Giving up the fixed telephone line to always rely on our mobile phone? It can be an obligation, when the fixed line doesn't arrive at all. But it's also an opportunity: for example in the house by the sea, where we don't want to maintain (and pay for) a telephone-Internet account, using it only on a few weekends and on holidays. The problem? Our mobile phone connected to the Internet in "hot spot" mode (or "tethering" in more technical terms) does what it can, also because within the walls of the house the cellular signal can be weakened by doors and walls. And we would like everything, absolutely everything, to work properly: our PCs (dad, mom, children) to be connected at the same time, smart TV and maybe a couple of traditional telephones around the house. In short: we would like everything that a fixed line gives us.
Up until a couple of years ago that could have been a problem. Indeed, a sum of problems: a single mobile phone a bit panting for the whole family to keep placed at home. Today this is no longer the case, thanks to cellular devices that effectively replace our home connection, allowing us to keep all our connection equipment unchanged without giving up absolutely anything. Indeed, with a number of advantages.
The trick is called "cellular voice and data router” and this is exactly the sequence of terms that you can insert into a web search engine to find and purchase the solution we are talking about online as well: a device similar to the Internet router of our fixed line, the one we bought independently in a shop or the one supplied by the operator to which we have subscribed, which however is not connected to the classic cable (the copper telephone pair in the case of an old traditional system, or the optical fiber in the case of a latest generation connection) but it connects to a cellular network thanks to a SIM to be inserted inside.
The advantages of the "landline" cell phone
First advantage: our cellular router also works where there is no fixed line (for example in an isolated house in the countryside) as long as there is cellular signal coverage, which can also be minimal (we will see later how to make signal reception more efficient). Second advantage: our telephone-internet system is still “transportable”: from the city house to the holiday home for example. So we can have only one "fixed" user to transfer when we want. Third advantage: our new voice+data cellular system can prove to be even cheaper than a corresponding traditional line, given the rock-bottom prices of Italian cellular telephony, even more so if we use only one user to take with us even to the holiday home.
Fourth advantage: the latest models of cellular voice-data routers allow you to abandon the old telephone connection keeping our whole plant as it is home, perhaps made up of three or four corded telephones around the house plus an Internet network made up of fixed connections with ethernet sockets (data cable sockets are called that) and a Wi-Fi signal perhaps extended with a repeater device. We will simply have to replace the device (modem-router) which is upstream of our entire system, with a simple reconfiguration of the Wi-Fi passwords and without any intervention without any change in our habits. In short, everything remains exactly as before: computer telephones, even the Wi-Fi access passwords, which can be re-entered during the configuration of our renewed system by replicating the ones we used before.
How much
The total cost of the operation, as you can verify by exploring the equipment offers of the main electronic commerce chains via the Web or even in the physical stores of large-scale electronics and household appliances distribution, and around the euro 100 for the device, to which must of course be added the cost of the mobile phone, which in the "discount" solutions is steadily under 10 euros per month for solutions that provide for unlimited calls and a volume of data equal to or greater than 30 gigabytes per month, usually sufficient for non-intensive use. But even if we need or want to have unlimited Internet browsing, as with home landline lines, there are cellular subscriptions that are competitive with the prices of landline lines.
For the choice of equipment, we advise you to choose a cellular router certified for the latest generation 4G Lte cellular networks, waiting for the newborn 5g to establish itself. Also check if the appliance also has a derivation socket to connect, emulating all its functions, i normal telephone sets fixed (as shown in the first image below) and is not without it instead limiting itself to an Internet connection only (second image).
We also recommend, especially if you are buying from sites that sell equipment shipped from abroad, that you buy a device certified for the Italian networks, because not all radio channels assigned to 4G cellular services in the world are the same and buying equipment that comes from another continent you are likely to have some problems. We also advise you to choose a device that has the antennas or detachable cellular signal reception to be added, equipped with a standard Sma connector (the same one you see in the detachable antennas of Wi-Fi routers). We explain the reason below.
How to install
We take our new device out of the box and we can immediately notice the presence of sockets and connectors that are completely similar to those of our modem router that we use for the Internet and for landline telephony. Before installing it, or replacing it with our traditional device, connect it to the computer and to the electrical outlet and proceed with the configuration by following the instructions, more or less as we will do with the traditional router: credential customization access for the configuration of the appliance (many leave the classic admin-admin pairing but it is an error that exposes us to quite a few intrusions) and our Wi-Fi network with relative password (all the more reason to personalize, even re-proposing the codes of the WiFi we used before, so as not to have to reconfigure the individual "client" devices). The only small problem could concern the correct configuration of the parameters relating to the Sim of the manager we have chosen, especially with regard to the so-called APN, the network code for accessing the Internet (the latest cell phone models do this automatically but our device does not necessarily have this function) but the problem can be easily solved by calling the operator's call center or consulting his website. At this we turn off the apparatus, connect the sockets of the network cables and the home telephone cable, turn them on and that's it.
External antenna (if needed)
If we're lucky and we have good cellular network coverage inside the house, we can leave everything as it is. But if we prefer to have maximum performance and the cell phone coverage is weak it is advisable to use an external antenna, to be connected to our apparatus with a cable similar to that of the TV but fortunately thinner and easier to pass around the furniture and through the frame of a window to create our enhanced connection.
If you have chosen your cellular router following our advice, you will find, on the back or on the top, one or two "Sma" standard connectors protected by a removable flap, similar to those present in many WiFi devices, which allow you to enhance reception precisely by connecting the external antenna with which we are equipped.
There are various models of external antennas, also here to choose from by searching the websites carefully (the string of words that we recommend is: 4G Lte external antenna). We can choose a whip antenna (omnidirectional but less effective), a dipole directive (similar to that of TV but smaller), or a semi-directional panel, to be fixed in some way to the external wall of the house or to a railing, orienting it in the presumed direction of the nearest cell tower, even by simply making tests once the connection is completed. The latter solution is the one we recommend, and which you see depicted in the photograph below.
In a modern house of reinforced concrete, the signal improves consistently, more than doubling the reception intensity and therefore the speed and continuity of the transmitted and received data. In a building of older construction, with thicker walls, the difference can be even more marked: from zero signal to full signal almost. Also important here is the correct configuration of our device, which must be "instructed", in the initial settings, to pick up the signal from the external antenna.
