Advice for better setup?

[lawnmowerman]

I found this site and am hoping to learn something! Below is my situation and setup. Would appreciate any advice for improvement!

Wife and I can’t get internet service at any decent speed at home and so use cell phones for internet (Verizon unlimited plans). Live in rural area, out in the woods. House is at the foot of a mountainous hillside. Standing outside at one corner of the house, get about 1 maybe 2 bars of Verizon LTE service.

So after much trial and error, settled on cel fi go x booster https://www.amazon.com/Cel-Fi-GO-Carrie ... +go&sr=8-3

Traded out the outdoor antenna it came with for higher gain one instead https://www.amazon.com/Periodic-Directi ... B075C8FX3S, which is mounted on side roof pointed in the direction of a tower about 5 miles away (mapped towers in surrounding area). Can’t see the tower though through more hills, trees, etc. Antenna is tilted back about 30 degrees. Spent so much time to maximize signal by adjusting heights/direction, but pretty much maxing out rsrp at -96 to -100 dBm.

Outdoor yagi antenna is connected via 30 ft RS400 cable to booster, and booster is connected via 60 ft RS400 cable to indoor panel antenna in opposite corner of house in basement. So I think that setup is right, good balance between cable runs and antenna isolation.

Inside the house, we get 4 bars (RSRP around -75, SINR 9-12, but rsrq around -16 to -20). Download speeds can get up to 10 mbps but usually more like half and sometimes 1-2. I don’t think we can get a better signal inside but I’m all ears.

Here’s the part though where I’m wondering if we could do better and I’m just not aware of options. If we’re not just using phones for internet, we’ll use phone as hotspot, say for laptop or Apple TV.

If one person is streaming, other person has pretty slow internet on their device. If they can connect at all. Just lots of inconsistency and problems using more than one device at once, if one device is doing more than just surfing the web.

Is there a modem or router we should be using instead?

Tried a Verizon jet pack but that only has 15/month data limit, whereas phone plans are “unlimited” (75gb of premium data, with 30gb hotpot, before throttling sets in, which it definitely does). But maybe there’s a better data plan out there?

I’m just wondering if we’re losing speed and/or steady connection cause we’re using phones (whether as hotspots or not) that are competing for indoor booster signal, when we should be using something else, though I don’t know how that would work with Verizon and data plans.

[gscheb]

Hello,
In my experience cell phone boosters are great for your cell phones. Help you make phone calls send send text messages and do some things on the internet with your phone data.
But when it comes to getting home internet found it best to have a router connected directly to antennas with out a booster.
At our home we have both. And you will see that allot on these forums form other as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14tWiAsqfJk

There are plans that you can get to work.
Here is just one long thread with allot of talk about plans.
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=888

I currently fond of using T-Mobile plans. Got several houses to work with it with a tower within 5 miles of the home.

[lawnmowerman]

Thanks for the info! I’ll check it out.

Will the router connected to the antenna work though if the signal from the antenna is relatively weak and low quality? My antenna now reads: Rsrp -97 dBm, rsrq -9 dB, sinr 10 dB.

Verizon is the only carrier that works reliably and well around me. So I’ll have to probably stick with their data plans.

[gscheb]

Look around on the forum there is allot of people using just antennas to the router. That is what I am doing. AT&T or Tmobile more than likely wouldn't work as a phone at my house. But have used them both for data with antennas.

[Didneywhorl]

Boosters tend to be great for cell phone voice and text use, but need much more specialized setup for internet use. I've not yet seen anyone show a working panacea of internet boosted by any booster.

A good antenna pair with limited length cables of the highest quality (like LMR400) seems to work next to best. Best seems to be running the router outside with the antennas, in an enclosure, using a short cable run (5' max) between and powering it via PoE LAN.

[lawnmowerman]

Update: OMG I can’t believe I wasted a year with the booster! I positioned two yagi antennas 90 degrees to each other pointed toward the tower (though absolutely blocked by hills and forest) and connected both to the mofi 4500. We now have consistent and steady internet, no more devices competing for the signal, 5-15 mbps depending where you are in the house and time of day... so much better!!! Thank you all and so glad I came across this site! At this point, I just need to figure out the data plan piece for long term (right now we’ve got extra data from Verizon due to their COVID-19 response), and maybe start tweaking with the setup some more. Thanks again!

[Didneywhorl]

Always good to hear!

[gscheb]

Thank you for posting that will help others to believe that set up without booster works.
I did the exact same thing when started out. Had a lte modem literally touching the inside booster antenna trying to make it better. Think it is very common.
I was so much in denial only hooked up one antenna with 75ohm cable wire and it was better than the booster the first time I tried.

[strikeking1976]

lawnmowerman, I Have questions, I'm in the same boat as you,, very little signal in the middle of nowhere, got the cel-fi go. It works but like you were describing if 1 phone is using data the other phones may or may not connect, would love more detail on your current setup maybe even some pics and wondering if you have a sim card in router, just trying to learn this stuff please excuse the inexperience.

[lawnmowerman]

lawnmowerman, I Have questions, I'm in the same boat as you,, very little signal in the middle of nowhere, got the cel-fi go. It works but like you were describing if 1 phone is using data the other phones may or may not connect, would love more detail on your current setup maybe even some pics and wondering if you have a sim card in router, just trying to learn this stuff please excuse the inexperience.

The phone company finally extended fiber internet to my road so I’m not using the cell signal setup anymore. Took down and sold all my equipment, so no pics to share, sorry!

The cell phone booster was good for making calls but not data. For data/internet, you need to go with an LTE modem/router setup where you use a SIM card in the device. There are a lot of great/knowledgeable folks on this forum that can help you get started!

I’ll say that even if you’re signal is weak outside, don’t underestimate how fast of a data connection you can get still with a good outdoor antenna setup locked onto the right band. Highly recommend parabolic grid antennas.