Help - 4g hotspot + antenna

[vaud]

Our broadband has gone (affecting a lot of our village) with an ETA of Sunday to repair.

It's gone out a few times recently and I work from home and need some resilience urgently. Now I will look at getting Virgin fibre to give a level of redundancy longer term but that isn't going to happen overnight.

I have 2 phones - Vodafone and O2. Both just about get a 4g signal but it is pretty weak.

Can anyone recommend a good hotspot with external antenna (omni or directional) - I assume I can just drop in the sim card from whichever phone has the best signal? I only use data on it as everything is through Teams, we rarely call each other on phones... I'm assuming an antenna will help (and I can work out where the base station is)

Cost not an issue as work will let me expense it.

Thanks!

[Jenny Tailor]

vaud said:

Our broadband has gone (affecting a lot of our village) with an ETA of Sunday to repair.

It's gone out a few times recently and I work from home and need some resilience urgently. Now I will look at getting Virgin fibre to give a level of redundancy longer term but that isn't going to happen overnight.

I have 2 phones - Vodafone and O2. Both just about get a 4g signal but it is pretty weak.

Can anyone recommend a good hotspot with external antenna (omni or directional) - I assume I can just drop in the sim card from whichever phone has the best signal? I only use data on it as everything is through Teams, we rarely call each other on phones... I'm assuming an antenna will help (and I can work out where the base station is)

Cost not an issue as work will let me expense it.

Thanks!

Poynting directional - Amazon stock them. ( or used to ) - otherwise Ebay.

Oh and a Hauwei 818 or 535. - See the Three mobile broadband thread for hundreds of pages. on this.

Edited by Jenny Tailor on Thursday 12th May 13:35

[matchmaker]

Try these guys

https://www.3grouterstore.co.uk/

I found the Proroute ones pretty good

Draytek are very good as well

https://www.draytek.co.uk/

[GDL]

Jenny Tailor said:

Poynting directional - Amazon stock them. ( or used to ) - otherwise Ebay.

Oh and a Hauwei 818 or 535. - See the Three mobile broadband thread for hundreds of pages. on this.

Edited by Jenny Tailor on Thursday 12th May 13:35

+1 for the B818.
you may not even need an external antenna as its internal ones are very good.
You can also plug a phone into the back to make/take calls using the SIM, so you don't lose a phone while your SIM is in the router.

[vaud]

Thanks - will try for an 818

[mcflurry]

Until the stuff arrives, could you put the phone in a decent signal area of the house,and then hotspot wifi to the computer?

[ArsE82]

Also look to replace your router with one that can take a SIM and will fail over to that if your primary connection goes down. Saves faffing about changing connections etc.

I know Draytek do one. 2862N I think.

[ecotec]

ArsE82 said:

Also look to replace your router with one that can take a SIM and will fail over to that if your primary connection goes down. Saves faffing about changing connections etc.

I know Draytek do one. 2862N I think.

a number of the tp link routers with a usb port will also offer fall over to 4g with a 4g dongle

[vaud]

Hauwei 535 did the trick (standard antenna only)

Vodafone: 7meg up / 4.8 down
O2: 8.3 meg up / 4.5 down

Much improved over phone hotspot.

Thanks all.

[Jenny Tailor]

vaud said:

Hauwei 535 did the trick (standard antenna only)

Vodafone: 7meg up / 4.8 down
O2: 8.3 meg up / 4.5 down

Much improved over phone hotspot.

Thanks all.

Great news that you are sorted.
If you need more speed - a directional antenna will help a lot.
A bit footerie onaligning to your mast - but once locked in - it will do the trick.

[Captain_Morgan]

Jenny Tailor said:

vaud said:

Hauwei 535 did the trick (standard antenna only)

Vodafone: 7meg up / 4.8 down
O2: 8.3 meg up / 4.5 down

Much improved over phone hotspot.

Thanks all.

Great news that you are sorted.
If you need more speed - a directional antenna will help a lot.
A bit footerie onaligning to your mast - but once locked in - it will do the trick.

Though obviously if that cell mast you target goes down for maintenance or another reason you’ll be out of service until you re target or go back to the original antennas

[vaud]

Captain_Morgan said:

Jenny Tailor said:

vaud said:

Hauwei 535 did the trick (standard antenna only)

Vodafone: 7meg up / 4.8 down
O2: 8.3 meg up / 4.5 down

Much improved over phone hotspot.

Thanks all.

Great news that you are sorted.
If you need more speed - a directional antenna will help a lot.
A bit footerie onaligning to your mast - but once locked in - it will do the trick.

Though obviously if that cell mast you target goes down for maintenance or another reason you’ll be out of service until you re target or go back to the original antennas

We will see...

Luckily I have just persuaded my company to open a "touch down" office in our local city from next year so I will have a bigger issue in adjusting to occasionally going into an office as a backup! I might have to create some broadband issues on a Friday afternoon...