Mobile as alternative to ADSL

I've just discovered that we are to be elevated to BT's 'up to 24Meg" service. Let joy be unconfined.....

However, as we currently have an attenuation of circa 57dB, I can't see this doing us much good unless the cables through the village are renewed. They were laid sometime around the mid-70s so since we are around 2.3 miles from the exchange it seems a fair bet there's a lot of aluminium. Part of the village has a high water table so the ducts probably flood which can't help.

So I've started looking at the possibility of taking a punt on mobile. With the advent of 4G within the next two or three years, this may be a fair bet.

Could someone tell me what frequencies this will use? I'm about a mile or so from two masts but don't have line-of-sight to either. Solwise have aerials that cover 820-1000MHz & 1700-2800MHz. Would these also cover 4G and, given no line of sight, which would be the best bet; directional or omni?

Thanks for any help. Even if 4G is a way off, it might be worth testing 3G as a backup/failover.

4G auctions have not taken place, and thus no idea which firms will get which frequencies.

On 3G http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/ra/topics/pmc... gives you the frequency ranges, thus would be the 1700 - 2800 MHz device

Thanks for the reply Andrew. It wasn't so much which Operator gets which frequency as whether they would all be in the same range as the 3G ones EG somewhere between 1700 - 2800Mhz or 820 - 1000MHz

IOW, one of the current 3G aerials would also cover me for 4G.

Edited by Tacitus (Sat 07-Apr-12 18:19:29)

Am expecting both those ranges to be used, Ofcom is favouring changes to digitalTV to allow 700MHz to be used in addition to the 800MHz that is usually favoured for rural coverage using 4g

OK thanks again

Any ideas on whether a directional or omni-directional would be best since I don't have line of sight. As I said I'm roughly equidistant from two towers - about 1-1.25 miles from each and, am looking to mount the aerial on the TV aerial mast as high as I can reasonably get it.

Omnidirectional will never give you as much gain (or rejection of unwanted stuff) as directional. But then again if you're using directional to get stronger signal, you need it to point in the right direction which takes time to set up, and if that mast happens to be out of service the directionality you chose means you'll get an even poorer signal from any other masts that might be within range.

Choosing directional and having to tinker initially to find best alignment may be particularly unattractive if the aerial is relatively inaccessible e.g. on a chimney, unless you can get help doing this job. There are things called aerial rotators which rotate your whole mast, and its attached aerial, via remote control but that's taking it to extremes a bit.

So if an omni works, it would be a whole lot simpler. If it doesn't, life gets harder.

Best of luck anyway.

Sounds like an Omni might be the best bet although I do know someone with the necessary kit for measuring signal strength so setting up a directional one shouldn't be too much trouble.

Thanks for the help both of you - been very informative

We don't have ADSL2+ at the exchange, but even if we did, it would be pointless.

Our poor 3.6km line can't manage a profile better than 1750kbps, so ADSL2+ isn't likely to acheive much if anything on this line nor many other lines, the shortest line is still very long (for DSL) at 2500m+

We've used Three 3G for years. We have a directional antenna on the roof pointing at the 3 cell and it delivers 6Mbps down 1.5Mbps up with a Solwise HSPA router.

With an E367 in the right place, it can do over 11Mbps downstream and 8Mbps is about average but I ended up going for the fixed option since the modem had to go outside to get those speeds, and it didn't like being rained on.

When an HSPA+ router comes on the market I should be able to swap and get back to those 11Mbps+ speeds, contention permitting.

Other option is called a WiBE box which amplifies the signal. Easier to mount, and well regarded. I'd say that's best for a borderline signal area, and a directional antenna is best if you know where the cell is, there is only one, and you can get near line of sight. But, should the operator retire the cell, you'll need to have the directional antenna realigned and it would stop you trying other networks unless coincidentally it happens to point the right way.

Sorry - forgot to address your point about the frequencies:

The one I went for is apparently just within the possible frequency range for 4G services, and it's why I picked that one

http://www.solwise.co.uk/3g-antenna-lpda-0044.htm