Options for Improved Cell Data

[Toy4Rick]

I've been reading up on the MobileMustHave Pepwave product, seems like a solid solution, small pkg with good cell boost benefits...

Anyone using one and what are your thoughts?

[aircommuter]

Originally Posted by Toy4Rick

I've been reading up on the MobileMustHave Pepwave product, seems like a solid solution, small pkg with good cell boost benefits...

Anyone using one and what are your thoughts?

Sounds like a Mofi router copy with less features?

[Tabasco_Joe]

Originally Posted by Toy4Rick

I've been reading up on the MobileMustHave Pepwave product, seems like a solid solution, small pkg with good cell boost benefits...

Anyone using one and what are your thoughts?

The Pepwave product appears to have a nice external antenna. Unfortunately many of these products don't publish full specs that would allow you to be sure of performance.

Without an antenna with a preamp you would want to mount the receiver on the RV ceiling right below the antenna. Even a few extra inches of antenna cable significantly attenuates the received signal.

I ran some development projects for Motorola on wireless cellular technologies. We ran extensive propagation testing at various frequencies, antenna designs, antenna heights, and varying foliage. These were real world tests in a southern city that had variations in terrain. We used vans outfitted with laboratory equipment. So our results were objective, not subjective.

To get the best signal levels on wireless systems above 1.2 GHz you want larger antennas, high antennas (with integrated receivers), and no foliage. All things that are challenging for RVers.

[Mechcondrid]

in regards to cell coverage use and no offense to mobilervinternet but the opensignal app is free and provides a lot of the same coverage/speed/location data.

as far as reception i also am a big advocate of aftermarket antennas.
you don't likely need a yagi or a femtocell (cellular network repeater/base station) unless you have not even 1 bar of signal at your location.

more than likely you would benefit more than enough from a high gain 4g tuned dipole or patch antenna plugged into your hotspots antenna port.

also don't buy ANYTHING marketed specifically at the RV or camper markets, the hardware has a massive markup and the same or better quality hardware can be had through other non-rv centric sources for much less more often than not.

all the RV internet/wifi/RF hardware for 2,3,4 and $500 can be had in non-rv shaped/designed equivalents for about half the price if not better.

cell based mobile networking is not anything even remotely new and has been in the industrial and commercial spaces for decades.

its in the same vein as buying a netgear or asus home router that is made for high performance gaming for $3-400 or buying an industrial microtik router and loading up any number of the free firmwares out there and getting the same performance for less than $200 all said and done.

[frankraney]

Originally Posted by muttinthehut

I'm looking for some options to see if I can improve cell service when I'm at a site. I'm on ATT with a Netgear Nighthawk hotspot, but it's been a bit spotty in the woods and hills. I've searched the forums and read various threads about antennas, cell boosters, etc. but not quite clear on which option is better. From what I've been able to digest, it sounds like a yagi antenna might be the best option to improve performance (given a signal is available at all), while the cell booster may not necessarily help with the performance if the signal is weak (but I guess that depends on which booster?).

Any thoughts about which way to go? What are others using? I saw a couple of posts where others have put up an antenna on a pole. Has this helped improve the performance and is it worth the trouble? And how do you route cabling into your RV?

Thanks!
Joe

You are correct. A booster is worthless. You can not make a week signal any stronger. A metal trailer will block / weaken the signal you get. You can try putting an antenna by a window, and see if that helps. Do you gat a decent signal with your phone if you are outside your trailer? If so Mount an antenna outside and bring the yagi outside and bring the cable inside to a repeater. You can get a fitting that goes through the wall that is rain tight. at lowes or home depot. ATT is the worst for bad signals. I left then years ago and went with T-Mobile, have not been disappointed.

[Dividends]

I thought that gamers were home based? They use anything but cellular or satellite for the providers and they are are wired from the rougher to the laptop or desktop. I understand the point of rv devices being overpriced like marine devices are also. Just not sure that gamer equipment would work for a rv. Please correct me if I’m incorrect.

[Dividends]

Forgot, have been looking into the “rv” Internet delegation for a hit know and am still trying to find something that works and is not an arm an a leg.

[Mechcondrid]

Originally Posted by Dividends

I thought that gamers were home based? They use anything but cellular or satellite for the providers and they are are wired from the rougher to the laptop or desktop. I understand the point of rv devices being overpriced like marine devices are also. Just not sure that gamer equipment would work for a rv. Please correct me if I’m incorrect.

the point was that gamer equipment is generally much higher quality hardware than a $80 netgear router from walmart; its capable of doing far more, far quicker than regular hardware.

and as far as gaming on cellular, things actually have come a long way; on 4G i can pretty regularly get speeds as high as 100Mb down and 25Mb up with latencies rivalling my home wired connection in the 15-35 millisecond range.

with 5G that has become even less of a concern.

same can be said for wifi, you can actually get better speeds on a AC wifi signal than you can on any residential ethernet network, 5ghz wifi AC can hit over 1500Mbps speeds where normal cat6 ethernet is capped at 1000mb until you get into enterprise networking hardware.

all of that is meaningless unless you have the internet connection to support it though so even on a gigabit ethernet if you only have 200down and 20 up your only going to get that going out to the internet.

[Dividends]

Originally Posted by Mechcondrid

the point was that gamer equipment is generally much higher quality hardware than a $80 netgear router from walmart; its capable of doing far more, far quicker than regular hardware.

and as far as gaming on cellular, things actually have come a long way; on 4G i can pretty regularly get speeds as high as 100Mb down and 25Mb up with latencies rivalling my home wired connection in the 15-35 millisecond range.

with 5G that has become even less of a concern.

same can be said for wifi, you can actually get better speeds on a AC wifi signal than you can on any residential ethernet network, 5ghz wifi AC can hit over 1500Mbps speeds where normal cat6 ethernet is capped at 1000mb until you get into enterprise networking hardware.

all of that is meaningless unless you have the internet connection to support it though so even on a gigabit ethernet if you only have 200down and 20 up your only going to get that going out to the internet.

Thanks, so a week signal is going to give slow speeds, and a booster is only going to make it easier to connect to a week signal the speed of the internet will still be slow? I’ve learned the hard way that Ethernet is slow and wifi is faster at my home. Still waiting on Starlink for the house and hopefully by next year it will become portable .

[Mechcondrid]

Originally Posted by Dividends

Thanks, so a week signal is going to give slow speeds, and a booster is only going to make it easier to connect to a week signal the speed of the internet will still be slow? I’ve learned the hard way that Ethernet is slow and wifi is faster at my home. Still waiting on Starlink for the house and hopefully by next year it will become portable .

yes and no, a femtocell node (booster) usually has hardware that has a higher receive sensitivity than a cell phone or other cell modems.

they are designed to get more signal than regular hardware.

so the one bar you get on a phone would normally appear as 2 or 3 to a good quality femtocell.

it all depends on what you have where you are.

if you can go in to a smartphone or router and read out the number of your signal strength that will give a lot better info to act on than bars or anything else subjective like that.

[BajaFog]

There is no mention of dual sim routers, the newer crop of which can access more of the tower providers available channels. I heard about this on the YouTube channel Mobile Internet Resource Center. I was surprised to learn of differing channels and protocols where the cheap router can only receive on one and the higher end routers can recieve on five or six or ???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny_BjGfVboU

I haven't jumped in yet but was leaning towards a dual sim router with mimo antenna on a 24' mast attached to my ladder. And yeah, one thing I think I've learned is boosters are limited in their effectiveness.

[HikerBob]

My 2018 Chevy Colorado provides a free hot spot whenever it's running or when the key is in the Auxiliary mode, and it works from at least 40 yards away. No need for antennas or cables.

[Mechcondrid]

Originally Posted by HikerBob

My 2018 Chevy Colorado provides a free hot spot whenever it's running or when the key is in the Auxiliary mode, and it works from at least 40 yards away. No need for antennas or cables.

my subaru does the same thing but unless i start the engine it shuts off after something like 20-30 minutes.

as far as the dual sim routers, ya that is an option but then requires two wireless accounts and two bills, your better off grabbing a router that can use USB cell modems and then getting a global single-sim modem that can use all the bands in your area.

the band usage is dictated strictly by the local modem hardware; a global modem with a verizon sim for instance can connect and use any network in the area. doesn't matter if it's GSM or CDMA; the modem has the hardware to talk to either, the sim just holds your authentication key for the tower to call home and say "yup you got a valid account" and then allow the connection.

my note 10+ for instance has a 4g nano sim card from verizon/usmobile but i can manually go in, switch it to GSM and pick an att tower and connect to it.
it works fine in that case but speeds are reduced (compared to the closer verizon tower).

[Mechcondrid]

also a side note, US mobile kicks verizons ass on cost.
$55 per month for unlimited everything with hotspot.

they can send either a GSM (tmobile) or CDMA (verizon) sim card so pretty much all hardware is compatible.

speeds are extremely good as well (avg 75D/22U on my note 10+)

[aircommuter]

Originally Posted by HikerBob

My 2018 Chevy Colorado provides a free hot spot whenever it's running or when the key is in the Auxiliary mode, and it works from at least 40 yards away. No need for antennas or cables.

My Ram has that, now to figure out how to run the house on it.

[DavidWJ]

First: Cell service frequencies are easily absorbed by trees.
Second: Radio signals are line of sight.



A Yagi is a good bet for pulling in poor signals, but you'll have a hard time finding a useful antenna from China. Try the 50ohm or 75ohm version of this: https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/wil...ntenna-311228/



If you don't have a cell tower visible, you'll have a difficult time getting any signal. We get great cell signals at some campgrounds in the Sierras, but that's because providers put cell towers on the top of nearby hills. This was mostly for emergency communications, but now folks stream videos when they're camping. ???

[aircommuter]

I can’t see the cell tower from my house because it is blocked by trees yet my speed is 200 down and 30 up on average.
Antennas don’t pull in signal they are just more sensitive to absorbing the signal that is present. The trees do absorb those higher frequencies used for LTE because if I walk to a clear shot to the tower my speed goes up 50%.
Not so much on the 900mhz however. Line of sight is the theoretical term for radio signals to travel, but actual propagation can be different and unpredictable. A certain amount of terrain following is possible, the lower the frequency the better, like the atomic clock in Boulder is using 60 khz. The ionosphere also plays a part in this.

[FollowTheSun]

Originally Posted by muttinthehut

I'm looking for some options ... ... ...

Hi muttinthehut. I use a Weboost Cell Phone Signal Boosters. I suspect most of the other similar products by various manufactures probably perform about the same, so I am not promoting one company over another. I am pleased that the Weboost does what they say it should do, but now with a little experience, I am not so sure I need it. We prefer boondocking in away places and are usually not in that marginal area between good and no-signal long enough to actually appreciate the value of this product. I bought a Weboost in 2016 because they had good reviews then and I thought it would be a useful addition to our new mobile palace. I installed an externally mounted omni-directional antenna on the roof of our 25-ft motorhome. I use a smaller omni-directional antenna inside. For me, this set-up works fine. When we are in areas of marginal signal reception, switching on the cell booster usually improves and stabilizes our cell phone signal. Using a directional external antenna, such as a Yagi or log periodic could improve signal performance, however these antennas require aiming toward the nearest cell tower (or signal). Aiming a directional antenna toward the best signal source can produce exceptional results, but fails in a mobile situation because every curve on the road would require re-targeting the antenna. Additionally, it requires knowledge of signal strength and/or cell tower locations.
I noticed that many of the comments responding to your question are mixing cell phone reception and internet access. Perhaps I misunderstood your question, but these two issues are entirely different topics. I also installed a WiFi booster in our mobile palace (Okay, I confess ... I am a bit of a geek). As stated before, I suspect one company is pretty must as another. You'll need to read reviews and get the opinion of others. I have my WiFi booster antenna mounted atop my crank-up TV antenna. The system works much as advertised, for which I am pleased. We used this system much more during the early days of our RV ventures (first experience 2016). It is sometimes very useful at an occasional RV park or near an otherwise internet hotspot (Starbucks, McDonald, ect.). However, here again, in retrospect I'm not sure it was the important addition I had hoped.
Just my opinion … Did I waste my money … I don't think so, after all, I'm geek. I'm easily entertained by LEDs, meters & gauges. On the other hand, I have a very good friend who is often too honest … he thinks I wasted my money.

[muttinthehut]

Really good thoughts and appreciate everyone sharing. Apparently the trees are a bigger issue than I thought. This topic came up because we frequent a nearby state park and had no issues getting good cell coverage early in the year. We returned a few weeks ago and found the coverage useless. It is a hilly and heavily wooded area so I’m assuming the trees aren’t doing me any favors now that the leaves have arrived in full force. I did grab a couple of cheap yagi antennas, a weatherproof enclosure box, and a 20 ft extension pole. I tried mounting the hot spot in the box connecting the antennas and getting some height on the pole. The initial testing looks pretty good and you can easily detect the directional nature of the yagi. I’ll have to do more testing when I’m out again at the park. Of course, after going through all this trouble for the hotspot, TMobile upgraded our plan to include 40g hotspot data on my phone. Thanks again for the comments and thoughts.

[chriscowles]

Originally Posted by FollowTheSun

... I noticed that many of the comments responding to your question are mixing cell phone reception and internet access. Perhaps I misunderstood your question, but these two issues are entirely different topics. ...

Cellular data is not the same as WiFi but, where dependent on a cell connection in the absence of WiFi, cell phone reception and internet access are not entirely different subjects.