I live in a semi-rural community with few internet options.

T-mobile become an option so I decided to give it a shot. It’s a decent price/performance option between DSL and cable internet.

As you can see I’ve made a fully custom hanging shelf with a piece of scrap 1/4" plywood and twine for optimal placement.

I then cracked open the unit and installed external antenna adapters. I placed a directional antenna on the roof.

I kept experiencing complete connection dropouts which became worse over time. After some research I found that other users said that the problem was the unit overheating.

I placed a 120mm fan on top. I wired up a barrel jack so it can be plugged into a normal 12v adapter and it just stays on all the time. I might clean this up and use a temperature controller in the future. It’s currently held to the unit with scotch tape.

Everything has been stable for now. Maybe I’ll find some more ways to tweak it to get better performance.

  • Pilirin@beehaw.org
    8·
    2 years ago

    i was wondering when you were going to pull a wad of gum out of your mouth to finish it off like macguyver. that’s some solid reworking of the tech! nice one

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    7·
    2 years ago

    Having a directional antenna is great. If you check the logs on your modem you should be able to see the identifier for the tower you’re connecting to. Using that you can pinpoint it’s location. If you’re really dedicated you can build a tower outside to put a directional antenna above the tree line.

    Or at least, that’s what we would have technicians do for customers in rural areas.

    • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.orgOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      They were nice enough to show a lot of signal data including the identifier. I bought a fairly cheap unpowered antenna, so I didn’t want to extend the cables.

      I did contemplate getting a powered cell signal booster but went for the less expensive option.

  • David@beehaw.org
    5·
    2 years ago

    Nice!

    I had to do similar with mine but threw together some scrap lumber to build up around our printer:

    We’ve had an LTE modem for a long while which is quite expensive but no data cap. Just recently added T-mobile’s 5G Lite modem which while much faster does have a cap. So added a pfSense firewall and setup a failover WAN rule to give the work computer 5G during business hours.

  • Laconic@beehaw.org
    4·
    2 years ago

    I used to rely on my very old grandfathered in unlimited Verizon plan + a phone purchased direct from Samsung so I could use the Wi-Fi hotspot. It worked great 6 years ago when I moved to the country, but it’s been getting worse and worse as more people moved to the area.

    I switched to starlink about a year ago. I have a lot of trees though so I needed to get the dish up high. So I bought a Rohn antenna tower and installed it. I had occasional short outages early on while the satellite network was still growing, but that’s pretty rare now.

    I thought I had a pic on my phone, but I’ve gotten a new phone since then.

    • Grizzzlay@beehaw.org
      1·
      2 years ago

      lol I wondered if anyone still had the original Unlimited Verizon plans that they tried so hard to get rid of. Have you completely gotten rid of it now?

        • Grizzzlay@beehaw.org
          4·
          2 years ago

          Wow, well props to you for making Verizon hold to their original agreement. I remember hearing about court cases where they tried getting out of it.

  • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
    3·
    2 years ago

    Are we posting botched together cellular setups? Here’s mine:

    Pretty much using this exact setup for about 5 years now. Didn’t want to place the antenna outside so I just mounted it in my attic and zip-tied a Netgear MR1100 to it.

    Ran very well for years but it’s starting to show that our LTE network is simply overloaded when everyone is watching Netflix.

    On the upside, I should be getting fiber in a month or two so I can finally throw this contraption out. No 5G here yet but with fiber coming soon I won’t bother with the overpriced 5G modems.

  • peanuts4life@beehaw.org
    3·
    2 years ago

    Woah, that’s a lot of mods! I had the same service for a couple years. It was actually more reliable than the copper in our old apartment, because they ran all the cables into an underground box filled with water (Florida). It was a good price too!

    • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.orgOP
      6·
      2 years ago

      For the price it’s not competitive with this option. There is also a WISP in the area that will provide a 100 Mbps connection. I’m getting ~250Mbps with these “tweaks.”

  • Sim@lemmy.nz
    1·
    2 years ago

    Make the coax as short as possible by relocating you router if you can. That’ll improve signal strength by reducing cable loss!

  • cduke23@beehaw.org
    1·
    2 years ago

    I just switched from Xfinity 1200 Mbps cable to Verizon 5GUW home internet @ 350Mbps. The Verizon plan has been consistently outperforming the Xfinity plan. It was really unreliable\flaky. I’d drop work calls and data transfers, or get booted from games multiple times a week. I opened so many tickets over the course of 5 years and it never really improved. My Verizon plan has been rock solid for about 6 mo now. Also the Xfinity plan was ~$120/mo. Verizon is locked in at $35/mo for 10 years and no data caps. I’m not gonna be looking back.

    • Xuerian@beehaw.org
      2·
      2 years ago

      Verizon is locked in at $35/mo for 10 years and no data caps.

      Desire to know more intensifies

  • aard@kyu.de
    1·
    2 years ago

    I assume it’s a 5G unit? If so, are you locked to that thing, or can you buy your own?

    Around here I’ve mostly seen outdoor mountable units - 5G does best with short to no external antennas, so it is sensible to keep the router on the roof or balcony pointing the right direction.

    I have an older 4G installation as backup link here with external antennas, plus a 5G backup link with the router mounted next to the 4G antenna.