In reply to a post by iainmck:

Different results from each, as there's one transmitter that's in a different direction that the omni is better at picking up, but if the other two transmitters are working, the directional antenna gives us better performance. Unfortunately, neither setup is good enough with very frequent drop outs / changes of transmitter.

If you find transmitters frequently "drop out" then I suspect there is some interference between you. Possibly worse in the winter months with water in the air, than in the summer months, as over longer distances it seems water absorbs the higher frequencies. (we are only talking 800 MHz, previously used for television, but at very low power, as the mast has to hear you, as well as you hearing the mast).

You have a fairly ok EE signal on 4G, it’s not a black spot at least. Based on the predictions it seems to be borderline indoor/outdoor and it won’t be subject to the slow speeds of band 20.

I’d get an EE PAYG sim and see how that performs outdoors. EE now offer unlimited data sims.

EDIT: Their signal predictions can sometimes be way off, I’ve known them have an area down as indoors and then a new mast is put up right there as indoors there’s nothing... so take it with a pinch of salt, but computer says yes currently.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 01-Dec-20 22:09:07)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

If looking to buy new, the OnePlus Nord is a highly specified device that is a lot cheaper than Bob's OnePlus 8 Pro.

I agree. The Nord range didn't exist when I bought mine. I think mine was an upmarket jump to fill the Trump-created Huawei P series gap. The Nords then came out to retain the much lower-priced area OnePlus started in.

One version to beware of though is the Nord 100, which is very affordable from John Lewis's at the moment. It does not have 5G, topping out on 4G (I assume LTE but haven't checked).

I bought the OnePlus Nord earlier this year moving from iPhone. It is a great phone.

One of the big reasons I bought it was it was "close" to stock Android and promised at least 2 Android version updates and OnePlus have historically been quick to bring them out. Unfortunately OxygenOS 11 is more like Samsung than stock Android by all accounts (not sure that will worry me too much) but also there still isn't even an open beta for OxygenOS 11 on the Nord so who knows when the full release will be - taking way longer than I expected and starting to wish I had gone Google Pixel.

My 8 Pro updated to Android 11 on 19 November, with a further upgrade now forecast soon.

Indeed they have done the 8 Pro way ahead of the Nord. Nord is in limited closed beta at the moment and has been for a while with no sign of even open beta being available.

External antenna's are something of a mugs game. You can very easily loose more signal on the cable run than you gain from the antenna, and coming ahead is tricky.

If you have a poor signal then the Mikrotik SXT LTE6 would be a better choice. Basically this is an external modem/router where the antenna is hooked directly up to the modem. So the opportunity for signal loss between the antenna and the modem is virtually eliminated.

The downside is it is directional so you have to pick a mast. For even more extreme fringe there is the Mikrotik LHG LTE6 kit with a thumping 39cm diameter parabolic dish.

Both of these devices then hook up using some ordinary (well exterior grade would be sensible) ethernet cable which can also supply the power to the device. This willl be full speed for any distance up to 100m. You would need to sort out the WiFi separately.

So mix one of the above with say a Netgear GS108PE switch to power the Mikrotik and then say some ceiling mounted PoE WiFi access points, powered from the switch too. I am a fan of the Ubiquiti range myself. They have an excellent piece of software where you can do floorplans, put in wall types etc. and then play around with access points to work out where you need to situate your WiFi access points get good coverage everywhere.

None of this is going to come cheap and as others have pointed out it could be that the mast is congested. However it is probably your best bet to get a decent speed. Note that you could use the supplied PoE injector and re-purpose an old router as a WiFi access point but don't expect great results doing so.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

External antenna's are something of a mugs game. You can very easily loose more signal on the cable run than you gain from the antenna, and coming ahead is tricky

That is a good idea, but I think the signal measurements show the indoor signal is as good as a handset outside.

Easy to test, using a SIM from the same network, stand outside the building with a mobile phone on the same side of the building as the antenna, and do a few speed tests.

then the Mikrotik SXT LTE6 would be a better choice.

If it is a signal problem, which I think the rest of the discussion ruled out, given the measurements. It is a speed problem given good signal, so one of the ideas for next steps is to see if any other network provides coverage that is under less load.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

External antenna's are something of a mugs game. You can very easily loose more signal on the cable run than you gain from the antenna, and coming ahead is tricky

That is a good idea, but I think the signal measurements show the indoor signal is as good as a handset outside.

However a SXT LTE or the LHG will get a better signal than a handset outside.

In reply to a post by iainmck:

Hi ukhardy07, thanks. Interesting. I do know our nearest neighbours are very heavy users; both regularly on video calls for their work, so maybe contention is a significant part of the problem. Our postcode is DD7 6LW, although it represents a particularly wide geographical spread and a lot of variation in mobile coverage, so it may not be most helpful. I've submitted a lot to cellmapper.net in recent weeks but always hooked up to Vodafone on my phone at the time, so I'm not too clear on the other providers until I get some PAYG SIMs and an old phone to run around with (on my todo list now!).

Perhaps some cooperation with your nearest neighbours to use different providers or directional antenna pointed at different masts. If you are having problems they are likely to be having problems too. Shame the R100 postcode checker does not give any useful information.