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Mobile Broadband Wisdom

GooseMan

Casual Member
Greetings All!
Firstly, some context.. I live on a Private Road in a Relatively Small Town in the Midlands, and we have been with BT for Broadband and Landline for as Long as I can remember, I can safely say, we have never experienced any issues with BT, they've always been reliable, minimal downtime, you name it. But the issue is, because we are on a private (and not Council Maintained) Road, our Internet is, and will continue to be, stuck in the Dark Ages, that being, DSL Phone Line - Splits in a Box at our Incoming, one to the Landline, and a 2-Core Cable going to our Router.

We get Consistently Average Speeds of ~24Mbit Down/5Mbit Up (only ever goes up to ~28 Down under perfect conditions, but not for long), so as a 23 Year old Nerd I've began to explore other avenues... That being Cellular Internet!

On its own, my 5G router can pull some pretty respectable speeds given my circumstances, but I've got a TPLink X50-5G Router, and a Poynting XPOL-1 V2 5G (Omni Directional) Antenna hooked up to it. I can consistently pull 30Mbit Down/10Mbit Up with the current setup, which is not quite light speed but I'll take the increase over our hardwired connection.
But here is my actual issue; I live smack bang between 2 Cell Towers, but have absolutely ZERO Line of Sight to either tower, both are *not quite* at the top of the 2 Hills that my town sits between, and both Towers are *just* on the other side of said hills, as they are designed to serve the wide area of towns and villages scattered around, and not my town perched between the 2. The Entire town suffers from zero-two bars of cell signal at a push. While I am learning more as each day goes by, I figured why not state my issue directly and see what the wizards on here have to say about it :)

I've done some tinkering around with CellMapper, Cell Locking, Choosing Specific Bands, etc, but no combination has really beaten the "Auto" Setting. I should state, the antenna is mounted in my attic currently, in the best possible position I could find after ~4 Hours of walking around up there trying not to come through the ceiling.
So, is there anything I can do to improve my speeds here? Perhaps a "more powerful" antenna? It is my understanding that my circumstance warrants an omni directional as opposed to a uni directional due to no LOS to the Tower? Or should I come to terms with it and just be happy with what I've got?

Thank you all for reading my wall of text! Let me know if you need any more information:)

(Unlimited & Uncapped EE SIM)
Readout from Deco App;
 

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You could try Starlink!
Aha I would be fibbing if I said I haven't already looked at Starlink.. but the high initial investment, and double the monthly subscription cost, and various accounts online heavily discourage me actually considering Starlink.

I'm pretty invested in this cellular stuff already (both somewhat financially and in my head), and I'd like to stick with it for now, hence why I'm seeking advice on the subject :)
 
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Poynting make some good directional antennas but the Poynting XPOL-1 only offers a tiny gain - most/all of which will be lost in the 5m of coax between the antenna and a router.

It will 'get you outdoors' for some better signal, but it will **** so much away getting to your router.

Perhaps try a Zyxel NR5103e in your loft?

Your 30Mbps speeds sound much lower than 5G speeds so maybe an outdoor 4G router instead? I really find the XPOL-1

Starlink? Everyone raves about it but the cost of powering the kit every month is getting close to being the same as many of my customers pay for their unlimited (or almost unlimited) 4G mobile data. Then you have the Starlink monthly rental - £75/month. So £75/month to Starlink and another £15 per month to your energy provider just for the electricity (24 hours per day @ 75-100w).

Some people might be okay with £90 a month for internet ... I guess....?


 
Poynting make some good directional antennas but the Poynting XPOL-1 only offers a tiny gain - most/all of which will be lost in the 5m of coax between the antenna and a router.

It will 'get you outdoors' for some better signal, but it will **** so much away getting to your router.

Perhaps try a Zyxel NR5103e in your loft?

Your 30Mbps speeds sound much lower than 5G speeds so maybe an outdoor 4G router instead? I really find the XPOL-1

Starlink? Everyone raves about it but the cost of powering the kit every month is getting close to being the same as many of my customers pay for their unlimited (or almost unlimited) 4G mobile data. Then you have the Starlink monthly rental - £75/month. So £75/month to Starlink and another £15 per month to your energy provider just for the electricity (24 hours per day @ 75-100w).

Some people might be okay with £90 a month for internet ... I guess....?


Admittedly, the XPOL 1 was a impulsive purchase, I had failed to do any *deep* research before hand..
I was only recently aware of the dB loss that comes with cable length with Coax too..
I did however do alot of window shopping before purchasing the X50 - External Antenna connections, I'm familiar with TP Link's software and products, the 2.5gig ethernet and the ability to tack on mesh devices was also a future project I had planned.

Is your advice solely to try another router to see if it performs any better than my current setup? As this X50 has already set me back a good chunk.

When left to its own devices on all "Auto" settings, the X50 will default to 4G (well "4G+" is what it actually shows), I can however Cell Lock/Force it to only use 5G Bands, but the speeds themselves either stay the same, or get slightly worse, so it seems 4G is the way to go with my current setup.

With reference to your part about the Antenna; It is my understanding that my situation warrants Omnidirectional due to no LOS to the Tower, though I'm sure theres the possiblity it's not *that* simple? Would a better, higher gain Omnidirectional with shorter coax be a better alternative to try? Or hell would a Unidirectional Antenna be worth a try? I plan to try and run some outdoor tests with the antenna tomorrow to see if getting the thing outside might help at all (and by outdoor tests I mean some cable ties and an extendo pole while leaning out of various windows..)

Thank you for your reply :)
 
For anyone interested..
I tried my Extendo Pole shenanigans and it wielded some interesting results. I used an online tool (https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/) with one of my nearby towers and as it would turn out, there was the possibility i could get LOS to said tower!
So the first window I hung out of was a bust, couldn't even attempt a speed test, the other window, funnily enough my bedroom window which i had tested when I first got this router gave me some insane results (considering my expectations).
Hanging the pole at full length (~3m) out my window, clearing the overhang and guttering by (~2.2m) gave me 156mbit down!!
I subsequently tested a more realistic position and got 142mbit down!

After these and a few other tests, i left it with the extendo pole and attached antenna just resting slightly against my window, in this position I can get semi consistent speeds of just over 70mbit down, unfortunately with a horrific <2mbit up. All in all I call today a success, might be time to get the ladders out and a suitable permanent mounting pole :)
 
@GooseMan

I assume an EE SIM was selected as the best physical network where you are.

That seems a good bet, however it might be worth a try with "3".

I also wouldn't assume that being on a private road will forever mean that you are on a copper connection but it may not help speed an Openreach connection.

Generally a directional anenna is a good thing but at mobile network frequencies (particularly the higher frequency bands), as you now know, feeder loss is a real problem.

I would start with some (safe) outside locations at standing height to get a feel for achievable speed at each point then try both the antenna and the router at a safely achievable height.

Eventually you might find a viable location to fix the system at permanently.
 
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@GooseMan

I assume an EE SIM was selected as the best physical network where you are.

That seems a good bet, however it might be worth a try with "3".

I also wouldn't assume that being on a private road will forever mean that you are on a copper connection but it may not help speed an Openreach connection.

Generally a directional anenna is a good thing but at mobile network frequencies (particularly the higher frequency bands), as you now know, feeder loss is a real problem.

I would start with some (safe) outside locations at standing height to get a feel for achievable speed at each point then try both the antenna and the router at a safely achievable height.

Eventually you might find a viable location to fix the system at permanently.
You are correct. While my Mobile Phone plan is with EE already, I had tried Vodafone and Three for this before I finally went and took out another SIM on my EE account as EE was far far superior.

I did enquire with BT about our diabolical fixed line speeds and they gave me the reason I was expecting (unadopted road etc), however my road is apparently in BTs "build plans" for their Nationwide upgrade plans that they have (the proper name escapes me)

I have already tried outside locations at a ground level - 2m with a small pair of steps to no avail, and today I tried some more, ropey locations featuring an extendo pole and acrobatics as detailed in my post above. I will do some more "precise" tests tomorrow, and might get around to looking deeper in to what bands and frequencies work best in those more precise positions before settling in on a permanent fixture.
If I can consistently pull a good enough speed I'm more than happy with the current antenna, else I may shop around for a directional one to see if I can get more consistency.
Thank you for your reply :)
 
Greetings once again.
Got around to permantly mounting my antenna outside, this is a really confusing field of technology; the antenna seemed to prefer to being lower down and resting against my guttering, as opposed to being higher at the top of the pole..
Anyhow, I'm getting somewhat consistent speeds, 80mbit down, but absolutely awfully horrific upload ~2mbit (see attached speedtest).

Download speed starts off at about 30mbit before making its way pretty quickly to 80, however upload stays pretty consistent(-ly sh*t) aha. The "stats" for the connection are also attached for those curious, though it normally likes to sit on both Band B1 & B7 as opposed to just B7.

I shall attempt other bands and mess around with cell locking now the antenna is permanently fixed outside, but in the meantime, has anyone got any advice on how to improve upload speed or is this simply a tradeoff I have to deal with?

Thankyou all
 

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Back Again with good news!
Not a great deal of time after my last post, payday rolled around and I impulsively purchased the Bluespot 5G Antenna that I've seen mentioned quite often. The difference it made was immediate and just out of the park, cannot recommend it enough!

Being Mounted in the same position as my old XPOL (though at the top of the pole instead of cosy with my guttering), I'm getting consistent 110+ Mbit down and a range of 15-38Mbit Up throughout the day, only ever going below when my router chooses to sit on Band B3. I am Cell Locked to a cell on the nearest tower that gives me the best speed, when the router decides to go full turbo made and aggregates perfectly with a chefs kiss across B1,B3 & B7 I get blessed with 170Mbit Down and just shy of 40Mbit up.

Have to say, I am quite pleased, the whole idea of cellular internet when I reside was a gamble in its own right, but the Bluespot was also a huge gamble especially being directional, however it does not seem to care about the countless houses between it and the tower, or even if it's inside the upstairs bedroom planted on and facing the floor..

I now have Broadband that is literally 5 Times faster than my Fixed Line, the only difference being the ~10ms higher ping in any realistic application, I am yet to tell the difference while gaming.

An issue I was not aware of until recently is CGNAT, oh boy, that was painful. Luckily I have overcome the issue with Cloudflare's "Cloudflared" Tunnels, which are free by the way for anyone reading, with the exception of having to have your own Domain Name/Purchase on from Cloudflare. Currently I can SSH and Remote in to my Home Devices via CF's Tunnels, and will soon be looking in to how I can host game servers for my friends and I.

Thank you all, and good day
 
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