Which 4g Antenna

craigy_b

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About 3 years ago we moved out to the country to an old sandstone house. We moved from full fibre broadband to ADSL at 5mbps. Having read some of the other threads on here I think going 4g might be a cost effective way of getting faster speeds. With 2 kids in the house it cant come quick enough.

I had planned to get a Huawei B525 router but with thick stone walls in the house restricting the 4g signal I'll need to get an external antenna which is where i get confused. I had looked at the Poynting A1 but a line of the site says it doesn't work with the latest Three 4g signals. It was Three i had planned to go with for my SIM. My question is which antenna will give me a good boost to my signal without costing the earth and will only certain antenna work with certain networks?
 
I have 2 masts nearby which are for different networks. Both are around 1-1.5 miles away.
 
The issue with the masts and line of site is that there needs to be a fairly clear line of site, no obstructions etc. The problem with that is all kinds off things can affect the signal, buildings, trees and even high sided vehicles (road traffic) for instance. You would need to be significantly higher than the mast for any line of site antenna to be good at getting your signal.

Of the two masts, do you know who's network is on them?

You say you're considering 3, do you know if their signal is good to your premises?

Can you paste a link to the exact Poynting antenna you're looking at please.
 
The masts closest to us are 3 and o2. Both have pretty clear lines of sight over open fields other than a few trees. I borrowed my sons mobile (3) and got a good signal holding it out the window towards the mast, far higher than our landline speeds. Three seem to offer the best unlimited data deals, hence the preference.


This is the antenna I was looking at (with the comment about the 3 signal). It will be a permanent placement against the house wall.
 
On the antenna this one does do 3's 4G
Poynting XPOL-2 Antenna | NetXL

On line of sight and the trees, as long as they are not huge oak like trees, as I guess there is no foliage on them at the moment, you should be okay.

The best place to mount the antenna is up high on the gable or there about's with the shortest run of good quality cable possible, 5 mtrs+5% is recommended max. You could try putting the router upstairs, which is better anyway as the signal propogates better downwards, that way you would probably get the shortest run of cable.

You can then work out the best way to get Wifi to wherever you need it around the house and there are numbers of ways to do that. If you need any advice on getting the WiFi around the house then let us know.

On the router front the Huawei B618 is a flagship product and better than the Huawei B525 you mentioned.
HUAWEI B618 Specifications | HUAWEI UK

The Huawei B818 is their top model, if you can get one, but very expensive.
Huawei B818 (Vodafone Gigacube CAT19) Router Test – 5G Forum for 5G Gadgets & Broadband
 
I f you have not already bought a solution, I would also recommend the

Huawei B715S-23C, about £150 online,.. I moved from the B525 to the 715, as the 715 is 4x4 Mimo rather than the 2x2 of the 525

Using its standard Antenna, I am getting a signal of around 80Mbps down and 30Mbps up.. Which is about. 30% improvement on the 525.. But also its far more stable signal giving a solid 5 bars where the 525 was only 4 bars
 

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