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suggestion: Netgear MIMO antenna, model 6000450 for improved performance
I ordered a Netgear 6000450 antenna for use with my MR1100. I've had it a little while but hadn't actually put it to use until today. Now I wish I hadn't waited.
I got mine for ~$24, though the price on Amazon, where I got mine, has recently gone up to $27.
I did a bunch of before&after testing, to see how things went. For full disclosure, I'm heavily a networks guy, but I'm not an RF engineer or a cell technology person. I can talk your ear off about TCP performance characteristics, routing structures, and VPN configuration, without knowing the details of how a cell hotspot talks to a tower. So take what I say with perhaps a grain of salt. Figures are from the summary diagnostics page for my MR1100.
Signal notables, before: RSRP -111 dBm, RSRQ -11 dBm, Quality 38 dBm.
Signal notables, after: RSRP -97 dBm, RSRQ -11 dBm, Quality 53 dBm.
That's a 14-point improvement on RSRP, 15-point on quality.
Throughput...This is the bottom line, of course, regardless of what the signals show. I want to see how much I can shovel through the bitpipe, for which I test using speedtest.net. Overall, it looks like 50% improvement.
That is, depending on time of day, I was getting 8Mbps to 15Mbps down, but with the antenna now in action, I am getting 12Mbps at the lower end, and into the mid- to upper-20s Mbps at the high end. Considering my very rural location -- I live in the exact geometric center of nowhere -- I consider this absolutely fabulous.
So if you're willing to invest a couple dozen bucks, I think it's a worthwhile purchase. Read the reviews at Amazon and take them seriously, and don't be dissuaded by the folks who complain too much. Note the need to shut down the MR1100 completely, then connect the antenna's TS9 pegs, then bring it back up, because the device notices the external antenna only on start-up. And aim the flat face of the antenna toward the nearest tower.
--karl
https://www.netgear.com/support/product/MIMO%20Antenna%20(6000450).aspx
https://www.amazon.com/Netgear-6000450-MIMO-Antenna-Connectors/dp/B00DN3J03O
1 Reply
And here is where I learn the value of placement and orientation.
I moved the MR1100 + antenna out of the office where it has lived since I got it, took it into the living room. Experimented somewhat more carefully with antenna direction, knowing where the nearest AT&T tower is (due north, 3.5 miles).
For some reason, speed variability is really quite high. I could work out the std.dev, but I would need a lot of sample points to compute a value with any meaning. That said, however, I'm now pegging 45+Mbps on a fairly regular basis. Without the external antenna, I'm back to 15Mbps. It's not even positioned at the window -- it's just sitting on an end table in the rough center of the house, as far from a window as it's possible to get. (I chose that spot for maximum wifi signal given where we spend time with wifi-connected devices. The office itself has wired ether ports; wifi signal isn't important there.)
The fastest link speed I ever had with Comcast was roughly 30Mbps -- their support in rural nowhere is rather weak. I am now surpassing that by 50% with a cell hotspot. Wow.
I am pleased, though alarmed.