External 4G antenna for rural location

GeX · 22 Mar 2020 at 21:40

Hi

My brother has asked for help with getting his internet connection useable. He lives in a rural location, only wired option is really slow ADSL so he uses Three 4G. Connection inside the house is patchy as it's a an old house with thick walls.

I've had a bit of a look around and have suggested https://mikrotik.com/product/sxt_lte6_kit and https://www.ui.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-pro/

The SXT kit is based on me reading around but having no experience of actually using them. I am assuming it's not just a modem, and will handle routing and auth. My home setup is VDSL and my modem is separate, using an Edge Router for auth - so wanted to double check that a similar setup wasn't needed here.

Does this make sense, SXT will be mounted either on a pole or a tree - depending on cabling options.

Caged · 22 Mar 2020 at 21:47

The SXT is good but it's designed to be directional - as long as you know where the mast is located then you're fine. I like the wAP AC LTE6 mainly for aesthetic reasons and because the hardware is more capable, but if you're just using it as an LTE modem you'll be fine with either. The SXT is limited to 100Mbps on the ethernet ports so you'll be hard capped at this speed from your 4G connection - for reference I have an older LtAP LTE device with a Cat4 modem and can pull 90Mbps from EE, so with a Cat6 modem it's possible that you'll find a 100Mbps port limiting.

There's a learning curve to setting these devices up, but it's not too severe.

GeX · 22 Mar 2020 at 22:35

How sensitive is the SXT wrt direction, I don't think LoS is possible but pointing it in the rough direction is possible.
The wAP AC LTE6 does look nice, but it doesn't make sense to have the WiFi AP in the same location as the LTE.

Does the SXT definitely handle auth and routing, it doesn't require an additional router; it just needs an additional device for WiFi?

I'll need to take a look at the setup for them, my brother isn't daft but doesn't work with computers and I'm not going to be in any kind of position to help out as he lives about 500 miles away!

PiKe · 22 Mar 2020 at 22:37

Do you know where the mast is as a high gain directional might be better.

Fire up cellmapper on a phone, it's pretty accurate in my experience.

Rroff · 22 Mar 2020 at 22:39

Unless you have a good directional setup what I've found is that, within limits, getting the antenna up high as possible trumps everything else even potentially over a lower setup that in theory has better line of sight.

PapaLazaru · 22 Mar 2020 at 22:50

Three is the worst network for signal in general, have they tried anyone else?

GeX · 22 Mar 2020 at 22:55

PiKe said:
Do you know where the mast is as a high gain directional might be better.

Fire up cellmapper on a phone, it's pretty accurate in my experience.

Yep, he's done this and knows the direction of it - but it won't be LoS. I think there are trees or other things in the way.

Rroff said:
Unless you have a good directional setup what I've found is that, within limits, getting the antenna up high as possible trumps everything else even potentially over a lower setup that in theory has better line of sight.

It sounds like he wants it high in a tree (taller than the house), pointing toward where the cell tower is.

PapaLazaru said:
Three is the worst network for signal in general, have they tried anyone else?

I think Three are the only one that actually work inside the house where the LTE router is at the moment.

Caged · 23 Mar 2020 at 00:12

Has your brother tried a USO request - https://www.bt.com/broadband/USO

Worst case scenario is they get offered a 4G plan that will achieve over 10Mbps, best case scenario is that you get an FTTP build.

alexakasloth · 25 Mar 2020 at 13:35

Does he already have a 4g modem? Such as the Huawei b535, if so you can get an external antenna such as the Poynting 4g xpol. The limitation there would be the length of the cable as the signal degrades after 5m.
I've been looking at getting one of these once I've painted the front of my house and it's had solid reviews.

gpuerrilla · 26 Mar 2020 at 15:23

alexakasloth said:
Does he already have a 4g modem? Such as the Huawei b535, if so you can get an external antenna such as the Poynting 4g xpol. The limitation there would be the length of the cable as the signal degrades after 5m.
I've been looking at getting one of these once I've painted the front of my house and it's had solid reviews.

I am awaiting my subscription for normal BB to end to switch to this too. I borrowed a 4G router in the loft and its good signal but my brother-in-law who lives very close by has the dish on the chimney installed by third party and gets about 30% more speed. Download is almost 20mbps but I reckon a stable 30 is achievable with the outdoor aerial setup. Far better than the 5mbps on copper wires.

nlel1975 · 26 Mar 2020 at 15:53

Th0nt said:
Download is almost 20mbps but I reckon a stable 30 is achievable with the outdoor aerial setup. Far better than the 5mbps on copper wires.

I guess you’d be happy with the connection speed I had back in September 2015...

It was FTTP although a relatively slow one. I think 4G may have higher latency but beggars can’t be choosers.

gpuerrilla · 26 Mar 2020 at 18:48

nlel1975 said:
I guess you’d be happy with the connection speed I had back in September 2015...

Nah I can trump that. When I lived in Manchester area we had Virgin where they used to regularly double the speed for free back in 2008 we were at 50mbps then. Before this I was on a T1 uni connection around 2003 which back then was godlike for downloading/gaming.

nlel1975 · 26 Mar 2020 at 19:02

Th0nt said:
Nah I can trump that. When I lived in Manchester area we had Virgin where they used to regularly double the speed for free back in 2008 we were at 50mbps then. Before this I was on a T1 uni connection around 2003 which back then was godlike for downloading/gaming.

Crikey I didn’t start to see decent broadband speeds until 2013...

Before this I was using a mobile broadband connection which ran at about 3mbit/s.

gpuerrilla · 26 Mar 2020 at 19:06

nlel1975 said:
Crikey I didn’t start to see decent broadband speeds until 2013...

I am paying for it now though!

Living in rural Ireland BT has the monopoly and like going back 20 years.. at least the mobile companies can be the alternative but they have only just started on the unlimited sims otherwise this too was a non-runner.

nlel1975 · 26 Mar 2020 at 19:21

Th0nt said:
at least the mobile companies can be the alternative but they have only just started on the unlimited sims otherwise this too was a non-runner.

My mobile broadband connection had a fair usage policy of 500MB a day which I got along with, it was £ 10.50 a month too which was nice and cheap.

gpuerrilla · 26 Mar 2020 at 19:32

Yeah that can be a deal breaker too. "Come on our 100Gb package but in our small print will throttle you after 20Gb or at certain busy times of the day" this is not ideal for rural users especially if windows throws out an update or you download the latest video card driver.

At least some are offering true unlimited with no questions asked.

alexakasloth · 26 Mar 2020 at 19:44

Three don't throttle you and the price is good too, £21/month for unlimited last time I checked.

Mcnumpty2323 · 26 Mar 2020 at 19:48

No wisp providers where you are?
My stepson uses one and says its better
Than when he used mobile Internet

nlel1975 · 27 Mar 2020 at 15:32

If I remember correctly I had an unlimited 2mbit/s ADSL connection up until around September 2008 but then bought an EEE PC 901 netbook and wanted to use it out and about so a cancelled the ADSL and started using mobile data at 1p a MB via a USB 3G dongle.

It wasn’t very fast as it was only GPRS and then I learned of a proper mobile broadband contract for £ 10.50 a month with a fair usage policy of 500MB a day, I got speeds of around 3mbit/s with that which was comparable to the basic ADSL of the day.

After that had a brief stint with an unlimited WiMAX service which at best gave me 7mbit/s but more often 4.5mbit/s before moving on to an unlimited FTTP service giving me 20mbit/s which I regard as my first step into fast broadband.

alexakasloth · 27 Mar 2020 at 17:09

Th0nt said:
I am awaiting my subscription for normal BB to end to switch to this too. I borrowed a 4G router in the loft and its good signal but my brother-in-law who lives very close by has the dish on the chimney installed by third party and gets about 30% more speed. Download is almost 20mbps but I reckon a stable 30 is achievable with the outdoor aerial setup. Far better than the 5mbps on copper wires.

Do you know which antenna your brother is using? I was looking at the one I linked to but would be interested to see what success others are having with different models.