I am new to the Forums
I have a common problem and maybe I can get some direction here
I just built a new home on the lake in North Carolina
The house is about 100 ft in elevation and 250 ft from the roads to the house
I have an AT&T tower not 1.5 miles from the house
I have a unlimited / un-throttled server hot spot router with speeds of 35 to 50 MPS
My plan was to put a Bolton or other parabolic on a 20 ft pole and point towards the tower
Now this is where it gets fuzzy
To get the signal from the antenna to the house
Should I use a signal booster at the antenna or put it at the house , then connect the booster to the hotspot ?
This would be to boost the signal strength due to possible loses over the 250 ft run
Should I put the booster and hot spot at the antenna to keep the signal loss to a minimum and fiber down to the house ?
I see a lot of boosters out there, but they look like they’re Wi-Fi boosters, I think I just need a signal booster cause the entire house is Hard Wired Cat 5 Cable
My Hotspot has Ethernet ports and is not wireless, so I could go from an Ethernet port to a fiber converter and back to a CAT5 converter at the house.
I have experimented setting next to the tower with a portable hotspot and I can get 100 MPS from the tower, so the trouble is worth it
Just need some experienced guidance help
Do not use a booster. You either have viable signal or you do not. Do a survey and understand the carriers, cell towers, bands, and even if the towers have enough capacity. Depending what plan you have you should also look at possibility of deprioritization which means even with good signal you might not get enough bandwidth if other users have priority.
You do not mention if the the 35-50mbps speeds are currently attainable in the current location. \
I am not following where the 250 ft run is? If you mount an antenna on the house, surely there is not a 250 ft run?
Yes the house is 250 ft from the road and 100 ft down in elevation.
Because the house is down at the lake this restricts the signal strength
If I go to the road I get a good signal of 35 to 50 MPS depending on weather
So the antenna must be at the road with a 250 ft cable or fiber run
do you have power at the road that you can tap into? have you considered starlink? what is current internet access situation? you have zero cell/internet at house?
Several possible solutions, none of which involve signal boosters, as the in general give poor performance.
You can out the hot spot on the tower itself out at the road (use a weatherproof box).
If there is power available there, power the hot spot and a wireless bridge. There are many gigabit speed turnkey bridges available for $200 or less. They do require CLEAR line of sight. as in “don’t bother trying to shoot through trees”.
So - ethernet from hotspot to bridge, wireless to house.
If no power available there options are a solar rig with battery - about $1,000. Can be on the tower.
Or use a vibro-trencher to bury a direct burial ethernet cable or fiber (with ethernet to fiber converters) and a power cable to run from home to tower. Figure on about $1,000 for that option. So long as it is crossing nothing but lawn, garden or other soft non-paved/rocky ground it moves fast and leaves almost no mark behind
Or you can try starlink - although it does require a good view of the sky. I had to put up a 60 foot tower to get starlink working, but I am getting 300M down and 100M up (business system, larger antenna than the residential one)
You could put up a tall antenna next to the house…but might not be the look you want.
If you can use starlink I recommend it. You can download the app and use it to determine if you can use it in just a few minutes. You stand where you want to put the dish (like on your roof) and scan the sky and it fills in a picture of what it sees, showing anything blocking the sky view. If it says you are good, believe it. If it says it is blocked…well, believe that as well. Like I said, I had to do a 60’ tower, but man am I happy with it.