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Anyone have much experience of such things?
Want a router for the van. Ideally 5g for future proofing.
The GF is one of these so called digital nomads and needs a decent WiFi connection for work.
SIM card slot so that we can pick up a sim in each country.
Mobile, i.e. With battery probably not a bad idea so that we can sit away from the van.
What's good? What's not?
Fanks!
A cheapo 5g phone will do the job - switch the WiFi hotspot on
I’ve a huawei (spit) dongle in the van. It’s ok, starts up, tarts itself out quickly. Nice interface. Probably only sends some packets to Beijing.
Have you looked at starlink roaming? We use starlink at home at it is bloomin awesome:
Yeah, looked at starlink, but the costs seemed somewhat crazy.... ~600€ for the router plus a lot each month.
Am unlimited sim plan in Germany is around 35€/month.... In Italy 20€/month.
600$ start up and 120$ a month.
Nope! Don't need it that much.
We're not the ones to sit and watch Netflix or some other mindless crap when we could be looking at the stars, the moonlight behind the trees or into the fire.
A cheapo 5g phone will do the job – switch the WiFi hotspot on
Was under the impression that the signal would be stronger using a mobile router... I know some of them have a slot for an antenna.
Do you need 5g now? In UK, a decent 4g router will cost <£100, a decent 5g one is >£300.
FWIW I use a ZTE something or other which was about £30 and has been faultless.
This one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ZTE-MF920U-Travel-Hotspot-SMARTY/dp/B08CZYM51X
Mobile data plans often have a fair usage policy, to deter peopple from using them as replacement for fixed broadband.
Just something to be aware of, you could find your speed throttled to s*** if you are data heavy.
And of course, if mobile you are ultimatley limited to how saturated the network you hop onto, is.
Even more so if you are abroad, another Brexit bonus.
https://ee.co.uk/broadband/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband-gallery/5g-wifi-details
dunno if this is what you mean..
i have these in a couple of our work vans. We need decent upload weirdly.
anyway so far they seem good.
Apparently if you're in a panel van you'll need to use a roof aerial to get a decent signal (apparently it acts as a faraday cage), or so I've been told. I've also been told that a particular Huawei is 12V so can be hooked up directly without needing power converters.
I'm doing similar research currently so I can do long weekends away and work the Friday/Monday. Power/desk/monitor is the biggest blocker for me to be able to do it. Power and WiFi might be okay if I just book sites constantly.
maybe, but 4g is fine 99% of the time assuming it's unthrottled and you have a good signal.
Depends on your intended usage I guess... from the link above 25GB data 24 month contract for £24 per month seems pretty reasonable, for work use, but if you're also hamering netflix, spotify and Disney+ you'll burn through that 25gb pretty fast.
for example, I've burned through about 1,200gb download in the last month on my home broadband.
Mostly streaming HD videos, to be fair.
I pay £20 per month (rolling contract) for a full fat truly unlimited data deal on Smarty (Three).
I also have a Voxi sim (Vodafone) on a similar monthly rolling contract for £15 per month for 75gb
Three mobile broadband here for the last 3 weeks. I cannot tell the difference between it and the old fixed line BB from Plusnet.
£20/month unlimited. First 3 months free, 2 year contract. Sets up in a minute. The Router is fed from a transformer, so with a little bit of research could easily be fed from a 12 volt car output. I cannot see us having a fixed line again.
Sorry, should have said.... We're not in Blighty, but on the continent.
In Italy you'll get PAYG sim 150gb for 10€/month.
In Germany I can get a PAYG sim, unlimited for 29€/month.
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Something that runs off a usb cable is preferable as we don't have an inverter to run any 230V stuff. Inverters cane the battery and don't really provide enough power for useful appliances such as a hair dryer.
Was under the impression that the signal would be stronger using a mobile router… I know some of them have a slot for an antenna.
If you buy one with a external antenna then it should get better signal but if you're relying on the internal one like a phone it will be no better. Battery life may be slightly better due to no screen etc.
Same as AlanL works excellent.
I've just done this - went for a Teltonika 4G router.
I really wanted an external antenna - that was sort of the whole point for me, if you're in a good signal area, then just putting your phone on the dashboard or by a window is good enough. I really wanted a better chance of getting reception in marginal coverage areas.
Also kinda wanted to be able to piggyback campsite wifi networks - again using a bigger external antenna, which the Teltonika lets me do.
5G routers seemed very expensive - if I intended to live/work in the van full time, I might consider it, but for now the cost/benefit ratio didn't work out for me.
It's not a perfect solution, the interface is a bit of a mess, and the wifi piggybacking is a bit half-arsed, but I'm happy enough with it for the time being. If I was doing it again, I'd consider cobbling something together with a Raspberry Pi/OpenWRT.
Take a look at the home 5G broadband routers, a lot of them come with external antenna sockets. Huawei as example do the 5G CPE Pro with a few variants, one that has WiFi6 another with only Wifi5 but covers a few more 5G bands etc.. but they both have a pair of sockets on the back to plug in another antenna. Pair the router with a Poynting 5G/4G Omni or directional external antenna and you have something that will pull a signal where others will struggle. Subject to your SIM/mobile operator of course.
Plus you can then use the router at home too.
Teltonika with a decent external aerial is the way to go if you want to maximise signal, and they will run from a standard 12V battery if needed (I power mine at events with a basic PoE UPS, just so if I lose power, the network stays running - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uninterruptible-Battery-Security-Monitoring-Decorhome-White/dp/B0C9HZZHRH/ )
However if you go for their 5G router, the lowest speed signal they can use is 3G.
Their 4G routers will drop to 2G, so I'd consider whether you'd really need 5G. Out in the wilds, 5G isn't likely to be available anyway, as it doesn't cover large distances anywhere near as well as 3/4G.
We had an ee 4g one on the Ukraine trip last year, it worked fine in the transit, it was brilliant in fact. Swapped sim at Polish border, all good.