I ask for advice about mobile Internet in St. Petersburg

Question

Yota

Hey!
Colleagues asked to resolve the issue of providing the set with the Internet. Filming can take place in completely different locations within the city of St. Petersburg, indoors and outdoors. The Internet should be distributed over vayvay; Wi-Fi itself can be used by 10-15 users, and the Internet can be used by 2-5 people at the same time (primarily for checking mail, maybe downloading some instructions or drivers). There is electricity on site.

In theory, this issue should have been resolved by purchasing Yota Many or Yota Egg, but in practice, in most cases, Iota has no signal quality.

Now I would like not to depend only on Iota, to have a backup option or even several.

I believe that in each case you will have to use the scheme: a re-flashed router + modem + external antenna (on a cord, for indoor shooting, to extend the antenna to the window).

How would you solve such a problem? I would be grateful for any information on the topic, incl. advice on 3G/4G/... providers, selection of router models, antennas, etc. Maybe links to useful resources. I want to make my mind.

Thank you!

* * *

The question was downvoted, but still decided to share the results.

For Iota, I took a Samsung SWC-U200 “whistle” + a 20 dB directional antenna from these guys .

For Megafon, I took a Huawei E173 modem + Connect 2.2 antenna. The antenna adds at least two sticks to the signal quality according to the modem utility. (By the way, the utility works fine on Mac OS X Lion, unlike Yot's "whistle").

On the advice of eiji , the router at first took the Zyxel Keenetic Giga - it immediately worked with an iota, but did not start with the E173 modem, and after flashing it started to get very buggy (for example, even after a reset, it did not want to give out IP when connected via ethernet). I changed it to a regular Keenetic, and everything worked fine.

Thanks to all!

Answer 1

DIR-620 with two modems. I would choose Yota + Megafon. The coverage of the latest 3G pleases. DIR-620 immediately flash in Zyxel Keenetic.

Answer 2

In this scheme, I would replace the router with a netbook with ubuntu, to which it will connect, depending on the situation, a 3G modem or an Iota modem via USB. This gives several advantages:

• Energy independence: no need to huddle up to the outlet, you can put it where it is convenient - this installation will last for several hours. At the same time, the issue of pulling up to the window is easier to solve - in extreme cases, you can use a USB extension cable.
• Versatility: both a 3G modem and an Iota modem can be plugged into a netbook. And see the level of acceptance.
• Profitability: someone will surely find a netbook, USB modems are much cheaper than devices like Yota Many.