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Trying to setup up Home Internet on a rural 4G connection

uknowiama

Super Pro Member
My girlfriends house is in the middle of no where. She currently has ADSL from BT max download 8Mbps and upload of 500Kbps.

Gigaclear are building out to them, but they have been waiting for ages and the current estimate is Q2 of 2023.

A simpler set up is Starlink - on top of a common - top of hill - good visibiltiy of sky - few trees around. No contract. Expensive. But might be stomached until fibre is available.

So looking at setting up a 4G connection. Unfortunately with a phone on VF or EE - is band 20? 800Mhz. 2 to 3 Mbps. Same using 4G router - I have a TP Link Archer MR600. 3G is actually better at 5Mbps.

However, she lives on a small holding with a barn and stables with power on. So there is the possibility of locating the router and antenna in an out building where there is a better reception and have a wireless ethernet link back to the main house.

So been doing some testing of signal with just the router, and finding out where the cell towers and found a good location. I have bought a 4G poynting directional antenna. Some brief testing in this location - got down max of 39.9.
Anyone able to offer any advice on how to proceed? Or general advice on setting up 4G connection? I have built a stand (well bike maintenance stand) with the antenna mounted on and am looking to do some more testing (was previously holding the air). Also looking to see if can get the antenna up higher.

Thanks in advance
 
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My girlfriends house is in the middle of no where. She currently has ADSL from BT max download 8Mbps and upload of 500Kbps.

Gigaclear are building out to them, but they have been waiting for ages and the current estimate is Q2 of 2023.

A simpler set up is Starlink - on top of a common - top of hill - good visibiltiy of sky - few trees around. No contract. Expensive. But might be stomached until fibre is available.

So looking at setting up a 4G connection. Unfortunately with a phone on VF or EE - is band 20? 800Mhz. 2 to 3 Mbps. Same using 4G router - I have a TP Link Archer MR600. 3G is actually better at 5Mbps.

However, she lives on a small holding with a barn and stables with power on. So there is the possibility of locating the router and antenna in an out building where there is a better reception and have a wireless ethernet link back to the main house.

So been doing some testing of signal with just the router, and finding out where the cell towers and found a good location. I have bought a 4G poynting directional antenna. Some brief testing in this location - got down max of 39.9.
Anyone able to offer any advice on how to proceed? Or general advice on setting up 4G connection? I have built a stand (well bike maintenance stand) with the antenna mounted on and am looking to do some more testing (was previously holding the air). Also looking to see if can get the antenna up higher.

Thanks in advance
Well, if you got almost 40 Mbps down.. struck gold.
Were you holding the router outside when that happened? If yes - and if it's not an outdoors router - then yeah, you might need to hook it up an aerial such as the Poynting you ordered.
Was that with the EE or VF sim?If it was with EE, then also check whether Three has presence in the area, you could get a cheaper sim from them or Smarty.
 
That was VF. 40Mbps on Band 20. With the directional antenna held outstretched in hand (standing at ground level) and roughly pointing in the right direction. Saw max of 15Mbps on just the router and "bunny ears".
Tried EE sim. It was much slower. Was trying to CA / 4G+ with two different bands - might of been same mast - but if different masts - the directional antenna might not have helped. The router doesn't seem clever enough to force to one particular band. 3? I guess this because of mast sharing?
 
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if she has adsl from BT, ask them about:

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Best bit:

Hybrid Speed Boost is included at no extra cost for new BT business broadband customers taking ADSL broadband plans. Existing customers can also benefit when they renew their plan.

That's unlimited, yes you will need a bt smart hub 2, and the bt mobile router, but you could connect the Poynting to this.

ISPreview article here: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...eed-boost-for-sme-copper-broadband-lines.html
 
Rural as well.

My routers are in the eaves in an attached outbuilding with main, 2 direction antenna, both of which have line of sight to their masts, are on poles on the outer brick wall, 2,5m cables run inside to the 4G routers. Connection from the two 4G router is via 25m network cables to the main router which is a Draytek 2925 with two wan sockets . One mast is 8 miles away the other 5 miles. Both are rural and do not get overloaded unlike the more urban ones.

Three is £17 a month, EE is £28 a month.

I have a dual Wan Draytek 2925 router which takes two 4G network connections and using load balancing makes them appear as one connection to any users. Not as good as bonding but to a household no discernible difference.
As the 2 ISP's I started off with 3G Three on a phone plus ADSL, then went local area wifi with ADSL, then 4G router with ADSL, did the VOIP transfer and finally two 4G routers. These point at 2 different masts and two providers so if there is a powercut to one mast I still get one. As the masts are 5 miles apart then the powercut would be over a large area before I was cut off completely.
 
Last edited:
So did some testing in best spot at girlfriends place, now I have a stable platform that the 4G directional antenna is mounted on. Was placed ontop of oil drum, on top of a trailer. Adding the extra height of the oil drum didn't seem to increase the signal stats significantly.

Best I could get
Vodafone, 4G LTE, Band 20
Signal = 100% RSRP = -75dBm RSRQ = -10dB SNR = 15.2dB
Best speed was 36.5Mbps down 20.2Mbps
Lowest download seen = 17.7Mbps
Lowest upload seen 15.3Mbps
Download was typically in 22Mbps range
Upload was typically in 18Mbps range

People's thought's? I think that is as could as am going to get off that mast? Not sure any further signal improvement will result in speed improvement.
I think the speed is limited as it is Band 20 800Mhz and contention with other users of the same mast?

I'll add some pics...
 

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The signal seems very good, you're likely limited by the band 20 and/or maybe poor backhaul. If you could find another band that is not 20.. that'd be something.
 
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So that was the antenna set up and signal strength on VF.

Some test results on phone wifi to router - lower speeds at top are EE, Higher speeds after that are VF.

Example of VF Speed test from the router.
 

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An example of what getting on EE. Typically speeds are 1.5 to 3 Mbps down?
Also ran the Starlink app to see what was possible just by placing a dish on the ground in the garden.
 

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Please excuse poor image editing but cell mast locations from cell mapper.net. Maybe some more testing of EE locations?

Maybe try and get a lock on that EE mast with bands 3 and 20?
 

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The best I ever got on VF band 20 (being rural its only band20) on a mast with clear LOS 4 miles away was 25mb, so you must be near the max on that one. EE normally gives better downloads, my EE at 5 miles is 2CA Band 3 and Band 20 combined to give 50/60mbs, again clear LOS.
 
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Thanks for feedback.
Maybe look at EE further..
I think the thing VF has got going for it is a very different options in regards to SIMs and offers and and virtual operators.
 
On VF be aware there are speed limits on some of the the sims, 2mbs 10mbs and unlimited. The 2 and 10 will set you back into ADSL speeds or worse.
 
Is it just me, or does the MR600 not support band 20 as the primary band and another as an aggregate?


Code:
Carrier Aggregation:
B1+ B5/B7/B8/B20
B3+B3/B5/B7/B8/B20/B28/B38/B40
B5+B5/B7/B40
B7+B7/B8/B20/B28
B28+B40
B38+B38
B40+B40
B41+B41

what phone are you testing with?
 
Is it just me, or does the MR600 not support band 20 as the primary band and another as an aggregate?


Code:
Carrier Aggregation:
B1+ B5/B7/B8/B20
B3+B3/B5/B7/B8/B20/B28/B38/B40
B5+B5/B7/B40
B7+B7/B8/B20/B28
B28+B40
B38+B38
B40+B40
B41+B41

what phone are you testing with?
As shown above, B20 aggregates with 1, 3 or 7. Which of the bands in aggregation is the primary will heavily depend on the network steering based on signal levels of the bands and load balancing between the bands
 
As shown above, B20 aggregates with 1, 3 or 7. Which of the bands in aggregation is the primary will heavily depend on the network steering based on signal levels of the bands and load balancing between the bands
But that only works with Bands 1, 3 or 7 being the primary, not the reverse?
 
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No, B20 could certainly be primary, just those spec lists don't list every combination in every direction - there's no need, if it can aggregate one way it'll do it the other.

In practice, given the frequency difference between 800 and 1800/2100/2600 if you're in a location where you can pick up 3/1/7 at a reasonable signal level it's more likely that those will end up being used as primary due to network steering
 
On VF be aware there are speed limits on some of the the sims, 2mbs 10mbs and unlimited. The 2 and 10 will set you back into ADSL speeds or worse.
Yep. Aware of this looking at phones on unlimited deals on VF thinking good deal then realising 2Mbps or 10Mbps max download speeds. Not sure if same on MVOs - Asda was 150Mbps but I think was 5G not sure if same for 4G.
 
Is it just me, or does the MR600 not support band 20 as the primary band and another as an aggregate?


Code:
Carrier Aggregation:
B1+ B5/B7/B8/B20
B3+B3/B5/B7/B8/B20/B28/B38/B40
B5+B5/B7/B40
B7+B7/B8/B20/B28
B28+B40
B38+B38
B40+B40
B41+B41

what phone are you testing with?
I was testing through the router. Wi-fi to iPhone 12 and iPad (5th gen) as well as direct speed testing on the router itself.
 
Just to add to this - carried out more testing to same VF mast B20 on the Saturday - when mast would have more subscribers - I was testing wireless between the router and the ipad or iphone. To see if made any difference I turned off the "smart connect" - so device automatically choses the fastest speed to connect on. Stops a device switching back and forth for any reason. Allows we look at the wifi as 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz separately. I also turned off 2.4Ghz. See if make a difference. Not thinking it would with the speeds am trying to get... but it seemed that running on 5Ghz - downloads were always in the 30+ mbps. Maybe just conincidence - but something to bear in mind. Of course a laptop with a wired connection could rule that out.
 
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