Learning the Hard Way: Overhauling Our 4G Mast for Max Internet Speeds-Off grid day 50
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Part 1 • Beating Starlink inter...
Part 3 • Rural Internet Setup R...
In this follow-up video, we're upgrading and revamping the 4G internet mast setup after receiving lots of helpful comments on the first video. We're replacing the flimsy mast with a sturdier pole, running armored cable, and testing out a new outdoor router with different antennas.
The main goal is to see how far we can push the internet speeds by testing the setup at various locations around the site. We'll be troubleshooting issues, swapping components, and trying different configurations to maximize download and upload speeds.
Despite the challenges, this is a learning experience as we tackle understanding signals, antennas, and the factors influencing rural internet performance. By the end, we settle on a simpler ethernet cable solution after much trial-and-error.
Whether you're looking to improve your rural internet or just curious about this DIY project, come along for an insightful ride full of valuable lessons learned along the way. Let's see what speeds we can achieve!
3G internet-www.three.co.uk/broadband/hom...
Starlink- www.starlink.com/residential?...
Directional antenna-www.netxl.com/directional-ant...
Point to point wifi-www.broadbandbuyer.com/produc...
Socket set-www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-25-Pi...
Router-www.outdoorrouter.com/product...
Router-www.broadbandbuyer.com/produc...
POE extender-www.senetic.co.uk/product/DN-...
Website-www.offgridscotland.co.uk/
Facebook- / offgridscotland
Instagram- / offgridscotland123
00:00 Intro
01:00 Replacing the mast
01:04 Point to Point wifi
05:17 Test 1
06:17 Test 2
07:16 Test 3
08:42 Test 4
10:57 Retest 1
11:56 Retest 2
12:11 Retest 3
13:11 Antennas
15:11 What have we learned
16:49 Cat 18 Router
19:06 Running ethernet
23:50 Terminating
27:58 Results
29:39 Visiting the main mast - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
As a network engineer all this trial and error and money thrown away pains me somewhat, but at the same time it's interesting to follow the journey...
Same, having worked even in retail in telco for over a decade, i'm not even half way through and i'm shouting at my screen haha! I hope it gets better by the end of the video
yeah i work as Head of IT for a company, the problem is stuff like this get's very expensive very quickly, also why i learnt Enterprise Firewalls (i use Watchguard) and Ubiquity for the Switching and Wireless :D
He should go do a test next to the mast that he’s trying to get the signal from, just make a local network, local is the only way to get real results, pop up a temporary receiver next to the mast
@@SignedAdamhe did at the end 32:06
Thanks I was considering editing most of it out but then it would have been a very short video as only the final 5 minutes was me not messing it up
Hi, I noticed you are using CAT6 Ethernet cable (up to 1000Mbps up to 100m) with a POE extender to get up to a 200m cable run to your mast on the hill setup. However the spec on your POE Extender is only 10/100Mbps (Long Range PoE Extender 10/100 Mbit ideal for harsh outdoor environment, up to 100Mbps) therefore you will only ever get up to 100Mbps over this cable run. I would look into a POE extender that can run at up to 1000Mbps to get more than 100Mpbs over your cable run, if you are receiving more that this at your mast setup. Hope that helps out.
Given he has run power up there, I would prob just run a pre-terminated fibre cable terminated into CAT6/SFP media converters at each end instead. No need for poe range extenders then, also no issues with power surges going along the outdoor Ethernet cable.
@@TomMorris1adding a +1 to this hoping it gets seen. Fibre for the network is the way to go now power is run IF the cellular
Speed can be improved with a different network. Otherwise it’s a ton of work and more money for 20% more download speed he said wasn’t as important as upload.
@@anthonyjobson In practice though higher speed will likely also be lower ping and latency? That benefit will still be passed on and likely will make for a connection that feels more reliable to the end user
Coz of the power cable he could just try some 1000mb powerline boxes. Should get decent speed on it's own circuit and literally end to end. Easiest and cheapest way to get a faster connection the 100mb. But I totally agree about fibre too. Fibre would be best. Just extra cost.
6 is a lot of cats, but i suppose he lives in the country so there must be loads of mice
I'm glad you finally ran a speedtest close to the tower. 4G isn't some wonder WiFi technology. Getting close to 100Mbps down is fantastic with your remote location, and that price point. Of course, Starlink would most likely crush it, but the cost is exorbitant. Great job getting what you've got with low monthly investment!
The other limiting factor is number of other users. Also just think of it like a water pipe line the fastest it can flow is limited by the narrowest point, testing at the mast eliminates all other factors other than demand on the system, if you find a variation depending on time of day then other users demand may be a factor. It's a complex and complicated system there may be any number of limiting factors happening before the transmitter at the mast.
It's also not a bad speed for normal home internet setup, so getting those speeds with a data plan and that remote is pretty good. I wonder if a load balancing router with multiple data plans connected to it would increase the total up and download speed.
the poe extender is limited to 100mbit, that's why his download speed is close to 100 instead of the 120 he was getting at the top
@@albert_vdsa load balancing router quite does not work like that for a single user, it's only for bigger networks with multiple users.
Also depends of his speed on his data plan.
He's had Starlink before but his speeds weren't as good as they should have been.
For me, the biggest factor is probably latency. 50+ms is pretty bad in my opinion, this can affect speeds of loading websites etc
5G is better in this regard but Starlink would be the superior setup here, it is expensive but if your business depends on it, then it's a good expense.
Don't get why his download speeds were as bad as they were with Starlink as I know people who got much better results at a similar latitude
Glad your signal is now at a usable speed.
Looking forward to your next video there very informative and interesting
Thanks!
Honesty is the best policy - thanks for your openness! 🏴
Thanks Peter
The likely reason for the 120mbit cap was the reason that the tower you have only has one or two bands witch don't play well together in carrier aggregation as that is what makes CAT18 faster than CAT6 is that CAT18 support 4 CA and cat 6 support 2CA and cat 18 supports some extra spacial stream mumbo jumbo that make it fast, but it needs band availability and also the cell tower has to support those feature.
What bands are available you can check on a phone with an app like cell mapper where you will be able to see available bands and also support the open source community that maps cell tower and the bands they support.
It could may as well be that the tower he is testing on is a repeater tower with a wireless link to another tower, hence the lower connection speed right at the base. It's quite common in rural areas where running fiber to each tower is infeasible. Could be a fancy pants 5G tower but with a slower back haul you will still be limited.
He mentioned the bands on the first video
Mentioning does not mean checking. A 4G rotuer can connect up to 5 bands at once, sometimes they can connect to multiple slices (usually 2) of the same band. Let's just say cellular is very f in complicated. I've been working in the industry in an LTE router manufacturer for 2.5 years (not sales, help me god) and still learn about new levels of complexity, much less understanding them.
Yeah, relaying could also be an option for the slow speeds, however, from the bands shown, at least band 3, which is one of the fastest ones is available, so that's a good sign, at least it's not those 800MHz bands that don't really have speed.
Would be fun to know his band scan on that area
Ah ok I wanst aware they had to communicate beteen bands, I tried to force band 1 and it doesnt like it only band 3 so what you say makes sense. We had bands 1 3 20 28
You did some good work here. On the numbers you didn't know.. RSSI is Received Signal Strength Indication, but ignore that. For 4G you look at RSRP Received Signal Received Power, which is the Signal of your mast, RSRQ Received Signal Received Quality and SNR Signal to Noise Ratio. Your earlier screen shot showed rsrp of some -80 (dBm decimal related to 1 miliwatt) but most importantly an snr of 10dB. Those 2 are very strong and decent, consistent with line of sight and antenna setup. Actually the speed you get is based on the router reporting back the value of that snr essentially, upon which the mast gives you a certain speed. However, that speed is dependent on a number of factors NOT in your control, including cell load (how many other people using mast at same time) and its backhaul speed (the speed from mast back to the network computers). Lot people trying to use the mast with a slow backhaul means you get a small share....
Yup, although a lot of folk will try and maximise power, but you can end up with too much power or with a big antenna capturing more noise as well.
So signal to noise ratio, or 'quality' is always the most important factor.
Thank you it was a bit frantic as the tests werent behaving the way I expected. That is some great information and explains what I was/am dealing with now so thank you
@offgridscotland np. I noticed I made mistake. Rsrp is reference signal received power not received signal... I won't bore you with details ha ha.
Many thanks. Massive effort well done. A big take away is check rate at the transmitter first for benchmark. It seems so easy when you think about it, but well done for sticking with the problem.
Thanks it was a headache to work through but I am glad its done now
Very interesting journey!
Thank you very much
Very interesting and apprecieted. Also Scotland here and many years ago considered a 4G router up high on the roof to improve upon the dire BT broadband. Didn't end up doing it as the community set up a wireless internet service which was fantastic, cheers!
Wow thats amazing! I am glad you managed wired as at least it should be fairly stable
I'm amazed at what Internet speed you get up there with mobile networks. Thumbs up!
Be reminded that your mobile station has limited amounts of frequencies/channels to use, and you're sharing that with everyone around that mobile station.
You might get better or worse speeds depending on time of the day and speed might go down the more people in your region use this mobile station. Same with Starlink by the way.
Thanks! Others have said the main mast is limited to 100mbs so I think it might be that
Thanks so much for sharing your warts-and-all experience. Full credit to you for dumping what wasn't working and using that learning experience to move on. It's not relevant to your situation, but I discovered recently that you can run ethernet up to 2.5 Gbps down a coax cable using MoCA adapters. Good to know in older properties where there is coax cabling.
Thanks not everyone liked that I was having a go at someting I diddnt know how to do but I wanted to share it anyway.
Glad you improved the speed quite a bit! I do quite a bit of work with 4G broadband. there are so many things to consider! I would agree with others that 120mbps is pretty good for 4G, (though i have seen speeds of 300+). The catagory of modem usually makes the biggest difference in speed; Cat18 supports up to five aggregated "channels" or "bands; however even on top of this the modem itself will have its own set of "Band Configurations" i.e. what Bands and subsequent orders it can aggregate together.
ive seen 400+ on 5G but when i speedtest on 5G i get about 20mbps 😂 just the same as 4G lol
@@matthewella8280 Sounds like either your mast isn't actually broadcasting 5G but is setup to be the base node in a 5G connection which yes is a thing and yes most phones will incorrectly state it's 5G or your 5G is a repurposed 4G band.
Thanks I had a play with the bands in the conclusion video so it seems as though we have the best speeds we can get at the moment
Great video thank you , depending on cost I would get a spare cable to run up the hill for when it gets chewed cut or brakes and as mentioned below an anti lightning/surge bit of kit if there iis such thing once again brilliant video .
I am waiting for it to happen, I have a backup router to swap the sim to at the barn if we need it in an emergency at slower speeds while I find the problem. Thanks!
Over 120 DL and 46 UL is pretty bloody amazing. I don’t get even close to that with a wired connection. You are in remote Scotland!! I’d be very happy with that. I’m unsure of what your expectations were?
Quite. I live in area with VDSL where i'm not close to the green box and best I can get is 20Mbit down and1 Mbit up. This guy is incredibly lucky to get those speeds in rural scotland and probably only because there will be less contention on the mast than in urban settings.
not only low contention, but very rural places have quite recent rollout so the it is recent spec. Same in parts of rural Africa - as the systems roll out they get far better than UK town and city speeds
@@gordslater Makes sense. Sometimes later is better.
Thank you very much
Used to do Mobile radio for the Army..)) Internet via radio transmission will vary dependent on other customer use, taking bandwidth will not be infinite from a cell site mast.
Your numbers today may not be the same tomorrow, and you might find the weather plays a part.
Plus...the owner of the cell site mast may vary the output of data available from the site dependant on other factors, ie- internet delivery to other locations.
The mast electronics at the site will have a set Data speed output, hence your stalling at no more than 120mbs, and its just the way 4G data transmits over radio.
Get it the best you can, it wont ever be as stable as Wired Telephone or Fibre Optic but as long as you get what you need for the price you want to pay.
Excellent I am hearing good tips from ex signals chaps from the Armed forces. Thank you very much
Haha I cheered at 16:45 when someone mentioned the LTE Category as being important 😊 had a feeling you weren't getting Carrier Aggregation, which is only supported on higher Cat levels, big boost in speed.
But only if the nearby mast supports multiple-channels... I suspect his speed is now that max he's going to get either because of aggregation limitations or simply that the backhaul from the mast is itself not the fastest...
I was so relieved when someone pointed it out. Others have said that I have to check the frequency of the mast and match the router so I think thats my next task
i take it even after re-doing this, you're still saving in the long run over the cost of starlink
Yea after selling the bits I diddnt need on ebay we are in for about £400 and £10pcm so at £70 pcm for starlink + £200 for selling the starlink kit it wont take long to recoup the cost.
@@offgridscotland I'm running both Starlink for the family to use, alongside a 4G router specifically for uploads. The problem with Starlink (beside the cost) is the capped upload speed of 10Mbit, compared to my cheap Smarty (Three) 4G router that easily uploads at 40-50Mbit off-peak. I think you've finished up with a very useable setup - like you say the upload speeds are important for content creators and your download speeds will be way more than enough for what you're needing.
After working in all different types of networking for a number of years I agree it defiantly seems like you are hitting a threshold. You have checked everything I would have done myself personally however there is one last thing you can check.
The POE injector at 6:19 and 17:28 that is powering your router is the only part left I can see that you haven't changed.
I have seen these deployed countless times in the field with clients reporting poor speeds (Sub 100 megabit) and usually it is as a result of these injector being only 10/100 (Fast Ethernet) not 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) for the price of a gigabit POE injector I would definitely recommend trying it because best case scenario you will see an increase in your speeds.
One thing to mention also there is different types of POE that these injectors can supply so ensure you read the datasheet for your router and make sure the injector matches what this data sheet tells you.
Thanks you are right the POE injector is limited to 100mbs so that is certainly a bottleneck
I run Three broadband and the one thing that really helped me was to change the APN to 3internet in the settings. This will give you more of a fixed external IP address. Otherwise every time Three disconnects it will give you a new IP address which causes problems when logging into places or if you’re a web developer like me, FTPing. Another thing you can do is change the TTL setting so Three think you’re a mobile phone which may prevent you being throttled.
Ok I will have a look and see if mine has that setting
At least you now have the peace of mind knowing that you've tried it all and found the best case for your location.
I was so glad to get it concluded it was keeping me up at night!
Good stuff, very interesting
Thanks
Hi great video,I have done a lot of testing in low signall areas in Donegal ireland,maybe you already know this ,on your gateway router only enable 4g switch off 3g and everything other signal you will not use this can help alot and make everything more stable.
Thanks I will check if that is already done or I need to do it myself
I’m still convinced that the double yagi antenna is going to be slowing you down! Try single!
SNR: Signal to noise ration
RSSI: Received signal strength indicator
One should check the RI (Rank indicator) value reported by the modem. If it's as many as many antennas are connected, than it's OK, but even if it's less, it shouldn't slow things down.
Either only the band3 is available, or carrier aggregation is not enabled, or carrier aggregation is not enabled on other bands on the modem-router.
Yes, the two aerials will be doing more harm than good
Thanks those definitions help to explain what they are
Have you considered the MikroTik LHG LTE kit? It comes with an high gain directional antenna.
And the p2p should be faster then your LTE connection if proper configured. Specially in an rural envoirement....
But.. You can also order a armored fiber cabel? If you are running a cable anyway?
The mikrotik dish works great but if I remember it has a 100mb ethernet port so maxes out
Others have also mentioned it so I will have a look thanks for letting me know.
12:05 reason for same speeds both behind the trees and in front of them is that there's no line of sight anyways to the mast - the ground rises up between the trees and mast - so the trees actually scatter some signal down to the house.
Without line-of-sight (and a clear fresnel zone, to be strictly correct) then both sides of the trees rely on either reflections or diffraction scattering so they give much the same result.
That makes sense thank you
There is new armoured cable called EV ultra.
This is 4mm or 6mm (or larger) 3 core armoured cable which has a cat 5/6 cable as a fourth core.
This cable would allow you to run power and ethernet in one cable as well as manage the router settings remotely by logging in to the router from the far end.
This would also give you power - allowing a local light etc (you could put a waterproof consumer unit in the enclosure
Thats amazing thank you so much for pointing it out. I just googled it to have a look and I will definitely be using this in a future project
You've arrived at the correct conclusion. With 40+ years experience as a telecoms engineer, now working mostly on mobile technologies, I'd say that the speedtest figures you're seeing are pretty much as I would expect. Without going into too much detail, I run similar 'before and after' tests on a regular basis, mostly to prove that whatever upgrade work I've just carried out at a site hasn't actually made things worse! To put your mind at rest I'll quote you some of my actual recent up/down test figures: 158/43, 31/14, 51/28, 209/52, 107,60, 84/41, 118/43. Results can vary greatly, and are dependent on a whole lot of different factors, but I'd say that about 100/45 is a fair average for 4G. No amount of Ubiquiti kit or Cat6 cabling and POE injectors will ever pull more out of your local cell site than it's capable of delivering.
Thank you so much for pointing this out I was going slightly mad thinking I was missing something
Getting 100mb average download in your location is the best it'll get. That's all I get in the city amongst multiple high speed masts. 4G tops out around 160mb. You'd need 5G for consistent 250mb speeds.
Ah thanks for letting me know, at least we are getting as much as we can
Nice one speeds are not to bad for where your located could be alot worse. interesting video again
Thank you James
Given the cost of the Cat 6 cable you would look at link aggregation at your mast, though am not entirely sure about the power requirement of a router that supports link aggregation. Link aggregation often (but not always) requires some ISP support to avoid simply having 2x40 upload (which is load balancing) rather than the 1x80 you would be looking for with link aggregation. It is theoretically possible to link aggregate through 2 different providers but it means splitting the load and recombining in a server in the cloud - which is definitely more complex (unless some has packaged it - they probably have)
I am going to have to look into Link aggregation a bit more to get my head around it. Thank you
Ok, so yes, overcomplicated. And basically, the speed a 4g provider can provide in a particular area, is pretty much what you will get unless there is some kind of deflection interfering (for example a steel roof or whatever.) We found this out as we have a 4g router in our camper van (we had to have external aerials due to faraday effect of the van itself), but being a mobile vehicle we have tested it all round the UK. The cheapest aerials turned out to work just as well as the very expensive ones, and the expensive ones still failed if the signal was crap. Basically you rely on the providers aerials and not much you can do about that. Possibly putting a 100 foot pole up might help, but somewhat doubtful on that. But you learned a lot and always fun to watch. Tim
Oh and the irony that sometimes our mobiles would do better than the router. but yes you found out about the CAT thing with routers. Does make a difference, but not if the signal is crap anyway. I think they are up to CAT22 now but don't quote me. Mostly aimed at 5g anyway I think to fry your brain. lol
Oh and BTW while it may seem obvious elevation doesn't always seem to make a difference. So maybe that comment about the hill reflecting could be correct. The only thing I can say for sure, is wifi and 4g doesn't like metal. Have you thought of doing your own interviews? Your channel seems to be taking off, so for instance interview a guy who knows this shit?
And looking at other comments, yes, complain to 3 as I know all ISPs throttle unless you complain. (worked as IT consultant for years installing this shit).
As an example I still get elderly clients only on 2mb and paying more than me. Wankers
Have you run a baseline test of the speed of the link between the tower and your end location using iperf3?
Have you got a surge protecter on your cable just on the off chance of a lightning strike?
No I will have to look into that, I have earthed the cable up at the mast though
I'm really enjoying your journey. just out of interest what speed are you getting on your phone from the layby?
I diddnt take it up (its my wifes phone as mine doesnt have internet) I will try it next time we are both together inb the car.
@@offgridscotland ah cool, it will be interesting to see if the phone can take better advantage of 4g+/ carrier aggregation. When i went 4g broadband a few years back it was difficult to find an affordable router that was optimized to UK frequencies and get 4g+ running.
Very interesting video.
Don't forget that you share the total speed of the telecommunications tower with other users.
For example, living in the city, I get about 130 mbps speed at night, but during the day during peak hours, I get only 14 mbps, because more people are using it at that time, :)
Ah yea I suppose we do. Luckily there arent much people here to share it with
Because of the corrosive nature of the Scottish weather. I highly recommend covering every joint with Denso tape. My experience doesn’t matter what the IP rating is in Scotland it will get in and rot. Denso tape completely prevents this and it’s so cheap.
I haddnt heard of denso tape before but now I have and it looks amazing!
When you go close to the mast, what speeds are your phones getting? - You could be reaching the limitations of the mast. At home in the outskirts of London, I get 415/15 down/up on 5G, but only 8/7 on 4G. Your pings and jitter are good though (ping is how long it takes you to reach the destination when you're not using the full capacity, jitter is when you are using full capacity, so they are normally higher). I get idle 22/84/85 idle/down/up on 5G, on 4G it's 25/88/57.
I diddnt take the phone with me. I havent been able to repruduce the 200 download I once got so I am not sure that wasnt a fluke speed. I diddnt know what ping and jitter meant so thanks for letting me know!
You can try a passive repeater with 3 yagi beams so you don't need power to the antenna site:
To set up passive repeaters with Yagi beams for 4G without power on the repeater site, first, select two locations with a clear line of sight. Install Yagi antennas at both locations, ensuring one is pointed towards the cell tower to capture the 4G signal, and the other is directed towards the cabin/house. Place another yagi at the cabin/house and point it towards the repeater site.
Connect the Yagi antennas at the repeater site using coaxial cables, keeping the cable length as short as possible to minimize signal loss. Fine-tune the alignment of the antennas for optimal signal reception and transmission, adjusting based on signal strength readings.
After installation, conduct thorough testing to gauge the improvement in signal strength and coverage.
While passive repeaters can extend coverage, it's important to note that they may not provide as strong or reliable a signal as active repeaters powered at the repeater site.
Thank you very much for this its so useful! I will copy it to my saved info so that I can have a go with it once I get the time
Is there more than 1 service provider in the area? You could try a different SIM and see although some network providers utilise the same masts in some areas.,
Also, it may not be your connection to the mast that is the issue, the mast will only have a certain amount of connectivity on the backhaul to the main data network. What speed do you get on, on your phone, do you get next to / near the mast?
Thanks some others have said that 3 is the best provider for the mast we are on so that is good but I really wanted to try another provider as well to see how it compared
@@offgridscotland To check your local network links, do a large file transfer locally from PCs either side of the link. Try it both ways. This way you can cnecle out which part of the network is slow.
Smarty, which is a Three MVNO claim to not to employ any data shaping or network throttling. They are really cheap too with no contract. Might be worth trying them.
It would help to know which providers the mast serves. I can get well over 200/90 with Smarty 4g BTW. ( if i am close to the mast)
I can say Smarty is pretty good, have used it for about a year now on Unlimited for £18/month and have consumed multiple Tb's of data. Not noticed any throttling at all but the speeds definitely dip during the day that consistently go above 100Mb in late evening. Guess that's just the amount of people streaming data to and from the mast.
Ok thanks I will have a look into them
I reckon your doing ok for 4G with that. Certainly better now youve ran the ethernet cable, your connection from the house would be horrendous when weather is bad using the wifi link over that distance
I am pleased to have ditched the wifi link. It was such a pain to set up I could see many issues arrising in the future
also, next time you drive up by the antenna, try using your phone to do a speed test
I had a go in the next video and it was slightly faster
15:15 In case this helps clear stuff up:
- Your "G"s are relevant to *cellular/mobile* connection i.e your Three internet connection and simply stands for "Generation" e.g 4G - 4th Generation, 5G - 5th Generation etc. Newer is better (faster, more reliable) and 4G is basically good enough for home internet.
- "GHz" refers to the frequency of the wireless signal and for most purposes, this is *WiFi* we're talking about i.e the connection between your router and laptop/computer. There's only really two choices here, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, the latter is faster, but tends to have less range when there are obstacles between the transmitting devices.
- A Byte is 8 Bits: it's simple as that! 1 Megabyte (1MB) is 8 Megabits (8Mb). The reason why you often see storage denoted in Bytes (MB/GB) and download speeds in Bits per second (Mbps/Gbps) is simply because the marketing people at Internet providers realised it would allow them to quote a bigger number! (12.5MBps doesn't sound quite as good as 100Mbps, does it? 😅)
5G is faster, but it's not for rural areas. 5G is closer to WiFi so fast but very short range. The countryside is never going to get 5G in any meaningful way, it would require far too many masts to make it viable. Lets see what 6G has to offer...
Aha thank you
Nice
thanks
Ya might wanna consider an optical link between your termination at the house and your internals to avoid any lighting visits to your pc's ethernet port.
Agreed, if lighting strikes that CAT6 cable in the ground then it might well make it back to your home router, and fry that, or pass that on to your PC. You might want to consider an inline surge protector for the ethernet.
I have no experience of using these myself mind. I think if you were to go down the optical route, you definitely need armored, but armored optical cable really won't be cheap.
Based upon what you have spent so far, I'd stick with the CAT6 cable, but add grounding / surge protectors on at each end.
I do agree with others it seems that the bottleneck is clearly the connection to 4G mast.
Great video, really enjoyed it.
Thanks I will have a look into it, or others have mentioned a surge protector so I might do that one for now
If you want to max out the LTE tower, you need to use the antenna gain from your YAGI antennas to widen the signal to noise gap. By this, you can transmit more "bits" per MHz. The bits are modulated with more or less sophisticated methods (this is "the class" of the router). The distance does not matter so much if you have a good signal to noise ratio. You can easily use the ubiquity downlink into your house and avoid the problem with the long LAN cable (it's max specified length is 70m +- depending on the quality of the cable and the network cards on both ends). The POE adapter is feed with the power from your house. It sends/forwards the power it gets into the next part of the LAN line. At the same time, it receives the data and repeats/regenerates it. Obviously, your repeater is limited to 100 MBit. Please be aware that it is as important on how the tower can receive you - if you see the tower with 4 "bars", it does not mean, that the tower sees you with with "4 bars", too.
Thanks! thats so much useful information now I know a little more about antennas and POE adapters
Put the antenna on a mast 3-5 or higher.
Sometimes when im camping and there is no coverage i put my modem(iphone) in a plastic bag stick it to a 4-5 meter stick and put it up. All of sudden i got internet.
Thats amazing I diddnt think about putting a phone on a stick when camping
take note of the rssi - Received Signal Strength Indicator
RSSI stands for Received Signal Strength Indicator. It's a measurement of the power level that is received by an antenna from a wireless device, like a router or mobile phone. The RSSI value indicates the strength and quality of the wireless signal being received. this will help with findind the sweet spot rf is a wonderful beast, i could go on being about lots of your setup being a it and a licensed radio amatuer, but you need to find the best signal strenght / rssi everywhere and with you directional antennas polatrity matters so most mobile masts have vertical omni antennas so you would normally be better aligning you directional antennas vertically to "align" with remote site (this is in reference to the directional antennas as all omni should really be mounted vertically)
I mentioned the yagi's polarity 3 times now. some numpty told him otherwise tut.
Ah thank you
form mikrotik LHG LTE18 kit or ATL LTE18 wich is better with 4x4 MIMO but same prise with GPER for POE may be 2x its not so expensive but you will have exellent resultat ... it's not expensive and it's testing and have good result
Thank you
What speeds do you get on your mobiles from the same locations?
Watch his 1st video, 200/50 on phone, 110 on first router ... basically he is just throwing money away 🙃
I took it up to the mast in the conclusion video and got 115 and 50 so a little faster but not much
Yeah the general maximum is around 100mbps for 4g. So you are getting good signal from your land already. I am moving semi rural and I will be hoping to get connected to a 5g mast 3 miles away from our new home, although there won't be direct line of sight. With tests near the mast, 1000mbps should be possible, but I would be happy with 100+ if I can pick up on the 5g signal with a 5g poynting antenna mounted to the chimney. Worst case scenario I can get good line of sight to a 4g mast also 3 miles away in a different direction, but wouldn't expect much more than around 60mbps based on tests nearby.
Thats great you have 5G avaliable, I hope you have some success with the speeds good luck
Great video and learning curve. TBH Cat5e would have worked just as well seeing that you not running the cable outdoor alongside any mains or low voltage power. As an extra precaution you could put cable laid outside into some flexible or solid 20mm conduit. for flexi conduit i would advise to suck a grass trimmer 'draw line' using the 'vacuum' technique found online. Perhaps you could contact BlueSpot Networks for any further advise to check your positioning or further advise as they have helped me also
Thanks! I wasnt too sure which I should have used with cat6 or 5e. The conduit is a great idea
@@offgridscotland better mechanical protection in a conduit will make the installation last longer and ensure that any wildlife dont take a peck or nibble at the cable and any weathering (even though its our door rated) . Keep up the content. Perhaps the Unifi wireless beam may have got you better results to beam the internet to your office space. oh well, hard wired is the way to go!
you could do load balancing by combine 2 bandwidth input into 1 to create an enhanced bandwidth output
Thats a great idea I will have to look into how to do it
Don't get locked into thinking LOS is a must, the signal spreads out. But great experiment non the less ....costly scenarios. Might you think about moving house to opposite side of hill? Incredibly good speeds 100+mb & 30/40mb up jealous
Thanks It was a bit manic trying to get it all into a video that made sense with all the testing and retesting I had to do
Zyxel is really good. Mikrotik just after that
Thanks Its good to hear they are an ok brand as I chose it based on price and avaliability given it was a higher category
You should definitely consider getting an Ethernet Surge Protector to protect any equipment in the house from surges from that outdoor Ethernet cable.
No need for all that. A better solution would have been to use a fibre optic. A pair of 1Gbps fibre media converters would be £50 and the outdoor jacketed OS2 fibre would cost under £200 and could run directly to indoors with no surge risk and no repeaters needed.
I will look into that you arent the first to mention it
100Mbps on 4G+ in a remote location is impressive. I'm getting a similar to lower speed in a remote hotel in Greece.
Thanks I am happy now the dust has settled
I don't have any experience with the Speedify service so am not advertising it but it looks like a software solution similar to what i previoulsy hinted at - you would however have to run something at your mast to run the agregation - which means some low power device which might still exceed your POE capabilities - so i can't say it is practical - there are quite a few small form factor devices available that offer enough horse power in the 5-7W region - and it is definitley more complex.
OK I will have a look
The max transfer rate of the POE extender is 100 m/bit. thats where one of the bottlenecks is. This is borne out by the cheap router with the yellow lan ports which run at 1 gigabit giving you almost twice the throughput when you had it up 'at the mast. Check all the cat5/6 ports on all your equipment are set up for gigabit ethernet. (Usually yellow) when on a router/cheap switch.
Thanks now that you pointed it out I think it was yellow on the router
not a bad connection there, I would dare say that 3 are throttling you - it also depends entirely on what frequency/channel your router and mobile provider work on, so you need to match up those channels correctly. Changing the sim card won't nessicarily change anything over - you need to keep in mind that the sim card is purely a network identifier with basic config, some routers you may need to change the APN to the correct network, you may also have a SIM PIN which will prevent you from even using the SIM until that's entered, etc...
Ah, thank you others have also mentioned I need to work out the frequency band
Flush cutters will get the wires on the end of the ethernet plug
thanks those sould like what I need
Why are you using two directional aerials? Two isn't necessarily better than one. Unless set up perfectly spaced as a phased array, signals will arrive out of phase between the aerials (slightly different time), the peaks and troughs cancelling each other out. Also the lobes of each aerial are going to interfere with each other if you put them too close creating nulls. So you'll end up with poor reception overall.
Only use I can think of where you benefit from two aerials is analogue TV in an area that suffers with ghosting from reflections.
Also are the aerials tuned to the specific frequency the mast is transmitting? Because if not you'll be getting poor gain using a wideband aerial.
You probably noticed but I used two because I diddnt know what I was doing and two sounded better than one. (also the website reccomended them)
What’s feeding the mobile mast data? It could be fibre or a microwave link. Even if it’s fibre, it doesn’t mean it will be provisioned at full speed. Also Three are known to “manage” their network, I would go as far as saying avoid them at all costs.
I am not sure what feeds the main mast. Yea I agree thay are a pain in the arse but I am a bit stuck in the contract now so I will look to change when that expires
Traditionally, if your connection is bounded by the performance of a single connection (and not the aggregate capacity of the providers) then you would look to bonding (otherwise known as Link Aggregation) of multiple connections - this is relatively straight forward connecting 2 of your own site, but not so easy when connecting through other providers. It also means using more than 1 SIM/LTE modem. Higher Cat doesn't always help if the mast doesn't support the higher Categories, so throwing more money at it won't always solve your problem - perhaps you can interrogate the capabilities of the mast you are connecting to .
Thanks thats very useful information
Hard to beat cable!!
I know after I did it I was like why diddnt I just start with this
@@offgridscotland I work in IT and try when possible try use the "simple" solution first. Your getting good speeds
Nice work, but what you are looking for is the best signal so you need to be looking at the RSRP/RSSI - DL/UL speed is not the best indicator for signal strength
Ah ok thank you
Chinese Poe switches will often have modes allowing up to 200- 250m
I will have a look
Years ago passive repeaters were used. Like everything it was a bit touch & go.
I was considering those as others mentioned them in the comments but I am new to this signal stuff so felt it was a bit above my abilities for now
Great video !! ...for me ,if you wanted a more sturdy and easier to implement mast .
Use two scaffold poles... but first , watch how folk drill for water , with a simple hand drill !!
Gotto be better than forcing the pole into the ground !!!!
Then if the first ,isnt tall enough , you could use an insert ,to join two together , and do sane for anchor points ... !! All the best.
P.s.Linus Tech Tips did a set up like what you're trying to achieve . Maybe it may help...he was sending wireless to receiver....cannot recall whether his was like fibre input though...
But its America, so ours is superior 😂
Video is called , how are we going to do this .
Heck reach out to him... you maybe able to brain storm... and help each others channel !!
Another p.s..
Your wireless 4g ? Router .... what antennae is this using??
Are you using built in one ??
Or does the router have pigtail jumpers ,to incorporate a larger antennae?
I remember on my dji phantom ... I upgraded controller antennae ,to get a longer range ..
Obviously you've got to know what bandwidth ,to match frequency ... and should the router ,have rabbit ear antennae , are they able to be unscrewed .... can they adopt other antennae ... and if not ,it will have pig tails inside , to diy ..
Defintly someone will have hacked one ... at some point... usually 3 network ,is decent aslong as it gets strong coverage.
My mate vince ,channel. Had a topic about internal and external antennae!!
Thanks for the tips ( I did end up digging the base in the end)
I have watched so many of his videos over the years I dont know how I missed that one!
That poe extender is just a 2 port poe powered switch - it isn't the power that needs extending its the data that can't travel over 100m
Ah ok that makes sense
Faster speeds than BT currently offer in my friends area. This is very acceptable for 4G haha!
thank you very much
That speed is ok, im in hong kong and my mast is liturally 50metres and im getting 200 down 100 up on 5g and we have really fast internet here so yours is perfectly fine
Thanks, I cant wait for 5G to be installed here.
Get a 60 watt poe injector to power upto 200m for poe, i do it with CCTV cameras not had a issue, or put it half way I have some cameras on a 260m run with poe injector mid way to get a signal from the cameras.
Great thanks for the tip I diddnt know you could run lengths that long so I will check it out
Keep in mind that Speedtest only tests your connection to the outside internet (WAN); if you suspect there’s an issue on your local network (LAN) you can use iperf to test the speeds from computer to computer within your network. If those speeds are greater than 120Mbps then you know the limiting factor lies outside your local network.
Thank you for pointing that out I will check out Iperf
45mbps up in a rural location is very good speeds, there is probably only one radio band in use (probably LTE 20 at 800MHz)
Thanks
RSSI = Received Signal Strength Indication. The LESS negative the value, the stronger the signal. What you perhaps have not thought about is how many other users are sharing the mast at the same time. This will also impact your perception of speed.
Thank you very much I wasnt sure which direction was better higher or lower
@@offgridscotland 0dBm is the equivalent of a directly connected signal of 1mW or 1/1000 of a watt. -3dBm is 0.5 of a milliwatt . Every negative increase of 3dBm ,(e.g. -3 to -6 or -6 to -9 etc) represents a 50 percent reduction in received signal. So by the time you are around -100 to -120 they are VERY teeny tiny signals.
If you were to hold your mobile phone up against the antenna socket on the transmitter at the foot of the mobile operator mast I would expect to see about -45dBm which in practical terms is a pretty chunky signal
Maybe do yagi antennas between the shed and the antenna aswell? Since its a direct line
Thats a great idea
Your signals are very strong. I think the LTE/4G site is limiting you. Possible the backbone of the Tower is the limit. Maybe to expensive but you can try a dual simcard router with bonding. I live in the country side and I noticed the speeds are much lower here than in the City's. Even when I'm close to the tower. Luckily we have fiber since 2 years now. Before that I had ADSL 512/2000 kbps very slow.
Thank you others had also mentioned dual band sim routers but we might then be close to starlink costs monthly. I will keep it in mind though if we need more speed at any point
You should've started with test within close proximity to the tower. That sets your baseline.
After that, consider the los coverage of a typical cell, which is approx 3km.
Then if you're within coverage, you only need an omnidirectional antenna of around 14dB, along with a decent router (CAT 12 should suffice in most cases)
And in the end, if you want to transmit with directional antenas, you should very strongly consider 2000mW+ transmitter power.
That's the proper way, but what you've achieved is not bad at all., just the money spent kinda hurts.
You are right. I diddnt actually think of it until near the end of the project. I know luckily places gave me a refund for some of it
in my place. its cheaper to get a fiber monthly plan from a network and the internet is stable if they will not get interuptions. and maybe use your wireless devices to get that fiber signal going to your cabin. but lan cable is better connected to a repeater and its cheaper to buy online. if you cant get 5g access wired fiber is okay if we are talking about speed. that is the speed you can get of a 4g signal. specially if your connected to a very far cell tower.
Thanks for the tips it sounds like you have a great setup!
As a man whose internet is max 20 down and 10 up I am green with envy...nice work though
Thanks!
I would recommend putting a surge protector on the non-PoE side of the ethernet to protect your home network. For example, APC does those.
Thanks someone else has already said it thanks I will lookl into the ones APC do
Im sure somewhere in these comments or maybe pt1 of your video somone must have mentioned starlink. We used to help rural users with 4 and 5g mobile networks, the mikrotik dish was a total winner but the router and sim were in the dish so if u ever had to change the sim it was a pain but starlink was a proper game changer speed wise.
th-cam.com/video/8Jmm07B2pHU/w-d-xo.html The first video went into why we were leaving starlink, the hillsides really limit our speeds
Ah gotcha, what a shame. You are getting good speeds then with 4g. Nice job. @offgridscotland
I would suspect that the link between the networks base station to its Internet connection is the limiting factor.
Sounds about right
Hi @Off grid Scotland if your cellular mass isn't putting out fast internet then your equipment at the house isn't going to receive fast internet so it all depends on the instrument that provides the internet service.
Thank you
Make sure to do your tests with a reasonable test server, some of them are either loaded up a bit or just suck, you can favorite a certain server to always do tests from, find the best one for you and do all your tests with that, i always do my test from Zen Internet from London but im not in London
Not just that, but providers might prioritise speedtest servers because they are used for diagnostics but throttle other services.
Ah I wasnt sure what those were I did notice they changed
I deploy many 4G/5G solutions and without seen the actual data from a scanner it looks like you could be limited by the number of Bands that you can aggregate on the CAT18 modem. eg the cat4 modem can only form 1 connection on a band and your cat 12 has a max of 603 Mbps download and 102 Mbps upload with carrier aggregation across 2 or 4 channels. Cat 18 is 1174Gbps download with CA across 2,4 or 8 channels (typically paired with a cat13 module for ~150Mbps upload.
It would be useful to know how many bands the Zyxel is detecting as the the number of bands available to leverage the cat18 potential could be your limiting factor and there is not whole lot you can do about that. In your signal information properties you should be able to see the number of bands its connected to and they look like LTE B1 / LTE B20 / LTE B10. You might also need to do a speed test when checking as the bands will disconnect if there no load at times its best to force the max to see how many connections it taken
Typically if EE is present at that same mask you receive your coverage from they tend to the most bands available.
having a second look I can see the tower you connected has Bands 1, 3, 20, 28 and Three is got the most bands available on that tower. I can see the radiation patterns are very narrow so would also be interesting to know if you antenna is in the signal both as advertised
Thanks for the information I had a hunt through to see what bands we were getting and it lists LTE BCE as the band so I am not sure if its only getting one
looking at the metrics you posted, i found the cell tower you are using, it appears that EE, uses 2 bands on that tower site(3,20) but "3" has 4 bands (1,3,20,28) so technically 3 is going to likely out perform EE in speed. but it all depends on what the tower backhaul is like too, whether its on fiber or microwave, it might only have a 150mbps connection itself way out there thats shared with others around
i now see you went up to it and still barely got 100mbps. so yeah my guess still stands at to the connection at the tower site, only being ~100mbps.
Ah I wondered if it was something like that
Thanks
I believe you're at the physical max of 4G at about 100Mbps down and 40Mbps+ upload you're doing really well.
Theoretical max assuming just b3 15Mhz, 2x2 MIMO and 64QAM.
4G can go much, much faster than this depending on configuration and this site has multiple bands that could be aggregated.
Thanks It felt like we couldnt push it much further
@@offgridscotland I feel it's likely more limited backhaul (the internet connection to the mast itself) or your router being a bit reluctant to aggregate bands as I only saw band 3 in your video despite the mast also supporting bands 1, 28 and 20 (though you likely wouldn't want to use 20)
I've had 700Mbps off 4G before on EE. They combine frequency bands to increase bandwidth.
the RSSI is the strength of the signal from the cell tower. The lower the value the stronger it is - so -80 is weaker than -48. It was way way stronger on the hill
Ah I wasnt sure with the negatives if that meant negative or just a dash
I see 30 atbest with three where i am. Three adnitted to me that its over subscribed in my area at my own home i may get 2mbps over 4g. Pre covid id see around 100 so it has dropped drastically. Unfortunately id mobile who im with was with three prior use threes network but they are well ahead in pricing. Being relatively rural i cant see demand being an issue as much.
Thats a bummer
Not sure who's mast you are close to, but if it's a Vodafone one then it's likely on 800Mhz in rural. Make sure the router has 800Mhz, 900, 1800 and 2300Mhz as most cell provider's run on them. The higher the frequency the faster the internet speed but best in line of sight with no blocking of trees and hills. But 800Ghz lower frequency means it penetrates hills trees and objects more. So carriers with higher frequency are faster but need more masts for same area. Carriers with lower frequency need less masts but are a little slower. It could all be down to the equipment on the mast being a low frequency.. this would ring true with the no change of speed at different locations. Also the router AC cat could be a throttle point...
Someone else has said the same. I am going up today to check the bands we have it set to as I diddnt change them just left it as default
All depends on how much congestion is on that site. if there are 10 phones/devices connected to the site it will divide or traffic manage the speeds equally. 1GBs connection divided by 10 users 100 mbps
Ah ok thank you
You're on LTE Band 3 (~1800Mhz) on 3 network - they've got 15Mhz channel width... 120mbps isn't too bad. You'd likely go faster on EE... o2 and Vodafone likely won't come close to 3/EE. You'd need to get into 5g, different bands and carrier aggregation to go faster tbh.
Thanks I tried band 1 as well in the conclusion video but it diddnt work
quick question Have you actually think of doing armoured fibre optics is cheap You could pick up Commercial network switches online for peanuts 200m -250m Ahmed coating fibre optic cable about £200 Do not use Ethernet cable for that length fibre optics is the way to go
I had thought of it but as I haddnt even had a go with wiring standard ethernet cable myself I thought that terminating fibre might be a bit tough
@@offgridscotland no you don't need to terminate now you don't even try terminating it it's not worth it You can order it any size you want so let's say 250 metres or what you said And it will come in the size that you would like to have if you are worried of working out how much cable you need though one of the best ways I've worked out is parachute cord 100m Or you could actually just measure that network cable :)
ok Let's say you did buy reinforce fibre optics 200 metres do you say around about £179.00 Now that Sounds expensive
but I just did a quick cheque up for the same amount Of money I can get 50 metres of reinforced Cat 6 for only 50m £169.20
But as well you need to get some network boxes only two of them you only need 2 you can get tham for £15 Second hand And those used to be industrially used to cost thousands you could buy those from bargain hardware PLUS get 2 10Gb SFP+ LC/PC Multi-Mode Transceiver Module £18
I would recommend Chatting to them before buying then you can just have a chat with them and make sure you've got the right equipment but Just make sure you got the right ends If you don't mind I'd like to send me a pm :)
Did you check if 5G is available? This would be much faster. I use a ZTE MC7010 from 3 and in an urban environment I get up to 700Mbit/s with T-Mobile.
Yea we dont have it here yet but I am keeping an eye on it
So many comments about the placement and location.
You need to log into the 4G modem and change bands to gain better speeds.
With antennas, you’ll be able to use a higher band of frequency in the 4G range which where you are located will have little to no one on it. Most people will be on a lower band for better range vs speed.
Find the bands used by your carrier whichever you pick and force different bands in the modem interface and you’ll be sorted 😊
Googled it, and you should be able to force LTE band 1 which is 2100Mhz if the new Cat18 modem supports and if the tower has it enabled vs band 3 (1800mhz) you are using in the video.
Higher frequency = higher throughput
Thank you someone else mentioned the bands so I will have a go at that. I have screenshotted your comment to help me out when I come to sorting the bands out
Hi from malaysia.at my country hot item parabolic version 9.modem router gteniq mod and bypast hotspot and with cable lmr400 .can support 5g about 5km to tower
Hi there! thats amazing good job
I would use fibre instead of cat6 due to the lighting risk
I looked into it but its supposed to be really hard to terminate isnt it?
For such distances it is better to use Powered Fiber Cable. You can terminate with quick connectors.
I had thought about that because I have read its the best but It sounded a bit advanced for me at this stage