Other rural dwellers will no doubt share my experience of phone line
based broadband - i.e. it hardly qualifies for the title. So I was
quite surprised to note that the EE 4G coverage map seemed to show us in
a full coverage area.

http://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/network/4gee/coverage-checker

So some experimentation was deemed sensible. I got a Huawei E398 USB
dongle jobbie from ebay, and PAYG SIM from EE. Once the SIM finally
turned up (took a fortnight for their "next day" delivery, and then some
time on the phone to locate the £10 that I had preloaded on it!), I
found rather encouragingly that 6MB/s up and down was possible with a
laptop in the garden.

So next job, try the dongle in the router... alas relocating it to the
router cupboard reduced the signal to 34% and "Marginal" - sometimes
rising to workable. Throughput was mostly about 1MB/s although
sometimes a bit better.

Next experiment, a 15dB flat panel twin polarisation aerial on the ends
of 15m of cable. Lobbed out a window, and sat on a bird bath, and the
signal was up into the 50% "Good category". So worth the while
installing it for real.

So got the ladder up (only about 16' to the eves), then manhandled the
roof ladder up (7.6m twin section heavy bugger![1]) - eventually getting
it into place, tried the thing clamped onto the base of the TV aerial
mast. Result 68% signal, and "Excellent".

About this time SWMBO commented that it sounded like there were some
very heavy pigeons on the roof romping about! All I could say was "Coo".

Now one observation on the first trip up, was that I have got the first
load spreader actually hooked over the ridge - not just the hook.
Meaning it could in theory have slipped about 8" while I was on it. So
for the return trip to secure the device and work out how to get the
cables though, I repositioned it "correctly". This in hindsight was a
mistake. Since it now put the last load spreader mid span on the final
row of (fibre cement look alike) slates. Turn out they are unsupported
by battens at this point - a fact drawn to my attention as the load
spreading foot of the ladder plus lumpy pigeon descended several inches
through about 5 of the buggers in one sickening shattering crunchy sound!

That extended the job somewhat. Quick trip to local roofing yard to
collect more slates. Then go find the slater's "rip" I bought some years
back just in case. Another couple of hours later I had them all looking
pretty again and held in place with a mixture of lead tingles and copper
rivets.

So observations:
1) If your broadband is crap, check for wireless coverage.
2) If you have a roof ladder - be careful where you position it on
slates - toward the visible end of slates is generally good - 5" up from
the eves is not!
3) Load spreaders don't - a 1m wide 4x2 tied to the lower rungs makes it
more probable you can get a large load on an off the latter without damage.



[1] I have a love hate relationship with that ladder - although its long
enough to do pretty much any roof, its bordering on the too heavy to use
comfortably while standing on a ladder. I do wish someone would invent a
roof ladder where you could adjust the length of it in place, rather
than having to pull it half way down each time to reach the adjuster,
since otherwise you find you have raised and lower the thing three or
four times before getting the length right.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 07/05/2014 19:26, John Rumm wrote:
1) If your broadband is crap, check for wireless coverage.

I have just changed my 3G phone from O2 to Three. Speed of transfer (not
actually measured - only my perception) is massively better. So far (one
day of working at several locations) and coverage is at least as good as
was O2. In fact, not sure I have any idea whether I am getting data on
3G or Wifi unless I check.

My work phone is 4G on EE and I regularly have no service - phone or
data. When it gets a good signal it is quite decent - but far too many
black holes.

--
Rod

I'd suppose as with most radio devices that need to work in two directions,
it is often the return from where you are to the place the network starts
to be wired that is the issue.

It might even be worth rotating and moving about your external aerial for
most secure connection.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"polygonum" wrote in message
...
On 07/05/2014 19:26, John Rumm wrote:
1) If your broadband is crap, check for wireless coverage.

I have just changed my 3G phone from O2 to Three. Speed of transfer (not
actually measured - only my perception) is massively better. So far (one
day of working at several locations) and coverage is at least as good as
was O2. In fact, not sure I have any idea whether I am getting data on 3G
or Wifi unless I check.

My work phone is 4G on EE and I regularly have no service - phone or data.
When it gets a good signal it is quite decent - but far too many black
holes.

--
Rod

On 07/05/2014 21:28, Brian Gaff wrote:

I'd suppose as with most radio devices that need to work in two directions,
it is often the return from where you are to the place the network starts
to be wired that is the issue.

From the limited experimentation I have done so far, there is far less
asymmetry than with ADSL. Upload seems to usually be always 3 Mbit/s or
better - and often on par with the download.

It might even be worth rotating and moving about your external aerial for
most secure connection.

To be fair there did not seem to be that much variation with rotation -
the beam width is probably in the order of 35 degrees anyway.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 07/05/2014 19:26, John Rumm wrote:

Other rural dwellers will no doubt share my experience of phone line
based broadband - i.e. it hardly qualifies for the title. So I was
quite surprised to note that the EE 4G coverage map seemed to show us in
a full coverage area.

http://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/network/4gee/coverage-checker

So some experimentation was deemed sensible. I got a Huawei E398 USB
dongle jobbie from ebay, and PAYG SIM from EE. Once the SIM finally
turned up (took a fortnight for their "next day" delivery, and then some
time on the phone to locate the £10 that I had preloaded on it!), I
found rather encouragingly that 6MB/s up and down was possible with a
laptop in the garden.

So next job, try the dongle in the router... alas relocating it to the
router cupboard reduced the signal to 34% and "Marginal" - sometimes
rising to workable. Throughput was mostly about 1MB/s although
sometimes a bit better.

You might find that one of the MiFi devices works a fair bit better than
a basic dongle (although not as good as a high gain aerial).

Take the coverage maps with a pinch of salt too. Mine says Three is OK
outdoors but in practice my internal service on 3G is faster than my
wired ASDL! But the data charges sting a bit for casual use.

4G coverage out here is practically non-existent as is 2G on O2.

One well known local 3G blackspot says "full coverage"!

Next experiment, a 15dB flat panel twin polarisation aerial on the ends
of 15m of cable. Lobbed out a window, and sat on a bird bath, and the
signal was up into the 50% "Good category". So worth the while
installing it for real.


You have to experiment a bit to find where exactly to place the MiFi to
get optimum results. Knowing where your nearest mast is helps and don't
underestimate the effects of nearby mirrors or other large flat
conductors. You can bodge a reflector from aluminium foil on cardboard
at a pinch and 3dB passive signal gain can make all the difference.

[I stopped reading here - working at height is really not my thing]


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 08/05/2014 09:34, Martin Brown wrote:
On 07/05/2014 19:26, John Rumm wrote:

Other rural dwellers will no doubt share my experience of phone line
based broadband - i.e. it hardly qualifies for the title. So I was
quite surprised to note that the EE 4G coverage map seemed to show us in
a full coverage area.

http://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/network/4gee/coverage-checker

So some experimentation was deemed sensible. I got a Huawei E398 USB
dongle jobbie from ebay, and PAYG SIM from EE. Once the SIM finally
turned up (took a fortnight for their "next day" delivery, and then some
time on the phone to locate the £10 that I had preloaded on it!), I
found rather encouragingly that 6MB/s up and down was possible with a
laptop in the garden.

So next job, try the dongle in the router... alas relocating it to the
router cupboard reduced the signal to 34% and "Marginal" - sometimes
rising to workable. Throughput was mostly about 1MB/s although
sometimes a bit better.

You might find that one of the MiFi devices works a fair bit better than
a basic dongle (although not as good as a high gain aerial).

Possibly, although in this case I really needed something that would
integrate with the remainder of my network and I could set load
balancing policies for. So it had to be a dongle that the router could
connect to directly. The one I went for also has the external antenna
connectors (a pair of).


Take the coverage maps with a pinch of salt too. Mine says Three is OK
outdoors but in practice my internal service on 3G is faster than my
wired ASDL! But the data charges sting a bit for casual use.

4G coverage out here is practically non-existent as is 2G on O2.

One well known local 3G blackspot says "full coverage"!

Next experiment, a 15dB flat panel twin polarisation aerial on the ends
of 15m of cable. Lobbed out a window, and sat on a bird bath, and the
signal was up into the 50% "Good category". So worth the while
installing it for real.


You have to experiment a bit to find where exactly to place the MiFi to
get optimum results. Knowing where your nearest mast is helps and don't
underestimate the effects of nearby mirrors or other large flat
conductors. You can bodge a reflector from aluminium foil on cardboard
at a pinch and 3dB passive signal gain can make all the difference.

You can find the base station location using:

http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/search

In this case I have clear line of sight to ours just about - although
there will be some tree screening.

[I stopped reading here - working at height is really not my thing]

Executive summary for the remainder: it turned out ok in the end, and
the only fatalities were some slates ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 08/05/2014 09:34, Martin Brown wrote:
Take the coverage maps with a pinch of salt too. Mine says Three is OK
outdoors but in practice my internal service on 3G is faster than my
wired ASDL! But the data charges sting a bit for casual use.

Ours is the other way around. We've got good coverage they said - but in
practice large parts of the house have none at all.

John's map shows no base stations at all - so I zoomed out, and it then
says "zoom in so you can see them"!. It looks as though the nearest site
is 3 miles away over a hill.

Andy

On 08/05/2014 21:22, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 08/05/2014 09:34, Martin Brown wrote:
Take the coverage maps with a pinch of salt too. Mine says Three is OK
outdoors but in practice my internal service on 3G is faster than my
wired ASDL! But the data charges sting a bit for casual use.

Ours is the other way around. We've got good coverage they said - but in
practice large parts of the house have none at all.

John's map shows no base stations at all - so I zoomed out, and it then
says "zoom in so you can see them"!. It looks as though the nearest site
is 3 miles away over a hill.

I found that quirk a bit annoying too. You have to set the zoom just
right and then scout around looking for the nearest ones. Seems a bit
mean since if you just put your postcode in you get nothing at all. They
could at least set to zoom so you get a couple of nodes shown.

Although I could guess where to look for the most obvious transmitters
having line of sight on them up on the scarp edge.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Wed, 07 May 2014 19:26:59 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Other rural dwellers will no doubt share my experience of phone line
based broadband - i.e. it hardly qualifies for the title.

Currently 6.21 Mbps BRAS down over nearly 3 miles of mixed
copper/ali. But another mile or so down to the village and it's crap
1 or 2 Mbps if you are lucky. The village is also in the bottom of a
valley, 2G is very iffy if it exists at all let 4G...

http://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/network/4gee/coverage-checker

So some experimentation was deemed sensible. I got a Huawei E398 USB
dongle jobbie from ebay, and PAYG SIM from EE.

Do they have any suitably priced tarrifs with enough data? Last
couple of months we have chomped through 100 GB of download at
£25/100 GB. Static IPv4 address? IPv6 available? Any port blocking or
traffic shaping don't want any of that ****.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 09/05/2014 09:43, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 07 May 2014 19:26:59 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Other rural dwellers will no doubt share my experience of phone line
based broadband - i.e. it hardly qualifies for the title.

Currently 6.21 Mbps BRAS down over nearly 3 miles of mixed
copper/ali. But another mile or so down to the village and it's crap
1 or 2 Mbps if you are lucky. The village is also in the bottom of a
valley, 2G is very iffy if it exists at all let 4G...

That is remarkably good if there is aluminium in the path! Faster than
mine of about the same length on ancient pure copper @ 5152k. Download
speed is actually badly limited by lost acks going back on a very noisy
uplink channel that has 50 error seconds/day and 1000 HEC errors. I am
lucky to get streaming radio for more than 5 minutes without a glitch
and HDTV is out of the question crashing after only a couple of minutes.

I know of places not far from me that barely get sync at 256k on mainly
aluminium cables and have POTS noise like you would not believe!

http://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/network/4gee/coverage-checker

So some experimentation was deemed sensible. I got a Huawei E398 USB
dongle jobbie from ebay, and PAYG SIM from EE.

Do they have any suitably priced tarrifs with enough data? Last

Not really. Although it might be competitive at 100MB/month on some of
the "all you can eat" data deals (depending on what that really means).

I use 3G as a backup fast link at home and an internet data connection
when I am visiting my parents (who don't have any broadband).

Shop around and you can sometimes get introductory PAYG SIMs with 3GB
over 3 months preloaded for about £12 (usually £20). OK for browsing,
email and Windows updates (but best to sync everything before going on
the road with it). Obviously no good for video on demand!

couple of months we have chomped through 100 GB of download at
£25/100 GB. Static IPv4 address? IPv6 available? Any port blocking or
traffic shaping don't want any of that ****.

You may have to compromise but the Three offering is about £15/month.

http://store.three.co.uk/view/searchSimOnly?tariff=112

I think there is another cheaper SIM 200 monthly tariff too.

I have a much cheaper tariff since I use it as little as possible.

It is only worthwhile iff you have network coverage, but high up I have
found that often the range is a lot better than you might expect! YMMV

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Fri, 09 May 2014 11:58:10 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

Currently 6.21 Mbps BRAS down over nearly 3 miles of mixed
copper/ali.

That is remarkably good if there is aluminium in the path!

It's heavy ali, each wire is about 1 mm dia rather than the normal
0.5 mm of copper.

I know of places not far from me that barely get sync at 256k on mainly
aluminium cables and have POTS noise like you would not believe!

They ought to jump up and down and get that POTS noise sorted out.

So some experimentation was deemed sensible. I got a Huawei E398
USB
dongle jobbie from ebay, and PAYG SIM from EE.

Do they have any suitably priced tarrifs with enough data? Last

Not really. Although it might be competitive at 100MB/month on some of
the "all you can eat" data deals (depending on what that really means).

Dig you miss read how much we used in each of last couple of months?
100 GB not MB. 100 MB wouldn't last an hour at the weekend. B-)

It is only worthwhile iff you have network coverage, but high up I have
found that often the range is a lot better than you might expect! YMMV

I can see the cell mast from upstairs about 4 miles away. It probably
only has 3G on it though.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 09/05/2014 15:41, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Fri, 09 May 2014 11:58:10 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:


Not really. Although it might be competitive at 100MB/month on some of
the "all you can eat" data deals (depending on what that really means).

Dig you miss read how much we used in each of last couple of months?
100 GB not MB. 100 MB wouldn't last an hour at the weekend. B-)

Oops. My typo! I meant 100GB (I use about 500MB/month average 3GB peak).

It is only worthwhile iff you have network coverage, but high up I have
found that often the range is a lot better than you might expect! YMMV

I can see the cell mast from upstairs about 4 miles away. It probably
only has 3G on it though.

3G will give you nearly 20Mbps and a more nearly symmetric up and down
link.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

It is only worthwhile iff you have network coverage, but high up I have
found that often the range is a lot better than you might expect! YMMV


Have you, and Dave for that matter, ever looked into the possibility of
getting a microwave link in from somewhere that you could pick up a
higher speed connection from nearer the exchange and possibly sharing it
with a few people to spread the cost and make it worthwhile in your
remote areas?..


Units such as the Ubiquity Nanobridge offer high thruput with low costs
these days...

http://www.wifi-stock.co.uk/details/...dge_m5_25.html

--
Tony Sayer

On Sat, 10 May 2014 09:23:56 +0100, tony sayer wrote:

Have you, and Dave for that matter, ever looked into the possibility of
getting a microwave link in from somewhere that you could pick up a
higher speed connection from nearer the exchange and possibly sharing it
with a few people to spread the cost and make it worthwhile in your
remote areas?..

There was(*) a community broadband system in place here since 2001.
The backhaul started by piggybacking on the CLEO links for the
schools. They were WiFi (yes 2.5 GHz WiFi) links. The local
distribution was also WiFi, link lengths from a couple of km to the
longest not far short of 20 km.

This lasted about 5 years before so much "user" WiFi appeared in the
densely populated areas that keeping the system stable/reliable was a
nightmare. Local distribution and end user connections then shifted
to WiMax on 5 GHz, backhaul also moved to a dedicated licensed
microwave link. The backhaul is now on fibre and the whole local
distribution/end user connections are about to be upgraded again. Not
sure if they are going to use Ubiquity or another "new entrant"s kit.

(*) I say "was" as recently ownership of the majority of the network
hardware has been transfered to a commercial provider. Customer
contracts will move to the new provider when they get their upgrade
(best old rate 2 Mbps, similar cost post upgrade 8 Mbps, the
technology should be able to offer up to 24 Mbps). The community
funded system was highly unlikely to be able to fund the needed
upgrade for several years. The new provider has taken on all the
risks and upgrade costs.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 10/05/2014 09:23, tony sayer wrote:

It is only worthwhile iff you have network coverage, but high up I have
found that often the range is a lot better than you might expect! YMMV


Have you, and Dave for that matter, ever looked into the possibility of
getting a microwave link in from somewhere that you could pick up a
higher speed connection from nearer the exchange and possibly sharing it
with a few people to spread the cost and make it worthwhile in your
remote areas?..

I have considered it, but AFAIK the other surrounding areas that I have
decent line of sight access to, don't have decent enough broadband to
make it worthwhile yet.

Units such as the Ubiquity Nanobridge offer high thruput with low costs
these days...

http://www.wifi-stock.co.uk/details/...dge_m5_25.html



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 10/05/2014 09:23, tony sayer wrote:

It is only worthwhile iff you have network coverage, but high up I have
found that often the range is a lot better than you might expect! YMMV


Have you, and Dave for that matter, ever looked into the possibility of
getting a microwave link in from somewhere that you could pick up a
higher speed connection from nearer the exchange and possibly sharing it
with a few people to spread the cost and make it worthwhile in your
remote areas?..

Yes. There is one such initiative in a neighbouring village by Clannet

http://www.clannet.co.uk/

We are considering putting a node onto our VH once the fibre rollout is
complete and we know for sure where will not be getting superfast.

BT have deliberately upgraded the cabinets in that village to scupper
the local microwave initiative

Units such as the Ubiquity Nanobridge offer high thruput with low costs
these days...

http://www.wifi-stock.co.uk/details/...dge_m5_25.html

Interesting. Are they licensed for UK use?

I might be able to get a line of sight to a farm close to one of the
fibre enabled cabinets. I am fighting with my ISP over uplink problems
at the moment which may well have been caused by cabinet disturbances.

At least I have a reasonably clean POTS line. Some in the village have
lines so noisy and crackly their speech is barely intelligible.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Yes. There is one such initiative in a neighbouring village by Clannet

http://www.clannet.co.uk/

We are considering putting a node onto our VH once the fibre rollout is
complete and we know for sure where will not be getting superfast.

BT have deliberately upgraded the cabinets in that village to scupper
the local microwave initiative

Now that used to happen back in the days before ADSL was that
commonplace too;(...


Units such as the Ubiquity Nanobridge offer high thruput with low costs
these days...

http://www.wifi-stock.co.uk/details/...dge_m5_25.html

Interesting. Are they licensed for UK use?

Yes..

Lightly licenced, sort of..

http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/radioc...icences/fixed-
wireless-access/


I might be able to get a line of sight to a farm close to one of the
fibre enabled cabinets.

Good way to do it but trees can affect 5.8 Ghz but given a clear line of
sight then they can go for miles..

I am fighting with my ISP over uplink problems
at the moment which may well have been caused by cabinet disturbances.

At least I have a reasonably clean POTS line. Some in the village have
lines so noisy and crackly their speech is barely intelligible.


Get BB via microwave and then use VoIP for your phone...

--
Tony Sayer

On 12/05/2014 16:23, tony sayer wrote:

I am fighting with my ISP over uplink problems
at the moment which may well have been caused by cabinet disturbances.

At least I have a reasonably clean POTS line. Some in the village have
lines so noisy and crackly their speech is barely intelligible.

Get BB via microwave and then use VoIP for your phone...

As things stand at present VoIP is a lost cause here.

I can barely sustain streamed digital audio downloads for more than a
minute before an Ack timeout stalls it losing about 10s of content.

TV on iPLayer fails at about the same frequency and although the
headline speed is adequate HDTV is a complete joke

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article , Martin Brown |||newspam|||@
nezumi.demon.co.uk scribeth thus
On 12/05/2014 16:23, tony sayer wrote:

I am fighting with my ISP over uplink problems
at the moment which may well have been caused by cabinet disturbances.

At least I have a reasonably clean POTS line. Some in the village have
lines so noisy and crackly their speech is barely intelligible.

Get BB via microwave and then use VoIP for your phone...

As things stand at present VoIP is a lost cause here.

I can barely sustain streamed digital audio downloads for more than a
minute before an Ack timeout stalls it losing about 10s of content.

TV on iPLayer fails at about the same frequency and although the
headline speed is adequate HDTV is a complete joke


Seems in the UK there're the "haves" and err, "have nots" ;(...
--
Tony Sayer

On 12/05/2014 20:30, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Martin Brown |||newspam|||@
nezumi.demon.co.uk scribeth thus
On 12/05/2014 16:23, tony sayer wrote:

I am fighting with my ISP over uplink problems
at the moment which may well have been caused by cabinet disturbances.

At least I have a reasonably clean POTS line. Some in the village have
lines so noisy and crackly their speech is barely intelligible.

Get BB via microwave and then use VoIP for your phone...

As things stand at present VoIP is a lost cause here.

I can barely sustain streamed digital audio downloads for more than a
minute before an Ack timeout stalls it losing about 10s of content.

TV on iPLayer fails at about the same frequency and although the
headline speed is adequate HDTV is a complete joke

Seems in the UK there're the "haves" and err, "have nots" ;(...

Indeed and BDUK are doing their best to keep it that way

--
Regards,
Martin Brown