Mobile Modem/Router

SpellowHouse

SpellowHouse

SpellowHouse

Soldato
Joined
31 Jan 2022
Posts
3,454
Location
UK
Can anyone recommend a static router or modem that I can use?
I bought a dongle as an experiment, but the signal strength in my location is too weak. I need one that I can add aerials. It doesn't need to be absolutely brilliant but I only get 2Mbps with the dongle.
It can attach to my router so it can be mains powered.
 
Ok, reading that I decided to experiment. I have bought a cheap second hand 4G router with an aerial socket. I can learn from that and decide what happens after that!!
 
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Nominally I'd recommend the TP-Link MR6400 but things are moving on and its lack of cat 6 or better features and only 100Mbit ports are a bit limiting - the next step up which has the same simplicity and functionality but cat 6+ and gigabit ports is the MR600 but a bit more expensive. Sadly any decent 5G router tends to be a significant step up in money again.
 
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Rroff said:
Nominally I'd recommend the TP-Link MR6400 but things are moving on and its lack of cat 6 or better features and only 100Mbit ports are a bit limiting - the next step up which has the same simplicity and functionality but cat 6+ and gigabit ports is the MR600 but a bit more expensive. Sadly any decent 5G router tends to be a significant step up in money again.
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I have a good broadband connection, but I want the mobile as a failover. I bought a dongle, but the signal is too weak. I sent that back and bought a second hand unlocked Huawei router that happens to have an aerial socket and I can play with pay as you go sims and aerials, setup and usefulness of the service to see where to go next. I suspect I will remain on pay as you go, and as long as I can get better than (say) 30Mbps then I will be happy. But that's just my thoughts right now which may change.
 
GaryTheSnail said:
If you need a second connection for failover I would say your broadband connection is not good. :)
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The broadband is great, but I don't have a telephone line any more. Mobile is very weak here, hence why I am interested in a failover with a decent aerial on it!! I bought a router that has an aerial socket on it, but I need to do more research in to other routers - I am confused about many that have aerials - I am not sure whether the aerials are for the wifi or the 4G.
Anyway, I am continuing to explore, read and experiment!
 
Seems I may be wasting my time with aerials. Looking at reviews and so on, there doesn't seem to be much advantage to an aerial. They are really for when the device is in a bad location, they allow you to position an aerial in a good position. But as for improving signal they are not all that good. What you gain in signal, you lose in the cable. ?? Perhaps the answer is to just obtain larger aerials for the router iteself, that plug directly in to the back. That way, I am not losing anything in long cables.
 
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I use 4G as failover in case of main ISP failure and for the Teltonika 4G modem I use a better aerial made a big difference. I tried omni-directional first which helped but not much and then went with a directional one that did make a lot of difference but then it was over £100. I bought a Teltonika device as I already have a separate dual WAN capable router so just needed a 4G modem, it does have router functionality but its underpowered for a router.

I spent some time identifying where the nearest cell towers are and trying each one as the closest isn't always the best depending on which frequencies it uses and how clear the line of sight is. Fortunately we've have just had OR FTTP enabled in the area so my VM broadband will be backup and the FTTP primary, so the 4G system will be retired.

For us broadband is critical for work and home use and no ISP is immune to issues. Its been great having the broadband failover and back usually without even noticing until I see the notifications the firewall sends.
 
I bought a Zyxel M804. Zyxel seem to be selling last years model off cheap at the moment, haha. It was £120.
It has the features I need, and reasonable performance. It works well with my Asus router.
I am getting about 25Mbps down (can't remember what the upload is), but that, while still poor, isn't so bad and certainly is better than the dongle.
The Zyxel also has SMA connectors on the back for easy connection to an aerial. I am not sure what the gain of the internal are, nor whether adding aerials will make any difference, but now I have the thing I might as well try.
Judging by the local signal strength, 10dbi is unlikely to make much difference, but might as well start with that and see what happens.
 
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Yeah, OK so the aerials are useless. Lol.

Does anyone know which service uses O2 towers? I suddenly discovered that they have a tower a whole 17dbi closer to me. Problem is that I need a home broadband service that is pay as you go and there aren't that many that do that.
 
Sadly in my experience aside from the expensive ones or making your own, most cheaper aerials aren't that great, even useless. I believe some of it comes down to losses due to the long cable - so unless it makes the difference in terms of being able to position the router better for signal than you can sensibly position the device you won't gain anything. Despite being sold as 4/5G I think a lot of these are tuned for WiFi as I've seen some considerable improvements using some of the cheaper ones for WiFi but not 4G.
 
Rroff said:
Sadly in my experience aside from the expensive ones or making your own, most cheaper aerials aren't that great, even useless. I believe some of it comes down to losses due to the long cable - so unless it makes the difference in terms of being able to position the router better for signal than you can sensibly position the device you won't gain anything. Despite being sold as 4/5G I think a lot of these are tuned for WiFi as I've seen some considerable improvements using some of the cheaper ones for WiFi but not 4G.
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Yes, that's roughly what I have been able to work out so far. I am not even sure why they bother selling the aerials. My reception went DOWN 6dbi with the so called 10dbi aerials. There are some that have a good reputation but they are fiercely expensive. At the moment I have to make a decision between buying one of those or finding a service that uses 02 towers. Just so happens there are a bunch of them close to me. 17dbi closer to me!
 
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SpellowHouse said:
Does anyone know which service uses O2 towers?
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O2 is used by Sky, Virgin, Giffgaff, Tesco and I think Lyca.
SpellowHouse said:
The Zyxel also has SMA connectors on the back for easy connection to an aerial. I am not sure what the gain of the internal are, nor whether adding aerials will make any difference, but now I have the thing I might as well try.
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TBH the internal antenna are probably fine. The only real point of the external SMA connectors would be if you were hooking in an external aerial imo. I'd try instead and use a signal strength app (does Zyxel Air app work with the M804?) and concentrate on finding a sweet spot for indoor placement.
 
Firegod said:
O2 is used by Sky, Virgin, Giffgaff, Tesco and I think Lyca.

TBH the internal antenna are probably fine. The only real point of the external SMA connectors would be if you were hooking in an external aerial imo. I'd try instead and use a signal strength app (does Zyxel Air app work with the M804?) and concentrate on finding a sweet spot for indoor placement.
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Will do. I have just ordered a Tesco SIM. They tell me there is no reason why you can't use them in the router. We shall see. But I found out that the O2 towers are 17dbi better than the one I was using. That should be more than good enough without an aerial.
 
Well, that was interesting. The O2 towers, although closer, gave a very significantly worse signal than the 3 tower. It was supposed to be better but in fact was 9dbi worse.
So, for me, 3 is the company, and if I want better than 25mbps then I need to spend another £80 on a decent antenna.

The big debate now is whether it's worth it to buy an antenna. I might get one, experiment, and return it if it is no good.
 
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I don't know if you're trying 4G or 5G but in my area using 4G I found that some mobile providers such as O2 use less optimum 4G frequencies than others. This meant that as per my comment earlier in the thread that I got better results with a slightly further away aerial with another mobile provider no matter what aerial I used. You can check out what frequencies towers/providers use online and my 4G modem confirmed they were correct for each tower/provider.

However the expensive directional aerial gave the best results but I think I paid around £125 for it and it takes some careful alignment. I used google maps to get the direction angle in both planes and then tried small changes either way around that. I also tried internal in the loft aiming through tiles vs external and there was some difference but not enough to affect speed greatly. Internal in the main house was much more difference as expected but then I wouldn't want such a large aerial visible indoors anyway.
 
Best to look on cell mapper and see what bands are available on your local mast, post up your findings, people can help more then.
 
Well, I hooked up a £90 antenna, and it did make a very small difference to the signal, but no difference to the upload/download rate, so that went back. It may be that it stabilised the signal, but I didn't have time to check that, I just felt the lack of gain made it a poor "upgrade" at £90.
I will settle for the service as is. I suspect that in my area, it's probably better to invest in a more expensive modem than it is to start messing with aerials. At the moment, I will stick with what I have. It's good enough as a failover.
The 3 SIM, by the way, is valid for two years, so that's perfect too. That works out at £1.50 a month for a failover. Hard to beat.
 
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Bit of a thread bump but I got a TP-Link MR600 v.2 cheap through work - one thing which it also seems to improve over the 6400 is with regard to buffer bloat which seems about a quarter of the 6400. Sadly it doesn't seem to make much difference to speeds where I am over the 6400 though, at least that the moment as the additional band 3 and band 1 seem to have disappeared annoyingly leaving just 1 band 3 and band 20. In fact I'm not sure it isn't slightly slower.

Been playing around with a few other bits of kit that I've managed to borrow and where I am I really can't beat the MR6400 v.4 with stock antennas - not sure why but it does as good as anything and better than most even fancy professional high gain antennas, even cat 20 routers can't match it :s signal propagation is pretty weird here though with huge variance just from small positioning changes or even moving things around in the room.
 
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