic.

I wonder if you could help with some brief advice. I live in the middle of nowhere (and I mean nowhere: in a forest, 1k from the nearest hamlet) in South France. We have been using a satellite connection but the combination of high latency and aggressive capping of use makes it frustrating to use. The monthly daytime cap (bandwidth restriction) starts at 4Gb even on "unlimited" plans and by 16Gb of use you are down to 512kb.

I am thinking of trying a 3g connection (no 4g in my area yet but it is coming) and the having read your previous advice I have worked out that I get solid enough reception (so about 1-2 bars) outside the house using a phone + sim with one of the big mobile companies here, Bouygues Telecom. Competition for bandwidth from locals is likely to be very low.

Bouygues do a 32Gb offer where you get a Huawei E3786 Hotspot thrown in for just £20 - its basically a fancy dongle as far as I can see (probably being harsh).

Also, I think it very likely that I'll be going on the roof with an antennae at some point (although obviously I'd prefer not and won't buy anything until I have checked speed without that).

My rambling questions (and apologies for any lack of knowledge/ detail given):

Could I link a normal router to the hotspot? I am sure I read of that but that it needs a specific router (is that DDWRT?) but that might be a bit flaky? Some kit inside the house is definitely cable rather than Wifi (so the TV and PC). We have very thick walls so Wifi dongles aren't going to work.

OR is it worth instead paying the £120 odd for a Huawei B593 type router from the off (instead of the free Hotspot) and is that going to be easy to configure / install the SIM. I know that some routers seem to have restrictions on the size of SIM's they accept, that providers will change the SIM size from time to time and given that I might be swapping these in and out I want to make sure my £120 is well spent!

The best spot on my roof is about 10m distance from where I would ideally place the router/ hotspot. If I need an antennae, is it T9 or SMA connection that I need for a B593? The hotspot seems to be T9 only. Is it possible to attach a long extension cable for a T9 connection?
 
The "hot spot" type devices (often called "Mi-Fi" in the UK) don't normally have any useful outputs e.g. an Ethernet connection.

They will provide a wireless connection for nearby devices but they're meant more for personal use and probably aren't that great in terms of distance covered by the signal.

You could potentially "repeat" that signal with a secondary router, but that would add latency and is less than optimal.

Ideally you want the modem to have Ethernet outputs. Then you can use Home Plugs around the house to distribute the connection via Ethernet (this is how the signal gets to our TV).

The modem will work best higher up in the house. That might mean that you get wireless dead spots in some parts of the house, which you can again sort using Power Plugs which can repeat the wireless signal to other parts of the house.

One apparent alternative would be to have the modem downstairs linked to a roof antenna via a long cable, however the signal degrades with cable length so you want the distance between an antenna and the modem as short as possible. 10 metres would probably be about the limit. You'll find that antennae come with surprisingly short cables for this reason. It doesn't benefit you to add an extension cable.

The B593 has good antennae built in and so it might be that all you need is one of those and some Power Plugs. Put the B593 on the window sill on which it gets the strongest signal - just get a power extension lead and walk around the upstairs trying different locations until you find the one that works best and then site it there.

Note that Power Plugs ideally need a "clear" power socket e.g. in theory they work better plugged into a "socket of their own" rather than using a double plug to use the same one providing the modem with power.

If you need to boost the signal a roof antenna will help, bearing in mind that 4G will work optimally with antennae designed for 4G - the B593 has two antenna connectors as 4G ideally needs two antennae though some are sold as "dual antenna" arrays.

Believe the B593 has SMA connectors though check the specs, has been a while since I looked.

Before spending on an antenna or modem, see what sort of signal the free hot spot thing gets. If you're getting a good signal but the speed is slow this may indicate contention. No antenna is going to improve on that very much if at all unless it enables you to connect to another more distant cell.

If all is well get something like the B593 and see how it goes. If that's all good then the Power Plugs will extend the signal around the home so it's just like a conventional cable/DSL connection.

The B593 accepts the standard size SIMs but you can put a smaller one in with a SIM adapter though as it's up sideways be careful not to "lose" the SIM card inside the socket.
 
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