- Use cellmapper to find nearest mast(s) for your operator.
Or use something like Opensignal that actually shows the real signal strength and direction from a particular cell.
- Test the mast with a cellphone at off-peak time to try and guess max speed, a lot of rural masts won't go above 150Mbps so it's pointless buying a 600Mbps LTE-A router.
The A stands for aggregation. No single chain of mobile data can ever go above 150Mbps. You aggregate them to get you 300Mbps or 600Mbps or even 1200Mbps on a CAT20 device.
- Check to see whether 4G+ is available, if not then you will need manually select the best band on your router, also if only 4G available, don't bother buying an expensive LTE-A router.
4G+ is EE’s name for carrier aggregation, so yes, no point in buying a multi-chain CAT4 or better device if your carrier doesn’t support aggregation. But only EE call it 4G+.
- Use an antenna (better speeds/stability), the Poynting ones are the best imo, omni if mast very close (full signal on high frequency bands), directional if within 5km otherwise dual yagi
Why would you have a dual-Yagi if you don’t have more than one chain? CAT3 (no carrier aggregation) only uses one antenna. Single Yagi. CAT6 (2 cables) needs a second antenna to allow diversity and carrier aggregation. Poynting is a South African brand selling pretty ordinary amplified antennae for a lot of money. All Yagi are directional (think TV antennae all point in the same direction)
- Use network band selector on an Android phone to test signal strength of high frequency bands at place you want to put antenna, the higher frequencies give better speeds, a strong signal without selecting the correct band may give misleading results (800Mhz typically has good signal but very poor speeds).
Higher frequency = theoretically higher speeds (you send more data per second) and the penetration power of the higher frequency signal through objects is less. Think 5GHz wireless LAN vs. 2.4GHz wireless LAN.
- The higher the antenna the higher the speeds (especially upload speed).
Line of sight trumps everything. What your elevation is giving you is probably better line of sight. You want as few obstacles in the way as possible. Even trees blowing about in the wind play havoc with wireless broadband signals.
- Keep the antenna cable as short as possible, with router as close as possible, you can then connect to it via LAN/WLAN.
If the antenna cable(s) are properly terminated then you should lose no signal over a few hundred meters.
- I recommend Huawei routers as you can use a 3rd party PC/Android app to change band selection, very handy if in area with no (4G+) as you can lock it to higher frequencies.
I use only Mikrotik and Teltonika. There is nothing wrong with Huawei gear for simple consumer use and if that’s all you want then TP-Link are every bit as good as Huawei and will save you some money.
- If you install the antenna in the attic on a pole mount you can easily rotate it should a mast be under maintenance or you wish to switch provider.
Putting the antenna indoors massively reduces the effectiveness. Do this only if you want to permanently compromise your system.
With a good setup you should be able to easily outperform the average FTTC connection.
You’ll get something that’s respectably quick but frustratingly variable. A cabled connection will always be more reliable and consistent.
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