Unexpected results of remote internet access

[SloPoke]

We just returned from a week-long camping trip into the Utah Back Country, The Uinta National Forest is known for it’s expanse of wilderness and lack of any cellular services. We expected to be without any mobile phone service when we started up the canyon to Soapstone basin. Our expectations were met with No Service on our T-mobile and Verizon phones.

Before we left, I researched the locations of the closest cell towers anticipating that we would drive to them to get service to call Stacy’s dad for Fathers Day and pick up any urgent messages.

Once we were in camp, we attempted to get our T-mo and Vzw phones to connect to anything – neither phone would register to any network – roaming enabled too. We drove our FJ to the nearest ridge to see if we could get a signal – none of the phones / Mifi units would connect / register.

Some background on how this works – when a mobile phone is started, it will send out a registration broadcast at it’s full available power. Towers within the range of the phone that can receive the signal will respond to the broadcast and begin a sequence of events to register the phone(device). As the registration process completes, the phone will select the tower and sector with the best signal to then further register it’s subscriber to the network. I use a network utility “network cell info pro” to get the details of cellular registrations and locations of the towers, it indicated no responses from any towers nearby (there were none nearby, only one on the other side of the mountain in the closest rural town)

So now it is day-3 of our week trip and I had some extra time on my hands… I figured that I would see if I could survey what meager signals I might find with the Mikrotik LHG dish antenna we use for most of our internet connectivity. The first few attempts at getting any signal resulted in “no registration” when pointing the dish at the location where the cell tower was. I then decided to point the dish at the saddle between the mountains across the valley and restart the LTE radio, each time moving the dish about 5-degrees.

After repeated attempts and moving the dish direction, suddenly the LHG registered a signal! A very faint signal RSRP of -121dBm (-100dBm is considered the threshold of unstable signal strength) but it was registered on the T-mo network. Once I was able to establish the registration, I used the Mikrotik mobile app to move the dish in 1-degree increments to optimize the alignment of the dish and the signal. The best we could get was RSRP of -117dBm and RSRQ of -10.0dB.

After validating that we had a usable LTE connection, we connected our phones to the WiFi Access point that our LHG is connected to and enabled WiFi calling and our phones. Suddenly our phones were downloading all the text messages, email and background data for the past 3 days of being offline. - we were connected! A speed-test on our phones returned a download speed of 5.5mbps and upload speed of 56kbps, not stellar but enough to stream a couple of YouTube after allowing for some buffering to occur.

The rest of the week, our LTE connection stayed stable the following 4 days. We placed a number of phone calls over WiFi calling from our phones during the week. I connected to MS-Teams on my phone and was connected to my team at work, even making calls over MS-Teams phones. As long as we were in proximity of our Seneca and the WiFi network, we had all the connectivity we needed – even posting some threads on the JOF while we were over 25 miles from the tower we connected to.

[jeffro01]

Wow... That's awesome... I'm going to have to invest in something soon as we really want to start traveling every summer but because of work I MUST have internet access and satellite internet is ridiculously too expensive...

Man we need a TOAD so freaking badly... But that's for another thread... LOL

Thanks,
Jeff

[Jagiven]

excellent campsite, and good looking companions.

I will have to look into Mikrotik LHG dish antenna.

[Stavman]

So this steals wifi from the phone antenna?

It dosent appear to be a phone signal booster

Love more insight on it

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by Stavman

So this steals wifi from the phone antenna?

It dosent appear to be a phone signal booster

Love more insight on it

It is not a signal booster... It is a dedicated LTE transceiver that you insert a SIM card into. In many ways, it is similar to a MiFi unit that connects to a cell signal that gives you WiFi - but the LHG has a Ethernet port where it connects to a wired network via Cat-5 cable that also powers the LHG with POE (Power over ethernet).

It works on the common LTE bands (2,4,5,12) used by the major carriers.
It is a parabolic dish with the radio mounted to the dish in the reflective zone to make it directional and increases the gain of the antenna. It has a built in Router in the unit that can be configured as a Router, Bridge or anything custom.

The main advantage of this, over the typical MiFi that you can buy at Vzw or ATT / sprint / Tmo is the transmit power. A typical MiFi or your iPhone is limited in its output transmitting power to what the battery and the antenna is capable in dBm. The Mikrotik requires 12-57v at 6Watts of power. Not all of that 6-watts is used in transmitting, but it has lots more power to get the signal back to the Tower than a typical MiFi or mobile phone.

We have our LHG powered by the house batteries using 12v at the POE injector that comes with the unit.

A link to the specification sheet is here: https://i.mt.lv/cdn/rb_files/LHG_LTE...0304104257.pdf

[madmaxmutt]

Although, I could get cell and Internet access many places, I don't expect it. More importantly, I really don't want it while camping.

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by madmaxmutt

Although, I could get cell and Internet access many places, I don't expect it. More importantly, I really don't want it while camping.

We agree mostly... but when an emergency occurs... having the connectivity puts the mind at ease. You don't have to use it, but just having it.

[SloPoke]

the unit we purchased is RBLHGR&R11e-LTE-US.

My choice of where to get this would be Streakwave Wireless, or another vendor on the authorized Mikrotik dealers page.

The unit is not "locked" to a certain carrier like a typical mobile phone is... and it does not support Every LTE band that all of the carriers have - instead it supports the four common bands that are used by most of the carriers use.

[Stavman]

Originally Posted by SloPoke

the unit we purchased is RBLHGR&R11e-LTE-US.

My choice of where to get this would be Streakwave Wireless, or another vendor on the authorized Mikrotik dealers page.

The unit is not "locked" to a certain carrier like a typical mobile phone is... and it does not support Every LTE band that all of the carriers have - instead it supports the four common bands that are used by most of the carriers use.

Do u use your phones sim card, or is that needed

I may get one, for under $200 it's worth the try

[Stavman]

Also curious if the newer LTE6 is better or not

https://mikrotik.com/product/lhg_lte...ndtn-downloads

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by Stavman

Do u use your phones sim card, or is that needed

I may get one, for under $200 it's worth the try

It requires an activated SIM card to work. We took the SIM card that was one of our spare Samsung Galaxy phones we used on our family plan that we previously were using primarily for tethering to our work PC's. We pulled that SIM card after verifying the "Access Point name" that will need to be entered into the APN field on the setup screen. We just insterted the SIM card (use the adapter you get with the SIM card if you have the real small micro SIM cards) and power it up. The SIM card was a unlimited voice/text/data account.

It takes a few minutes to register on the LTE network, as the router OS has to boot first - then it loads the LTE interface (a daughter card mounted on the modem Router board) which then starts the discovery on the surrounding towers.

[Stavman]

Nice

I have a similar Xtra phone/tablet card I can use

Curious on the LTE6 antenna

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by Stavman

Nice

I have a similar Xtra phone/tablet card I can use

Curious on the LTE6 antenna

I looked at it too... for us, it does not bring another band for us on T-mo. It does bring in three new bands for Sprint customers and one more band for ATT customers.

I can not give you a reason not to consider it! I am holding out for the new 600Mhz band 71 on T-mo for band 71 support.

[Stavman]

I'm on Verizon, so think both give me the two I use, 2 and 5
13 isn't an option on either. What I seem to get boondocking at one spot, but hopefully this will boost enough to hit the 2 or 5 band

[Stavman]

This has a router on it already

[Riverman]

I need wifi inside my trailer for two cell phones and two laptops. How does it connect to them?

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Will this unit tie into a simple and cheap router to provide wifi to a phone or laptop?

Yes, that is the intended design. Plug the Mikrotik LHG into the WAN port on the router.

Originally Posted by Stavman

This has a router on it already

Both the router and LTE radio/modem is in the head of the dish, you plug a cat-5 cable into the unit, run the cable down the mast(inside the mast) and plug it into your network device you wish to use (or if you wish to use many devices - use a router or switch to distribute the data)

Originally Posted by Riverman

The router is up a pole, I need wifi inside my trailer for two cell phones and two laptops.

Just add what you wish - to distribute the data that comes from the LHG on the pole.

We run two wired laptops, one Wifi Laptop, DishNetwork Joey and two cell phones.

[Stavman]

I have an older wifi router I'll use too

Sorry I missed the wifi part in yer post

[Riverman]

That is some pretty country in those photo's.

I think we need to spend a few weeks in that area.

We would distance our RV's by 100 ft. or more, of course.

[Riverman]

Is the dish light enough to use with a fiberglass painters pole?