Hi ,
I set my Wife's parents up with a Vodafone 4G router a couple of years back, as BT internet in their rural Devon location never saw more than 1.3mbps with continual dropouts (we live abroad no but come back and visit regularly). It was still in an area of patchy 4G, but at least the little MiFi router was able to support Netflix and basic browsing. Originally we saw 4G router speeds up to about 15mbps max, eighteen months back, far better!
On this visit back, signal seems to have dropped right down. Speed is down to 3mbps or less, and there are notable dropouts, high latency, and the native DNS Vodafone tie you too seems incredibly patchy - some sites load, some don't, even while other services are good. Postcode is EX16 4PS
I'm confident I can solve both issues using the Vodafone SIM in a decent larger router with hi gain antennas, and setting a public DNS such as google 8.8.8.8 which pings fine.
1. What frequency bands do I need to cover for an alternative router?
2. Are there any decent budget 4G routers (say under GBP 80) on UK amazon/ebay or a high street shop somewhere, that will do the job, that come with built in/screw on hi gain antennas?
3. Can someone please confirm the APN settings I will need to set to use the Vodafone SIM with a 3rd party router?
Today (26th) I picked up a TP-Link 4G router, and confirmed Vodafone APN. I am now seeing 75% (WAN Cellular) signal on the the router (the coverage checker tool says it should be perfect), and the change to Google DNS which I have now set on router itself, has fixed the issues with some pages not loading.
Speed is still not what we originally saw when the service was installed though. I can now get up to 5mbps down, and have tested up to 7mbps upload this morning, but still normally hovering around 1.5 - 2.5mbps down. Latency has improved to 40ms.
This all tells me that the cell signal is good enough that I should be getting better speed, but that the Vodafone network is either congested or been throttled locally.
I need to work remotely from here for the next 2 weeks and a stronger connection is urgent/critical to this.
Can someone from Vodafone take a look at our location, and advise if can be improved? Or is it time to cancel Vodafone and switch to VSAT internet?
Best Regards,
Dom
