5G Broadband in a Rural UK Village

The more I tested, the more I realised that download really wasn’t an issue. I could easily obtain that. But upload speeds were dire. At one point I managed 8Mbs upload – yay – but couldn’t repeat it.

I got so frustrated with it, that eventually I drove up the road, to the field where the Mast is. And plugged the router into my cigarette lighter (I have an adaptor). To test the speeds around 100 metres from the Mast. 619 download, 135 upload, ok, at least I now know what’s possible.

So what’s reducing the signal at my house. Well, we’re downhill from the mast – that’s a factor. But then we are also in a forest, surrounded by hundreds of trees. In theory we should be able to see the mast from our house – but no chance, too many trees.

After doing some research, I decided that the solution must be to buy a different router. One that has external antenna ports on it. Then buy an antenna to boost the signal. Hopefully an antenna on the roof would add enough signal boost to give me stable reliable speeds. I settled on purchasing a 2nd hand Zyxel NR5103E router, from CEX. This was a Three branded router, but my research had told me that the Three routers are actually unlocked, so can use SIM cards from any network. Which indeed proved to be the case.

On it’s own, the router already seemed to pick up a stronger signal than the ZTE MC888 router, that was supplied by Three business broadband.

At the same time, I followed the advice of others, that I should also test the other networks, not just Three. So I bought a Spusu SIM card, which uses the EE network, but is a tiny bit cheaper. Plus a Smarty SIM card, which uses the Three network – but is pay per month. I did also buy a Lebara SIM (Vodafone), but made a schoolboy error, when I realised later on that they only have 4G in this area, no 5G on Vodafone.

I then purchased a Poynting XPOL-1-5G 4×4 Antenna from Amazon. To see if it could stabilise the speeds and boost the signal by enough to give a faster upload. It’s an awkward thing to test. Plus some mini conversion leads to covert the tiny TS9 ports to the larger SMA type ports on the antenna itself. What a right palaver this was. I ended up using electrical tape to strap the leads to the router body, so they didn’t pull out or get too much strain on the tiny TS9 connectors. Then I had to go around different locations, mainly up a ladder, with the router, 20ft of stiff coiled cable and the antenna itself. And try and test the combo out. Try standing on a roof or ladder, with an antenna in one hand, a shopping bag carrying the router and half the leads, then use your 2nd hand to run signal tests and internet speed tests. Hard doesn’t even begin to cover it. Add to that, the speeds and signal were all over the place. One minute they seemed promising, the next they were pathetic. Getting readings of 3Mbs upload is of no use to anyone. I think the maximum speed I got with that setup was 11Mbs upload – on one single run. Not to be repeated.

But it did give me hope. It must be possible to get better speeds. I had been doing a lot of research on antennas. One that stood out as interesting, was a company called Waveform. Designed in California, I liked the way they talked about their product and the reviews were excellent. People were gaining 10db in signal and speeds were going from 10Mbs to 30Mbs for example – sounded exactly what I needed. They did two versions, the QuadMini and the QuadPro. The mini is £150, the pro is £450, so not cheap. But if this works, I could ditch Starlink and save myself £45-£55 a month, I had to try. So I ordered both of them. Again from Amazon, as they allow returns without fuss. Amazon’s customer service is just the best out there. I wish they’d pay their fair share of tax tho, I’d like them more as a company!

So, the antennas arrived. The QuadPro is much bigger than the Poynting. Plus it’s got an even heaving cable – a 20ft white one. Everything about the product is 1st class. It’s built like Apple build computers. They even supplied two spanners to do up the nuts on the product. And not cheap rubbish spanners, but high quality branded ones. Amazing attention to detail. Great instructions too. So I took the Router onto the roof. I’d kind of found at this point that EE was the strongest signal, so started testing that first. Wow! I was getting an Excellent signal – without even turning the external antenna on. Best signal I’d had so far. If only I could get that to translate to good upload, low ping and reliable connection. Turned on the antenna – signal died. WTF? I tried this a few times over a few days, in different places. Every time I switched from internal antenna to external (there’s a tiny switch on the router), the signal would weaken with it on. FFS! So annoying. So I then tried the smaller mini version. Hmm, it was ok. Not such a big drop of signal, but no major gain either. Again, the signal was actually stronger using the internal antenna – only problem with that is you cannot put an router on the roof – one that isn’t designed to get wet!

More despair. Am I asking too much? I live in the countryside – it’s beautiful. Maybe I just have to put up with paying Elon Musk every month. But it hurts me SO much, given world events right now.

Right, one last try. I’d read about some routers that could be put outdoors – waterproof one’s. But when I asked someone about these a few weeks earlier, the “expert” told me, that they’d get the same signal as if you put a normal router outside. So in theory similar to my router outside. Which was getting an excellent signal on the roof, but not an excellent upload speed and not a reliable connection. Three even supply an external version of their router, but on their personal side, not the business side. I tried to order one, computer said no – you can’t have one. Eventually after a few attempts I phoned them and tried to see if they’d send me one. No. Computer says you can’t have one. End of. I actually tried ordering one with my friends address – it would let me have one if I got it delivered to him. Bizarre. I can only imagine, that their computer said no to me, because in theory I should have a good signal and not need one. Whereas my friends address has a poor signal, so might need a boost. Very annoying. Anyway, Three were so crap at everything they did, I really didn’t want to bother with that approach. Plus, the EE signal was stronger anyway – so really I wanted to be on EE.

So, after doing some more research (I spent 3 solid weeks deep into this stuff) I decided to try the Zyxel MC7010 router. It’s an outdoor model that’s been around a few years now. In fact, Three used to supply them. Many of them have Three branding on them. So I ordered one from eBay. It cost me £190, but also came packaged with a separate Wifi Router, the Zyxel T3000. It’s a basic router, but I wasn’t sure if the MC7010 would work without it or not. In fact it will, it contains a basic router, alongside the modem inside it, but having a separate router gives more flexibility and control. It only added about £20 to the price, so that was fine. I got both.

The MC7010 is tiny. It’s smaller than an iPad Mini. It’s so easy to hold in one hand compared to the other antennas. Plus, it’s powered by PPoE – power over ethernet. So it only needs a flat ethernet cable going to it. It came with a brand new Cat6 cable. Half the stuff in the box was new it seems. The router was clearly 2nd hand, but in great condition. I wondered if it had never been installed outside – many people use them indoors, stuck to a window or in a loft. Anyway, it was so much easier to test this setup. I even managed to run the flat cable through my office window and carefully close the window with it flowing through the gap. This also had the huge benefit of being able to test things with the router directly plugged into one of my computers. I used a spare iMac to test things. First two tests, I couldn’t find a way of supporting the router, so I laid it on the roof – face up. Ran two tests to see if it was working – it was. Not only that, but it was working EXCEPTIONALLY well. Some of the best results so far.

mSo next up, I tried a few different locations and eventually settled on the the roof – I attached it to our old TV aerial. Seemed an obvious place, high up, pole is already there etc. Then I went through the process of slowly moving it around the pole to work out the optimum position. Eventually I got a Good signal, that occasionally dipped to OK, but mostly was good. I locked it in, then went downstairs to test on the computer.

OK – now we’re cooking!