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[Golfer]

Hi - Ive been with 3 mobile and broadband for several years and have had decent service up until now, having recently relocated.  There are 2 masts close by, one at 700 mtrs and the other about 1km.  Our estate appears to be in a dead spot (not just for 3, btw) and I only get 1 bar usually or 2 occasionally on my handset.  WiFi calling helps a bit but the internet is poor - light use works, slowly, but TV streaming is impossible.  We have tall trees between us and both masts which I know will affect reception, so to test, I went to a spot with line of sight to the nearest mast and roughly the same distance away as my property - 5 bars - so the issue is definitely the trees.  I've been back and forth with 3 who've said there's work being done locally (no sign of it!) and we've had to put up with this for a month now. 

Ive researched external antennas and am considering trying one out but am unsure how they work.  So my query is -

I believe you cable the antenna directly to the router (a 3 issued ZTE MF286D with 2 x SMA connectors at rear)?  This, I assume, will improve the signal to the router but will it improve the signal to the phone?  Does it have the capability to broadcast over a limited area or is it the same as a TV aerial in this respect and just supply the signal down the cable?  I know you have to site them as high as possible (in my case bungalow roofline and no higher - local regulation) which would still not give me line of sight to the mast so would I be wasting my money?  So, short of cutting the trees down.......  Ironically, this (new-build) property has FTTP which would certainly sort the internet out but at more than twice the cost I'm paying 3 and I'd still have the problem with the phone signal.

The ZTE only gives limited info  - it's on LTE, has 2 bars on the indicator and reports -104dBm.  I've no idea how to find more stats.

Any insights would be appreciated,

Rich

[Dwight]

This sounds a right dilemma!
Guessing a Chainsaw training course and equipment rental is out of the question.
If your FTTP is OR then I would say convert to that, bite the bullet and VOIP the phone.
Otherwise pop to your local RV seller and see what the recommend as mobile routers are rising in popularity for these things.
But otherwise it is mounting the aerial on the apex of your wall and run the cable inside and to a power socket four your router.
 

[meritez]

Have you got the budget for a ZTE mc7010 from ebay?

[Golfer]

Have you got the budget for a ZTE mc7010 from ebay?

Possibly - how would it help?

However, if the supplied router isn't up to the job, I would expect 3 to step up and provide equipment that fulfills the terms of the contract.

[tubaman]

... if the supplied router isn't up to the job, I would expect 3 to step up and provide equipment that fulfills the terms of the contract.

I think you are being somewhat optimistic with that one. Depending on your contract terms 3 might release you from the contract if you can't get a usable service but I wouldn't expect much else.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Generally I'd recommend a router that is actually embedded in the outdoor antenna as this eliminates signal loss in the cable.  At least I found trying to get WiFi past a tree between me and a property across the road, an antenna alone wouldn't do it but a device designed for point to point WiFi links did.  Of course I have no idea how cellular may differ to this, given its different frequencies.

Is the local antenna 5G capable?  I wonder if switching to a 5G router may help, it seemed to improve my backup Three connection immensely when I did.  At the time my local mast was 830m away with about 12 houses between me and the mast, although its on the local water tower which likely helped, I was still able to pull nearly Gigabit.  A few years back they put a tower closer to me which is even better, somewhat blocked by a single house but reception is great with the router in the house.

[Golfer]

Thanks to all for the replies. 

We've managed to sort out WiFi calling a little so that's improved things somewhat but the overall signal is still relatively poor, despite 3 saying work has been done on the mast. 

@Alex Atkin
Sadly, 5G is not available in this area, nor for the foreseeable, so for the time being we are still at square one!
I've not heard of antenna/router combinations before - can you point to any brands that produce these?
 
@meritez
See the above 

@tubaman
I'm now out of contract with 3, just on a rolling 1 month so it wouldn't be an issue to cancel.  We - wife and self - are very low users so don't need a super-fast connection, just good enough to stream the odd film or series from one of the player platforms.  3 was perfect for us in the past - cheap enough and no limits on downloads so that's why I'd like to stay with them if possible.  Before 3, I had a good deal with Virgin for many years until they decided to double the price without warning - until I swapped to 3, then of course they were happy to keep it at the old price!  Too late  Besides, there's no Virgin available here anyway so.........

[Alex Atkin UK]

Mobile networks are kinda facinating, I'm covered by two Three 5G towers but no 5G on O2 and Vodafone last I checked didn't perform any better on 5G than 4G.  But I digress.

Unfortunately while I know the antenna/router combos exist, I don't really know enough to recommend.  It would depend on if you know exactly where the mast you are connecting to is and possibly what frequencies it is using.  If you are bouncing between multiple towers, then a directional antenna may make things worse as you are only aiming at one of them, if that gets overloaded or goes down, it wont be able to switch over to the other one.

The problem with wiring just an antenna to an indoor unit though is often you lose too much signal in the cable, so it ends up no better than you had before, or even worse.

If you're wanting to improve the signal to the phone too though you'd need a repeater.  I'd be willing to bet these are stupidly expensive though.

In the meantime, do you have the existing router as high up in the house as possible?  It can be worth moving it around the outside wall nearest the tower to see if you can spot the optimal position for reception.

[benji09]

There are quite a few 4G routers that caravan users use to get access to the internet. Kuma products does a router, that comes with a pole mounted aerial, which is not cheap, but might fit your needs......

[Alex Atkin UK]

The beauty with a caravan is you can move it to where there are the least obstructions and the cable run can be kept short.

Its a rather different prospect when trying to pull a weak signal in a fixed property where you need the antenna much higher up to try and get past obstructions in your line of sight.

[benji09]

  Being a caravan person myself, normally you are allocated a position for your caravan on a site by the site admin.
Height is normally the way to deal with a weak signal. But not always. Where I live, there is only one point that I can get a TV signal in my house, and that is one point in the loft. But if I walk around the side of of my house, I can get a very strong signal low down near the ground.
 May be possible to move the  4G router into other rooms of a house, maybe the upper rooms, to get the best signal. Connection via cable, or WiFi to where the internet is needed.     

[Golfer]

Hi again and thanks to everyone who responded.

Having reviewed all of my (limited) options I've decided to ditch 3 Broadband and go with a FTTP provider for internet.  This almost doubles my monthly costs but at least I will have a strong, steady signal for all of my internet needs.  Factor into this the cost of (maybe or not) improving the phone signal then I suppose it's a price worth paying for reliability?

It still leaves me with a phone that sometimes works ok but does have WiFi calling available so hopefully the new router plus WiFi repeater homeplugs will sort that out. I'm unsure if my SIM will work with the new setup but it's an easy job to swap to one that will.

Thanks again for the responses.

Rich

[Alex Atkin UK]

If you absolutely need reliability, then FTTP is the thing to do.  Although its always advisable to have a mobile backup, such as figuring out if there is somewhere you can stick your phone in hotspot mode that still gets enough reception to work if the main broadband ever has issues.

The mobile networks used to offer (likely at a high cost) little mobile transmitters you hook into your home broadband that tunnels back into their network, providing a personal mobile signal.  My understanding was WiFi Calling was supposed to replace this.

[Golfer]

If you absolutely need reliability, then FTTP is the thing to do.  Although its always advisable to have a mobile backup, such as figuring out if there is somewhere you can stick your phone in hotspot mode that still gets enough reception to work if the main broadband ever has issues.

The mobile networks used to offer (likely at a high cost) little mobile transmitters you hook into your home broadband that tunnels back into their network, providing a personal mobile signal.  My understanding was WiFi Calling was supposed to replace this.

Yes, 3 used to offer a device called Femtocell which did as you say but have discontinued it - I assume due to heavy demand!

FTTP goes live today so we shall see.........