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Improving onboard Mobile communications


KJT

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What 4G Mifi unit have you got? Does it have external aerials or is it all inside the boat?

 

Huawei E5372, it does not come with aerials but has aerial sockets (TS9)

 

Two mag mount aerials on roof and cables through mushroom vent.

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  • 3 months later...

Amazing. Full on and brilliant. Only problem is, I got the memory of a gold fish and forgot most of it before I'd finished the sentence. I'd give you a big fat greenie if I could only remember how. ?

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Dunno if this has come up before. Three currently have an App for routing your normal phone calls through a data connection, including their own Mi-Fi.

 

Seems to work quite well for both incoming and outgoing.

 

Called 'Three In Touch' from your App Store.

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Er - I seem to be in the minority in that I've got a Sony Xperia Z. The Australian web site is remarkably honest in that it says that patch antennas don't really work with these phones. Anyone had any success with the Xperia to boost signal strength??

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  • 2 weeks later...

Having read through this excellent post it seems that 3 is the network of choice for the best coverage.

However now that BT have bought EE (who used to be Orange) does this mean that BT/EE could soon have better coverage?

Or will 3 still cover more of the waterways network?

  • Greenie 1
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Not quite bought it yet, there are a lot of hurdles, monopolies committee I believe is one.

 

Personally I am with EE and Orange before and over the last five years coverage has improved (probably like every other provider).

 

I would not advise any provider over any other, they all have their good and bad points.

 

One company buying another does not necessarily increase coverage, especially with BT as they do not have a mobile arm at the moment.

Edited by bottle
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I'm in the market for a Huawei 5372 modem. I've looked at Fleabay and have my eye on a couple.

 

Anyone suggest anywhere else.

 

Been into both 3 and EE and as mentioned earlier it seems if it's not a phone you're after the staff are clueless.

 

Also, to get a reasonable amount of data, 15+ mg it quite expensive about £20.

 

I am presently on 3 all you can eat data for £20 but fear this may not be available to me after the anniversary in July.

 

Any thoughts please.

 

Martyn

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  • 3 weeks later...

My way around all this with my samsung galaxy s3 mini, over the last couple of years I was with Three network on a sim only deal with an unlimited tethering contract then about 4 months ago three reduced all the tethering to a max of 3 gig as I use my internet a lot both at home and on the boat unlimited is essential for me so I shopped around and found T mobile will give me a contract including unlimited tethering and 2000 call mins 5000 text messages all for £18.99 a month and I can claim a cash back of around £9 a month. So we do not have a BT landline we do not have a broadband contract all we have is T mobile which I can take with me every where ,this can be wedged into the porthole window and works very well giving me internet access to my favourite prog which is KODI now we start cooking with gas Kodi will get me BT sports 2 so I can watch moto gp live on the boat and any other channel I want in the world. Best start with you tube watch the geeks who will show you how to download kodi from google ( I would recommend loading one pc whilst watching the instructions) once you have downloaded kodi the world will be your oyster,after reading the above please appreciate that I am a tight Yorkshireman so my average costs are around £20 a month as I have to call abroad for business but it is still a great deal for us boaters why pay for services you cannot use because your,e afloat.

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so I shopped around and found T mobile will give me a contract including unlimited tethering and 2000 call mins 5000 text messages all for £18.99 a month and I can claim a cash back of around £9 a month.

 

Where can we get that deal. If I look for T Mobile I am redirected to EE, and can find anything like the deal you've got. When did you start with it?

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Excellent and informing thread/post as said.

 

I am on vodaphone, and having switch from 02 four years ago can certainly vouch for the fact that signal is worse on the voaphone network than I found it with 02, if usable if you dont expect data everywhere, and from time to time as its a less common network you find yourself being the only one with signal in the particular area being the only one mad enough to be on vodaphone. The only reason I stick with it is because its the only provider that you can get signal with at work, due to the site being in the middle of knowhere and having a Vodaphone mast on it, I also get 20% off for working for JCB.

 

Current phone is an S5 Mini, of which the less I say the better.

However, its also no worse than the HTC DesireX I had before it.

 

Daniel

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you are a BT Broadband customer, they will give you a code that will enable you hook into other BT Broadband wifi units so you can surf the net when you are away from home. We use this and also on the boat with a mag mount aerial going through a booster into a laptop via a USB cable. The booster (Bear Share) is powered by the laptop. What we would like to do is to have the option to get a wireless router to serve the 2 laptops on the boat. Having experimented to date with various options and equipment, to date this has not worked. If anyone has any suggestions they would be welcomed.

I have just bought this router (also from Solwise) in order to share the wifi around the boat.

http://www.solwise.co.uk/wireless-usb-usbwifirpt-3000.html

 

Haven't had a chance to test it onboard yet, but it worked well when connected to my home wifi. It has a USB connection for your external antenna, and two ethernet ports for your laptops. Or of course, they can be connected via its own wifi as well as iPads and iPhones etc. The unit is much smaller than I anticipated; about the size of a tobacco tin, so it should be fairly inobtrusive.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I got one of these

eBay item number:

272008822412 £8.99
and one of these
eBay item number:
231427435523 £6.47
Plugged into a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, worked brilliantly! It turned one measly signal bar into full reception, and using the phone as a wifi hotspot on 3g
the download speeds seem as good as they are at home!
The patch cables are quite hard to find, an they seem to sell out quickly. There is one left on ebay at the moment.
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I got one of these

eBay item number:

272008822412 £8.99
and one of these
eBay item number:
231427435523 £6.47
Plugged into a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, worked brilliantly! It turned one measly signal bar into full reception, and using the phone as a wifi hotspot on 3g
the download speeds seem as good as they are at home!
The patch cables are quite hard to find, an they seem to sell out quickly. There is one left on ebay at the moment.

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272008822412?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D272008822412%26_rdc%3D1

 

Does this plug into the hidden aerial socket inside the phone, or somewhere external? The seller doesnt really explain.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231427435523?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D231427435523%26_rdc%3D1

 

and does this plug straight into the patch cable?

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Hi, yes, if you take the back off the phone you will see the small socket where it plugs in, and the other end screws onto the antenna .It looks identical to the one shown in the original poster's description and pictures. Dead easy, and it worked well for us, the antenna cable is nice and long so we keep it up in the wheelhouse for best reception.( we have a cruiser made of steel)

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Hi, yes, if you take the back off the phone you will see the small socket where it plugs in, and the other end screws onto the antenna .It looks identical to the one shown in the original poster's description and pictures. Dead easy, and it worked well for us, the antenna cable is nice and long so we keep it up in the wheelhouse for best reception.( we have a cruiser made of steel)

Aha,

 

I bought a more expensive patch cable from Australia, as per the original post. As the phone was also my day to day phone, I was connecting and disconnecting the cable quite regularly until, one day, the connection bit on the phone broke off :( . I bought a new internal and the phone works fine, but I decided not to use it for on board mobile broadband again - not a big loss with hindsight as Three Mobile started to sneakily discontinue All You Can Eat tethering... I now use an unlocked Huawei Mifi with a £20 per month for 15Gb EE data sim which worked well from March. I've actually just cancelled it as I've got the EE Xmas sim with 100Gb per month for 2 months for £10. I'll review things towards mid December, (or February if my wifes sim ever turns up :( ).

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On my last card, EE gave me another 100GB after my month ran out.

 

I'm expecting the same with this new card i started up yesterday!

 

The 4G has worked from the Thames, all the way to Bristol and back, along the whole length of the Thames, The River Wey and now I am in Little Venice, it's signal has diminished, from the 76Mbps i have been used to down to the 18Mbps i have today!

 

I'm a happy chappy!

 

Nipper

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Digging this thread up again, since I am looking into mobile wifi on a boat now and a lot may have changed since last year. I am looking for a mobile wifi solution which is reliable across the canal network, fast (ideally 4G) and offers good data packages. I work in the web world so speed and reliability are more important than cost.

 

Could you lovely people give me some advice on these questions please?

 

- What is the network with the best coverage? This thread talks about Three a lot. I currently have Three on my iPhone and I must say even in London I often have no coverage where everybody else is fine. I heard good things about EE but it was only in London?

 

- I read that it may be better to buy an unlocked mobile wifi router and a SIM only data contract separately. Any router recommendations for good reception? I am not familiar with reception on a boat and whether it's necessary to look for anything specific there.

 

- Any recommendations on big data packages? I want to use streaming etc. so am looking for unlimited or 100GB (saw that from EE).

 

- I thought that it'd be possible to have a package with mobile wifi and also mobile call allowance (i.e. with two separate SIM cards, one for router, one for phone), but haven't found anything. Does this even exist?

 

Thanks so much for any advice.

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Digging this thread up again, since I am looking into mobile wifi on a boat now and a lot may have changed since last year. I am looking for a mobile wifi solution which is reliable across the canal network, fast (ideally 4G) and offers good data packages. I work in the web world so speed and reliability are more important than cost.

 

Could you lovely people give me some advice on these questions please?

 

- What is the network with the best coverage? This thread talks about Three a lot. I currently have Three on my iPhone and I must say even in London I often have no coverage where everybody else is fine. I heard good things about EE but it was only in London?

 

- I read that it may be better to buy an unlocked mobile wifi router and a SIM only data contract separately. Any router recommendations for good reception? I am not familiar with reception on a boat and whether it's necessary to look for anything specific there.

 

- Any recommendations on big data packages? I want to use streaming etc. so am looking for unlimited or 100GB (saw that from EE).

 

- I thought that it'd be possible to have a package with mobile wifi and also mobile call allowance (i.e. with two separate SIM cards, one for router, one for phone), but haven't found anything. Does this even exist?

 

Thanks so much for any advice.

My wife has an iphone on 3 I have a 3 MiFi dongle. When we are at home I can (just) get the internet on the Mifi whereas my wife has to go to the next village to use her phone. so the internet reception does seem better than the phone.

Will you be cruising or on a mooring, if its on a mooring then you need to find which is the best for that spot, if cruising 3 seems to have the best coverage and EE not far behind it.

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