How to get good wifi in our motorhome ?

[Fatmrsgeorge]

We like to watch TV and films. How do we get good or at least not terrible wifi ? Please bear in mind that if you talk about the matter anti matter reactor valve , that I'm not as smart as Scotty from Star Trek.
Just want something easy. Ta

 

[CA]

I need to add - my friend is very happy with his MotorhomeWifi setup. He might get peeved that my M6 router can download at 300Mbps at a particular location whilst he gets 70Mbps - but in reality to watch TV or browse the internet then 70Mbps is plenty fast!
I use my connection for high speed uploads (TB at a time); so purchased a router for business application....but both systems work!

 

[starquake]

In truth I do not know enough to agree or disagree on this - only real world experience is my friend has a MotorhomeWifi package 5g setup (full install with antenna). We have often park next to each other somewhere, and then test our download and upload speeds. Every time my Netgear m6 pro is faster; and often significantly. We both have Three unlimited sims. My van is an A class. His a panel van. But he has the a

It's probably just the 5ghz signal spacing thing I mentioned Netgears have more sensiuble defaults on their wifi, if you advised him to switch to 20/40ghz 5g mode and channel 149 or 152 instead of default auto (which sticks to 44 in reality which is almost always congested) it's likely work better for him. Motorhomewifi (and all ZTE's which they typcially use) are not great in the default 80 wide channel spacing that I saw on a unit that I helped fix.

The difference is usually not the 5g ironically as the antenna on both ZTE and Netgears are broadly similar, it's usually the 5g wifi settings.

The mad thing is the default on the ZTE is also long-reach wifi, when it should also be set to short -> this again reduces interference as a motorhome also only needs a small amount of signal, and if you are blasting out at max power, you are more subject to interference from a neighbouring hotspot (a particular issue on some CACC sites, as they also use 5ghz to move signal around their sites)..

Getting optimal performance from 5g these days is sadly beyond most of the vendors, and I agree with you for a simple one box oslution thats got decent defaults, the Netgear is great, but a roof antennaed motorhomewifi or ZTE perform identically if configured right, and SHOULD outperform it due to the higher gain, especially on band n78 (3500mhz) which can't go through fibreglass walls well. On n1 (2100mhz) which is same frequency as old 3g used on Three, it does pass through the walls well, so would likely peform better on the netgear as it has more antennas in that device tuned for that frequency. YOu can check which type of 5g (and the band) in the advanced settings/network information tab on a motorhomewifi setting, and if you getting n78 you can literally see the difference a roof antenna makes in the signal meter (a lot better than the broad bars showing in the UI).

The router used (the 5g) one by motorhomewifi is about £300 new RRP approx (ZTE MU5001), but you can get a as-new one from Ebay for £160. It is the cheapest 5g device, but it can outperform most other devices on a price/performance basis, and it does have a simple to use interface for most users -> but it unfortuantly does have limitations in the wifi settings in my opinion at least (as someone who has consulted in wifi design for large installs) as the defaults are not that sensible for a congested campsite today. Will it work yes, will it perform optimally with those defauts on a CACC/CAMC site with congested 5ghz bands, nope. It will perform fine in a rural aire with no other 5ghz signals around, but on a campsite, it really needs a tweak from those defaults.

I don't think we can blame motorhomewifi for any of this, it's ZTE (who provide the software) with settings ideal for areas with no-signal around from neighboruing vans and campsites. Even your netgear may benefit from tuning the 5ghz wifi settings, as this has a larger impact than anything on performance (you should be set to 20 or 20/40 at most in spacing). 20/40/80 or 80 alone should be avoided (80 spacing means in laymans terms you are getting interfered with by potentially 4 nearby frequencies at once if your neighbouring vans are using 20 spacing).

 

[DBK]

In truth I do not know enough to agree or disagree on this - only real world experience is my friend has a MotorhomeWifi package 5g setup (full install with antenna). We have often park next to each other somewhere, and then test our download and upload speeds. Every time my Netgear m6 pro is faster; and often significantly. We both have Three unlimited sims. My van is an A class. His a panel van. But he has the antenna, I do not.

However, in my own house I can walk from the front to back and get a speed of 100Mbps difference - so even moving the router (or in his case his whole van) 10 feet could provide different speeds. I have on occasion just moved my router from the back to the front of the van and gotten different speeds. Again, other peoples mileage may vary.....

I don't have anything else to back this up however - just my own real world experience. The cost of a Netgear is slightly more than the whole router, antenna, and installation provided by MotorhomeWifi. So surely their router is not worth as much (did read they use a £60 router - but cannot find the link again)....and that is the crucial bit in my mind.

The Netgear M6 Pro is a premium router costing several times (x4?) whatever MotorhomeWiFi use. I would expect that explains the speed difference you have seen.

 

[starquake]

Should add the reasons why channel spacing in laymans terms (I pinched this off reddit, but it's broadly correct).

1. Your AP and your clients cannot transmit until the entire channel bandwidth is silent. When you make a channel 2x wider, you are now getting interference from ~ 2x more neighboring networks/clients and are ~ 2x more likely to have to wait for silence every time you transmit. That's latency.
2. 5GHz transmit power is limited by the total transmit power across the entire channel bandwidth. If you are transmitting at maximum power already, then you increase channel width by 2x, your peak transmit power at each frequency is now 1/2.

Given ^ happens, 40 width channels are the widest you really should use,.
If you use 80, in effect you have to wait whilst a neighbouring van transmits until it's silent, and as 80 uses 4 20mhz channels, you have to wait for 4 adjacent channels to ALL be silent, where 40 uses 2... NEVER use 80mhz or 160mhz spacing on 5ghz, as thats just crazy when you think about the above interference.

Equally you can get away with low-power output with smaller spacing,a s all that small power on transmit is limited to a realitively small sapcing.

This is as said PARTICULARLY important at CACC/CAMC sites as many use 5ghz extensively now. So in effect running at 80mhz means 1/4 the transmit peak power, meaning your devices actually although could have higher peak speeds if nothing else is in area, if there IS congestion, it means waiting longer.

Sorry for making this technical, but there are reasons I reccomend 40 spacing at most on 5ghz -> and the higher (non-DFS) band of 149-154 as these typcially have no radar inteference causing the wifi to be interfered with but also have less congestion. The last 2 CACC sites I went to used the middle frequency band of channels 132-144 for their service to customers. So avoiding those given CACC is using them seems sensible.

In effect unless you on a Aire in scottish highlands with no nearby wifi/towns you should avoid 80 or 160mhz channel width as it'll most likely kill your wifi performance to less than the 5g signal can in reality provide.

The above interference issues start to be fixed with wifi 6 access points (on 5ghz) providing ALL devices connected are wifi 6 compatible, which is something I doubt will be the case for several years given the fact we all have old TV's and stuff with wifi chips that are "older".

And yes, it's nuts that most manufacturers hide channel spacing behind "advanced settings" and default to using the widest channels typically, meaning everyone who doesn't fix this slows down anyone nearby using the same freqency range -> meaning they think their 4g router is junk when in reality it's interference from the neighbouring van watching Netflix.

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[Gaston aires]

So he was successful in his quest then! "to seek out new life and new civilizations"

A dear friend, now deceased, was his next door neighbour in Laurel canyon LA
Phil

 

[CA]

Cannot seem to find an awful lot about channel spacing in regards to my Netgear M6 pro - except they appear to talk about it as channel width (which I assume is ‘spacing’?) The manual mentions nothing and on the Netgear forums I don’t seem to be getting much joy either. Someone mentions that the M6 auto selects the best channel; but odd this isn’t discussed at all in the manual. Or either to manually override it. Have seen instructions to do so online but maybe isn’t as crucial as for the ZTE. Am going to investigate further….

 

[fishplug]

starquake has outlined it all pretty well I'd say!

Having been down the rabbit hole myself starting from a really terrible setup to having a pretty decent one now I'd add a couple of bits of 'real world' experience.

My old setup was a Poynting antenna with a Netgear Nighthawk M1 hotspot. It was absolutely fine for watching Netflix in 98.5% of places I went - including Europe.

5G (which I now have) is great, but to be honest the physical network infrastructure is still pretty limited so overall you pay quite a big premium to add it to LTE routers still and it's probably not worth it in a lot of cases.

I'm guessing that as the network coverage expands the cost of the devices will go down but it doesn't sound to me like you really need it Fatmrsgeorge (and I know all about want and need because I don't need it either, but I still bought it! )

My best advice is to set yourself a budget of how much you want to spend on buying / installing the hardware and then choose your router and antenna based on that.

As already mentioned the LTE Category of a router makes a big difference to the speed it can get. Generally, the bigger the number the better the performance. The other thing that helps is the number of MIMO connections. Again, the more it has, the better your chances of picking up a signal - however this will also influence your choice of antenna.

No point spending the extra money on a 4 x 4 MIMO router if you've only got a 2 x 2 MIMO antenna (and vice versa...)

Have a shop around, see what looks good and ask us if you're unsure. There's some very knowledgeable people on here who will gladly steer you to a choice you'll be happy with.

 

[stevewagner]

We do much the same. Our last DVD binge was Boston legal, funny take on American law starring William Shatner (who I met at a barbecue some years ago).
Phil

Brilliant series. Have a look at ‘The Practise’ which was the predecessor to Boston Legal. Not as funny but great legal cases.

 

[Fatmrsgeorge]

Thanks very much. We are skint so have bought a router on the classifieds here and will get an antenna to make do until we have a budget. Will go 4g tho, until 5g is more established.

starquake has outlined it all pretty well I'd say!

Having been down the rabbit hole myself starting from a really terrible setup to having a pretty decent one now I'd add a couple of bits of 'real world' experience.

My old setup was a Poynting antenna with a Netgear Nighthawk M1 hotspot. It was absolutely fine for watching Netflix in 98.5% of places I went - including Europe.

5G (which I now have) is great, but to be honest the physical network infrastructure is still pretty limited so overall you pay quite a big premium to add it to LTE routers still and it's probably not worth it in a lot of cases.

I'm guessing that as the network coverage expands the cost of the devices will go down but it doesn't sound to me like you really need it Fatmrsgeorge (and I know all about want and need because I don't need it either, but I still bought it! )

My best advice is to set yourself a budget of how much you want to spend on buying / installing the hardware and then choose your router and antenna based on that.

As already mentioned the LTE Category of a router makes a big difference to the speed it can get. Generally, the bigger the number the better the performance. The other thing that helps is the number of MIMO connections. Again, the more it has, the better your chances of picking up a signal - however this will also influence your choice of antenna.

No point spending the extra money on a 4 x 4 MIMO router if you've only got a 2 x 2 MIMO antenna (and vice versa...)

Have a shop around, see what looks good and ask us if you're unsure. There's some very knowledgeable people on here who will gladly steer you to a choice you'll be happy with.

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[fishplug]

Sounds like a sensible way to start.

Your needs are pretty modest from what you've described so I really don't see the point in you spending a lot of money on a system you don't really need.

Do you mind me asking what router you bought (just being nosey!)

 

[mikash]

Only downside is on 1-2 bar 5g, the device I have (a zte mu5001) absolutely sucked power this winter, using up to 15W (just over 1.2A on the leisure battery). We actually turned the 5g off (and stuck to 4g) when we ran low on the leisure battery when offgrid for 3 nights. 4g uses a lot less power, around 4-5W max.

That's a good point about the power use. I'd also like to add that in my experience disabling 5G in favor of 4G sometimes also improves the performance if you're at the outskirts of 5G coverage or on the move. I think the short range of 5G causes too much cell handovers at high speeds so the connection slows down to a crawl or becomes unstable. This is rarely an issue for me since I tend to be behind the wheel , but was very evident on the last train trip I took. Netflix was unwatchable on 5G except when we stopped at a station, but worked like a charm once I forced 4G, even though the whole route and not just stations has good 5G coverage.

 

[Manic]

Thanks very much. We are skint so have bought a router on the classifieds here and will get an antenna to make do until we have a budget. Will go 4g tho, until 5g is more established.

When you get the router, try it without antenna.

 

[interbear]

We use a Netgear Nighthawk M2 mobile router with a data SIM from EE. The Netgear routers are a pricy initial investment but work very well and are considerably better (faster and more reliable) than hotspot from a mobile phone and/or campsite provided Wi-Fi. We use a mobile phone hotspot as a back up using my mobile with a 3 SIM. Good to have a couple of network options in terms of coverage.

The Netgear M2 is 4G only but offers good speeds and in most of the places we camp, 4G coverage is good, certainly better than 5G. Considering an upgrade to their brand new M3 model which supports both 4G and 5G, at a better price than their previous 5G models.

Anyway, I’d highly recommend the Netgear mobile routers twinned with a data SIM. You can also connect an antenna to them if needed, we have one but never found the need to use it yet.

 

[Manic]

Thanks very much. We are skint so have bought a router on the classifieds here and will get an antenna to make do until we have a budget. Will go 4g tho, until 5g is more established.

Could you please check your pm’s

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[Fatmrsgeorge]

Sounds like a sensible way to start.

Your needs are pretty modest from what you've described so I really don't see the point in you spending a lot of money on a system you don't really need.

Do you mind me asking what router you bought (just being nosey!)

It's a Huawei B535-232 4g router.