Rural Cellular Internet - Opinons

Good morning,

I've been living off of cellular internet for over a year. Where I am located, the options are limited - DSL (which maxes out at 1.3 Mbps down) at my location, Sattelite (tried it, spotty and data caps), WISP (just out of range) and cellular. Thankfully I'm in a spot that gets 4G and I've got a grandfathered Verizon unlimited data plan. My current set up is a Verizon 4620L sitting in a Wilson Sleek attached to an outside omni antenna. I've got an ASUS RT-N66U that I use as a repeater centrally located in the house. I'm obviously limited on speed since I'm sending all of this data wirelessly. What I'm considering is getting rid of the 4620L, replacing it with a UML 290 USB modem attached to a TP Link TL-MR3040 router, which I can than run a Cat 5 from the TP-Link to the Asus. That gives me the ability to run Cat 5 to my PC and to my Roku and still have the ability to run on wifi for the reamainder of my devices. I guess what I was wondering from this knowledgeable group is 1) do you see any issues I might run into with this set up 2) Should I see improvements with this new setup in speeds. I'm currently seeing around 4 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up.
Some additional information: The UML 290 will be placed into the sleek and held in place by a rubber-band. This will than be connected to the TP Link via a USB extension cable. I'm also upgrading to a directional Yagi antenna and using low loss LMR 400 for the connection between the antenna and the Wilson Sleek.

I think more likely you'll see an improvement on moving from an omni to a yagi a lot more than you will a different modem. Of course a lot of it still depends on how heavily your local cell tower is used.

doco2279 said:

Good morning,

I've been living off of cellular internet for over a year. Where I am located, the options are limited - DSL (which maxes out at 1.3 Mbps down) at my location, Sattelite (tried it, spotty and data caps), WISP (just out of range) and cellular. Thankfully I'm in a spot that gets 4G and I've got a grandfathered Verizon unlimited data plan. My current set up is a Verizon 4620L sitting in a Wilson Sleek attached to an outside omni antenna. I've got an ASUS RT-N66U that I use as a repeater centrally located in the house. I'm obviously limited on speed since I'm sending all of this data wirelessly. What I'm considering is getting rid of the 4620L, replacing it with a UML 290 USB modem attached to a TP Link TL-MR3040 router, which I can than run a Cat 5 from the TP-Link to the Asus. That gives me the ability to run Cat 5 to my PC and to my Roku and still have the ability to run on wifi for the reamainder of my devices. I guess what I was wondering from this knowledgeable group is 1) do you see any issues I might run into with this set up 2) Should I see improvements with this new setup in speeds. I'm currently seeing around 4 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up.
Some additional information: The UML 290 will be placed into the sleek and held in place by a rubber-band. This will than be connected to the TP Link via a USB extension cable. I'm also upgrading to a directional Yagi antenna and using low loss LMR 400 for the connection between the antenna and the Wilson Sleek.

Click to expand...

These bi-directional amplifiers (BDAs) work well only if there is good RF signal isolation between the two antennas. In pro systems, 70+ dB of isolation is needed - obtained by a long cable to get the outdoor antenna as far away as possible, lots of walls in between, etc. Best is also a highly directional antenna like a Yagii as discussed, but beware the back of the Yagii has a goodly signal. Yagii antennas have, somewhere around its 180 degrees per side, some "null" spots. That's where you want the from-to RF path to be.

Without good isolation, the BDA by laws of physics will self-interfere - as is an RF retransmitter, not a bridge.

Part of the trick in the "sleek" is the sleek-to-phone transmitted signal is very, very weak - needing only to travel an inch or so. That weak signal is part of that 70dB+ isolation.

The wide-area BDAs improve in-building coverage if the isolation can be had with a yagii outside, on the roof, etc.

http://store.weboost.com/collections/work-connect

For data-only indoor coverage improvement, you might consider this, too:
A Verizon 4G USB modem.
Plug it into a Cradlepoint bridge/router, setup in bridge mode. They have small travel routers. Put this in a good signal spot inside house, away from wet spots. Or in a weatherproof think outside at eaves height. Run cat5 from it to inside WiFi router's WAN port.

I've done this for outdoor use.

Some vendors with these non-weatherproof bridge/routers, and some with vehicular purposed rugged enclosures with Verizon modem internal, not a fragile USB modem.
Cradlepoint
Sierra Wireless
others

These products are sold for unattended machine-to-machine service (like ATMs and DVD RedBox) where it just can't crash.

Another option is remotely locate the USB modem on a long cable back to the cable modem. You can have up to, what? 10 meter cable? Something like that for USB.

You can always look for a higher gauge/lower loss cable if you need to. It might be tricky as there are plenty of high gauge USB cables for POWER, but not a lot for data (most USB cables are 28AWG, some are 28AWG data and 24AWG power, the best ones are generally 18-20AWG power, but almost all of them are still 28AWG data. I think I've seen one or two that are 24/26AWG data though).

Then you can mount the USB modem under the eves of your roof or what not so you can have a very short run to the Yagi modem. Another option would be ruggidized USB cable to an outdoor rated enclosure with the USB modem in it (or the whole router) right by the antenna.

It would make a BIG enclosure, but it is possible to build an environmentally controlled enclosure too. It would take a lot of work, but it isn't that expensive to build/buy a small temperature controller and then rig up a very simple 5-20w resistance heater in the enclosure depending on how much heating you'd need and for summer months (if it got hot enough/enough direct sun) you can modify the enclosure with ventilation holes (on the bottom so it is still weather proof) and a small fan to kick on if it gets too hot.

I've seen it done a couple of times before.

Re: [General] Rural Cellular Internet Setup

Thanks for the replies.

I've heard that usb stick modems are more stable and produce a cleaner signal than mobile hot spots. Plus, with a USB modem I can run it directly into the router. Thus, running an ethernet cable from the first router (router with USB modem) to my primary router should reduce speed loss because I'm taking out speed loss going from one wireless router to another.

The sleek is an amp, that's why I'm keeping that in the system. When I was just using an external antenna alone, I saw a good increase in signal stability when I went with the sleek hooked to the same antenna. I'm expecting an even better signal when I attach the sleek to a Yagi.

Where I have the modem placed now, and where I will keep it, it is about 20 feet away from the Yagi that is mounted outside on the roof. It is at about the five o'clock position from the directional tip of the Yagi.

The USB modem will be attached to the sleek via a rubber band. The modem will be attached to the router via a short USB extension cable.

I've attached a diagram of exactly what I'm thinking of doing.

On the 4G/LTE side, you need to ensure that you have a match - either two matched antennas, or a matched path into an RF combiner..

LTE is at a mimimum 2T2R MIMO, and this is why you need this...

One of the challenges you might face - the Wilson signal boosters are something the wireiess carriers really don't appreciate, as they can cause interference with other subscribers on the network - throwing a high gain antenna on top of that, and they might just either shut down your line, or if it is bad enough, they'll track you down and seize the setup (they can do this, as they own the channel, and it's their right to manage it as they see fit).

Some cellular providers were/are petitioning the FCC to go after high power bi-directional amplifiers (BDAs) in the cellular band. Legal basis: The cellular company's frequencies are all licensed by the FCC for the exclusive use. Any other low or high power transmitter not owned by the cellular operator is illegal if the cellular carrier elects to file a complaint with the FCC leading to a cease and desist order with a fine or jail if ignored. AT&T has the biggest problem - due their use of TDMA/GSM in all of their 3G network. Verizon and Sprint's 3G uses CDMA and is far less vulnerable to interference from BDAs.

The phone cradle with super low power and inches of range is probably going to be permitted.

I can't blame the carriers - they paid billions of dollars for the licensed spectrum. (Where does the FCC send all that, for the last 25 year?). We pay those billions of FCC spectrum action cost via our cell service billing.

Seems it ought to be illegal for the FCC to auction the airwaves that Mother Nature gave us. They need to license then have a use-it (well) or lose-it policy on the spectrum.

You may still be okay with just a higher gain antenna, as it does produce less interference, while boosting the gain.

Back on the WISP, out of curiosity, how close to "just out of range" are you and what kind of speeds do they offer if you are within range? You may be able to work with them to get service still, because if you are just outside of range, you might be able to tower and/or get a high gain parabolic to get coverage, supposing it is more distance than it is strict obstruction issues (IE the closest WISP transmitter isn't behind a hill/mountain from you).

The difference between a basic omni antenna (3-7dBi) and a parabolic (24-26dBi) is generally a good 20dB of signal distance, that is a gain of roughly 8x further away for the same signal strength!!! Even over a common panel/yagi (10-16dBi), most parabolics are still going to result in enough signal gain (generally 8-10dB higher) to more than double your effective range to the transmitter.

Then again, if it is an obstruction issue, all you can do is tower the antenna...or you are just SOL no matter what.

azazel1024 said:

You may still be okay with just a higher gain antenna, as it does produce less interference, while boosting the gain.

Back on the WISP, out of curiosity, how close to "just out of range" are you and what kind of speeds do they offer if you are within range? You may be able to work with them to get service still, because if you are just outside of range, you might be able to tower and/or get a high gain parabolic to get coverage, supposing it is more distance than it is strict obstruction issues (IE the closest WISP transmitter isn't behind a hill/mountain from you).

The difference between a basic omni antenna (3-7dBi) and a parabolic (24-26dBi) is generally a good 20dB of signal distance, that is a gain of roughly 8x further away for the same signal strength!!! Even over a common panel/yagi (10-16dBi), most parabolics are still going to result in enough signal gain (generally 8-10dB higher) to more than double your effective range to the transmitter.

Then again, if it is an obstruction issue, all you can do is tower the antenna...or you are just SOL no matter what.

Click to expand...

parabolic on cellular? Not viable. Maybe on WISP. Parabolics with 24dBi of gain have narrow beamwidth, like 7 degrees, so they are hard to "point" at the far end's location, and winds can move the dish out of alignment. To use a dish with a necessary short coax (3 ft. or less), you need a bridge intended for outdoor use. But OP wasn't using a WISP.

stevech said:

parabolic on cellular? Not viable. Maybe on WISP. Parabolics with 24dBi of gain have narrow beamwidth, like 7 degrees, so they are hard to "point" at the far end's location, and winds can move the dish out of alignment. To use a dish with a necessary short coax (3 ft. or less), you need a bridge intended for outdoor use. But OP wasn't using a WISP.

Click to expand...

agreed... and a yagi is probably as tight...

I've seen some patch antennas out there with decent gain (15-18 dB) with 60 degree patterns...

Going back to what I was saying though - on LTE, it's 2T2R MIMO, so it's a pair of antennae - one could use a combiner, but with the extra cabling and loss across the combiner, at best one would get around 9 dB total gain

Better to just use of a couple of decent 5dB half-wave dipoles and call it done (5 dB per stick, and you get 3 dB gain on the Rx Diversity). Space them about 11 cm apart (1/4 wave Lambda) for 700Mhz (where Verizon LTE is in most markets) and you'll get some impressive improvements if you use direct connections into the LTE dongle.

The little Wilson boosters are less than impressive, and perform poorly compared to claims - they might provide 5 dBm gain, but they lose 2 dB by using an inductive coupling, and you still have cable loss out to the external antenna... and again, one loses, as most of the installs are single antenna (giving up another 3 dB gain there).

Oh well, people still buy them...

FWIW - GSM had some issues with boosters, not related to power, but to time and the TDMA downlink slot timing, was even worse with eGRPS - that timing limited the max effective cell radius irregardless of Tx/RX power/sensitivity, booster or not.

UMTS and FDD-LTE don't have the same limitations there...

Great stuff. So, I got my UML 290 hooked up. It is currently residing in my Wilson Sleek via a rubber band. The sleek is attached to a Wilson Yagi via LMR 400 cable. The UML 290 is hooked up to a TP Link TL-MR3020...that is hooked to my Asus RT-N66U router. The reason being, the best place to put the UML 290 is on the other side of the house from where I need the signal. So, going from the TP-Link to the Asus via ethernet is my best option. Going with this setup, I'm seeing 23Mbps up and 17Mbps down. This is a big improvement from what I was seeing. However, It seems like every 4 or 5 hours, I'm unplugging the UML and re-plugging it in to reset it. Not sure what this is about.
Now, the Wilson Sleek...I don't have an adapter for the UML 290 yet. I'll try that directly to the Yagi when I get that. I've heard the Sleek will affect negatively the SINR. I can't test that right now, since I can't figure out how to get that reading running the UML through the TP-Link. When I get the adapter cable, I'll let you guys know what I've found out. I'm enjoying the speed right now, it's just annoying to have it drop out every 4 or 5 hours. It is driving my non-techie wife crazy

stevech said:

parabolic on cellular? Not viable. Maybe on WISP. Parabolics with 24dBi of gain have narrow beamwidth, like 7 degrees, so they are hard to "point" at the far end's location, and winds can move the dish out of alignment. To use a dish with a necessary short coax (3 ft. or less), you need a bridge intended for outdoor use. But OP wasn't using a WISP.

Click to expand...

If you looked closer at my post, I was discussing using a parabolic for WISP, as that might give him high enough gain to be within range of the closest WISP base station, so long as it isn't geographic features preventing operation. Most WISPs I've seen either tell you to use your own equipment, or what they provide is generally a base station with a 5-7dBi omni or sometimes I've seen them provide Yagis or panel antennas. So if they are stating out of range, because all we provide is a 14dBi panel antenna, a 24dBi parabolic might well put you well in to range of the WISP.

Just a thought.

OP uses a WISP?

I don't use a WISP, but I had stated in the original post that I am on the fringe of a WISP tower. I'm currently using cellular via Verizon grandfathered plan. I had tried WISP with the supplied antenna and it crawled along and was spotty. If I can't get my current setup to be more stable (keep having to reset UML 290) I might try the WISP again with an upgraded antenna setup. They have apparently upgraded the tower in my area so speeds wouldn't be that much different than what I'm dealing with now.

with a gain antenna for the WISP, it might be cheaper than cellular. But a lot of WISPs have lousy speeds and customer support.

But find out what technology the WISP uses. Some use 802.11 WiFi. Other use proprietary systems like Motorola's old Canopy in 900MHz.

doco2279 said:

Great stuff. So, I got my UML 290 hooked up. It is currently residing in my Wilson Sleek via a rubber band. The sleek is attached to a Wilson Yagi via LMR 400 cable. The UML 290 is hooked up to a TP Link TL-MR3020...that is hooked to my Asus RT-N66U router. The reason being, the best place to put the UML 290 is on the other side of the house from where I need the signal. So, going from the TP-Link to the Asus via ethernet is my best option. Going with this setup, I'm seeing 23Mbps up and 17Mbps down. This is a big improvement from what I was seeing. However, It seems like every 4 or 5 hours, I'm unplugging the UML and re-plugging it in to reset it. Not sure what this is about.
Now, the Wilson Sleek...I don't have an adapter for the UML 290 yet. I'll try that directly to the Yagi when I get that. I've heard the Sleek will affect negatively the SINR. I can't test that right now, since I can't figure out how to get that reading running the UML through the TP-Link. When I get the adapter cable, I'll let you guys know what I've found out. I'm enjoying the speed right now, it's just annoying to have it drop out every 4 or 5 hours. It is driving my non-techie wife crazy

Click to expand...

If a reboot is all it takes, and you can't find the source of the problem, I'd recommend a rebooter from 3gstore.com. I've got one of these in place for a router that just likes to 'lock up' randomly and it's made the issue and non-issue now for years.

Here is an update on my system. The TP Link TL-MR3020 is not stable with the UML 290. So, I scrapped all of that and purchased a Novatel T1114 Tasman router off Ebay for 68 dollars. This thing is rock solid so far. If anyone is looking for an option to run their home on 4G, pick one of these up. You simply swap in your sim card and away you go. This router also has the option to run a voice line directly to the unit. I'm seeing 30Mbps down and 18 Mbps up. Super solid signal. Running two external antennas to the unit, one Omni and one Yagi. I couldn't be happier now with this set up.

Might be better off with two omni's to balance the link and make more of the MIMO capabilities of LTE.

The Novatel T1114 is a good choice.

does Verizon or someone with real rural coverage offer some sort of affordable rural ISP plan on LTE?
I'd go through a $50/mo plan's data volume cap in a few days!

stevech,
I don't know of any "legit" plan that is affordable. I do know there are parties out there on ebay that will rent you a Verizon grandfathered unlimited data plan. These usually run around 120 a month. I was lucky enough to already have a grandfathered plan.

sfx2000,
I'm not that smart on MIMO. I've tried to do some reading, but it is confusing to say the least. I had thought about getting another Yagi. From what I've gained from the internet, I'd have to set up both the Yagi's at opposing 45 degree angles. I'd probably be more open to two omni's though since that just seems to be an easier set up. I don't really see that much difference in RSSI or SNR switching between the Yagi and the Omni.

Another thought...since the T1114 uses signal diversity, wouldn't I be better off with my current set up anyhow? I would think that having one Yagi and one Omni my signal would be quite diverse.