4G antenna or Satellite Internet

[Purity]

Does anyone have any experience of this type of equipment?

My cousin is going to be working in a very rural, and cut off location in Uganda, where the nearest 4G phone mast is approx. 10km away. He gets a very weak phone signal and was looking at options of getting some kind of internet connectivity.

Is anyone aware of what options or equipment he may need to do this? Would a 4G antenna have a 10km range?

Unfortunately there is also no phone lines so some kind of internet via satellite might be possible as an alternative??

Any thoughts?

 

[turner brown]

sat broadband would be the way to go its a dish modem and sub are what is needed

 

[gadgethome]

Maybe checkout if starlink is available in the area.

 

[Grimeire]

Been using mobile broadband for about 7 or 8 years and get a lot better than the 0.8Mb i did with landline internet.

It will depend on what your region is like for coverage and what the congestion is like in your region if mobile broadband is good for you but in this day and age nearly all areas are covered pretty well with at least 4G.

I'm in Ireland and can see all the masts, cells and the bands they are using from Comreg this allows me to know where to point my antenna. In my case im in a urban area so there is a tonne of masts i can connect to and it took me a while to find the one that gave me the best speeds.

If you are in a rural area then your options of masts will be reduced but that may be a good as a congestion will be far less.

If i was you i would go down the mobile broadband route as you will find a decent 4G router and antenna on ebay for less €100 since everyone is moving to 5G who use mobile broadband. Satellite broadband is expensive and had bandwidth caps and also high latency. With Mobile broadband you can change provider as much as you want if you use pay as you go SIM.

On average i get about 50Mb down and 20Mb but in the mornings or late at night i could get close on 100Mb down if not more and 50Mb up and that is with no line of sight to the mast(Damm neighbor and his trees.) thats about 3.5KM away.



Before you do anything have a look to see if the Uganda have a similar site like comreg that show all the masts and see the distance they are from you. I would recommend a Huawei router if you are getting one. Most of the rest are crap especially TP-Link.

Depending on what kind of antenna you get they should have no problem with 10Km.

Cellular Tower and Signal Map is also a good site to find info about your local masts but can be wrong as it uses data collected from peoples phones. The less phones sending it data the less accurate cellmapper will be.

 

[digidude]

Ive installed satellite broadband for nearly 20 years (when the uplink was via 56k modem to begin with), and installed 4G antenneas for nearly 5 years. Just started installing 5g last year

These are the antennae i use

ive been to jobs where ive had to adjust the aerial slightly, as its trying to lock onto a different mast 30 miles behind a mast thats having work done on it (why the customer couldnt simply unplug it, as they had no connection anyway, i dont know)

ive been to farms where they have NO signal at all, and im leaving them with 15 meg down and 5 meg up, and ive been to farms where theyre struggling with 2 meg down and hardly any upload (via 4G), and get a phone signal if they stand in the bathroom window with their left foot touching the tap, and leave them with 40 meg down and 20 meg up

this is using EE 4G routers

with BT 4G routers, im yet to do one where they dont hit the cap of 15/5

seeing downloads of 50-100 meg is normal

Discalimer: I do use a meter to line up the antenneas, it doesnt give me any indication of speed, just the received RSRP signal strength, and mast ID (and a few other bits of information)

 

[Grimeire]

Discalimer: I do use a meter to line up the antennas, it doesnt give me any indication of speed, just the received RSRP signal strength, and mast ID (and a few other bits of information)

Is there a reason you are using RSRP over RSRQ?

Do you have a link to the meter you are using.

I use the RSRP over RSRQ stats on the router but it does not reflect a good signal as im surrounded by trees on 3 sides and no matter where i point the antenna the stats are all over the place one second the RSRP could be -80dBm and -110dBm the next second even though im connected to the same cell. Pointing the antenna directly at the cell give me the best speeds but the stats are all over the place. I at first though it was the cable or antenna causing the issues with the stats but replaced both and still the same. It was not till someone told me its more than likely the trees bouncing/reflecting the signal that made me give up using the stats to determine the best direction to point the antenna.

 

[digidude]

I use rsrp as that's what EE and more recently BT have stated they want the measurements of, and to get that measurement as optimal as we can

This is the meter I use

DualCom Signal Analyser - Get the perfect signal for your connected device.

But there is a newer touchscreen version available now

4G/LTE Signal Strength Tester | LTE Analyser | Adaptive Modules - Adaptive Modules