Mobile data speed tests

[Paul C]

Following on from some recent threads on mobile data/internet connectivity, I did some extensive tests on our most recent trip, around the NW area. 

 

 

All speeds in Mbps

Router 1 is a Huawei B315 with 2x external aerials

Router 2 is a Huawei E5573 with 2x external aerials
The iPhone (12 mini) was always tested on a table inside the boat. It is dual SIM - primary is Lebara (Voda) and secondary is KeepGo.

 

The KeepGo eSIM is interesting - it is a worldwide, data only, 'network' which uses various agreements to roam on all 4 UK networks, but itself registers as Orange France. In theory, it will roam to the network with an internet connection automatically. And also in theory, the iPhone can use the secondary SIM for data if the primary has no connection.

 

So, the results.........are confusing! The basic takeaway is that no one network "is the best" - for example at Venetian Marina, the O2 network was the only one to get a signal. But at Anderton in the evening, Vodaphone was best (and in the following morning....O2 was the best!) The second unusual thing is that time of day makes a big difference too. 

 

The other observation is that even if the phone (or dongle) showed it had some kind of connection, a lot of the time it didn't actually work. And the KeepGo eSIM, while promising some kind of data utopia, simply failed to connect a lot of the time (its quite expensive too).

[Oddjob]

On our boat had router with dual antenna inputs with omni directional antenna outside the boat. Roaming all over as cc er’s only once or twice got no internet phones no signal but got the internet ok. Our provider was O2. 
The antenna outside I had on a magnetic base stuck to a bracket on the front so could put pointing up to get best signal and turn upside down when moving so as not to hit bridges etc. In this pic the antenna is the white pole looking item on the front of the boat on the L/H side

[Paul C]

This is our antenna array:

 

 

(The one in the middle is a TV aerial). The other 4 are 2 pairs for the 2 routers, Chinese cheap ones off of eBay. I dare say there's better aerials out there. I did some comparisons with/without the aerials and it didn't make much difference at home. When on the boat, we just left the aerials plugged in 24/7 though.

[Puffling]

3 hours ago, Paul C said:

Following on from some recent threads on mobile data/internet connectivity, I did some extensive tests on our most recent trip, around the NW area. 

 

 

All speeds in Mbps

Router 1 is a Huawei B315 with 2x external aerials

Router 2 is a Huawei E5573 with 2x external aerials
The iPhone (12 mini) was always tested on a table inside the boat. It is dual SIM - primary is Lebara (Voda) and secondary is KeepGo.

 

The KeepGo eSIM is interesting - it is a worldwide, data only, 'network' which uses various agreements to roam on all 4 UK networks, but itself registers as Orange France. In theory, it will roam to the network with an internet connection automatically. And also in theory, the iPhone can use the secondary SIM for data if the primary has no connection.

 

So, the results.........are confusing! The basic takeaway is that no one network "is the best" - for example at Venetian Marina, the O2 network was the only one to get a signal. But at Anderton in the evening, Vodaphone was best (and in the following morning....O2 was the best!) The second unusual thing is that time of day makes a big difference too. 

 

The other observation is that even if the phone (or dongle) showed it had some kind of connection, a lot of the time it didn't actually work. And the KeepGo eSIM, while promising some kind of data utopia, simply failed to connect a lot of the time (its quite expensive too).

Interesting results. Your speeds are quite a lot lower than I would have expected. When you say "external aerial" does it have much elevation above the cabin roof?

 

Another factor I noticed is that signals are often hugely variable within the same mooring area. For example, last year about half a mile north of Wood End lock on the T and M I managed to improve my speed from 8 Mb/s to 25 Mb/s on Three by moving the boat a few feet along the bank. But I do have a pretty long (collapsible) mast for my Poynting aerial, which I think can at least double speeds over a short pole the aerial is always fixed to, such as the one used by @Oddjob

 

Any chance you could make the Excel sheet a download, please - I think it would be of interest to many members thinking of choosing a system for mobile internet.

 

ETA: I see you have an array but with minimal height for each element. I feel sure some elevation would improve your figures

Edited February 24, 2023 by Puffling

[Paul C]

Yeah I think that's the right direction, if you're chasing better speeds then a decent height pole would be the next step; and possibly invest £50 or so in a reputable aerial such as:

 

https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/43977-draytek-ant-4ge1-cab-ltea5/

 

In practical terms, we were able to stream Youtube, BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime on a laptop with the bandwidth we had, although sometimes the quality would be low; and occasionally iPlayer or Prime showed a "bandwidth too low" message but a refresh persuaded it to try again and work. I wouldn't fancy trying to make a (possibly) fickle Smart TV to work consistently well though, I have enough trouble at home with 60Mbps FTTC!

[Chewbacka]

11 hours ago, Paul C said:

This is our antenna array:

 

 

(The one in the middle is a TV aerial). The other 4 are 2 pairs for the 2 routers, Chinese cheap ones off of eBay. I dare say there's better aerials out there. I did some comparisons with/without the aerials and it didn't make much difference at home. When on the boat, we just left the aerials plugged in 24/7 though.

I use those antennas as well on 3.  The ‘problem’ is that 3 and probably others as well  use horizontal polarisation on some of their masts.  So there is no signal.  However if you do temporarily mount them horizontally you will need to rotate to get the best signal - the antenna needs to be roughly at 90 degrees to the mast.

At my mooring a vertical antenna has no reception most of the time, mounted horizontally the modem reports 50 to 75%.

One day I will upgrade to a cross polarised omni antenna…….

 

[GUMPY]

You need to get a decent antenna or two, Poynting XPOL-1 work fine and give you the correct polarisation.

Also there are much better routers than the 315 that work at much higher speeds.

Huawei B818 for starters. 

I use 3 for my internet at home and it's a slow day today a mere 125mbs it's often up around 300mbs but that is 5g.

There is always room for improvement of ones equipment.

 

[Puffling]

If you don't already know, the iPlayer and Netflix (and perhaps other streaming services, but I don't have them) allow you to download a programme in the background.

 

This will often work when live viewing results in too many "buffering" spinning circles. Some browsers can have add-ons installed to download YouTube.

[ditchcrawler]

Location can make a big difference I dont have an aerial abut these readings were only days apart

 

 

 

 

[cuthound]

16 hours ago, Paul C said:

This is our antenna array:

 

 

(The one in the middle is a TV aerial). The other 4 are 2 pairs for the 2 routers, Chinese cheap ones off of eBay. I dare say there's better aerials out there. I did some comparisons with/without the aerials and it didn't make much difference at home. When on the boat, we just left the aerials plugged in 24/7 though.

 

I thought  it was a scale model of the now closed Rugby Radio Station at Hillmorton.

 

[Paul C]

On 25/02/2023 at 10:43, Chewbacka said:

I use those antennas as well on 3.  The ‘problem’ is that 3 and probably others as well  use horizontal polarisation on some of their masts.  So there is no signal.  However if you do temporarily mount them horizontally you will need to rotate to get the best signal - the antenna needs to be roughly at 90 degrees to the mast.

At my mooring a vertical antenna has no reception most of the time, mounted horizontally the modem reports 50 to 75%.

One day I will upgrade to a cross polarised omni antenna…….

 

 

Intrigued by the orientation of the aerials, I did a few further tests, albeit at home, not on the boat. It seems that horizontal does have a mild effect, I was able to improve speeds to 25Mbps (vertical was 15Mbps). However, the effect was mild - I suspect what is actually happening is the aerial has a very broad directional capability, ie it can still pick up well off-axis, not like say a tightly-focused aerial which needs exact alignment. Also, the internal aerial of the mifi was still able to do 21Mbps, within error of the best horizontal, so I think these cheap Chinese eBay aerials have basically no gain over the internal.

 

Frustratingly, I didn't try it while on the boat but I suspect even if the "gain" is 0dB it might still be useful, because the boat is a pretty good faraday cage for signals and just going inside - outside aerial helps in marginal situations.

 

There's an amount of decent technical info "out there" - for example https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/04/how-to-choose-an-external-4g-or-5g-mobile-broadband-antenna.html/2 . Personally for us, we move around quite a bit and our needs are modest - just a bit of streaming, 1 device, lower video quality is okay. I can imagine for others, where they might moor for longer and want/need a better connection, a decent aerial on a pole, possibly directional, is a good next step.

[The Gravy Boater]

Venetian truely is the arse end of nowhere for internet.  You'd be better off attaching your antenna to a cow (they have plenty of them around there), play out the cable and hope it goes to the top of a hill.

[Chewbacka]

41 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

Intrigued by the orientation of the aerials, I did a few further tests, albeit at home, not on the boat. It seems that horizontal does have a mild effect, I was able to improve speeds to 25Mbps (vertical was 15Mbps). However, the effect was mild - I suspect what is actually happening is the aerial has a very broad directional capability, ie it can still pick up well off-axis, not like say a tightly-focused aerial which needs exact alignment. Also, the internal aerial of the mifi was still able to do 21Mbps, within error of the best horizontal, so I think these cheap Chinese eBay aerials have basically no gain over the internal.

 

Frustratingly, I didn't try it while on the boat but I suspect even if the "gain" is 0dB it might still be useful, because the boat is a pretty good faraday cage for signals and just going inside - outside aerial helps in marginal situations.

 

There's an amount of decent technical info "out there" - for example https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/04/how-to-choose-an-external-4g-or-5g-mobile-broadband-antenna.html/2 . Personally for us, we move around quite a bit and our needs are modest - just a bit of streaming, 1 device, lower video quality is okay. I can imagine for others, where they might moor for longer and want/need a better connection, a decent aerial on a pole, possibly directional, is a good next step.

My guess is that you are just in range of a vertical polarised mast and closer to a horizontally polarised mast, hence the improved reception.  In more remote places where there is only a horizontally polarised mast, I get nothing with the antenna vertical, and a strong signal when horizontal (roughly at right angles to the mast).  Of course when close to a vertically polarised mast it’s the other way around.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Chewbacka

[Paul C]

45 minutes ago, The Gravy Boater said:

Venetian truely is the arse end of nowhere for internet.  You'd be better off attaching your antenna to a cow (they have plenty of them around there), play out the cable and hope it goes to the top of a hill.

 

On the Middlewich branch of the Shroppie, there are definitely some "not-spot" areas where there is basically no mobile data coverage. (Probably can get something with a decent/expensive directional aerial on a tall pole though?).

 

I found another reasonable article on external aerials: https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/mobile-broadband-antennas 

 

 

 

 

[The Gravy Boater]

15 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

On the Middlewich branch of the Shroppie, there are definitely some "not-spot" areas where there is basically no mobile data coverage. (Probably can get something with a decent/expensive directional aerial on a tall pole though?).

 

I found another reasonable article on external aerials: https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/mobile-broadband-antennas

 

 

 

I'm not saying I have ever lofted my external antenna on the barge pole but...

Edited February 26, 2023 by The Gravy Boater

[Paul C]

On 26/02/2023 at 20:31, Chewbacka said:

My guess is that you are just in range of a vertical polarised mast and closer to a horizontally polarised mast, hence the improved reception.  In more remote places where there is only a horizontally polarised mast, I get nothing with the antenna vertical, and a strong signal when horizontal (roughly at right angles to the mast).  Of course when close to a vertically polarised mast it’s the other way around.

 

Just retried in Anderton, all else being equal:

 

horizontal aerials (90deg apart)................13Mbps

vertical aerials.................................................16Mbps

[Paul C]

As an update, we're out and about again on the canals. I'm not going to do thorough testing at each location this time, but I have 3 devices to connect to the internet: O2 (Giffgaff) mifi router with external aerial; 2nd mifi router with external aerial (Lyca mobile cheap SIM, EE network but not band 20); iPhone with Talk-home SIM (EE network, not sure on band 20)

 

.................................................................Giffgaff mifi......................Lyca mifi...................Talk-home (iPhone)

Just above Audlem 15....................22Mbps..............................4Mbps.......................10Mbps

near Market Drayton.......................5Mbps................................22Mbps.....................115Mbps (5G connection)

 

So it goes to show, that no one network is "the best" in all areas. And that the cheap mifi units seem to have an upper limit for speed, which is no doubt due to the technology used, eg MIMO, Cat. I am sure a more expensive mifi would be able to achieve/exceed the speeds of the iPhone.

[Ian Mac]

A suggestion - as well as a verbal location, put a w3w location column.

 

Edited - w3w = What Three Words an app which locates the GPS receiver to a 10m box.

Edited March 10 by Ian Mac

[Alan de Enfield]

3 hours ago, Ian Mac said:

Edited - w3w = What Three Words an app which locates the GPS receiver to a 10m box.

 

Has it been downrated ?

It was always a '3m x 3m box' 

Edited March 10 by Alan de Enfield

[dmr]

5 hours ago, Paul C said:

As an update, we're out and about again on the canals. I'm not going to do thorough testing at each location this time, but I have 3 devices to connect to the internet: O2 (Giffgaff) mifi router with external aerial; 2nd mifi router with external aerial (Lyca mobile cheap SIM, EE network but not band 20); iPhone with Talk-home SIM (EE network, not sure on band 20)

 

.................................................................Giffgaff mifi......................Lyca mifi...................Talk-home (iPhone)

Just above Audlem 15....................22Mbps..............................4Mbps.......................10Mbps

near Market Drayton.......................5Mbps................................22Mbps.....................115Mbps (5G connection)

 

So it goes to show, that no one network is "the best" in all areas. And that the cheap mifi units seem to have an upper limit for speed, which is no doubt due to the technology used, eg MIMO, Cat. I am sure a more expensive mifi would be able to achieve/exceed the speeds of the iPhone.

 

I confess that I don't understand all this stuff, despite an engineering background, and for reasons that I just don't understand the iPhone appears to return much worse results than other devices  using the same wifi network.

We are "out in the sticks" and right on the edge of a Vodafone cell. Using a Teletonika Router and Poynting Xpol.

With a Lebara sim I usually see 20+ on my PC though it does slow down sometimes. Have seen over 60.

Just done a test right now, PC gives 43 down, 23 up, my iPhone, right next to the PC, gives 18 down, 19 up.

The boat behind has just also got a Lebara sim in a very old mifi and has seen 80 down, but mostly a fair bit less.

My wife has another iPhone and an iPad and these both give much inferior results to my PC (Microsoft Surface Pro).

[Paul C]

7 hours ago, dmr said:

 

I confess that I don't understand all this stuff, despite an engineering background, and for reasons that I just don't understand the iPhone appears to return much worse results than other devices  using the same wifi network.

 

 

Are you saying that the iPhone, when connected to the same wifi network as (for example) a laptop computer, gives much worse speed test results? It would seem odd, but maybe an explanation is that some networks throttle or disallow speed tests (it is quite network-heavy), maybe with their "network traffic rule" coming into play after say 500mb or so of data is through - so it could make sense that a 2nd, 3rd etc test is much slower than the first.

 

If its mobile network, not wifi, then was the iPhone inside the boat? I have noticed sometimes the "faraday cage" effect absolutely hammers a mobile phone's performance, while other times its completely unaffected - I can only assume this is due to the frequencies used. Having it by a window can help too.

[GUMPY]

If the iPhone has connected to the 2.4ghz WiFi and the PC to the 5ghz WiFi then the iPhone will have lower speeds.

 

 

Same phone to my WiFi from same position.

5ghz 25mbs

2.4ghz 7.5mbs

It will always connect to the strongest signal which is usually 2.4ghz which is why my 2.4ghz is disabled 😉

[dmr]

2 hours ago, Paul C said:

 

Are you saying that the iPhone, when connected to the same wifi network as (for example) a laptop computer, gives much worse speed test results? It would seem odd, but maybe an explanation is that some networks throttle or disallow speed tests (it is quite network-heavy), maybe with their "network traffic rule" coming into play after say 500mb or so of data is through - so it could make sense that a 2nd, 3rd etc test is much slower than the first.

 

If its mobile network, not wifi, then was the iPhone inside the boat? I have noticed sometimes the "faraday cage" effect absolutely hammers a mobile phone's performance, while other times its completely unaffected - I can only assume this is due to the frequencies used. Having it by a window can help too.

 

I can do repeated speeed tests alternating between phone and PC and the phone is always slower.  Ookla says the phone is connected to our wifi (Vodaphone) rather than its own mobile O2 signal.

The (old) iPad is even slower than the iPhone and that is wifi only, it does not have 3G.

I think its an Apple issue. It would be interesting to test an Android phone.

The Teletonica only supports 2.4GHz which suits me as that is fast enough and we need the better range.

There are a few people asking the same question on the www but not getting a sensible answer.

[GUMPY]

7 minutes ago, dmr said:

The Teletonica only supports 2.4GHz

The ones I looked at were 802.11b/g/n, so 2.4ghz and 5ghz hence my comment.

[IanD]

10 hours ago, dmr said:

 

I confess that I don't understand all this stuff, despite an engineering background, and for reasons that I just don't understand the iPhone appears to return much worse results than other devices  using the same wifi network.

We are "out in the sticks" and right on the edge of a Vodafone cell. Using a Teletonika Router and Poynting Xpol.

With a Lebara sim I usually see 20+ on my PC though it does slow down sometimes. Have seen over 60.

Just done a test right now, PC gives 43 down, 23 up, my iPhone, right next to the PC, gives 18 down, 19 up.

The boat behind has just also got a Lebara sim in a very old mifi and has seen 80 down, but mostly a fair bit less.

My wife has another iPhone and an iPad and these both give much inferior results to my PC (Microsoft Surface Pro).

That's not what the numbers show: the GiffGaff MiFi is on O2, if you compare the iPhone with the Lyca MiFi (both on EE) it's faster.

 

Phones nowadays use MIMO, and are pretty good when outside a boat -- but a good MIMO router with an external antenna can be better if the antenna is a good one and cables are short, which they often aren't. Also not all phones are equal, some have better RF performance than others but this isn't one of the things that is usually tested -- same applies to laptops and tablets.

 

I compared my boat setup (4x4 MIMO 5G router with external antenna and <1m cables) to my Samsung 5G phone (outside the boat) -- both on EE --  and the router had higher data rates. A different router/antenna and/or a different phone could easily give the opposite result -- but a phone inside a steel boat will almost always be worse than a router with external antenna.

Edited March 11 by IanD