Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 Cross Polarised 4G Omni LTE Antenna
Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 Cross Polarised 4G Omni LTE Antenna
| Dimensions: | 21.5 x 13.5 x 8.5 cm; 620 Grams |
| Model: | 4G-XPOL-A0001 |
| Manufacture: | Poynting |
| Dimensions: | 21.5 x 13.5 x 8.5 cm; 620 Grams |
| Origin: | China |
I bought this antenna near 3 years ago and it is still working perfectly placed on the roof of my house. I would highly recommend this item as I have never once had a problem with i
Bought this for my EE router and thought a bit of a gamble BUT 2 years later it still works and significantly improved the signal and data speed. Have it stuck onto a window and it has only come loose once in those two years but never fallen – highly recommend this produc
I received my poyting xpol – 1 – 5G and installed it outside just below roofing in bungalow signal at times was OK but mostly very poor So I decided to install in loft space as high as possible. Wow signal vastly improved brilliant well worth looking for best position and as high as possible . Happy days
Arrives with the antenna, 5m of (rather stiff) cable, male SMA connectors attached, some screws and so on, and a little booklet.
The picture is incorrect, the supplied antenna is the newer version, although it looks very similar.
This antenna is quite small, and the aerials inside the unit are probably the same size or perhaps even smaller than the ones in your router. Not only that, but the cable loses signal, as all cables do. So in some cases you aren’t going to get better reception than you are already getting. Where this antenna comes in, is if your router is badly positioned, and being able to place the antenna somewhere within the 5m reach of the cables offers a significant improvement. In my case, it did not. In all the positions I tried, there was no noticeable difference. I could tell you that the difference was only 1dbi, but you would probably get different results.
The Poynting is very well-made, but it is small, especially for the money. Size is everything with an antenna, and I compared the Poynting with a much larger Chinese unit that was 20% more expensive, but three times the size. Finally, that gave the result I needed. It showed a gain of 7dbi over the existing antenna. It stabilised the signal, so there was a noticeable improvement.
My conclusion on this, for me, was that the Poynting was a good option for something like a car or caravan where reception is terrible, and you just need to get the antenna out of the Faraday cage you are sitting in, but you also need compact size. However, if you are at home, and the size is less important, then go for a larger unit. The bigger, the better.
Recommended for certain applications only.
We needed to boost the 3g signal on our router and the worked well.
Needed for the caravan, it’s that good l’m able to use my Amazon stick with no problem
Had a wireless dongle but struggled with a signal as it was located inside our office (converted shipping container) Bought this, drilled a hole and mounted externally, hooked it upo and bosh, getting the service we paid for in our tin can. Easy when you know how with the right tools.
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Back in 2020 I purchased a 4G Router for my parents who – back then – lived rurally. Last year they moved home to the edge of a small town and took their router with them, and continued to use the ‘Bunny Ears’ antennas that came with the device. Even though they are situated 3/4 a mile between two local phone masts, they were only getting an average of 20mbps down and half that up, but sometimes it was much slower at peak times.
I recently purchased this external antenna for them – the exact same antenna I use – and installed it on the side of their house nearest facing the local phone masts. It has more than doubled their internet speeds, the highest being 50mbps down and 30mbps up. It’s like night and day!
General lightweight browsing was never a problem, but more intense stuff like HD video streaming on several devices, the router was struggling with the use of the Bunny Ears antennas. With the external antenna, it’s now in line of sight of both phone masts without the interference of windows or walls.
Also the cherry-on-the-cake was the price; A brand new antenna would cost around 80 at the time of writing this updated review. I bought this ‘Nearly New’ from Amazon Warehouse for around 60. At the Checkout, Amazon added a promotional discount on top and whacked an additional 20 off too! So the final price was around 40! bargain!
10/10 on everything about this antenna.
We’re on sky at present but since we have had this item we have trebled our input great piece of equipment.
Didn’t improve the download speed but more than doubled the upload which for me is a big plus. Mind you I have attached it to my office window for now. When I get time I will try outside to see if the download can improve.
This works well. The only reason I took a star off is because the window suckers are pants and you have to wait a few minutes for it to to kick in initially.
The cables entering the bottom of the aerial itself are held in place by a tight rubber Gromit / seal .. when you are unscrewing the threaded part of the aerial base in order to change the alignment .. be very careful not to twist the cables too much and damage them.
Once installed and accurately aligned to your nearest cell mast, it gave us a good improvement in signal .. as we are in a very poor signal area it improved it to a good signal.
Installed correctly it’s worth the effo
I was starting to think there was an issue with my 4g WiFi router as I was amazed when I saw 70-90mbps down 30mbps up when all internet providers were promising 30 down 12 up. However I started seeing 30-40 down after awhile. I thought something must have degraded.
However one sunny day later I had 90 down again and I realised the weather was really affecting the speeds, so I thought I would invest in one of these and I’m glad I did as I’m now constantly getting 70-95mbps up and 32mbps down through all weathers.
As with others the suckers are hard to get on and need some flat heat tool assistance to get in and make sure you test not just the location but the direction it is facing, I saw as low as 30 down and 9 up by having it in the wrong place and direction, so experiment before fitting.
As I am paying a high monthly price I thought I would see how fast I could get my internet by buying an external antenna. I had tried one external antenna but it only had one cable and it didn’t work.
The Poynting antenna feels well made and has a reasonable cable length although a little longer would have been good. When I first contacted the antenna not a lot changed. I was getting the same speed. After some trial and error I managed to reboot and set up the router from scratch which then tripled the down load speed that I am getting. Finding the sweet spot for the antenna is the hard part. A slight movement from its location drastically changes the results. I had planned on attaching it to my drain pipe but I was back down to 30 MBps. My sweet spot seems to be bang in the middle of my upstairs window attached using the suckers. Not where I wanted it but at 96mbps I’m not going to grumble too much. The suckers were difficult to put on the antenna but a previous review had said to use a bottle opener which worked for me.
I don’t usually write reviews because products usually don’t warrant it but this little antenna is brilliant.
I live in a rural area and rely on 4G WiFi. The house is well insulated and the router received a 2-bar signal when sitting in the hall. Got a slow 10MB down and 2MB up from it when stock. When I got the Poynting I just simply switched out the rabbit ears on the router and screwed in the two cables that come with the antenna. Simple in that regard. What worked for me was moving the router to the utility room where the fuse board ran up to the attic. I ran the antenna cables down the same hole, screwed them in again and moved the antenna about until I got a 3-bar signal. It took about 10 minutes of jiggery pokery and it was done.
The result is very impressive. On my last test I got 78Mbps down and 29Mbps up. Far greater than my expectations when buying. 4k movies, gaming etc. are all no problem.
There’s about 15meters of cable provided. I’d advise you to use that to clear the inside space as much as possible and this thing will work a charm!
I have given 4 stars which may be a bit harsh but I found the direction you point this thing DOES make a BIG difference.
I’m not savvy enough to know whether this is due to my location or the location of nearby masts but all I can say is that turning this thing through 90 degrees altered my download speeds from 3 Mbps to 35 Mbps. I had a lengthy support ‘debate’ with my ISP based on what I thought was an omnidirectional antenna only to solve the problem inadvertently by twisting this around the pole I’d mounted it on.
Other than that, it has been faultless in the 18 months I have had it.
I paired this antenna with new sim based router I used the 4g+ tp-link AC1200 MR600
( to allow me connect the antenna to it as the mobile wifi doesn’t have that feature).
I am going to talk about my experiences now:
Going on the roof or high ground didn’t improve the signal but instead pointing it downwards toward the ground from 1.5 meter seems to work, check how silly the photo looks but this the only position I am getting juice at .
Shifting it left and right by an inch changed my signal strength dramatically, so don’t give up on the spots quickly , keep it connected and keep testing speed and keep walking around. Once you identify an area where you think there is a signal then rotate 360 degrees while testing every 50 degrees .
It’s definitely water tight, had few storms already.
I am getting consistently above 40mbps and it reaches 60, minimum I will get if I point it in any direction 26mbps It is really a noticeable difference.
Best broadband company quoted me 35 per month for 12mbps maximum no guarantee. So I am sticking to this mobile wifi arrangements for now.
We were lucky in as much as or TV aerial is on the correct corner of the van where we wanted the router. Factor in extensions if you’re not as fortunate as us. Overall 4 stars only cus it cost me extra for the sealant.
The upload speed is noticeably reduced .
And it is a bit faster than the much cheaper magnetic twin pack ariels on downlad like i say upload is wores .
But where this wins is by giving 1-2 bar of 3 or 4g where i useualy get no signal at all which for me is enough to stream a movie while streaming radio while surfing the net .
Which ill take steady slower internet over none at all 🙂
Oh and id say it’s well made not cheaply.
With really decent 5 meter cables that you might might need sma to ts9 adaptors depending on your router
But it is amazingly light like there is nothing inside so shone a ultra bright light through it and there is something inside so all good although the case could be a 3rd if the size. but for remote internet it works for me but i may switch between the cheeper twin pack ariels and this one depending on location and what im doing .
And with 3 was to mount it id say overall it’s worth it .
But bang for buck get the 10 magnetic twin pack one’s 😉
on mobile router and very unstable. Added this antenna and it went up to a very useable 1.3 mb/s put it on a pole outside and moved it around over the day . Finally settling on 4.5 mb/s. This is better than the telephone line (up to 512mb/s). And this is somewhere you have to stand on a ladder in a cowshed to make a mobile phone call .. very very impressed . And it takes a lot to impress me.. plug and play easily fitted . Only one slight drawback is the length of cable . Not enough to put the router where i need to . But still wouldn’t take a star off . Simply because it works !!
8/3/2
Update
after talking to my neighbour who has the same set up he said to keep changing position and I’d probably get faster speeds do live speed tests rather than rely on signal strength . The two aren’t necessarily the same .. anyway after moving it inch by inch rotationally and up and down the pole its settled at an amazing (for here) 29- 33 mb/s so don’t go by signal quality go by constant live speed tests an inch at a time ..
Everything was included in the box and for once a product just worked, with the omni direction and a good dual router its an excellent product.
It gives a good consistent speed it will drop slightly in extremely bad weather but so does a mobile phone, it can also be a bit slower at peak times but again that is more to do with the provider than the equipment.
If your looking at this product ave no doubts about buying it as it really does work, its well made and has been exposed over the last few weeks to a variety of severe weather situations and it still continues on. I currently have it stuck to the outside of my window and despite the wind and the rain it hasn’t moved.
With the good results I got I was contacted by a company who said that their ariel could increase my speed to at least 60mbps, well two hours later and they could not match the speed I was getting with this ariel. Their product was over three times the price of this and was actually quite flimsy when I saw it.
If you are looking to purchase you will not be disappointed .
Good choice of mounting options including pole mount, wall mount and suction cups for Windows.
I’m using a Huawei B535, and initially I was disappointed with the results as the router defaults to ‘Auto’ aerial selection, which I had expected to select the strongest/best signal, but it didn’t. Instead, it remained resolutely on the internal antennas only, and I had to log into the router via its web interface and manually switch to external antennas mode for the signal improvement to be achieved. Just mentioning this for anyone who has a similar lack-lustre initial experience as it might be the same thing!
It may sound obvious but some mounting / signal tuning tips:
– make sure the connections to the router are nice and tight. Loose connectors can lower the signal strength.
– it isn’t going to work as well inside as it does outside in most cases.
– even mounting it on a window that has a clear line of sight to the nearest transmitter is likely to be much better than just having it mounted somewhere inside.
– a caveat to the above: mounting it in an attic space (higher up) inside the building can sometimes produce better results than mounting it lower down somewhere outside or on a window lower down.
– with signal reception you need to experiment. Even the pros need signal meters most of the time. You probably won’t want to splash the cash on a dedicated meter, but most routers will give you detailed signal strength and quality info.
– maximum signal strength doesn’t always mean better quality – it can be a fine balance.
– the signal level on your phone’s WiFi has nothing to do with the router’s LTE signal level. Some routers offer a user friendly signal strength monitor you can use to wander around looking for the best spot. Depending on the model, this might actually be for the WiFi signal and not the LTE one, so double check before wasting your time.
– even though it is an omni-directional antenna, subtle changes of orientation can yield better signal quality.
When the item arrived it was not brilliantly put together there was a gap around the connection in places as if it had not been fully closed however I could not force it shot nor open it. If I had been mounting this externally I would’ve been worried and probably take or glued the scene. However using an old satellite dish 30 cm behind it giving it some direction I was able to mount this in my attic and on multiple tests compared to the bunny ear aerials that came with my Router I increased my speed from 10-13Mbs to 18-25Mbs. ( Router was an MR 600 Archer tp link Which looking at some forums apparently is not designed to be used with an external aerial however there are some websites which are bundling this exact Router with this Antenna bizarrely! ) anyway worked with some messing around for me
After a lot of playing around with my Huawei B525s with a pair of rabbit ear antennae I found that by far the best signal inside the house from Three’s service happened to be the bathroom window which faces the mast about 3/4 mile away. It’s a real hot spot giving better speeds than anywhere else inside and worth aiming for. Unfortunately putting a piece of electronics in a bathroom is probably not the best idea. especially since I use the telephone socket in the Huawei as well. But this antenna is suitable for use outdoors on a pole in all weathers so I figured a bit of steam from the shower wouldn’t hurt it. Using the suckers to stick the antenna to the window, I was able to hide the lead out of sight for most of its route to the landing. Signal strength isn’t much better with the antenna than with the router in the bathroom window, but at the location I’d settled on it’s pretty damn good anyway, and it enables the router to be sited in a much better location. I think signal quality might be a tad better.
The only caveat is that the 5m lead is what you get. It is wired directly to the antenna so attaching a shorter lead if you can get away with it is out of the question without cutting the existing lead and redoing the terminals. Also extending the lead means extra terminals and the inevitable loss of signal due to the join, so make sure that 5m is sufficient.
As for performance, there’s a fair bit of congestion on Three’s network in my area currently as there are 4G+ upgrades going on but when it’s quiet I can get download speeds of just under 90mb/s and uploads at nearly 30mb/s. In my location this can only be bettered by Virgin Media at a much higher cost.
That being said I have bolted this to the side of my house and the router says I have 100% signal strength; it doesn’t get better than that of course. On the other hand, the mast I connect to is only 550m away from my house with a largely uninterrupted line of sight. Truth be told I probably don’t need this external antenna however I wanted to make sure I had the best results I could get.
Why only 4 stars if I get a 100% signal strength?
Firstly, the product come with hammer fix fastenings which I don’t like to work with. I would prefer regular screws and Rawl plugs or better yet expanding bolts. I guess the thinking is everybody has a hammer but then you still need a drill and if you have a drill you have a screwdriver. Anyway that alone isn’t enough to lose a star, there are no cable clips with it. It is unescapable that you will be running a cable down a wall at some point so why no clips? I am aware when some people buy a product they expect every conceivable accessory to be included with it at no extra cost however in this case I really do feel five to ten clips would not have broken the profit margin for Poynting.
The last issue is perhaps the most irritating. To angle the antenna you must loosen a plastic lock nut under the bracket so you can lift the splines on the main casing out of the retaining collar on the bracket. The nut is stiff to turn which is irritating and given you may well be doing this while on a ladder possibility adds an extra element of danger. It is still because this is also where the cable runs into the body of the antenna enclosure and it has some kind of silicone/rubber/nylon type packing in the hole the collar turns around. This is for weather proofing of course but the extra friction I would imagine puts the cables under extra strain as you turn the lock nut. I would liked to have seen a proper cable gland providing weather sealing and protection for the cable with perhaps an isolated lock nut for freeing the body from the splines for adjustment.
In summary we have a product that is easy enough to install but not as easy as it could have been. Is easy enough to adjust but not as easy as it could have been and is well enough made but not as well designed as it could have been.
It is worth reading the notes for installers on their website especially in regards of reducing cable strain by attaching it to the bracket and not letting the cable simply hang down and also allowing for a drip loop to allow water to run off (and not follow the cable into your building!).
This product works well enough and I would imagine there are commercial/industrial quality products that are better perhaps more robust but at a higher price. This seems to be a consumer product and I guess the design reflects a balance between build quality, ease of use and cost. If you have marginal 4G reception you should certainly get one of these or the directional one if you know where to point it. If you are relying on equipment for commercial use where you can’t risk downtime maybe, just maybe there is a commercial quality unit you should look for.
Works well. Reduced the lag significantly though it is still frequent enough to be noticed in every game of rocket league. And not just the higher ping with cellular but very short lag spikes. Like said though they are very short, not even long enough most times for the game to update the ping info to show the lag spike. But worse ones a e only a second or two long which is by far also alot better then using built in antennas on my router.
Don’t expect a speed bump though. And also don’t expect much in terms of signal improvement. It stabilised my 3 bars that kept dropping to 2 bars using my built in antennas. But it not magic. Have realistic expectations of a product that’s on the lower side of midrange in price. Expect a working product that is at least slightly better then built in. But nothing more. If all you want is slightly better, to just have a means or getting an antenna mounted outside that works then this will do that for you. Do note though the suckon cups for the window mounting might pop off after the first few minutes or 30 minutes or being pressed into the window. But they are so tightly placed into the antenna mounting area that they won’t come off the antenna itself though, if you can get them in place properly.
Like you, I read reviews of my similar products and found them all to have a both high and low reviews. I settled on this design in the end and it has proved perfect for our needs. In summary, this antenna will perform no better than your device if placed int he same location. The strength is that you have the ability to move the antenna away form the router and find better signal.
Background:
My parents live a long way from an exchange and so for years suffered from terrible BT, Talk Talk and other ADSL broadband providers getting speeds of 2mbps on a good day. The house has always had good 4G reception with my iPhone getting 3-4bars of signal. A few years ago we switched the to use a 4G ZTE Dongle running on three. This was initially huge improvement and offered them speeds of 10-20mbps depending on weather conditions. However the after trying lots of positions we could never get the ZTE dongle to get more than 1 bar of signal and it would drop down to 3G in poor weather conditions.
This product and fitting it:
I wired the antenna up to the dongle via a couple of SMA to T9 convertors. When the antenna was placed in the same position as the dongle there was little to no improvement in signal strength. I believe that this is what leads to many bad reviews of similar products. However this was purchased a s a weather proof outdoor antenna so, the purpose was to move it outside and into a position with better signal. After about 10 minutes of positioning we found a sweet stop on the side of the house which was about to get 4 bars of signal (-92db rather than the -106db inside the house). We mounted it to a pole as we found that despite it being omni directional, rotating the antenna slightly would offer up to 1 extra bar of signal. Speed tests after fitting showed up to 70mbps depending on three network congestion and consistently offered at least 50mbps. Overall, I’m very happy with the purchase.
1. I never use my landline for calls but still have to pay line rental in order to receive broadband;
2. Living in a rural area just over 2 miles from the fibre-enabled exchange, I was struck with broadband over copper wires which averaged 6-7mbps – not great if I want to watch Netflix while the kids want to stream music, watch YouTube, etc.
The first thing I did was buy a Huawei B525 LTE (4G) router to see if there would be an improvement in speed, and if so, whether the signal would be reliable. I searched the internet and found the cheapest unlimited 4G package on the market I could, which turned out to be with Smarty (over the Three network) for a discounted 18,75/month (as at September 2019). With the router on a table, my broadband had gone from 6-7mbps to over 20mbps – a great improvement … but I thought I might be able to improve on that further. After reading reviews, I bought the Poynting antenna, ran the cables through the external wall and fixed it approximately 2.5 metres high. I now get 4G unlimited broadband averaging between 40-50 mbps – lightning fast compared to my old setup!
I’m happy to say I no longer need to pay line rental, my total monthly cost has dropped from 35/month to 18.75/month AND my broadband is around 6 times faster! My only disappointment is that I didn’t do this sooner!
I ordered this external aerial as a ‘punt’ and, already, am seeing definite benefits. I have just installed it temporarily in my loft while I wait for mounting hardware. Prior to installation of this unit I was using two LTE ‘high gain’ whips (cheap but effective) and these improved my signal stability greatly and speed increased to over 12Mbps, sometimes 20 but it was still unstable.
Several speed tests before and after installation show an average upload improvement of about 20 Mbps (now 40 Mbps or greater), upload has shown about 8Mbps improvement (again this is compared to my router with better aerials, not the originals supplied). I am being conservative with the numbers here.
I am quite confident I can improve the speeds somewhat by getting the aerial outside and in the clear and will update this accordingly.
I should also say I installed one of these Poynting aerials for a neighbour who had zero 4G signal on her phone handset. We could not achieve a stable connection using a teltonika router with it’s supplied magnetic whips. We installed this Poynting aerial upstairs (again in loft space, while waiting for an installer) and achieved a good consistent 21+ Mbps upload / 45 – 61 Mbps Download. Again, I would expect improvement with the aerial located outside in the clear.
Both my neighbour and I had been battling with BT to get any service at all, both being at the end of poorly maintained and very long overhead copper.
Internet is not a luxury in this day and age, especially out in the sticks. Both connections discussed above are with EE and very much cheaper than a very poor quality landline and ADSL in name only (not to mention the stress of dealing with BT). Mobile handsets can piggyback of the EE connection.
I am quite happy with the construction of the aerials, it is supplied with 5M leads terminating in SMA male. The plastics are solid, I can not see anywhere water could ingress and the cables are of sufficient quality to last. I have no qualms about mounting this hardware outside – even in northern Scotland where the weather tends to weed out poor quality hardware.
I recommend this product based on 11 years of trying to get BT service without incurring either a coronary or breakdown, several experiments with 4G hardware and 35 years of being a licensed radio operator – not to mention the ability to actually use iPlayer and Amazon Prime Video from these remote wind blown parts.
It can be mounted externally but I found it pretty good when mounted using the included suckers on the inside of a window. Outside gave even better results but was a bit harder to do.
In my case, I’ve actually gone for a directional antenna by the same manufacturer (which is superb). This was because in my case, I have access to only two towers – 180 degrees from each other. My router will consistently stay with the same tower.By having a directional antenna I’ve been able to focus on the single tower for a significantly higher gain.
There was a LOT more work involved there though – and you have to get the direction spot on.
The big advantage here is it just works with whatever you’ve got – and if your router likes to switch towers, it will work with all of them. It will give a signal quality improvement in a well served area without a lot of effort.
If your router uses TS-9 inputs (most Netgar and HUAWEI do) then you need either some adapters or pig tails – but that’s easy enough to do.
All in all a robust and quality product which did work for me – but be clear on your situation as to whether Omni or directional are the way to go – there are pros and cons to both. Omni will work better for most people most of the time.
You need to play around with the positioning though. Our slowest speed with this antenna (close to where the router is sited) was about 3.5Mbps. 5m of antenna cable (two cables, in fact), putting the antenna outside (since this building has a thin metal skin about 1mm thick) and raising the height from 1.0m to 2.4m above the ground made all the difference.
The supplied suckers work ok on a window but didn’t adhere to the smooth steel skin of this building. We replaced the suckers with screws.