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3g/4g Antenna

fingers

Casual Member
Hi all.
Due to the fact I can't get enough bandwidth through my Airband connection or good old Adsl, I decided to go down the 4g/3g mobile sim route, to that end I've got a Huawei B525 and a 3 ayce sim set up in the most suitable upstairs window. This set up is working but slower than I would like, it peaks at up to 14/17Mbps on 3g and 8/10Mbps on 4g but settles back to 3Mbps, when it settles back it needs to be cycled through 4g only then 3g only on the router (3g being the faster, so the destination) an ordinary reboot not apparently making any difference. Why is this?

When I checked out our mobile tower positioning I found we were in the centre of about 6 all from 5km to 6+km away, as I was thinking about an external antenna would an omnidirectional one (such as https://www.amazon.co.uk/MIMORAD®-D...N=B071HPPBDT#HLCXComparisonWidget_feature_div) be a good choice? It would be 2-3m higher with better lines of sight. Or would a directional one be better? Rememdering I can't guarrantee on getting it set up spot on.
 
Hi Fingers, there's quite a long but useful thread on this sort of question that appears in the mobile/wireless broadband category of this forum. You may find it useful:

 
Thanks for the reply Mark that is an excellent thread full off info as is the whole section (should have posted this there).
I suppose to go forward the question is whether to go directional or omni, I think I can align th antenna well enough but the omni set up may gain in choice of tower when required? Price seems the same.
When using cellmapper it appears some towers are more powerful than others is there somewhere (in a simplistic way) that explains all the db, rsrp, readings etc and what matters most?
 
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Thanks for the reply Mark that is an excellent thread full off info as is the whole section (should have posted this there).
I suppose to go forward the question is whether to go directional or omni, I think I can align th antenna well enough but the omni set up may gain in choice of tower when required? Price seems the same.
When using cellmapper it appears some towers are more powerful than others is there somewhere (in a simplistic way) that explains all the db, rsrp, readings etc and what matters most?

From what I recall, if the masts are all giving roughly the same signal, an omni is a bad idea, as it will be switching back and forth to the fastest towers.
Better to get a directional antenna and aim it at a single tower to see what you get.
Omni is best when you have multiple towers of varying strength and signal quality, letting the router pick the fastest (best quality signal), rather than the strongest signal.
(signal strength and signal quality are not the same thing).
 
IMO Omni - its really hard to be 100pc sure where your signal comes from even if you think you are near a mast.

My experience is that a good external omni antenna such as the Mimorad 4G will give you a big speed lift.

I have a Vodafone sim in my router (as well as a Three sim) and the Vodafone connection will do typically 20-30mbps, although I've seen it up to 40 on occasion. Maximum I could get with the router's built in antennas was 8mbps.

BTW my experience of the cell tower databases is that the data is hopelessly inaccurate - some show no masts in the area and there definitely is because I can see them, others show masts on the map that aren't there.
 
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