4G, outdoor, poe router any suggestions?

[490808]

After the lines came down in storm Eunice I'm looking to set up a 4G router as a internet backup.

The setup is not without its problems There is no 2G, 3G or 4G signal anywhere within 25m of the house. I did have a set up at a neighbors and relayed the signal via wifi, but can't do that anymore as the mains power supply I used is no longer available. The new idea is to put a 4G router on the nearest Eir pole (f**k Eir they don't maintain anything and their engineers don't seem to mind anyway). I can get one bar at the base of the nearest phone pole and two bars at the next so hoping that near the top of the pole I will get 2-3 which is all I really need. I'll test up ladders with a phone before I actually buy anything.

So what I am looking for is an external 4G router with PoE? Another option is to use an internal 4G router and put it in a waterproof enclosure but that is bigger and bulkier and more obvious. Something nice and discrete with one cable in is what I really need.

I could just mount a 4G antenna on the phone pole but cable length might be a bit of an issue?

[PogMoThoin]

https://mikrotik.com/product/lhgg_lte6_kit

How good are your IT skills, Mikrotik make enterprise gear used by ISPs you'll need expert network knowledge to set this up. I have a mate using one of these and getting 40-50Mbit average

[490808]

Have set up a good few Mikrotik routers, nothing complicated just winbox stuff. Funnily enough was just looking at some Mikrotik training (MTCNA).

I'd looked at the one you linked to and while I think it would be ideal to get a signal its just a bit to large for where I want to put it on an Eir pole on the side of a road. I was thinking of something more along the lines of the wAP 4G kit https://mikrotik.com/product/wap_4g_kit

[PogMoThoin]

You should buy one on Amazon to try they've no difficulty taking it back if it's not working out.

[490808]

Amazon themselves don't have them atm. I'll just stick one on my watch list and hope one turns up.

I find that a lot with both Mikrotik and Ubiquiti stuff, Amazon sometimes stock it but mostly its sold by third party sellers.

[490808]

I said earlier I was looking at some Mikrotik training. I'm not going to take the exam but I "found" a copy of the Udemy - Mikrotik MTCNA training course online and can thoroughly recommend it. Usual price if you buy it is around €15 and the training is worth that. Its only 5 1/2 hours of video but its straightforward explanations with examples with no repeated repetition of the main points which pad out a lot of online courses. The downside is you really have to pay careful attention because so much is packed in.

[PogMoThoin]

I said earlier I was looking at some Mikrotik training. I'm not going to take the exam but I "found" a copy of the Udemy - Mikrotik MTCNA training course online and can thoroughly recommend it. Usual price if you buy it is around €15 and the training is worth that. Its only 5 1/2 hours of video but its straightforward explanations with examples with no repeated repetition of the main points which pad out a lot of online courses. The downside is you really have to pay careful attention because so much is packed in.

Thanks for this, you could say I'm a Mikrotik enthusiast! I've 4 Mikrotik devices managing my home LAN, a rack mounted CRS125 as my main gateway router (soon to be replaced by a RouterOS 7 RB5009 on my wish list) with 3x Vlans and I use Mikrotik Capsman with 2x wAP ACs and an RB951

[490808]

Nothing that exciting but I've just bought another very cheap Mikrotik router to experiment with.



This one often goes down from around £15 to a tenner.

Its preinstalled with the Liberty Shield script so you can't initially use the Router OS, but its quick work with netinstall.exe to flash it with the latest Mikrotik software.

I already have one of these and want to experiment with configuring a point to point network with the Router OS. These don't have the best radios in them so this is just a cheap way of setting up a lab.