Teltonika cellular Routers

[starquake]

I don't get why there is a need for those speeds. Personally I only want to stream Netflix, pickup emails and do a bit of internet surfing. Theoretically Netflix needs 3Mbps for standard viewing, 5Mbps for ultra HD 15Mbps I suppose it's more about picking up poor signals.

It's because they can basically move per data per second ona. busy cell site. A cat4 can move 1 slot per second, a cat12 4. Tht means on a busy cell where you can't even stream radio, a cat12 one probably can.

A cat20 5g unit is in effect able to combine both 4 and 5g radios too, so gets way more than the 6 basic slots you would think from the spec. We've had faster than home fibre broadband speeds in fields.

 

[starquake]

This is what and why I went with RUTX50/Poynting MIMO

Not been disappointed yet, even at large events where there are presumably many competing clients leading to potential network contention.

Exactly! Only thing we've had to do with ours is ocasionally block a congested band. The device avoids it automatically when it works out it's congested in most cases anyhow, but this can cause latency spikes and tv break up for a few seconds at a time. By blocking B20 (which is usually the most congested) you can avoid this, we just have to remember to turn it back on before we leave.

And like others have said we regularly share our wifi at big events, it's that good, and phone just don't work (which is why I can't reccomend just tethering to phones as many say they do). If phones worked all the time I genuinely would not have the system we have installed.

 

[starquake]

I personally think a CAT 12 is probably the sweet spot between cost and performance for most people.

I agree with this for most. However the B1 5g tahts now on EE and Three (alongside the small range N78) changes things a bit, B1 is the old 3g signal in effect and many cell sites are enabling this for 5g not 4g, so instead of rubbish 3g, you now get 5g on a compatiblae device (and usually at > 300M too).

I would now wholehartly say jump into the cheapest 5g able to do N28 N1 and N78 bands given those are being widely deployed now in EU and UK.

But if you on a buget get a £30 cat12 device on ebay (yes thats all they cost, ZTE286)) as it'll beat many £300 costing devices with lower band categorys.

 

[Guigsy]

Don’t see anything funny.

It's a blatant lie. Which would make me question their others specs and claims.

 

[Langtoftlad]

Ref; cheap and cheerful, if you don't have a PVC< consider a 5g cat 20 MU50001. On Ebay only yesterday at £110 -> will outperform even the cat12 options from Teltonica in a non PVC van. Please note on these the internal antenna are combined with 2 roof antenna ports, and the roof antenna is for 5g bands ONLY. Which is ijteresting given how common these are now.

Hope you're right - just bought one 10% discount so under £100

However, I do have a PVC but my previous MiFi's have always worked well positioned in the skylight.
So will be interesting to see how it performs

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[zac]

Seems the ones on ebay now are without the rj45 port which is on mine. Never used the port to be honest but strange how they are selling the same model but without it.
Still a very good mifi device though which in speed terms out performs my rutx50 which has 4 antennas attached for mobile signal.

 

[Langtoftlad]

Seems the ones on ebay now are without the rj45 port which is on mine. Never used the port to be honest but strange how they are selling the same model but without it.
Still a very good mifi device though which in speed terms out performs my rutx50 which has 4 antennas attached for mobile signal.

Cost cutting, ex voda ones?
Had a Huawei one from Three - the specs said antenna ports but it didn't have them.

Can't think why I might want to use an ethernet cable in the van.

 

[fishplug]

Can't think why I might want to use an ethernet cable in the van.

I couldn't either - but now that I'm putting a mini PC in as a Proxmox server for all the various devices (Home Assistant, Pi-Hole, van PC, VenusOS if I can make it work...) then it makes sense to run a single ethernet cable from the router to the device as it eliminates any losses or interference for all my network.

Probably not a major issue, but I can easily cable it, so why not?

Another advantage of virtualisation onto a single piece of bare metal rather than having half a dozen SBCs kicking around wanting their own power and network cabling...

 

[Brize]

What's the best 4g, possibly 5g, router to get (simple and easy to use) that does not require a roof aerial?

 

[CeeJay13]

Can't think why I might want to use an ethernet cable in the van.

I do because my Thin Client doesn't have WiFi. However, I have an RPi Zero 2 which handles VenusOS through VE.Direct and communicates through WiFi because it doesn't have a Network Port. Needs (and congestion) must!

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[fishplug]

What's the best 4g, possibly 5g, router to get (simple and easy to use) that does not require a roof aerial?

I would probably suggest the Netgear Nighthawk M1 as a contender.

I got mine second hand for a very fair price.

That's only because starquake already suggested a ZTE286 and I'm trying not to copy him

 

[Brize]

I would probably suggest the Netgear Nighthawk M1 as a contender.

I got mine second hand for a very fair price.

That's only because starquake already suggested a ZTE286 and I'm trying not to copy him

Thanks. I see there are also comments about PVCs.

As I have a PVC, do these ZTE and Netgear recommendations apply, or are they not (or less) effective in PVCs?

Any others more suited to PVCs?

 

[starquake]

Thanks. I see there are also comments about PVCs.

As I have a PVC, do these ZTE and Netgear recommendations apply, or are they not (or less) effective in PVCs?

Any others more suited to PVCs?

Teltonica (cat12 or 5g one) for a PVC would be my reccomendation (but an expensive one). Reason is you (ideally) need a roof antenna and the internal/external mix of the ZTE's doesn't work as well due to the faraday cage like impact of a PVC, In a Coachbuilt, the signals pass through the mostly fibreglass + alu mix of the walls fine as the metal is wafer thin. Same with a netgear, won't work as well.

They will work of course places in a skylight or by a window, just not as well as ahem the Teleonica. And I can say comfortably without a roof antenna our system would not have worked at a fair few campsites this year.

As 5g improves though, a ZTE with roof antenna will work fine (the MU5001 only really uses the external antennas for 5g frequencies), and it really is improving this year. We've had 5g at most places this year 12/14 roughly. The issue is 4g coverage really with ZTE as this doens't work as well in a PVC. (the MU5001 has 4 internal, 2 external antennas in effect).

That or a ZTE986 (cat 12) with roof antenna if you want a cheaper temporary option (which will work on 4g with an external ant fine), but bear in mind you'll want to replace it in `a few years.

So yes the cheaper options will work, but less effectively, and ideally need to be located by a window or in a skylight to work well.

5g in particular does not pass on the higher frequencies through walls at all, it's free space only on the fastest 3500mhz bands.
Of course even ina. PVC you'd have signal if next to a cell site, even on 5g, I'm talking more about when you 3-5 miles from a tower as campsites usually are.

 

[Guigsy]

At home, it makes sense to connect things like media servers via ethernet. But I don't think WiFi congestion is going to be an issue in the van. Distances are very short, so channel bandwidth should remain pretty high. You're not going to have dozens of high demand devices.

 

[Brize]

Teltonica (cat12 or 5g one) for a PVC would be my reccomendation (but an expensive one). Reason is you (ideally) need a roof antenna and the internal/external mix of the ZTE's doesn't work as well due to the faraday cage like impact of a PVC, In a Coachbuilt, the signals pass through the mostly fibreglass + alu mix of the walls fine as the metal is wafer thin. Same with a netgear, won't work as well.

They will work of course places in a skylight or by a window, just not as well as ahem the Teleonica. And I can say comfortably without a roof antenna our system would not have worked at a fair few campsites this year.

As 5g improves though, a ZTE with roof antenna will work fine (the MU5001 only really uses the external antennas for 5g frequencies), and it really is improving this year. We've had 5g at most places this year 12/14 roughly. The issue is 4g coverage really with ZTE as this doens't work as well in a PVC. (the MU5001 has 4 internal, 2 external antennas in effect).

That or a ZTE986 (cat 12) with roof antenna if you want a cheaper temporary option (which will work on 4g with an external ant fine), but bear in mind you'll want to replace it in `a few years.

So yes the cheaper options will work, but less effectively, and ideally need to be located by a window or in a skylight to work well.

5g in particular does not pass on the higher frequencies through walls at all, it's free space only on the fastest 3500mhz bands.
Of course even ina. PVC you'd have signal if next to a cell site, even on 5g, I'm talking more about when you 3-5 miles from a tower as campsites usually are.

Thank you, very helpful. I was trying to get away without another hole in the roof and feeding wires behind the woodwork, but I can see that a roof aerial is the way to go particularly, as you say, that 5g does not pass through walls.

In the short term I think a ZTE286 beside a window (front windscreen?) will give us some wifi, but as we travel in Europe a lot it may be wise to invest in a roof aerial.

Thanks

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[Langtoftlad]

I do because my Thin Client doesn't have WiFi. However, I have an RPi Zero 2 which handles VenusOS through VE.Direct and communicates through WiFi because it doesn't have a Network Port. Needs (and congestion) must!

Huh?

 

[Langtoftlad]

They will work of course places in a skylight or by a window, just not as well as ahem the Teleonica. And I can say comfortably without a roof antenna our system would not have worked at a fair few campsites this year.

As long as the ZTE MU5001 works as least as well as my Huawei B535, +5g where available, I'll be happy...
Any budget 5g antennas you recommend [ie budget = less than I've just paid for the MiFi] to temporarily chuck out of the skylight and stick on the roof?

 

[fishplug]

My experiences with cheap antennas have not been good (one actually reduced the signal I got!)

Roof mounted antenna will always be better in a PVC, but a temporary 'chuck it out of the skylight' one might be OK in the short term.

The Netgear M1 (and I think a lot of it's newer variants) had the option for external antennas.

To be honest, I'd spend a bit of proper money on a good antenna and make a hole in the roof. Do it properly, do it once.

 

[Langtoftlad]

My experiences with cheap antennas have not been good (one actually reduced the signal I got!)


To be honest, I'd spend a bit of proper money on a good antenna and make a hole in the roof. Do it properly, do it once.

Nope - not that bothered about internet to spend a shed load

 

[Guigsy]

My experiences with cheap antennas have not been good (one actually reduced the signal I got!)

Roof mounted antenna will always be better in a PVC, but a temporary 'chuck it out of the skylight' one might be OK in the short term.

The Netgear M1 (and I think a lot of it's newer variants) had the option for external antennas.

To be honest, I'd spend a bit of proper money on a good antenna and make a hole in the roof. Do it properly, do it once.

I bought a £25 4G antenna for little Huawei mifi router. The antenna had reasonable Amazon reviews. Even after spending a couple of hours faffing with it, I'm not actually convinced it did anything. It seemed to be roughly as effective as a beermat sized plastic square with a wire shoved in it... which may have been what it was.

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[starquake]

As long as the ZTE MU5001 works as least as well as my Huawei B535, +5g where available, I'll be happy...
Any budget 5g antennas you recommend [ie budget = less than I've just paid for the MiFi] to temporarily chuck out of the skylight and stick on the roof?

It'll work better than a B535 in same location for sure, cell tower being willing (ie, if the max a cell tower offers is a poor 3g service on 2100mhz it'll probably be about same). But assuming cell tower is capable of 5g, it'll outperform it for sure.

Ref Antenna:
Try to find something with a specsheet gain of > 6Dbi or you'll lose more to the cable to the antenna than you'll gain. This is a case where I wouldn't buy off aliexpress, just look for a good Poynting antenna on Ebay I'd say.

The one I'd reccomend (for 5g) is probably https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/37640-poynting-5g-xpol-a0002/
As this one has the highest gain on the frequencies for 5g that you want in a van ideally (the 3500mhz ones that don't travel well). 11Dbi of gain is about triple what a phone manages on those frequencies typically. A lot of self builders use that one over the typical shark fin, as the shark fin antenna manages 8-9Dbi on those bands.

 

[fishplug]

Nope - not that bothered about internet to spend a shed load

No problem. In which case I'd either spend a decent amount of time researching a cheap one that actually does something, or save your money completely and don't bother with an antenna at all.

You might get reasonable reception leaving the router in the cab windscreen, which is what I used to do with my M1 before I stopped wasting my money on cheap antennas and bought myself a decent Poynting one.

 

[fishplug]

The one I'd reccomend (for 5g) is probably...

I had the 4G version - XPOL0001 I think it was.

Bought second hand from eBay and sold on as a package with my M1.

It worked really well.

 

[Neckender]

I’ve set the Falcon unit up this afternoon very easy, and set up my Xtrons flip down screen with Amazon fire stick and it works very well also tried my apple iPad Pro at the same time and it all worked just fine. Now set up for our 9 week winter Benidorm trip.
Despite the detrimental remarks made by someone on here.

 

[Guigsy]

I’ve set the Falcon unit up this afternoon very easy, and set up my Xtrons flip down screen with Amazon fire stick and it works very well also tried my apple iPad Pro at the same time and it all worked just fine. Now set up for our 9 week winter Benidorm trip.
Despite the detrimental remarks made by someone on here.

Apologies. But does it look like it would survive being dunked for 30 mins? It looks nearer IP43 to me. Probably ok in a shower.

My personal preference is to have the router inside, and then I can leave it permanently on and but I have dangling cables. And then use an external antenna. I've seen people route cables through the skylight breathers or vents so as to not need to drill new holes.

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[JockandRita]

The Netgear M1 (and I think a lot of it's newer variants) had the option for external antennas.

Langtoftlad. Stephen, I have our (replacement) Netgear MR2 working with a roof mounted Poynting MIMO 3-12-V2. Like you I don't want to drill a hole in the roof, so I brought the sheath covered cables in through the rooflight frame.

Here at our Essex location, the MR2 on ID Mobile has been providing sufficient signal strength. (without buffering) to stream Amazon Prime and ITV X Catchup, the latter of which as you know, is very much data hungry. My phone with the same provider struggled at times.

Cheers,

Jock.

 

[Langtoftlad]

Hope you're right - just bought one 10% discount so under £100

However, I do have a PVC but my previous MiFi's have always worked well positioned in the skylight.
So will be interesting to see how it performs

Well the eBay one [£98.99 delivered] dropped through my letterbox with an alarming thud. But seems undamaged. The seller listed it as "good condition" but seems perfect to my eyes.
Came without the antenna* and with a 3rd party usb-c cable.

Fired it up, pretty straightforward.
Armchair results -
At least 2x faster on EE 4g than in my Samsung S22Ultra
Similar speed to my Huawei B535.
But of course the proof will be when I'm in a 5g enabled area
Plus it's a lot smaller, and has battery/usb power

*if I've read previous posts correctly, the external antenna only help on 5g and make no difference on 4g??
So attaching the 2 anntena I have from an old ZTE MF910 [A £40 AliExpress bargain] is unlikely to make any difference to either the 4g or 5g reception??

 

[starquake]

*if I've read previous posts correctly, the external antenna only help on 5g and make no difference on 4g??
So attaching the 2 anntena I have from an old ZTE MF910 [A £40 AliExpress bargain] is unlikely to make any difference to either the 4g or 5g reception??

Well it's a bit (interesting) on the 4g reception point. A few people online elsewhere have disassembled and found the antenna only help on 5g. However, one of the two antenna ports when you use the advanced signal dialog do appear to impact 4g from my own testing. Cna't remember which, but I've definitely had an improvement on B28 reception on one of them (you cn tell the signal level in real time!).. The other antenna port has zero impact for sure.

For 5g though they are a massive helper for sure, particularly on B78 and B1 5g. Phone gets 10Mbit on 5g in locations we've had 200-300 with the roof antenna. Literally same location, even put phone on roof with same sim to prove this. Phones are awful at 5g unless the signal is super strong..

What does help with the mu5001 is disabling the B20 reception in some locations as it tends to stick to it. If you have a laptop I can pm you over a link for some code that unlocks band lock if I've not sent it too you before (you can google it too, it's on a Greek adsl forum if you google band lock mu5001, it's just a bunch of javascript code). Way it works is you login to router on a laptop press f12 in chrome and paste the code, which opens all the functions not available in the base firmware with buttons and some guidance. I'd stay away from cell lock, but band lock is noddy simple, you press the button type the bands you want to lock two (say 3,N78) or 3+28, where + means bond, and , means either or). To reset you just press button again (it defaults to AUTO). Warning though it does persist through a reboot, so be sure to switch to auto before you leave a site. We usually just use the script to check what it's receiving, then note the speedtests on each band, then tend to leave it fixed to whatever is fastest.
You can also ahem limit it to 3g only which can be better by just choosing a band not available in UK, like say B7 with a Three Sim. That'll force the sim to use 3g instead of 4 or 5g typcially, which can be faster in some rural spots. Three are turning off the 3g cells though so it'l be N1 (same band on 5g) in future as this happens though.

At our house (where we have FTTP now) if we leave B20 enabled it's totally unusable, where B3 is acceptable. Without the script it jumps between the 2 resulting in no netflix on the mu5001.

 

[Langtoftlad]

Thanks starquake
Most of that is above my paygrade.
I'm only interested in getting a budget* 5g antenna(s) if it significantly improves reception

From my armchair
my phone on three

My EE sim in my phone managed about 10Mbps

and in the ZTE 5001

2 bars signal strength 4g only
The cheapie external aerials I've got, did indeed appear to knock the signal down by at least 1 bar.
24Mbps seems ok for my internet usage

I'll play more when I'm in the van, in St Neots which I know is 5g enabled, in a couple of week's time

*budget = less than £50

 

[starquake]

I'll play more when I'm in the van, in St Neots which I know is 5g enabled, in a couple of week's time

*budget = less than £50

For St Neots, be sure to conenct to the router on 5g, and you may want to change the band off auto in the wifi settings. (we used 48).

But yes, we've had > 400Mbit there on Three. It's less good on EE.

(I mean the 5g wifi signal not 5g on cell!).

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