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[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Our internet connection has always been poor.

It is presently run through a Huawei router.

Anyway, the name Starlink has come up as an alternative.

Anyone with experience of Starlink?....I know it's not cheap but if it works I don't mind.

[STEMO]

Elon Musk could do with a couple of bob, so you will be keeping him from the food bank.

[Jimbob]

I know of one or 2 in rurul locations...been underwhelmed, however neither over technical.

I have heard it works better for general net access than constant streams like streaming etc,  So review your needs.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I've seen them advertise deals with refurbished kit, so keep your eye out. 

[Jimbob]

VPN's (legitimate business ones) are the other thing thats not always stable from what ive heard....but dont think that applies to you....and he is launching more all the time so may improve yet.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

I've seen them advertise deals with refurbished kit, so keep your eye out. 

It looks like the cost is currently £225 ( £450 before) for the dish, and then £85 a month. Not cheap.

Elon is worth £280 billion so he could afford to make it less expensive.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I've seen them advertise deals with refurbished kit, so keep your eye out. 

It looks like the cost is currently £225 ( £450 before) for the dish, and then £85 a month. Not cheap.

Elon is worth £280 billion so he could afford to make it less expensive.

What sort of speeds do you get for that? 

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

[STEMO]

I've seen them advertise deals with refurbished kit, so keep your eye out. 

It looks like the cost is currently £225 ( £450 before) for the dish, and then £85 a month. Not cheap.

Elon is worth £280 billion so he could afford to make it less expensive.

What sort of speeds do you get for that? 

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

High speed fibre is well cheaper than £85. But, if you live on a rambling country estate, Openreach aren't about to use a whole drum of cable to get to you.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I've seen them advertise deals with refurbished kit, so keep your eye out. 

It looks like the cost is currently £225 ( £450 before) for the dish, and then £85 a month. Not cheap.

Elon is worth £280 billion so he could afford to make it less expensive.

What sort of speeds do you get for that? 

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

High speed fibre is well cheaper than £85. But, if you live on a rambling country estate, Openreach aren't about to use a whole drum of cable to get to you.

Ah yes I forgot about Opti Towers! 

[TheBoy]

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

My 500Mb synchronous has just gone up...   ...to £22

Admittedly that is a special deal, but my previous 900Mb synchronous was only £50 on a rolling month basis.

Decent fibre from altnets is significantly cheaper than services like ADSL when that first came out.  But not many have access to altnets, although more small villages have a better chance

[Sir Tigger KC]

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

My 500Mb synchronous has just gone up...   ...to £22

Admittedly that is a special deal, but my previous 900Mb synchronous was only £50 on a rolling month basis.

Decent fibre from altnets is significantly cheaper than services like ADSL when that first came out.  But not many have access to altnets, although more small villages have a better chance

Yeah OK I'm a bit behind the times with broadband speeds and prices. 

The cost has come down massively in the last couple of years. 

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

I've seen them advertise deals with refurbished kit, so keep your eye out. 

It looks like the cost is currently £225 ( £450 before) for the dish, and then £85 a month. Not cheap.

Elon is worth £280 billion so he could afford to make it less expensive.

What sort of speeds do you get for that? 

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

High speed fibre is well cheaper than £85. But, if you live on a rambling country estate, Openreach aren't about to use a whole drum of cable to get to you.

Yep....they always pick on the most innocent.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

My 500Mb synchronous has just gone up...   ...to £22 ;D

Admittedly that is a special deal, but my previous 900Mb synchronous was only £50 on a rolling month basis.

Decent fibre from altnets is significantly cheaper than services like ADSL when that first came out.  But not many have access to altnets, although more small villages have a better chance

I hear that Starlink is around 200 down and 13 up. No idea if that is good, bad, or somewhere in between. All I know is that our current speed is shit slow.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

That's a similar price to high speed fibre I think?  If you have fibre that is... 

My 500Mb synchronous has just gone up...   ...to £22

Admittedly that is a special deal, but my previous 900Mb synchronous was only £50 on a rolling month basis.

Decent fibre from altnets is significantly cheaper than services like ADSL when that first came out.  But not many have access to altnets, although more small villages have a better chance

No need to rub it in, you bastard.

[Varche]

We too live in the countryside but Spain. No chance of copper or fibre ever..

Our choice is 4G or 5G ( when available)  The 5G will have roughly the same footprint as 4G . At max 20 meg 4 G works for TV streaming until “ rush hour” . Schools in/ out, work finishes, adverts on popular programmes etc etc. Up is 700k so useless for video conferencing.

Spain has a programme to enable everyone to get fast internet. We get HispaSat internet. 100 meg down and 7 meg up for 35 euros a month - Free install. It works great for tv streaming but has a big ping so no good for interactive internet gaming. We are currently waiting for technician to visit to give us a free  speed upgrade.
Our install is a 90 cm dish facing South East , cable to a good quality router

Similar technolgy to Starlink.  Starlink have offers . Look out for one……..

[biggriffin]

I thought the Paddy's had been digging all the cables in around Your neck of the woods me Lud, kept getting delayed by trench digging along the road.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I thought the Paddy's had been digging all the cables in around Your neck of the woods me Lud, kept getting delayed by trench digging along the road.

Our road and pavements were dug up last year for fibre. Romanians I think, maybe Albanians. 

Proper shoddy job as well. They didn't seal the edges of the trench backfill so if we get a proper cold hard icy winter it'll soon start breaking up. 

Thank God for climate change! 

[STEMO]

Virgin spent months cabling the whole district around here, did a pretty decent job of making good the pavements. It must have been an investment of £millions, and I don't think many residents actually changed to Virgin.

[Sir Tigger KC]

It was a company called Jurassic Fibre (no me neither) that installed ours, and I've only seen one house on our road get connected so far.

I don't think that they could have put the connection point in the pavement by my house in a worse place if they tried.  Same with the neighbours as well. 

[STEMO]

It was a company called Jurassic Fibre (no me neither) that installed ours, and I've only seen one house on our road get connected so far.

I don't think that they could have put the connection point in the pavement by my house in a worse place if they tried.  Same with the neighbours as well. 

Ours is on the wall at the end of the small front gardens so, if you get connected, they have to bury the cable under the garden. Don't think I'd trust them to take up my block paving and put it back the same.

[Kevin Wood]

Some company came and installed some in our road.. Put a point outside our neighbours' house and ours (we're number 3) then went off and never finished the rest of the road.

[TheBoy]

I hear that Starlink is around 200 down and 13 up. No idea if that is good, bad, or somewhere in between. All I know is that our current speed is shit slow.

You need to consider your usage, and if you need upload. Sat may or may not be suitable. Sat also tends to be a bit jittery as well.

Essentially, synchronous full fibre is the best, but least available option, suitable for almost anything.

Next in preference is probably Openreach/Virgin FTTP options - downsides are generally low upload speeds, so not ideal for cloud storage, but mostly works well for gaming or work based VPNs.

Then Openreach FTTC options, especially non g.fast (which tends to suffer from dreadful uploads).  As per Openreach FTTP, only everything slower.  Virtually unusable for cloud storage, YouTube creators, and not ideal for gaming and VPNs, but usable.  VoIP can start to get impacted by heavy internet use,.

Mobile broadband is mostly for emergency use, or simple browsing and email.  If you can get 4G or 5G (note, very few European mobile providers actually provide 5G yet, most that do are stretching the truth) on a non congested cell, you may have more luck.  If you're rural, you may find the cell's standard "breathing" will bugger you up at busy times and drop the signal.  Poor for anything latency sensitive, including gaming and (ironically) VoIP.  Streaming may be intermittent (plus you may get a poor quality stream as the streaming provider sees a mobile IP)

Satelite îs generally last resort for those with no other options.  Awful latency (so unusable for gaming, telephony), and awful download/upload ratio making it poor for cloud storage.

ADSL can be usable still, for basic browsing/email, if you are near the exchange.



(All dependent on ISP and their restrictions - eg, Static IPs, filtering and parental controls, CGNAT and so on)

[TheBoy]

Some company came and installed some in our road.. Put a point outside our neighbours' house and ours (we're number 3) then went off and never finished the rest of the road.

Guessing they had a council grant to cover the village.  They can say the road is provided, but unless a number of people further up the road register interest, they won't invest in running it further up the road.


Openreach have had to open their ducts to other select providers, so on ducted estates (Like I imagine your's is KW), these select providers can quickly cover anyone in a road once they get their fibre presence to the estate (or road in your case).  So for me, I have Swish fibre and Gigaclear fibre running up the same duct to my house as the Openreach provided Zen and BT FTTC lines.

[Kevin Wood]

Yes, the current copper arrives in a duct, and Gigaclear and Swish have been in the area.

I think I got a leaflet through the door from one of them, saw no ISPs I recognised on the list of those available, so binned it.

I have a Zen fixed price for life contract currently so would need to be convinced I needed the extra speed to switch anyway, although ditching the shitty VDSL noise would be nice. That's more a problem of my neighbours not switching than me, however. 

[Allenm]

It was a company called Jurassic Fibre (no me neither) that installed ours, and I've only seen one house on our road get connected so far.

I don't think that they could have put the connection point in the pavement by my house in a worse place if they tried.  Same with the neighbours as well. 

Ours is on the wall at the end of the small front gardens so, if you get connected, they have to bury the cable under the garden. Don't think I'd trust them to take up my block paving and put it back the same.

Don't they just blow the fibre through the copper ducts that already go to the house.  That's what they did here in MK.  900Mb sync for £32pm.

[TheBoy]

Yes, the current copper arrives in a duct, and Gigaclear and Swish have been in the area.

I think I got a leaflet through the door from one of them, saw no ISPs I recognised on the list of those available, so binned it.

I have a Zen fixed price for life contract currently so would need to be convinced I needed the extra speed to switch anyway, although ditching the shitty VDSL noise would be nice. That's more a problem of my neighbours not switching than me, however. 

You HAM boyz.  ADSL/VDSL is like high voltage power lines to you


Pre register interest in Gigaclear does tend to get a very good price offer when they finally allow ordering.  Hence I'm getting £30 a month off.

My Zen is also fixed for life, although I suspect they have a convenient get out clause in that copper phones lines are going, and my contract includes a copper phne line with Zen.  I will probably recontract the internet part when Openreach pull their finger out and provide FTTP here, possibly later this year.

Not sure what to do when OPenreach do do it, just go for the highest speed available (currently 900d/100u due Openreach's short sighted decision to use GPON, but new networks should be about to get 1800d/200u*, still based on GPON).  Or just get a cheap FTTP through Zen and also keep one of the altnets - once you've had a fast upload, its hard to give it up if you use any upload bandwidth...

...when I had the 900Mb service, it was quicker to use OneDrive to copy filies between PCs, rather than USB sticks.  It was the same speed to use OneDrive as it was to copy files across my LAN .  And Youtube uploads dropped from about 3hrs to under 3m


(Though that might get reduced to 120u, again due to stupid decisions around the utterly out of date GPON - GPON allows 2.5Gb download, 1.25Gb upload, shared by all users on that node, usually around 64 - 128 homes.  Altnets tend to use XGS-PON)

[TheBoy]

It was a company called Jurassic Fibre (no me neither) that installed ours, and I've only seen one house on our road get connected so far.

I don't think that they could have put the connection point in the pavement by my house in a worse place if they tried.  Same with the neighbours as well. 

Ours is on the wall at the end of the small front gardens so, if you get connected, they have to bury the cable under the garden. Don't think I'd trust them to take up my block paving and put it back the same.

Don't they just blow the fibre through the copper ducts that already go to the house.  That's what they did here in MK.  900Mb sync for £32pm.

Not all altnets are allowed access to Openreach owned ducts, so some have to dig up roads, pavements and the owner's property. So they run their own ducts and blow through them to their distribution nodes.

[STEMO]

It was a company called Jurassic Fibre (no me neither) that installed ours, and I've only seen one house on our road get connected so far.

I don't think that they could have put the connection point in the pavement by my house in a worse place if they tried.  Same with the neighbours as well. 

Ours is on the wall at the end of the small front gardens so, if you get connected, they have to bury the cable under the garden. Don't think I'd trust them to take up my block paving and put it back the same.

Don't they just blow the fibre through the copper ducts that already go to the house.  That's what they did here in MK.  900Mb sync for £32pm.

There are no copper ducts to my house.

[Sir Tigger KC]

If I have fibre installed, they'll have to dig under my garden wall, through a flower bed, dig a trench across the drive and through another flower bed to the house. 

Had they put the connection point a meter up the pavement they could have gone through the gateway avoiding the wall and flower bed. 

Frickin jackasses! 

[ronnyd]

If I have fibre installed, they'll have to dig under my garden wall, through a flower bed, dig a trench across the drive and through another flower bed to the house. 

Had they put the connection point a meter up the pavement they could have gone through the gateway avoiding the wall and flower bed. 

Frickin jackasses! 

Since when have the utility companies ever used logic when laying pipes/cables etc.? 

[Kevin Wood]

Yes, the current copper arrives in a duct, and Gigaclear and Swish have been in the area.

I think I got a leaflet through the door from one of them, saw no ISPs I recognised on the list of those available, so binned it.

I have a Zen fixed price for life contract currently so would need to be convinced I needed the extra speed to switch anyway, although ditching the shitty VDSL noise would be nice. That's more a problem of my neighbours not switching than me, however. 

You HAM boyz.  ADSL/VDSL is like high voltage power lines to you


Pre register interest in Gigaclear does tend to get a very good price offer when they finally allow ordering.  Hence I'm getting £30 a month off.

My Zen is also fixed for life, although I suspect they have a convenient get out clause in that copper phones lines are going, and my contract includes a copper phne line with Zen.  I will probably recontract the internet part when Openreach pull their finger out and provide FTTP here, possibly later this year.

Not sure what to do when OPenreach do do it, just go for the highest speed available (currently 900d/100u due Openreach's short sighted decision to use GPON, but new networks should be about to get 1800d/200u*, still based on GPON).  Or just get a cheap FTTP through Zen and also keep one of the altnets - once you've had a fast upload, its hard to give it up if you use any upload bandwidth...

...when I had the 900Mb service, it was quicker to use OneDrive to copy filies between PCs, rather than USB sticks.  It was the same speed to use OneDrive as it was to copy files across my LAN .  And Youtube uploads dropped from about 3hrs to under 3m


(Though that might get reduced to 120u, again due to stupid decisions around the utterly out of date GPON - GPON allows 2.5Gb download, 1.25Gb upload, shared by all users on that node, usually around 64 - 128 homes.  Altnets tend to use XGS-PON)

Zen replaced my copper landline with VOIP recently.

[TheBoy]

Zen replaced my copper landline with VOIP recently.

They are buttering me up for when they do mine...

[Kevin Wood]

Zen replaced my copper landline with VOIP recently.

They are buttering me up for when they do mine...

I didn't put up much resistance, in fairness. Good excuse to disconnect all the garbage extension wiring.

[TheBoy]

Zen replaced my copper landline with VOIP recently.

They are buttering me up for when they do mine...

I didn't put up much resistance, in fairness. Good excuse to disconnect all the garbage extension wiring.

I wouldn't put up any. In fact I wouldn't take up their digital lines, as my main number is already a SIP based one with another provider.  I only had the line because it was needed as part of the broadband package way back when...

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

I've signed up for a 30 day trial with Starlink because my options are pretty limited before 5G becomes more common.

I've gone for the 'residential package' at £75 PCM.......roaming and mobile packages are £85 PCM and according to users regularly throttled back if the demand is high elsewhere.

As suggested by Sir Tig  I have gone for the refurbished dish which costs £150, so £79 less.

I'll see how it goes.

[Marks DTM Calib]

We too live in the countryside but Spain. No chance of copper or fibre ever..

Our choice is 4G or 5G ( when available)  The 5G will have roughly the same footprint as 4G . At max 20 meg 4 G works for TV streaming until “ rush hour” . Schools in/ out, work finishes, adverts on popular programmes etc etc. Up is 700k so useless for video conferencing.

Spain has a programme to enable everyone to get fast internet. We get HispaSat internet. 100 meg down and 7 meg up for 35 euros a month - Free install. It works great for tv streaming but has a big ping so no good for interactive internet gaming. We are currently waiting for technician to visit to give us a free  speed upgrade.
Our install is a 90 cm dish facing South East , cable to a good quality router

Similar technology to Starlink.  Starlink have offers . Look out for one……..

Nothing like Starlink, totally different tech, HispaSat is Geo tech, Starlink is LEO.

Hence you get horrific latency as the round trip delay can be half a second and with bandwidth levelling up to a second.

LEOs are so much closer that the latency is not that different to cellular

[Marks DTM Calib]

I've signed up for a 30 day trial with Starlink because my options are pretty limited before 5G becomes more common.

I've gone for the 'residential package' at £75 PCM.......roaming and mobile packages are £85 PCM and according to users regularly throttled back if the demand is high elsewhere.

As suggested by Sir Tig  I have gone for the refurbished dish which costs £150, so £79 less.

I'll see how it goes.

That's not actually how it works, the major issue is the user count on the satellite.

It might appear that there are loads of satellites up there but, there are often only 1 or 2 over the UK at any one time, throw  in a 30 degree acceptance angle for the receivers and you have many thousands of people using the bandwidth of a single satellite.........it then gets worse with between satellite bandwidth sharing (for when they cannot access an uplink, and there are not many uplinks!).

The killer for Elon is that as users increase, bandwidth falls, plus there is big competition arriving (Amazon Kuiper plus others) and he has backed a bespoke setup so will have to replace the current  space junk he has up there (although they only last around five years anyway and they are constantly burning them up over the Pacific)

Interesting live map here:

https://satellitemap.space/

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

I've signed up for a 30 day trial with Starlink because my options are pretty limited before 5G becomes more common.

I've gone for the 'residential package' at £75 PCM.......roaming and mobile packages are £85 PCM and according to users regularly throttled back if the demand is high elsewhere.

As suggested by Sir Tig  I have gone for the refurbished dish which costs £150, so £79 less.

I'll see how it goes.

That's not actually how it works, the major issue is the user count on the satellite.

It might appear that there are loads of satellites up there but, there are often only 1 or 2 over the UK at any one time, throw  in a 30 degree acceptance angle for the receivers and you have many thousands of people using the bandwidth of a single satellite.........it then gets worse with between satellite bandwidth sharing (for when they cannot access an uplink, and there are not many uplinks!).

The killer for Elon is that as users increase, bandwidth falls, plus there is big competition arriving (Amazon Kuiper plus others) and he has backed a bespoke setup so will have to replace the current  space junk he has up there (although they only last around five years anyway and they are constantly burning them up over the Pacific)

Interesting live map here:

https://satellitemap.space/

Interesting, Mark

It's shite so I'm sending it back.

I'll lose the cost of postage and £75 they have already taken for the first month.

[Marks DTM Calib]

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

Basically yes.

No obstructions as it looks out over fields. Starlink customer service say that it's as good as it is going to get.

Now using Lebara with the Vodaphone network through a Huawei router,  which costs £12.50 a month instead of £75 for Starlink.

Connecting the TV aerial to the router seems to have made it much faster.....or is that just the placebo effect.

[Marks DTM Calib]

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

Basically yes.

No obstructions as it looks out over fields. Starlink customer service say that it's as good as it is going to get.

Now using Lebara with the Vodaphone network through a Huawei router,  which costs £12.50 a month instead of £75 for Starlink.

Connecting the TV aerial to the router seems to have made it much faster.....or is that just the placebo effect.

Possible but far from ideal, you can get directional and external cellular antennas which are MUCH better, they just need pointing at the cellular mast (for directional)

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

Basically yes.

No obstructions as it looks out over fields. Starlink customer service say that it's as good as it is going to get.

Now using Lebara with the Vodaphone network through a Huawei router,  which costs £12.50 a month instead of £75 for Starlink.

Connecting the TV aerial to the router seems to have made it much faster.....or is that just the placebo effect.

Possible but far from ideal, you can get directional and external cellular antennas which are MUCH better, they just need pointing at the cellular mast (for directional)

I shall look into this.

Do you have one (or more) you can recommend that works well and won't break the bank?

[Varche]

We too live in the countryside but Spain. No chance of copper or fibre ever..

Our choice is 4G or 5G ( when available)  The 5G will have roughly the same footprint as 4G . At max 20 meg 4 G works for TV streaming until “ rush hour” . Schools in/ out, work finishes, adverts on popular programmes etc etc. Up is 700k so useless for video conferencing.

Spain has a programme to enable everyone to get fast internet. We get HispaSat internet. 100 meg down and 7 meg up for 35 euros a month - Free install. It works great for tv streaming but has a big ping so no good for interactive internet gaming. We are currently waiting for technician to visit to give us a free  speed upgrade.
Our install is a 90 cm dish facing South East , cable to a good quality router

Similar technology to Starlink.  Starlink have offers . Look out for one……..

Nothing like Starlink, totally different tech, HispaSat is Geo tech, Starlink is LEO.

Hence you get horrific latency as the round trip delay can be half a second and with bandwidth levelling up to a second.

LEOs are so much closer that the latency is not that different to cellular

My bad, didn’t know they were different technologies.  You are right about the high latency. You get used to it. Streams HD TV fine for us. Mind you , like Opti, I can only make comparisons with 4G and 3G before that.

I am not convinced 5G would be any better unless they put up a new mast near your house.

Our supply company for Hispasat are coming to do a free upgrade. I am always suspicious of such things. Pointing us to a different satellite? Installing a bigger dish? Changing the router for one I cannot alter the DNS…… we will see.

Funnily enough, I am just about to do a reply to someone on an expat forum who has Hispasat and says it is rubbish and is looking to go to Starlink. I will be interested to see how they get on.

[Marks DTM Calib]

The latency will only really be an issue for voice/video calls plus gaming, for streaming and web browsing in general its not noticeable.

You have to remember that 5g frequencies do not propagate as far as the lower 4g and 3g bands, so 5g coverage is generally always worse. It doesn't get better in as much as most 5g installs are NSA (Non-Stand-Alone) so are effectively 5g radios on a 4g base station.

As per Opti, if you have a cellular modem then consider an external antenna (keep the coax length as small as possible) as that will improve reception significantly and again, a directional antenna will be even better.

[Marks DTM Calib]

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

Basically yes.

No obstructions as it looks out over fields. Starlink customer service say that it's as good as it is going to get.

Now using Lebara with the Vodaphone network through a Huawei router,  which costs £12.50 a month instead of £75 for Starlink.

Connecting the TV aerial to the router seems to have made it much faster.....or is that just the placebo effect.

Possible but far from ideal, you can get directional and external cellular antennas which are MUCH better, they just need pointing at the cellular mast (for directional)

I shall look into this.

Do you have one (or more) you can recommend that works well and won't break the bank?

If you can get the modem as close to the antenna as possible then I suspect most will work ok, check as you might need two antennas (to get 2x2 MIMO) or even 4 if its 5g, will depend how many antennas the box has today.

I just use car shark fins as I have them lying around 

[TheBoy]

The latency will only really be an issue for voice/video calls plus gaming, for streaming and web browsing in general its not noticeable.

You have to remember that 5g frequencies do not propagate as far as the lower 4g and 3g bands, so 5g coverage is generally always worse. It doesn't get better in as much as most 5g installs are NSA (Non-Stand-Alone) so are effectively 5g radios on a 4g base station.

As per Opti, if you have a cellular modem then consider an external antenna (keep the coax length as small as possible) as that will improve reception significantly and again, a directional antenna will be even better.

At least 1 mobile company are definitely using the older 900MHz and 1800MHz frequencies for 5G (NSA), which can manage good coverage (but obviously lack the bandwidth of the higher frequencies).

NSA (which all UK operators publicly use currently) obviously doesn't impact coverage, only bandwidth (and other features that aren't relevant to this discussion) is impacted compared to SA.  I do sometimes get to play with SA when I CBA, and the speeds and latency are impressive (usually around 1Gbps down), obviously still not near fixed line capabilities, but I suspect once these cells fill up, and the cells start to breathe, speeds and coverage will suffer.