Help maintaining mobile broadband signal

fennor72

I'm looking for some help or suggestions, my head is wrecked with my mobile broadband.
We have always had very poor broadband less than 1mbps, I got sick of complaining to three and got an external antenna last year and have had a year long battle to get a good signal.
Last weekend I put the antenna on to a 15ft pole and put it up against the end of the house, I was delighted to find a signal that was around 20mbps, I left the pole up all weekend and we had brilliant broadband. But Sunday night it dropped back down to 1mbps I played around the settings on the router changing to say 4g only and it came back.
But since then it comes and goes, it does seem to be worse with windy weather. Is there any way of keeping the antenna locked onto the signal, would putting the antenna higher help?
I'm a three customer but my nearest mast is Vodafone which the antenna is pointing at, is it latching onto that mast even though its a different provider.

bobbyy gee

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/04/how-to-choose-an-external-4g-or-5g-mobile-broadband-antenna.html/2

DeconSheridan

fennor72 wrote: »

I'm looking for some help or suggestions, my head is wrecked with my mobile broadband.
We have always had very poor broadband less than 1mbps, I got sick of complaining to three and got an external antenna last year and have had a year long battle to get a good signal.
Last weekend I put the antenna on to a 15ft pole and put it up against the end of the house, I was delighted to find a signal that was around 20mbps, I left the pole up all weekend and we had brilliant broadband. But Sunday night it dropped back down to 1mbps I played around the settings on the router changing to say 4g only and it came back.
But since then it comes and goes, it does seem to be worse with windy weather. Is there any way of keeping the antenna locked onto the signal, would putting the antenna higher help?
I'm a three customer but my nearest mast is Vodafone which the antenna is pointing at, is it latching onto that mast even though its a different provider.

This is what Three broadband is; intermittent. Every few weeks I also need to reboot the router if it takes too long to come back when @ 0Mbps. I also wired any device that not going to be moved using ethernet cable, its a great solution to the wifi headaches especially TV's.

fennor72

DeconSheridan wrote:

This is what Three broadband is; intermittent. Every few weeks I also need to reboot the router if it takes too long to come back when @ 0Mbps. I also wired any device that not going to be moved using ethernet cable, its a great solution to the wifi headaches especially TV's.

Does the additional devices not slow down the router, I've the smart TV wired up, with a security camera and with the kids on the WiFi it does cause buffering.
I fixed the antenna as high as possible on the end of the pole and will see how long the signal is good for.
It does seem to be that the higher I can go the better the signal. But you are right about the signal being intermittent I don't think there is a way around it, we will just have to accept it

ED E

fennor72 wrote: »

But since then it comes and goes, it does seem to be worse with windy weather. Is there any way of keeping the antenna locked onto the signal, would putting the antenna higher help?
I'm a three customer but my nearest mast is Vodafone which the antenna is pointing at, is it latching onto that mast even though its a different provider.

If your antenna is directional then you need to aim it at your network, pointing it at VF is not wise. Its possible they're colocated but use Siteviewer to confirm.

fennor72

ED E wrote:

If your antenna is directional then you need to aim it at your network, pointing it at VF is not wise. Its possible they're colocated but use Siteviewer to confirm.

Yes it seems it was a mistake pointing it in that direction, I fixed the pole to the end of the house yesterday, and pointed the antenna to the nearest 3 mast.
I have tried in the past to get any kind of a signal from that three mast but never could. The height of the antenna obviously helped because I got great speed from it yesterday.
It has stayed there and is stable, but I'll see what it's like in bad weather.
But so far so good

DeconSheridan

fennor72 wrote: »

Does the additional devices not slow down the router, I've the smart TV wired up, with a security camera and with the kids on the WiFi it does cause buffering.
I fixed the antenna as high as possible on the end of the pole and will see how long the signal is good for.
It does seem to be that the higher I can go the better the signal. But you are right about the signal being intermittent I don't think there is a way around it, we will just have to accept it

I don't have them all on / using at the same time, 3broadband is definitely not for multi-family usage as the throughput is too low. The alternative is to have two networks, as in two routers, two separate sims one for kids one for yourselves. It works out fairly well for us.

fennor72

DeconSheridan wrote:

I don't have them all on / using at the same time, 3broadband is definitely not for multi-family usage as the throughput is too low. The alternative is to have two networks, as in two routers, two separate sims one for kids one for yourselves. It works out fairly well for us.

We are doing the same, my wife had to take out a package with eir, because she was working from home and couldn't depend on three.

masterboy123

Could I please check with you if you're getting good enough speed from Eir 4g mobile broadband?

fennor72 wrote: »

We are doing the same, my wife had to take out a package with eir, because she was working from home and couldn't depend on three.

fennor72

masterboy123 wrote:

Could I please check with you if you're getting good enough speed from Eir 4g mobile broadband?

Speed on eir is between 1 to 3 mbps, in one particular area of the house.

DeconSheridan

@fennor72, Curious to know what internal router you have connected to the 4G outdoor antenna and what brand/model is the antenna. Could be helpful to improve our throughput another 10 - 20 Mbps by adding the right external antenna. Also any got yeas or missing components with what you bought..

fennor72

DeconSheridan wrote:

@fennor72, Curious to know what internal router you have connected to the 4G outdoor antenna and what brand/model is the antenna. Could be helpful to improve our throughput another 10 - 20 Mbps by adding the right external antenna. Also any got yeas or missing components with what you bought..

The router is a huawei b525, I don't know what make the external antenna is, last summer we got someone to improve our signal, he installed the external antenna I've now been using.
It seems my set up is fine, it was the direction and the height of the antenna that was causing the problem, since I put the antenna on a pole up on the roof, the signal and speed have stayed strong

naughto

DeconSheridan wrote: »

I don't have them all on / using at the same time, 3broadband is definitely not for multi-family usage as the throughput is too low. The alternative is to have two networks, as in two routers, two separate sims one for kids one for yourselves. It works out fairly well for us.

This is what I have works great no hassle with smart tv tablets ect and i can play the xbox on my own connection.

I have gomo and 3 sim in two routers with home plugs to the xbox.3 network for all the updates and gomo for tvs tablets