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Mobile broadband - living in valley

Mairead

Casual Member
Hi
We live in a valley in north devon currently have 1.5mb speed with BT (copper) and airband are promising fibre soon (been doing that for 2 years now). However, having read the reviews on airband we are not convinced they are now the answer so considering other options. We get ok mobile signals outside the house - weak 4G. No mobile signal in the house (walls are too thick). However up the hill behind the house (about 80meters at a guess), we get a cracking mobile and 4G signal - I can tether my laptop to phone, do video calls on teams etc without any problem. So we were wondering what you clever people have in terms of ideas on how to take advantage of that good signal that is available "up the hill" - We could still use BT but it is not strong enough for video calls and just about enough to watch netflix (all on ethernet cables). Also our tv signal isn't great on BBC especially so the least amount of interference the better. We would obviously have the challenge of getting power up to any antenna or sim but any advice you can give on where to start and what is actually viable given the distances would be great. (PS satellite not yet available either). thanks
 
Hi @Mairead

What kind of phone do you use and with which operator?

Without knowing more I could point you to the following LTE router which could be powered via the ethernet cable.

 
Hi mairead

I know what it's like to have slow broadband in Devon , I suffered with <2mbps for years until I discovered that 4g would do the job.
When you say Airband, do you mean their wireless Internet or are they coming to your area with proper fibre?
I have an Airband mast about a mile from me and I know a few people who use it without to much bother ( occasional brief outages).
However at around £25/month, £99 installation fee for only 40mbps download speed, I didn't think it was good value.
I use Three and am lucky enough to have reasonable line of sight to a mast several miles from me.
Have you tried all the mobile network operators at your house?
 
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Hi mairead

I know what it's like to have slow broadband in Devon , I suffered with <2mbps for years until I discovered that 4g would do the job.
When you say Airband, do you mean their wireless Internet or are they coming to your area with proper fibre?
I have an Airband mast about a mile from me and I know a few people who use it without to much bother ( occasional brief outages).
However at around £25/month, £99 installation fee for only 40mbps download speed, I didn't think it was good value.
I use Three and am lucky enough to have reasonable line of sight to a mast several miles from me.
Have you tried all the mobile network operators at your house?
hi Martin
Airband would be proper fibre (cable is hanging off the poles - has been for months). Airband do mast to some houses but ours is not in line of sight. All mobile operators been tested in the house. I use wifi phone in house off BT broadband. We actually get better mobile (outside) than any of the neighbours but the top of the hill is best for 4g.
 
Pity you can't get a firm date from Airband for possible fibre installation. I believe they have been awarded a contract from CDS to install fibre in many places in Devon and Somerset.

I presume the top of the hill is still within your property? An external router with power over ethernet is likely to be your best option. (My knowledge on these is extremely limited, there are members here with far superior knowledge than I have). Lucian made a recommendation above .

However don't rule out using an antenna on your house, a good one will be far more efficient than any mobile phone at picking up a signal.

It would be useful to know where your nearest mobile masts are located.
Is any one network better than another or are you fully decided on which network you want to use?
 
Airband are the CDS contractor in the area but their negative feedback makes us concerned enough to look at other options. I am not concerned about lack of phone signal in house as i can use broadband calling. What i would like is better internet access in the house. The top of the hill i refer to is within our property. We have good 3 and Vodafone signals up there and i have done a speed test which gave good results (sorry can't remember the numbers). We don't mind changing mobile supplier but can we just use a sim only set up for data? So would I install an external router up on the hill with sim only inside it and then run a cable down to the house? Would this cable feed to an indoor router? And what is longest ethernet cable i could use? would it lose effectiveness other distance?

thanks
 
Hi @Mairead

Yes, you would install the mikrotik router at the location then pull an ethernet cable cat5e or cat6 inside the house. You'd feed that in a power over ethernet injector which would also be connected to your WiFi router of choice.
You can pull 100m worth of cable without incurring packet loss, in theory.
 
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So would I install an external router up on the hill with sim only inside it and then run a cable down to the house? Would this cable feed to an indoor router? And what is longest ethernet cable i could use?
As answered above. Depending on your home network requirements the indoor device could possibly be just a wireless access point. The Mikrotik is a fully featured router with firewall and address translation.
 
Make sure you match the Mikrotik capability with the best mast, so if you get Carrier Aggregation on the mast then make sure you get the Cat6 Mikrotik and not the Cat4. Its interface is very geeky orientated so its a steep learning curve.
 
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That's a valid point, any way of knowing where they plan to roll it out?.
There is this. Don't know how accurate it is but if you're in the purple areas, there is a chance you might get some upgrades
 
I am not in a purple area but got Bands 1 and 32 added earlier in the year. Mast was down during day for 2 weeks and the network issue page said it was due to the big network upgrade. So I doubt the accuracy of the map.
 
Hi @Mairead

What kind of phone do you use and with which operator?

Without knowing more I could point you to the following LTE router which could be powered via the ethernet cable.

If band 32 is important then maybe look at other routers, though the outdoor offers are limited. Maybe teltonika has something good.
 
The other thing about B32, if I understand correctly, is that it is download only. I don't know why that would be, but it means your gear needs to support aggregation as well, and you have to have another band to aggregate with. I think I'll cross that one when I come to it. None of that purple is within about 150 miles.
 
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Airband are the CDS contractor in the area but their negative feedback makes us concerned enough to look at other options. I am not concerned about lack of phone signal in house as i can use broadband calling. What i would like is better internet access in the house. The top of the hill i refer to is within our property. We have good 3 and Vodafone signals up there and i have done a speed test which gave good results (sorry can't remember the numbers). We don't mind changing mobile supplier but can we just use a sim only set up for data? So would I install an external router up on the hill with sim only inside it and then run a cable down to the house? Would this cable feed to an indoor router? And what is longest ethernet cable i could use? would it lose effectiveness other distance?

thanks
3 are good if you can avoid a band 20 only mast (plenty of those out here in the sticks) and congestion isn't a issue.
Vodafone and EE should be okay too.
Avoid O2 , I often struggle to reach double digits in speed tests with them.
You don't have to use a data only sim, a phone sim will work just fine and are usually cheaper too.
As mentioned elsewhere 100m is considered the maximum ethernet cable length.
Indoors you would need a router/wifi access points depending on your needs.
 
Thanks all - i'll go up the top of the hill with mastradar app and find out as much info as i can about masts in the area and come back with information to double check i am on the right track before spending out cash. thanks!
 
Thanks all - i'll go up the top of the hill with mastradar app and find out as much info as i can about masts in the area and come back with information to double check i am on the right track before spending out cash. thanks!
@Mairead or you could test the router on both vf and 3 and just return it if performance is not adequate.
 
Hi All i've done my testing using meteor speed checker app and at the top of the hill (within 100m) vodafone came out tops with download speed of 63.7 mbps and upload of 20.7 and ping of 43ms. Three was 17.6 on download, 5.8 on upload and 45 on ping. So it's a no brainer to go with VF. Now the bit that I need some more help on - the mobile signal near the house (outdoors) is ok but data is rubbish and even if a device such as the below
SXT-LTE6
doubled it, it would still only be double rubbish. So I am thinking I need a mast with sim inside at the top of the hill, run the cat6 and power cable (just in case) to the house and then have the router or wireless access point in the house. I will probably go with router. Does this sound right and can anyone recommend mast?

And as we also have rubbish tv aerial reception - if we put a tv mast up there with the mobile mast, would they cause interference with each other.

thanks
 
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