5G router & possible external antenna

[HavocXphere]

Gents...life dealt me a severe and entirely undeserved blow.

Losing my gigabit fiber and will need to move to 5G or god forbid 4G. I could use some help from those with actual 5G experience to spitball next step.

Provider will give me a Huawei 5G CPE Pro H112-370. Looking at the specs that seems pretty grand. 4 * 4 MIMO 5ghz, ax wifi, 2x gig LANs etc. So that all seems legit.

5G map says it's gonna be hella sketchy on coverage though so I'm keen to optimise things. I'm wondering whether it's worthwhile attaching an external antenna? Router seems to have a TS9 connector so it is an option. NB antenna would need to be indoors too, so there will be no gains made for positioning indoors vs outdoors - same spot either way. Higher / more outside is not happening.

I have absolutely no feel for how built in antenna compares to external. Is there a gain (lol pun) to be had here? Huawei seems pretty near the leading edge on 5G so presumably their built in tech is pretty sound?

(4G coverage is good either way so this question is 5G specific).

 

[Jake45]

Personally I would rather save the money and go with MTN Fixed LTE from Afrihost if you already have a suitable router. Otherwise WebAfrica might have some cheap refurbished B618 routers if you take a fixed LTE package from them. If you wait a bit I'm sure that there will be much better 5G offers as well as routers in the future than those that are currently available.

Pure Wireless Internet | MTN Wireless and Telkom Wireless at home | Afrihost

No Fibre at home or work? No problem! With Pure Wirless you can get connected in days, not weeks.

www.afrihost.com

Fixed LTE | Fixed Wireless Internet - Webafrica

Webafrica Fixed LTE hooks you up with racy-fast Internet at sexy prices using our free-to-use plug and play wireless router.

www.webafrica.co.za

 

[netstrider]

Why are you losing the fibre? Are you relocating?

LTE should be fine if you are getting good coverage. The latencies are currently similar to 5G latencies from Mybroadband speed tests.

I don't envision much of a speed or coverage improvement from placing a large antenna indoors, but I could be wrong.

That 5G router is probably backwards compatible? If so, try and sign up for 5G and see how it works without external antennas, if you're out of luck you could always just fall back to 4G / LTE.