No need to spend big bucks to get wifi internet in the van with a router and why roof mounted antennas and MiFis are a waste of time

EDIT 2024. I have been getting some stick online from various "experts" who are adamant that the only method worth considering is to have a roof mounted antenna, and various other gizmos, usually costing £300 or more in total. As I explain below, you simply don't need to go to this expense. The number one technical requirement to get a decent mobile signal is the size of the antenna. Once you have a big antenna, as found in a full size router, as opposed to the tiny antennas built into the body of a MiFi unit or a normal phone, you get 90% of the advantage. It is antenna size that is the major factor. Phone antennas are small simply because they have to be. Mifis are the same - any Mifi is a complete waste of time in a motorhome because size and portability and battery power are not a factor - Mifis are for travellers who stay in hotels. I will go further .... the Netgear Mifis, Nighthawk etc, are ridiculously overpriced, and are all easily outperformed by a "normal" 12v full size router such as the B525, placed by a window.

The reasons for the arguments are purely commercial. There is no profit in a secondhand fifty quid Chinese router - it is as simple as that. So companies such as Solwise and Motorhome WiFi dress it up as a technical subject and sell it to you as a package. Nothing wrong with that, good luck to them. But I am not involved commercially, I don't sell anything, I am a motorhome blogger with no axe to grind, and I just happen to have an interest in radio technology, having held an amateur radio licence for 30 years - and to get one of those you have to pass an exam, and 30 years ago it was quite a tough one - I even had to learn morse code.

The title of this blog says it all - there is simply NO NEED to spend over £300 for a router based motorhome wifi system. or to put it another way, the £50 option performs as well as the £300 option.

I now have a standing bet - a bottle of champagne - the proper stuff - for the van that parks next to mine and shows a working internet connection from the same network that is only available to him and not to me.

Here is the original blog .....

You don't need anything fancy to get the best chance of internet in the van over 4G. It's the size of the antenna that counts, not the location. The antennas in a proper full size router are 10 times bigger than the tiny antennas in a phone - that's why a router will pull in a signal long after the phone (hotspot) says no service.

The advantage of paying extra for a roof mounted antenna, plus the cables and adapters is negligible, and I have proved this by experimentation, based on my training in antenna theory as a licensed radio amateur. Antenna performance is like earthquakes - the scale of power is logarithmic. This means that for noticeable gains the performance has to double each time.

So the biggest gains are made by having a much bigger antenna. But after that, the positioning of the big antenna is less important, so the difference between on the roof, and just a meter or so below, by a window, or on the dash, is hardly noticeable.

EDIT see below about the insides of a roof MIMO antenna.

So all I use now is a Huawei B525 12v mobile router, which can be had for around £50. It lives on the front dash, or inside a cupboard if it is too sunny. The only time I have to try and reposition it is on the rare occasions I get no signal, or just 1 bar - in these situations it rarely improves. There has to be a minimum signal strength to support a decent data rate - so if there is no signal at all, then that's that.

In my early days of experimenting I used to put the router on the roof temporarily, in a plastic box. But I soon learned that no signal in the van (by a window) was no different to being on the roof.

If you are slightly technically minded, here is the methodology - the B525 has a page which displays signal strength and quality of signal parameters - QOS.

This a screen shot of the numbers with the router on its internal antenna by a window. With my roof top antenna the numbers were barely changed. The reason I did the experiment was that my rooftop antenna terminated in the wardrobe, so the router had to be there. But then I couldn't see the lights on the router, which was a pain. So I relocated the router inside the van where I can see it, and for the last few years have monitored it quite carefully - hardly any difference. I have never had a situation where I had no signal, and reconnecting to the roof antenna gave a signal. If there is no signal, there is no signal. 

The Huawei has proved very reliable and easy to use - when I change country and get a new sim, in it goes and 9 times out of 10 it connects immediately.

The takeaway for full timers is that you don't need to spend more than the cost of a Huawei B525 - about £50. There is a whole family of 12v mobile routers - others are available, but I like Huawei - mainly because of the software and firmware.

There is no point at all for the average motorhome owner to pay silly money for any of these expensive "motorhome wifi" kits. All you need is a 12v router costing around £50. There is also no need for any sort of power conditioning, as often suggested. They work fine on any voltage that can happen in a van - from 11v to over 14v. Now that I am on lithium batteries my resting voltage is 14.4v for days at a time (when plugged in) and I have not had a single failure of anything 12v in the van.

With regard to SIM cards - that is a big subject, as is EU roaming. In the UK I have found the EE network to be best, but EE is expensive. Three are the cheapest - you can get unlimited data on a 1 mont contract for under £20 ... but Three is the worst network -they have too many customers on at the same time and sppeds go down in the evening - depending on where you are. I recommend 1pmobile - it is one of very few subnetworks of EE, and you can get PAYG data from them on the EE network, cheaper than EE. Their deal for 200gb for £20 is very good, and no contract. I have never used O2 or Voda, but they are average from what I read. 

MIFI - I am not a fan of the little mifi boxes - they do need external antennas - and expensive adapters for their tiny antenna sockets - so what's the point. I would go so far as to say that a mifi box is a waste of money in a motorhome - you might as well use a phone hotspot. The only practical use for a mifi is for  travellers who live from a suitcase in hotel rooms etc. Mifis are also battery powered from USB, and tey don't like being plugged in 24/7. But if you already have one, and you are happy enough, then it ain't broke so don't fix it - not everybody is a speed crazy internetaholic like me!

Update for 2023. I have been experimenting with 5G, and it has either been not available, or just as fast as 4G and only occasionally super high speed - ie over 100mbs. The bottom line is that 5G is mainly in cities and big towns, and while I am sure it will eventually replace 4G, just as 4G has replaced 3G, for now, I just can't see the point, and 5G 12v mobile routers are still expensive - well over £100. After 3 months I sold it for £20 less than I bought it for and went back to 4G. 5G is nothing special - 4G is and always has been fast enough to deliver an internet TV service - Netflix etc to a motorhome. Only working professionals in technical need of over 100mbs need to consider 5G in a van. Most new phones are now 5G - mine is, but unless I am in a town I never see it connected. But when I have been in a city I have noticed it can be amazingly fast - but in reality the extra speed makes no difference to daily use. All most van owners need is streaming TV netflix etc, and 4G is more than fast enough for that. I streamed Netflix and Iplayer for years on 3G before 4G arrived.

EDIT 2024/2. I have had a dome MIMO antenna on my roof since 2015, but I have not used it for many years since I bought a B525. Recently I was on the roof and noticed it was damaged, probably by a tree. This is what I found inside. I know it looks weird but I do have some training in antenna design, so the use of aluminium sheet is not unusual - the shape gives more bandwidth, but bandwidth does not equate to signal strength - only multiples of a wavelength can do that. But the build quality is awful, using foam and glue - totally unsuitable for the vibration experienced on a van roof. I bet that the internals collapsed long before the case was broken. Electrically - ie in terms of radio reception, the antennas inside this dome are no different to the same size antennas inside a B525 or similar sized router - which explans the very little difference in performance. But that is not to say all roof mounted antennas are bad - only this particular type. See photo below.

These are typical QOS numbers from the admin page of a B525.

Big antennas like these are the secret of of good mobile reception.

Inside an old broken MIMO roof antenna