In reply to a post by filbert42:

Connecting the external aerial doesn't change the values much but the LTE band changes to B3. I'll probably do nothing for now.

That could give you significant increase in capacity. EE only has 5Mhz wide at band 20 used for long range basic connectivity and calls; often only deployed in rural areas. Most of the UK EE use Band 3 as their base layer for 4G, and in my neighbourhood we have two separate transmissions, both 20 MHz wide. Modern modems that support basic LTE Category 6 should aggregate these and give you 40 MHz capacity. In a rural area with less customers you could only have one transmission on Band 3, but 20 MHz wide is like having a 4 lane motorway, versus the 5 MHz on band 20 is like a farm track.

Speed tests, or downloading large files from Thinkbroadband, should be obviously different.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by filbert42:

Connecting the external aerial doesn't change the values much but the LTE band changes to B3. I'll probably do nothing for now.

That could give you significant increase in capacity. .....

Speed tests, or downloading large files from Thinkbroadband, should be obviously different.

You are quite right. I did some testing and it was a real eye opener! I connected my laptop directly to the Nighthawk, which has an ethernet socket, and tested using the internal and outdoor aerials. There was a massive difference in speeds.

Using the internal aerials I got around 2.3Mbs download and 1.4Mbs upload. When I connected the outdoor aerial, I got much faster speeds. There was a wide variation, the first couple of results were below 20Mbs download but after that, they speeded up, as if there was some settling in going on. After the first two, the download speeds ranged from 29.4Mbs to 67.7Mbs with a mean of 51.2Mbs. Upload was more consistent with a mean of 7.9Mbs.

Downloading large files mirrored these results. Clearly, it’s worth using the external aerial and 4G speeds, even with a less than optimal location, can be a viable alternative to fixed lines

Thanks for all the help, everyone.

In reply to a post by filbert42:

You are quite right. I did some testing and it was a real eye opener! I connected my laptop directly to the Nighthawk, which has an ethernet socket, and tested using the internal and outdoor aerials. There was a massive difference in speeds.

Have you compared this at the same time of day a few times? I'd be interested in that as a lot of speed issued can go up and down on mobile networks due to congestion.
Just wondering about writing something about this.

seb

In reply to a post by seb:

In reply to a post by filbert42:

You are quite right. I did some testing and it was a real eye opener! I connected my laptop directly to the Nighthawk, which has an ethernet socket, and tested using the internal and outdoor aerials. There was a massive difference in speeds.

Have you compared this at the same time of day a few times? I'd be interested in that as a lot of speed issued can go up and down on mobile networks due to congestion.
Just wondering about writing something about this.

seb

I've only one one set of tests so far but both with and without external aerial were at the same time - late morning on a weekday. I intend to do some more.

I've done another set of tests, this time on a Netgear Nighthawk M6, that I got for a "too good to be true" price on eBay (but it seems to work OK). It's 5G capable but, as far as I know, there's no 5G available round here.

Anyway, I got very varying results. The built-in aerial and a Netgear MIMO omnidirectional aerial stuck to the window both gave around 3Mbs, as before. Again, as before, the outdoor aerial gave much faster speeds, ranging from 11Mbs to 95Mbs.. (I didn't think 4G could get to 95Mbs..)

Download speeds, 19th Mar around 2:30pm:
11.1
20.8
25.9
23.2
44.7
28.4
74.0
94.9
32.8
22.6
25.7
18.0
33.9

In reply to a post by filbert42:

I've done another set of tests, this time on a Netgear Nighthawk M6, that I got for a "too good to be true" price on eBay (but it seems to work OK). It's 5G capable but, as far as I know, there's no 5G available round here.

When I looked 5G they were expensiveve .. I had a Nighthawk I think M1 (Well I still have it somewhere) when I moved to a new place some years ago.. it was very variable but I didn't do the external antenna thing,

In reply to a post by filbert42:

Anyway, I got very varying results. The built-in aerial and a Netgear MIMO omnidirectional aerial stuck to the window both gave around 3Mbs, as before. Again, as before, the outdoor aerial gave much faster speeds, ranging from 11Mbs to 95Mbs.. (I didn't think 4G could get to 95Mbs..)
[/qupte]

Wow that's pretty amazing

seb

In reply to a post by seb:

In reply to a post by filbert42:

I've done another set of tests, this time on a Netgear Nighthawk M6, that I got for a "too good to be true" price on eBay (but it seems to work OK). It's 5G capable but, as far as I know, there's no 5G available round here.

When I looked 5G they were expensiveve .. I had a Nighthawk I think M1 (Well I still have it somewhere) when I moved to a new place some years ago.. it was very variable but I didn't do the external antenna thing,

In reply to a post by filbert42:

Anyway, I got very varying results. The built-in aerial and a Netgear MIMO omnidirectional aerial stuck to the window both gave around 3Mbs, as before. Again, as before, the outdoor aerial gave much faster speeds, ranging from 11Mbs to 95Mbs.. (I didn't think 4G could get to 95Mbs..)

Wow that's pretty amazing

seb

The 5G Nighthawks (M6) are phenomenally expensive, IMHO, but I was lucky and got this one for maybe 20% of the new price due to an intermittent Ethernet port - which I can live without. I have done some more digging, and it seems that EE does have some 5G support in this area - described as "Weak coverage" outdoors. The results look like this:

LTE RSRP -114 dBm
LTE RSRQ -15 dB
LTE RS-SNR 4 dB
5G RSRP -103 dBm
5G RSRQ -11 dB
5G RS-SNR 16 dB
Current Radio Band LTE B3
Quality 40 dBm
PS Service Type 5GSUB6
MCC 000

I'm not sure how to interpret these but, for the fallback service that I need when the main broadband goes down, it seems plenty good enough. Clearly, the outdoor aerial is doing its job. I'll do soem more tests from time to time and see what happens.

I might get the "3G" aerial replaced for a better one if I need to get some other work done but it's not worth the expense on its own.

Edited by filbert42 (Fri 21-Mar-25 10:21:31)

In reply to a post by filbert42:

(I didn't think 4G could get to 95Mbs..)

It is a misconception that 4G (LTE) can't do high speeds. In most cases the speed constraints are due to number of concurrent users and/or poor signal either due to distance from mast or due to being on a cell edge or poor uplink from your user equipment to the mast.

I've seen 500 Mbps on 4G, and others have seen higher.