Hi I am new to using travel routers and I recently purchased the beryl AX GLMT3000. I had an issue when I was on the train in the uk with my router for the first time and travelling in a car. I thought I would be able to have coverage but I kept losing connection. I have a mobile dongle that I was using to get internet connection however it was very poor and when I connected to my phone it had better connection. I also connected to the trains WiFi however, it was also not great, my intention was to get to a cafe for a more stable connection as I know WiFi on trains are poor however, it wasn’t possible. Furthermore I was thinking, If I attached a mini antenna to the router, could this help increase the internet speed and connection? I am thinking that the antenna would not be recognised through the router or help improve signal at all.
The WiFi signal when tethering on the beryl is good, the antennas on the Beryl AX are whats connecting to the source when in hotspot / repeater mode. The mobile dongle is using it's own internal antenna inside to connect to the LTE connection.
The problem you have is your upstream isnt great, trains WiFi or the mobile dongles LTE signal / provider.
The trains WiFi should be reliable to the extent that is available to be connected to nearby (signal strength should be good when searching for repeaters), as opposed to trying to get a phone signal (dongle)
You can add antennas to a usb LTE dongle but that probably won't do much as your constantly moving, this is also probably part of the problem.
As you travel you are likely to hit dead spots when using a LTE / tethering option as phone signals degrade depending on where you are. Depending on how the trains WiFi is getting it's uplink that too could be cause for interference. So adding an antenna so to speak wouldn't really help like I said.
Remember,
- Dongle uses its own receiver
- Beryl uses its WiFi to connect to hotspot / repeater (uplink - which maybe unreliable in terms of accessing the internet. The repeater will show it's signal strength to the WiFi source but it won't tell you if the connection to the internet is good. By that I mean, you can have full WiFi signal strength if sat beside an access point for example but it doesn't mean that the access point that is talking to the provider (internet) isn't a weak signal - a speedtest will give potential indications)
If your mobile phone has signal whilst travelling then you can just hotspot / tether that connection to the Beryl AX which may also be better than using your dongle as most dongles are CAT4 which means you are only getting around 150mbits max and also they don't use 4G+ / 5G where as your phone will. However, if your phones signal is also weak then again, thats your problem.
As you have noted. A static location and a reliable one will make a world of difference but this isn't the fault of the travel router or it's design, you will probably find that if you are having problems with the internet connection during your trip then so are most people that are connected to that WiFi be it on their phones, laptops or travel routers.
do you mean you connected the phone to the router and it was a better connection? if so then that sums up what I was saying about using your phone as the source. Maybe the phone is on a different network with better coverage compared to the dongle?
Thank-you so much, your reply is so informative especially for a rookie like me! Makes perfect sense. I was using a Simpoyo Dongle that is linked with GL.iNet as I thought they would be very broad and good for picking up signal to provide me with mobile data/internet. My phone is a iPhone on O2 and this seemed to work better as you said although it did fail a couple of times which explains the poor service the train provides and when moving constantly. Furthermore, I agree that there is nothing wrong with the router and I am content with using it again but in a more stable location. Thanks again for your support!
Yes I connected my iPad to my phones hotspot and had better connection.