4G Antenna Mounting Advice

ally153

I got 4G home broadband from Three UK about 11 months ago. Initially I was consistently getting good speeds of around 35-40Mbps. A few few months ago the connection speed dropped on my Huawei AI Cube and after trying out a number of things I eventually got a TP-Link MR600 coupled with a Poynting XPOL-2 antenna that I mounted in my loft. I used my phone to find the best position and direction of the antenna, which I confirmed with the admin portal of my router to make sure I was getting the best signal.

Initially this resolved my internet issues, but I've noticed again recently that my connection speed has gotten inconsistent again - sometimes I get speeds of over 40Mbps, but at peak times or in adverse weather conditions it can swing as lower than 10Mbps. I also notice at times I get really bad pings - usually if you check a moment later the ping goes back to normal, but I think it's enough to throw some internet services. Really I'd be quite happy if I could just keep a more consistent minimum speed of around 25Mbps and a more reliable ping. I'm now thinking of getting the antenna professionally installed on the outside of my house.

My question is two fold - before I spend money on a professional install, does anyone have any advice of anything else I should try first? Looking around, I could only find sat-works.com that provided an install service - does anyone else know of any other companies they would recommend?

matelodave

Probably the biggest problem you've got is congestion rather than signal quality. If you can get 40mbit's then it doesn't really point to a low signal, however if your antenna is in the loft and it rains then the roof becomes a reflector and will diminish the signal, so you'll always be better off with the antenna mounted outside and higher up.

However that said the telecoms network isn't much different to the road network - it has a finite capacity at some nodes and can get overwhelmed when the traffic exceeds it's capability and so it grinds to a halt.

There's not much you can do about network congestion, bearing in mind that due to Covid restrictions, many more people will be using their mobiles at home for both calls and data (working from home, quarantining, Zoom, Whatsapps etc) meaning that whereas the the local cell site may have had adequate capacity under normal circumstances it may not be coping as well with the much higher levels of traffic.

ally153

I totally understand that network congestion can come into play. I probably live around 2km from the nearest mast. If I move 1km closer using my mobile (also on Three) I can normally get around 20Mbps faster speeds, so I assume the mast has more to give than I'm 'seeing'. I of course expect that at peak use times my internet speeds will go down - I'm just looking for ideas of ways to try and improve my signal quality so hopefully my lows at peak times aren't as low.

matelodave

Putting the antenna outside and up as high as you can get it will no doubt improve your signal strength but it wont guarantee you better speeds although higher signal levels will help reduce interference and tend to improve your speeds as well. In the end all you can do is try it and see what happens but you could end up spending a lot of money without getting any significant improvement. 

If you managed to get a significant improvement when you upgraded your router and antenna and it's now deteriorated then it does point to external factors such as interference, congestion or screening from trees or new buildings between you and the cell tower. Even a tower crane swinging it's jib can cause interference as can the weather - a wet roof, lots of rain or wet leaves on trees all have an adverse effect on radio waves.  See what happens when winter comes and the leaves fall off the tress to see if your speeds improve.

Have you tried using a sim card from another vendor to see if their speeds are better at your location.

here's an example of interference from an obscure source https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180

flashg67

Not sure what 4g router you have, but I've seen some users advise that you tell the router to only use 4g/LTE, rather than allowing it to fall back to 3g - apparently in the settings somewhere?