thelazer365
Member
Hi, first time posting here but have found the information here very helpful with a project I've been working on.
I live in a semi-rural area with very poor broadband speeds of circa 4 Mbps on a good day. In fairness, after upgrading my router to a Linksys MR7350 connected into a Draytek ADSL modem and siting the router in a dedicated cabinet in the the hallway, I’ve managed to get a good wireless network signal throughout the house and it does what I need it to do. The only real frustration comes with a large download or several members of the household all streaming.
I had been holding out for Gigaclear who have been working in the local area. In fact, some properties less that 100 metres away can actually get the service but the availability date for my property has been pushed and pushed and is now out to September of next year. As a result, I decided to take a serious look at alternative ways to improve my speeds.
Satellite is prohibitively expensive for the amount of data I use but I have noticed that mobile data speeds have got progressively better over the last few years and the costs of an unlimited data package is now comparable with that of fixed broadband, so I feel this is a viable alternative.
I should also note that I live in a square of 10 properties which are a mix of terraced, semi detaches and detached. If I tour around the area with my I can get speeds of 100Mbps on my iPhone 11 Pro Max connected to EE once I leave the development. Even in built up areas it’s possible to achieve good speeds and I’ve clocked 60Mbps in more built up areas, including the square. That said, speeds do appear to drop considerably once I enter the square and are consistently worse once indoors.
Found the two nearby mast locations. There is one slightly nearer to the south west and another north north west. Playing around, it looks like the south west face of the property has the best signal and consistently generates the best speeds, so I sited an external aerial (Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 Cross Polarised 4G Omni LTE Antenna) on the gutter of that side of the house and plugged it into a Netgear 4G modem (LB2120) which I’ve then connected into my WiFi router.
The aerial definitely improves things. Most apparent is that the bars on the router go from 2-3. I did achieve some good speeds with the router alone but this was with the window wide open which is hardly practical for a number of reasons.
Although the results have been encouraging I would say they were less than expected. It been disappointing that I’ve only been able to clock around 30Mbps max and 10Mbps most of the time. Although I had expected speeds to vary considerable, it’s not really going to be worth investing in a permanent setup if I can’t significantly improve download speeds. One point of interest is that upload speeds are consistently better, now around 8Mbps up from less that 1Mbps
I'd like to get people's views on how I might improve the setup. My current thinking is as follows.
1) Site the aerial a bit higher. The thinking being if I can get this above the roof top it should have a fairly clear path to both the nearby masts and be less prone to interference from other households.
2) Try a different 4G modem. I’ve seen various Huawei models cited on here as being good and the iPhone does seem to be able to clock better speeds that the modem. Accepted that this is a single device without the complication of a WiFi router in the way. 5G reception in my area is probably still quite a long way away but no objections to future proofing the setup.
3) Ditch the PAYG SIM I’m currently using in favour of a contract. I understand the speeds on this may be limited and therefore not as good.
I would also note that I’ve had to move my WiFi router to a windowsill in the corner of the property so the signal from that may not be as consistent as it was when in the hallway. I think the eventual plan would be to site the 4G router in the attic and then run an Ethernet cable down the side of the property back to the cabinet in the hallway.
I live in a semi-rural area with very poor broadband speeds of circa 4 Mbps on a good day. In fairness, after upgrading my router to a Linksys MR7350 connected into a Draytek ADSL modem and siting the router in a dedicated cabinet in the the hallway, I’ve managed to get a good wireless network signal throughout the house and it does what I need it to do. The only real frustration comes with a large download or several members of the household all streaming.
I had been holding out for Gigaclear who have been working in the local area. In fact, some properties less that 100 metres away can actually get the service but the availability date for my property has been pushed and pushed and is now out to September of next year. As a result, I decided to take a serious look at alternative ways to improve my speeds.
Satellite is prohibitively expensive for the amount of data I use but I have noticed that mobile data speeds have got progressively better over the last few years and the costs of an unlimited data package is now comparable with that of fixed broadband, so I feel this is a viable alternative.
I should also note that I live in a square of 10 properties which are a mix of terraced, semi detaches and detached. If I tour around the area with my I can get speeds of 100Mbps on my iPhone 11 Pro Max connected to EE once I leave the development. Even in built up areas it’s possible to achieve good speeds and I’ve clocked 60Mbps in more built up areas, including the square. That said, speeds do appear to drop considerably once I enter the square and are consistently worse once indoors.
Found the two nearby mast locations. There is one slightly nearer to the south west and another north north west. Playing around, it looks like the south west face of the property has the best signal and consistently generates the best speeds, so I sited an external aerial (Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 Cross Polarised 4G Omni LTE Antenna) on the gutter of that side of the house and plugged it into a Netgear 4G modem (LB2120) which I’ve then connected into my WiFi router.
The aerial definitely improves things. Most apparent is that the bars on the router go from 2-3. I did achieve some good speeds with the router alone but this was with the window wide open which is hardly practical for a number of reasons.
Although the results have been encouraging I would say they were less than expected. It been disappointing that I’ve only been able to clock around 30Mbps max and 10Mbps most of the time. Although I had expected speeds to vary considerable, it’s not really going to be worth investing in a permanent setup if I can’t significantly improve download speeds. One point of interest is that upload speeds are consistently better, now around 8Mbps up from less that 1Mbps
I'd like to get people's views on how I might improve the setup. My current thinking is as follows.
1) Site the aerial a bit higher. The thinking being if I can get this above the roof top it should have a fairly clear path to both the nearby masts and be less prone to interference from other households.
2) Try a different 4G modem. I’ve seen various Huawei models cited on here as being good and the iPhone does seem to be able to clock better speeds that the modem. Accepted that this is a single device without the complication of a WiFi router in the way. 5G reception in my area is probably still quite a long way away but no objections to future proofing the setup.
3) Ditch the PAYG SIM I’m currently using in favour of a contract. I understand the speeds on this may be limited and therefore not as good.
I would also note that I’ve had to move my WiFi router to a windowsill in the corner of the property so the signal from that may not be as consistent as it was when in the hallway. I think the eventual plan would be to site the 4G router in the attic and then run an Ethernet cable down the side of the property back to the cabinet in the hallway.























