5G Hub

[GUMPY]

Type:

Magnetic antenna ts9

Into amazon

This was the first hit

Bingfu 4G LTE Antenna TS9 Aerial 7dBi Magnetic Base External Network Antenna (2-Pack) Compatible with Vodafone EE O2 Three Netgear Huawei MiFi Mobile Hotspot Router USB Modem Aircards and LTE Routers https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YBWRJBD/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_DE02Y8HAA070V4MMPT47?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

I am not endorsing this product merely pointing out how easy it is to find what you need

[IanD]

2 hours ago, robtheplod said:

I think 5G will initially only be in larger towns/cities for the foreseeable, so most won't benefit from it for quite a while. 3/4G best option when cruising for the time being...

 

5G in the UK (and elsewhere) can also use new lower-frequency bands around 700MHz, the idea being that these give much longer range than the higher-frequency 3G/4G bands and can improve coverage and data rates in rural areas.

 

That's the idea, how much of this is actually being rolled out I don't know, but 5G is aimed to eventually give better data rates and coverage *everywhere" -- rural as well as in towns, where the sub-6GHz 5G bands (and eventually 26GHz mmwave) can give higher data rates but also shorter range.

 

So as I said, if you're installing a new router/aerial to use for maybe 5 years or more (futureproofing) and want the best data rates and coverage it's worth considering a 4x4 MIMO 5G one, even though they're more expensive and the choice is limited.

 

It's certainly not worth ripping out a perfectly good 3G/4G one and replacing it with 5G, at least until the prices drop a long way from where they are today and 5G rollout is further advanced.

Edited May 15, 2022 by IanD

[LadyG]

48 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Type:

Magnetic antenna ts9

Into amazon

This was the first hit

Bingfu 4G LTE Antenna TS9 Aerial 7dBi Magnetic Base External Network Antenna (2-Pack) Compatible with Vodafone EE O2 Three Netgear Huawei MiFi Mobile Hotspot Router USB Modem Aircards and LTE Routers https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YBWRJBD/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_DE02Y8HAA070V4MMPT47?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

I am not endorsing this product merely pointing out how easy it is to find what you need

Yes, I spotted that, but I thought there must be a catch, due to price and the fact it looks rather flimsy.

I assume there is some reason for two of them  the other omnis are a lot bigger., maybe have two larger antennae inside the housing. The critical reviews are very bad, I really don't want to send it back.

I suspect it's not waterproof, the other ones all look much beefier and say outdoor or waterproof.

Some seem to rely on suckers, that seems destined for failure on a boat, ie not suitable for roof mounting.

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by LadyG

[Rob-M]

I purchased one of these magnetic mount poles and fixed the arrival to that, they seem quite common on boat roofs. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magnetic-Mounting-Antennas-Caravans-Motorhomes-Black/dp/B019H5V9LW/ref=asc_df_B019H5V9LW/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=218715807545&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=131260434667219034&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006886&hvtargid=pla-426048253137&psc=1

 

 

[Silent Flight]

Old thread but what’s the best route to go down for getting internet? 
 

Both cheap and expensive options please. 

[cheesegas]

I went the cheap route and it worked but only just - had a single modem Teletonika with its built in antennas.

 

My current setup is a Three SIM and an EE SIM in a dual modem load balancing Teletonika RUTX13 with two Poynting 4G omni antennas. I pay £50 a month for the SIMs and the router cost about £400, antennas £200. 

 

I get an average of around 40-50mbps, if it's in a signal black hole way out in the country I might only get 10mbps though, whilst my phone gets nothing!

Edited February 1, 2023 by cheesegas

[David Mack]

The cheapest route is to hotspot off your mobile phone, with the phone placed in a window to minimise shielding by the cabin shell. Works for me as a leisure boater, but liveaboards may want something more.

[ditchcrawler]

Surely satellite is the best and most expensive with Starlink or whatever its called.

[IanD]

56 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Surely satellite is the best and most expensive with Starlink or whatever its called.

It is but it's *very* expensive, £460 + £95/month for the "RV" option that lets you move around.

 

The cheapest high-performance solution is the Three 5G router (NR5103E) on 24 month contract, £10/month for 6 months and then £20/month is a lot cheaper than buying one plus a SIM deal, and means you can switch in a couple of years if a better model becomes available. It's 4x4 MIMO and has 4 connectors for external antennas. The only real disadvantage is it's single-SIM and on Three.

 

For a boat the best antenna I could find (flush-mounts to roof) was this Panorama one:

 

https://www.panorama-antennas.com/site/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=475

 

You only need the FIND4-6-60 version (4x4 cellular MIMO, no GPS or Wi-Fi), I paid £235 from here:

 

https://www.co-star.co.uk/brands/panorama-antennas/?viewall=true

 

It's expensive but unlike the Poynting antennae it's actually designed to work when fitted flat onto a metal roof. The Poyntings (e.g. XPOL1-5G-V2-41) are designed to work on a mast or non-conductive wall, if you put them (or any antenna) close to a steel boat roof you get reflections off the roof (multipath distortion) which cause dips (low gain) in the response. The Panorama works like boundary-effect microphones, the elements are close enough to the surface that the reflection actually adds to the signal level. You can see this by looking at the gain curves, which are several dB better than any of the mast-mounted omnidirectional antennae --for example, about 5dB better (roof-mounted) than the Poynting omni (mast-mounted, ignoring multipath). This should make a big difference to coverage for both 4G and 5G.

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by IanD

[Guest]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

The cheapest route is to hotspot off your mobile phone, with the phone placed in a window to minimise shielding by the cabin shell. Works for me as a leisure boater, but liveaboards may want something more.

 

This has worked for me now for the best part of 8 years of caravanning. It's not going to cut it for a heavy user I don't think but I can adequately stream videos and watch stuff on an Amazon Fire Stick.  Plus of course browse t'internet.

 

We are on EE and are rarely without a signal, normally only 4G but increasingly (on my phone) 5G, depending where we are pitched.

[IanD]

2 minutes ago, M_JG said:

 

This has worked for me now for the best part of 8 years of caravanning. It's not going to cut it for a heavy user I don't think but I can adequately stream videos and watch stuff on an Amazon Fire Stick.  Plus of course browse t'internet.

 

We are on EE and are rarely without a signal, normally only 4G but increasingly (on my phone) 5G, depending where we are pitched.

 

The problem is coverage, mobile signal reception on canals -- low down, often with trees nearby -- is not great, and probably worse than most caravan sites. A mobile by the window will work in a lot of places, but also won't work in many places, especially out in the sticks, where a good external antenna will -- higher gain means you can pick up a signal a lot further from the nearest mast so reduces the chances of being in a dead spot (or one with unusably low data rates).

 

Cheapest solution but worst coverage/lowest data rates : tethered mobile

Most expensive cellular solution but with better coverage and higher data rates : high-performance router and external antenna

Ludicrously expensive but with best coverage and highest data rates : Starlink RV

 

You pays yer money and you takes yer choice... 😉

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

The problem is coverage, mobile signal reception on canals -- low down, often with trees nearby -- is not great, and probably worse than most caravan sites. A mobile by the window will work in a lot of places, but also won't work in many places, especially out in the sticks, where a good external antenna will -- higher gain means you can pick up a signal a lot further from the nearest mast so reduces the chances of being in a dead spot (or one with unusably low data rates).

 

Cheapest solution but worst coverage/lowest data rates : tethered mobile

Most expensive cellular solution but with better coverage and higher data rates : high-performance router and external antenna

Ludicrously expensive but with best coverage and highest data rates : Starlink RV

 

You pays yer money and you takes yer choice... 😉

 

Yet some people find it works for them on boats too.

 

We often pitch in very remote countryside locations (where there are guess what? Yes trees) and find it still works fine. We rarely use big caravan sites preferring to pitch on 5 'van sites on farms or in rural villages, and it still works.

 

One place it didn't work for us was ironically on a site very close to the A1 where surprisingly the signal for all mobile co's was poor to non existent.

 

My advice for what it's worth is to try this before buying other stuff (if somebody wants a cheap solution), they might (will probably) find it works. They can always go out later and buy additional stuff later on if it does not.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

It is but it's *very* expensive, £460 + £95/month for the "RV" option that lets you move around.

 

 

 

 

But he did ask for expensive as well

[jonathanA]

Sort of middle of the road to cheap....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy a cheap unlocked 4g router or mifi device off ebay with external antenna connections. I use some cheap mag mount external antenna that paid a few quid for and a Vodafone sim 160gb data unlimited text/calls £10 a month. Works brilliantly. Just be careful of the frequency range as voda use 2600Mhz range and a lot of the cheap 4g aerials stop at 2.4/2.5G and don't cover some of voda frequency range.

 

 

 

I paid 80 quid for a whoarewe b something or another and have a dlink dwr something that some one was throwing away both work fine with the external antenna in a poor signal area. Previously I had to tape my crappy samsung to the window and tether to it. To be fair that was good enough for corporate email and teams all day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The router solution saves me faffing with gaffer tape and mobile phone tethering and works the smart TV via Effer net so swmbo is happy too...

 

 

If you must have reliable Internet the satellite it is but reputedly the technical support can be hit and miss if you do have problems. 

 

Eta both router were plugged straight into the boat 12v and despite some on here saying that my boat would burst into flames the moment I started the engine , its not been a problem they seem quite happy with the 12v plus or minus quite a bit  ..

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by jonathanA

[IanD]

1 minute ago, jonathanA said:

Sort of middle of the road to cheap....

 

 

 

Buy a cheap unlocked 4g router or mifi device off ebay with external antenna connections. I use some cheap mag mount external antenna that paid a few quid for and a Vodafone sim 160gb data unlimited text/calls £10 a month. Works brilliantly. Just be careful of the frequency range as voda use 2600Mhz range and a lot of the cheap 4g aerials stop at 2.4/2.5G and don't cover some of voda frequency range.

 

I paid 80 quid for a whoarewe b something or another and have a dlink dwr something that some one was throwing away both work fine with the external antenna in a poor signal area. Previously I had to tape my crappy samsung to the window and tether to it. To be fair that was good enough for corporate email and teams all day. 

 

 

 

The router solution saves me faffing with gaffer tape and mobile phone tethering and works the smart TV via Effer net so swmbo is happy too...

 

If you must have reliable Internet the satellite it is but reputedly the technical support can be hit and miss if you do have problems. 

All true -- any decent router with an external antenna will be better than a tethered phone or a router with an internal antenna inside the boat. Then you can pay as little or as much as you want depending on the depth of your pockets, how important a working Internet link is to you, and what you plan to do with it.

 

For example if you're going to use streaming/catchup services for TV instead of a TV aerial -- increasingly common nowadays -- you're likely to need a big/unlimited data SIM, which isn't cheap so skimping on the router/antenna might be a false economy. Ditto if you need reliable Internet access for work. For these cases I looked at this and concluded that a contract with Three (router included) was cheaper than buying a good router and paying for a SIM.

 

If your data needs are less than this -- which they are for many people -- then a cheap router and external antenna will be fine.

[Rob-M]

I pay £20 for a month of unlimited data when I require it.  I work from the boat but not every month so don't pay when not there.  The SIM is in a Huawei B818 using its internal antenna and provides suitable speed to work, mostly faster than my home fttc connection and cheaper.

[Paul C]

On 11/05/2022 at 20:21, Ronaldo47 said:

There was a letter on the papers last week about a supermarket's problems with the use of 5G by customers attempting to pay using smartphones. The 5G service was so unreliable and slow that customers were advised to disable it on their phones, whereupon everything worked immediately using the older G service.

 

Apple Pay works without a mobile signal needing to be present.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Paul C

[Paul C]

1 hour ago, jonathanA said:

Sort of middle of the road to cheap....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buy a cheap unlocked 4g router or mifi device off ebay with external antenna connections. I use some cheap mag mount external antenna that paid a few quid for and a Vodafone sim 160gb data unlimited text/calls £10 a month. Works brilliantly. Just be careful of the frequency range as voda use 2600Mhz range and a lot of the cheap 4g aerials stop at 2.4/2.5G and don't cover some of voda frequency range.

 

 

 

I paid 80 quid for a whoarewe b something or another and have a dlink dwr something that some one was throwing away both work fine with the external antenna in a poor signal area. Previously I had to tape my crappy samsung to the window and tether to it. To be fair that was good enough for corporate email and teams all day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The router solution saves me faffing with gaffer tape and mobile phone tethering and works the smart TV via Effer net so swmbo is happy too...

 

 

If you must have reliable Internet the satellite it is but reputedly the technical support can be hit and miss if you do have problems. 

 

Eta both router were plugged straight into the boat 12v and despite some on here saying that my boat would burst into flames the moment I started the engine , its not been a problem they seem quite happy with the 12v plus or minus quite a bit  ..

 

 

That's more or less the route I'm going too. I've "been there", trying with the mobile phone dangled in a window to enhance signal. Its not great. Better to get it outside, but then who would leave an expensive phone outside while inside the boat streaming or whatever? Caravan comparisons aren't really that useful.

 

I have ordered a Huawei E5573 (4G, unlocked, has 2x TS9 aerial connectors) for £38.99 and a cheap Chinese pair of aerials for £10.41, will be interested to see how it performs vs the mobile phone. And I have a small collection of SIMs from Voda, Three, giffgaff (O2), Vectone (Voda), ASDA Mobile (Voda) and VOXI (Voda).

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

That's more or less the route I'm going too. I've "been there", trying with the mobile phone dangled in a window to enhance signal. Its not great. Better to get it outside, but then who would leave an expensive phone outside while inside the boat streaming or whatever? Caravan comparisons aren't really that useful.

 

I have ordered a Huawei E5573 (4G, unlocked, has 2x TS9 aerial connectors) for £38.99 and a cheap Chinese pair of aerials for £10.41, will be interested to see how it performs vs the mobile phone. And I have a small collection of SIMs from Voda, Three, giffgaff (O2), Vectone (Voda), ASDA Mobile (Voda) and VOXI (Voda).

 

I explained two things.

 

1 - some boaters do use and have used mobile phone hotspots for many years quite happily.

 

2 - I explained how the comparisons between using them in similar locations to where we site the 'van and where boaters boat can work too.

 

A lot of course depends on how critical internet access is. If needed for things like work/team meetings then clearly the 'full fat' all singing all dancing router and external aerial solution would be better. But for more casual use where internet access is not critical then I re state what I said previously.

 

Try the hotspot route, and if it works for someone don't bother buying additional kit, if it doesn't its easy enough to add stuff at a later date.

Edited February 1, 2023 by M_JG

[RichM]

I got by using a much smaller MiFI device which I attached to a porthole using velcrow. Very primitive and inexpensive but worked well. In summer months, it would get hot which would prove problematic but this was resolved by simply tinting the porthole. I think it was called "heat reflective" tint or something like that. I doubt the standard blackout tint would help. 

 

The major benefit of a MiFI device vs the type mentioned by the OP, is that it has its own built in battery. Thus, any blips in boat power would not cause loss of internet connectivity. The ones with the capability to support external antennas are even better especially in lower signal areas though personally I never had to use them, though this was probably due to location more than anything else.

 

If I still had a boat, I'd do the same unless I depended on it for work in which case I'd probably invest in Elon Musk's Starlink technology (low latency satellite) but this is not cheap, as mentioned already in this topic.