Bluespot: 5G-ready outdoor antenna for UK broadband, 4G LTE-A + 5G support, cross-polarised, high gain & weatherproof, pole mount, 5m cables

My contract with BT is up in the summer and I am loath to sign for another two years on the basis of pretty poor internet. We are on FTTC but are a good 1.5K from the cabinet and achieve average speeds of 10-12mbps, sometime a little bit higher. However, we lose the connection frequently for a few minutes once or twice a day and the speed does not make for family friendly viewing when several devices are streaming.After getting reasonable speeds on my phone's 4G connection - up to 25mbps on Three, I thought I'd try a 4G router. I went for the TP-Link AC1200 paired with a Smarty (on the Three network) unlimited sim (£20/month). I first tried with the Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 omni directional antenna. On a tall pole fixed to my office/shed it did OK, but was only marginally better than BT. I decided to go for a directional antenna instead and the Bluespot seemed the best option. I did not have line of sight to the mast (see elevation cross section), but knew where it was and since I'd managed to get a decent signal on the phone I figured the Bluespot was likely to be better.And boy, it was (see screenshot).Setting up was easy but time consuming. You need to know where the mast is and I found that even a degree of difference could lead to a huge increase or decrease in speed. I marked graduations round the base of the antenna pole and averaged tests at each position until I achieved the speeds above.I've had the Bluespot for a month now and (aside from as noted below) it's been flawless. There hasn't been one dropped connection and we've had uninterrupted streaming. Kudos to Smarty too, since we've used close to a terabyte of data without any restriction.There was one issue that occurred after a couple of days: I noticed speeds had dropped to a few mbps. When I went onto the router I found it had changed channels (it was set on auto). I disabled auto and locked it to the two initial channels that had produced the high speeds (I think 3 and 20?). since then there haven't been any problems.I've temporarily returned to BT (amid much moaning from family) since I don't want to pay for two internet connections, but as soon as my contract is up I will be ditching the landline internet and moving to 4G for good.Finally, I didn't contact Bluespot, but if you don't know now to use apps such as Cellmapper, etc. then I believe they will help you locate your nearest mast. It's also worth thinking about which network you want to be on too, since getting a cheap unlimited deal is essential if you are going to be using large amounts of data.UPDATE March 2024: Ditched BT at the end of Summer 23 and relying totally on 4G and the Bluespot ever since. Great so far and no complaints at all. I took out a one-year contract with Three as there was a cashback offer, so it worked out as about £12/month for unlimited. Some months using nearly a terrabyte of date with no restrictions. The only issue was a day of maintenance on the mast, which meant we had no internet for a few hours. Just waiting for 3 to go 5G on our mast and we'll be rocking.

I bought this with the goal of increasing reception range for our mobile internet connection in our motorhome. With the antenna fixed to a 2M pole, fixed at the other end to a pair of dual-cup suction grips, I've been able to reliably and sturdily mount it to the side of the van while parked on sites.Signal strength and connection speed is very much improved by using this - better than a motorhome/caravan omnidirectional dome antenna by far, and better than the router's internal antenna by a country mile. I've been able to make a solid connection to a mast using this antenna and my router, when my phone and the router (on internal antenna) failed to find a signal on their own.Some things to note from my experiementation:- This antenna is HIGHLY directional. If it's not working for you, you're probably not aligned properly. There's an app available on Android called CellMapper that can help you locate where your nearest mast is, and from that you can align it much more precisely.- 4G/LTE is less fussy, but LTE-A and 5G more or less require an uninterrupted line-of-sight to the mast - even trees are enough to block a 5G signal. You may not get LTE-A or 5G if you can't see the tower, but you should have no problem with 4G or LTE.Attached photo shows the setup I put together that can be packed away into the van when on the move, fixed to a window while I was testing it. Suction cups can be found on amazon by searching 'Incutex Dual Suction Cups' and the hardware to mount them to the pole by searching 'Shelly Mast Clamp Bracket'. Pole was from B&Q, and of course, the antenna comes with its own pole-mounting hardware.

So this is a truly great antenna and is capable of giving an OK to decent signal strength. Unfortunately, the gain isn't high enough for my needs.Likewise, it was beaten by cheap chinese LDPA antenna which was really quite disappointing so my search for an excellent, directional antenna continues.This is a special case though as I've got 2 masts within 33 degrees of each other, one slow, one fast and so need a higher gain and directional ability than what this offers.Nonetheless, it's a great antenna.