Sponsored Links

Home Mobile Broadband for Web Designer - 3g line of sight?

Hi Guys,

I've read over the forum but not found enough to assure me that I'd make the right decision on my own so I wanted to start my own thread.

I'm moving to a house in a Scottish valley that has no broadband as the telephone lines are very very old and so is the cabinet.

The extremely lucky news is that there is a 3G tower near the house - maybe 1/2 a mile away with a line of sight from part of the house.

I'm not 100% sure without going back if the line of sight from the house clears the trees but it won't be far off.

I believe it's only a 3G mast and doubt it'd be getting upgraded to 4G soon so I'm after a solution that will give me rock solid 3G internet using an external antenna.

Requirements:


I use a lot of FTP for website files
The walls are very thick so I need an external antenna feeding to a router
I'm happy using homeplugs and external lan cables to minimise on antenna wire length
I'd like a router that comes highly recommended with no quirks

I'd be happy to hear what 3g provider offers best home mobile broadband I believe EE have a 20gb package that will suit but I know the antenna is t-mobile (so EE is good) and Vodafone I believe.

Any suggestions highly welcome.

The 3g signal in the garden just outside of where I'd be working is nearly a 20mb connection... if I get anywhere near that inside I'd be a very happy bunny.

Thanks
Alex
 
Firstly the fixed wireless home 3G/4G solutions from EE and Vodafone are only usually available in certain areas as pilot projects, so in all probability (unless they've told you otherwise) then you won't be able to get that. Instead it's more likely that you'll have access to a standard 3G/4G based Mobile Broadband solution.

In this instance my first port of call would be to look at the coverage checkers on Vodafone, Three UK and EE to see what they say about your specific area. IMO Three UK gives the best value for money in terms of data allowances and speed when its comes to 3G, although if EE did 4G in your area then we'd give the performance crown to them. But experiences do vary and a lot of that will depend upon the local capacity allocation and reception quality.

In terms of kit, well DTMark on this forum seems to be a master of this stuff so he can probably recommend a good external antenna (make sure it supports the radio frequency bands used by mobile operators). If walls weren't a problem then the WiBE might also be worth a try.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/11_WiBE_Mobile_Broadband_Booster_Review/
 
This is the only information I know how to get about the 2 stations available:

T Mobile:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh0jzs74v0pgzy1/Screenshot 2014-04-07 11.01.54.png

Vodafone:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vyuklit7pi0h3a5/Screenshot 2014-04-07 10.50.20.png

Not really sure what I'm looking at to see which is better I'm afraid or whether "three" use either of these masts or if it's likely to just be Orange, T Mobile, EE and Vodafone?

This is what I thought EE could supply me for my 3g connection - now I feel I maybe mistaken from what you've said?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uzmox6brt12fe2i/Screenshot 2014-04-07 10.52.14.png

That is their 4GEE+ package but I maybe wrongly assumed thats ok for 3g?

I know it maybe won't come with a SIM and just their dongle but I thought a good enough router might take a dongle and I've seen external antenna clips that go onto the usb dongles to boost their signal?

Thanks - and sorry for the lack of knowledge!
 
Sponsored Links
I also forgot to mention that the area I'm in means it's VERY unlikely that anyone else is using the 3G in the area so I shouldn't be getting capped or affected by other users as I believe the majority of people in the valley are on tooway satellite.
 
Similarly, we live somewhere that's about a mile and a half from the exchange with poor quality phone lines and so needed something better than ADSL.. I work from home as a web developer/consultant and fast uploads are very handy.

We upgraded from ADSL to 3G with Three and used that for years. I did spent time and money getting the setup right, with a chimney mounted antenna and a router. Performance was 12 to 21Meg down and 2 to 3Meg up. That upstream seemed quite fast then. Cell is 2.7km away with line of sight from the chimney.

However Three broke the network at one point - while it was still quite performant at times, it would suffer slow downs and drop outs. I never did get to the bottom of why that was; my greatest suspicion was that the power levels were reconfigured or there was some fault with their implementation of DC-HSPA (Dual Channel).

I bought an EE 4G dongle on PAYG and plugged that in - straight away around 20 Meg down and 16 Meg up, with a bit of experimentation we then saw 25Meg down and 20Meg up. In particular, put the dongle inside, and you'll see 2 Meg up, put it on top of the window upstairs and it jumps to 20 Meg up. Not very congested, speeds are reliable.

That's without line of sight, nowhere near as "optimised" as the 3G setup, but I haven't really had to do much with it as it's quick enough for now. Uploads fly.

If you can get EE 4G I'd recommend it over 3G mostly because of the extra upstream and lower latency.

You will however need a VPN as it uses something called CGNAT (see other posts in this forum). We use Astrill - dead easy to configure, will get you RDP access to your home machine if you set it up right and as a bonus, while you can't use Internet Connection sharing on the EE dongle connection itself - you can share the VPN connection. So the whole house is wired up like that. Can stream HDTV with three other devices accessing it and it's perfect. This also gets you a fixed IP address.

It is however fairly expensive at £30 for each 10GB but the counter thing which meters the data appears to spend quite a lot of time broken - ours has been stuck on "8GB remaining" for weeks now ;)

EE are also launching something called "EE 4G Home" the first mention of which is now on their website but it's very limited availability. I asked, and apparently we'll get this in a few months. Faster speeds and better data allowances. Comes with a Huawei B593 router which you can buy outright but it is very expensive (£250). You also need two antennae for 4G, not one as with 3G.

If you can get EE 4G then I'd try that first, just with the dongle, on PAYG, and see how you get on. That might be all you need. If you want to buy a router now, there is a cheaper option - this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Huawei-E5172-150Mbps-LTE-Router/dp/B00GHK3XOC/

Believe it will work out of the box, like the dongle. You can get antenna to put on the roof should you need them. We don't even have line of sight to the EE cell, and even with only 2 bars out of 5 it still works well - the biggest improvement with antenna will be latency and upstream.

Either way you'll need that or the dongle on a window sill (not indoors just anywhere - difference is huge) facing the cell.

As regards antenna Solwise have a good range and are very knowledgeable. You only want a directional antenna if you have perfect line of sight, otherwise you'll be relying on something called "scatter". If you don't have that, you'll want omni-directional.

The ideal would be if you can eventually get EE 4G Home and if you can (you could give them a call to see if they know when) then you might want to put off buying that router for now anyway and just try a dongle on that or any other network. I wouldn't contemplate signing up for 2 years largely because the operator isn't obliged to provide a service specifically where you are - it's a "mobile service" (4G home excepted) and if it broke the way our Three one did, you'll be stuck with it for a long time.

Let me know if you need any more help.
 
Very Helpful Mark, thanks very much.

Couple more q's

Do they count the upload as well as download for the data caps? I don't actually mind £60 a month too much as like you said you won't be tied into some lengthy contract if it does mess up.

Does this screenshot of the mast near us tell you if it supports 4g?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh0jzs74v0pgzy1/Screenshot 2014-04-07 11.01.54.png

I don't suppose it will as it really is the middle of nowhere with only about 60 farmers for 20miles.


Many thanks
Alex
 
Sponsored Links
Yes, both upload and download count towards usage - as far as I know.

The EE website should tell you if you can get 4G - the coverage maps from the mobile operators are quite truthful in my experience.

The problem with using a phone to tether is that if it's a cheap Android one it will keep crashing all the time as Android phones tend to do.

If it's your main one and you're hanging it out of the window it makes it hard to answer a call and they don't fare as well in rain as the dongles do. It would need to be permanently on charge, and it's unlikely to get quite as good a signal as a dongle.

Three's unlimited tethering option died, it now has a 2GB cap - as they could see what people were up to ;)

No, you can't put an AYCE mobile SIM into a dongle - they detect it and block the SIM.
 
Doh!

I just talked to one of their online bods and they said the rolling monthly "one plan" still has fully unrestricted data with no fair usage policy. Do you know if this is incorrect information?

I think I can get away with it being on the inside of the window sill and I'd definitely give it a shot if it will save me £40 a month.

I think I really need to do some testing now and find out if this One plan has actually been axed on the sly!
 
Sponsored Links
If you USB tether the phone to the AP or computer, they don't seem to notice that you're tethering. Means I can use a £15 PAYG Topup to give me unlimited data for months I require more bandwidth/feel my brother deserves a break from my uploading to YT over the archaic ADSL.

DTMark's Speeds Are pretty much the best I've seen, even with a good external antenna, over single channel, I struggle to get over 3mbps down and and about 0.3 up over three. This applies even in Guildford town centre yards from the phone mast very early in the morning!
 
I don't use an app, merely selecting USB tether within the tethering options. Three seem to detect when I tether over wifi and bluetooth. Additionally, my ASUS N55U happily accepts my phone as a WAN connection and allows 'proper' wifi setup, making USB tethering all in all better than wireless for me!
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6027)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2440)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules