What 4G routers are people loving?

[Chris J]

Hi All! 

I'm looking for a 4g router that kicks butt. Really I want one that performs like Cradlepoint (weapons grade; the kind of thing that deals with network gear in trucks or service vehicles or temporary setups such as festivals or building sites) in terms of speed and range, but stripping away the enterprise features such as VPN's and SSH tunnelling thus hopefully reducing the cost. Anyone got anything similar that they are loving.

I'm not interested in anything that doesn't have network ports, USB, integrated sim and external attenaes. 

What are people using out there that meets the bill or comes close? I've done a fair bit of research and have a few in mind but interested to know how people are getting on. Especially those people who demand quite a bit from their network. 

 

Thanks in advance! 

[rusty69]

Someone a while back mentioned a Pepwave max BR1 LTE. 

Looked good at the time, although v expensive. I cant remember the spec either. 

I've considered getting the Huawei b593-22, but will wait until my mifi packs up first. 

Edited March 30, 2017 by rusty69

[dmr]

I approach this a bit differently and use a cheap router (TP Link) that takes an external USB dongle rather than an internal SIM. I then use an external arial (antennae) plugged into the dongle so that the dongle can usually stay safely inside the boat. The big advantage of this scheme is that if the signal is very weak I can put the dongle outside raised up on a stick using a long USB extension lead. This finds a bit of signal almost everywhere. A good quality USB lead is required.

My testing suggests that the antenna does not boost the signal but actually  reduces it a tiny bit as the signal strength can be improved slightly by putting the dongle outside (but not raised). I believe the cable loss more than offsets any antennae gain. This is another reason for not using a router with internal sim.

...............Dave

 

[rusty69]

6 minutes ago, dmr said:

My testing suggests that the antenna does not boost the signal but actually  reduces it a tiny bit as the signal strength can be improved slightly by putting the dongle outside (but not raised). I believe the cable loss more than offsets any antennae gain

I have found the same. Unless quality thick low loss cable is used, the gain from the antenna is negated by the loss in the cable. A short length of cable gives marginal improvement. 

[Glynn]

One of these, without doubt, I have one and its awesome.

One of these, without doubt, I have one and its awesome.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Huawei-Unlocked-B315-4G-LTE-150-Mbps-Mobile-Wi-Fi-Router-UK-3-Pin-White-/332145530128?hash=item4d556a9510:g:H8IAAOSw~bFWOL5Y

 

[Chewbacka]

1 hour ago, Glynn said:

One of these, without doubt, I have one and its awesome.

One of these, without doubt, I have one and its awesome.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Huawei-Unlocked-B315-4G-LTE-150-Mbps-Mobile-Wi-Fi-Router-UK-3-Pin-White-/332145530128?hash=item4d556a9510:g:H8IAAOSw~bFWOL5Y

 

Can you use it with an external antenna?

[Chris J]

3 hours ago, dmr said:

My testing suggests that the antenna does not boost the signal but actually  reduces it a tiny bit as the signal strength can be improved slightly by putting the dongle outside (but not raised). I believe the cable loss more than offsets any antennae gain.

 

Antennae can be tricky at times, they can be very particular to their hardware any discrepancies can cause upset. 

[Chris J]

4 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Someone a while back mentioned a Pepwave max BR1 LTE.  

Yeah Pepwave look great, about the same price point as Cradlepoint though unfortunately! Few second hand ones knocking around but not LTE versions.

[rustydiver]

I've got a 

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/tp-link-archer-mr200-4g-lte-wifi-router-with-sim-card-slot-a54xu?cmpid=ppc%3Atp-link%3Apla%3Agoogle&gclid=CMDm9oqJgdMCFeMy0wodTe8BkQ

with a 

http://www.solwise.co.uk/4g-antenna-omni-xpol-a0001.html

external aerial. Gives me a good strong signal when the phone is weak on the boat. Coupled up to my unlimited 3 sim. Everyone can stream and play while on the boat. 

[IanD]

We got a Huawei E5186 when we needed Internet access before our office was fibre connected, worked flawlessly and has all the features requested.

[hounddog]

35 minutes ago, rustydiver said:

I've got a 

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/tp-link-archer-mr200-4g-lte-wifi-router-with-sim-card-slot-a54xu?cmpid=ppc%3Atp-link%3Apla%3Agoogle&gclid=CMDm9oqJgdMCFeMy0wodTe8BkQ

with a 

http://www.solwise.co.uk/4g-antenna-omni-xpol-a0001.html

external aerial. Gives me a good strong signal when the phone is weak on the boat. Coupled up to my unlimited 3 sim. Everyone can stream and play while on the boat. 

There is remarkable little inside the expensive Solwise antennae. I have one, teamed with a GEM420 router, the dog's bollocks, metal with proper screw in aerial sockets.

It's rock solid and takes 2 SIMS and an external USB dongle.
I say rock solid but it does crash on the occasional dodgy site but I guess that's no badck thing.

This antenna 5dB 3G/4G Omni Antenna 4G-REN6702705X-ODN  

[RichM]

I use a Huawei E5786 fixed to a porthole. It was originally intended to be temporary as it's a quick & simple set up commonly referred to as "MiFI". The idea was to set up something more sophisticated but I find the E5786 works surprisingly well and I regularly get download speeds of up to 40 Mbps. It is 12v but also has a built in battery which is useful. Just wish it had dual sim support with automatic failover given the EE masts seem to suffer from network congestion occasionally. It would be nice to switch over to 3 without messing about swapping over sims etc.

From that I RDP (remote desktop) to a computer hosted in a data centre which achieves download speeds up to around 350 Mbps.

Oh and I do have a TP-Link TL-WR802N N300 Nano Router (had to google it ) set up as a repeater. This lets me connect up the few ethernet only devices I have but to be honest I rarely need to use it. It's also USB powered.

[rusty69]

15 minutes ago, RichM said:

I use a Huawei E5786 fixed to a porthole. It was originally intended to be temporary as it's a simple set up commonly referred to as "MiFI", I was going to set up something more sophisticated but I find the E5786 works surprisingly well and I regularly get download speeds of up to 40 Mbps. It is 12v but also has a built in battery which is useful. Just wish it had dual sim support with automatic failover. 

From that I RDP (remote desktop) to a computer hosted in a data centre which achieves download speeds up to around 350 Mbps.

Ive got the e5776 in a porthole. I was going to go the fancy router/antenna route but see little point spending hundreds of pounds as the system I have seems adequate. 

[Giant]

I think this setup I built is about as "weapons grade" as you can get:

The rectangular box in the middle is a RouterBoard RB912 in the BaseBox2 outdoor enclosure. It has a high end 4G modem in the MiniPCI-E slot, with MIMO capability. Its two antenna ports are connected to the antenna on the far left, which is an integrated dual polarisation omnidirectional unit, covering 2G/3G/4G bands. The built-in wifi radio of the router is connected to the pole antenna on the far right. There is gigabit ethernet running down the mast and into the boat, with the router powered by a 24V power-over-ethernet injector.

The board is currently running Mikrotik's RouterOS, but is also capable of running OpenWRT. With either, it can be configured to do pretty much anything, but the most obvious function is to share a 4G connection with the rest of the boat (there is a separate wifi router inside). The outdoor wifi capability can be used to either hook in to any nearby access point, or create a new one for use on deck or to share with the neighbours.

Probably not that practical but you did ask!

[Glynn]

On 30/03/2017 at 22:35, Chewbacka said:

Can you use it with an external antenna?

Yes. I bought mine supplied with two external antennas, not cheap but well worth it 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Huawei-B315-4G-LTE-Unlocked-MiFi-Mobile-Broadband-3G-Router-External-Antenna-/331263189598?hash=item4d20d3225e:g:gEQAAOSwFNZWwg2F

[Chris J]

Thanks everyone for the input! I still can't make a decision, have to say I am leaning towards the Proroute. 

Will let you know what I go for and how it works out when I finally make my bloody mind up!