Really need help and advice on what hardware I need and how I setup a backup 4G connection

[Euphoria]

Hi everyone, I'm completely out my depth here and really need some beginner guidance on how and what I need to setup a backup 4G connection for my home.

I have a new job working from home, the hours are incredible, it's been fantastic but my connection is letting me down and I'm terrified of losing the job.
I now live in Europe and in a very rural part, I'm a 2hr drive from the nearest small town and 4+hrs from a minor city so my connection now is sort of like hotspots; it's a wireless signal beamed from the nearest town to a village, then another village and another... 11 or 12 villages later I received a signal across a valley.
Surprisingly, it's actually not terrible, it's very 2008 (25Mb/s DL and 15Mb/s UL) and the ping is only 30-40ms to the town 2hrs away so it's OK and usable, but with there being so many points the chain can break, if one village has a blackout I lose my connection, plus we are now in thunderstorm season and I'm in a valley so we get them daily.

 

As a result, I need to get a 4G backup connection that will switch if my normal WAN goes down so I'm not offline. The phone signal is really poor in the house but when I did some work on my roof last year it was pretty decent, so I'm thinking an exterior antenna on the roof going into the house to a router which my normal WAN connects to and also the 4G backup, it will choose the best or at least switch automatically when one goes off.

The thing is after looking online and reading up, looking at products on Amazon I'm confused to what I actually need and how and what connects to who. 

Someone told me it was simple; an antenna for the roof, the cable from that connects to the router, a router that has 2-WAN inputs and auto-switches, and then either WIFI or ethernet to my devices, that's it.
But is it that simple or is there more to it?
Please ELI5, really, networking is not my strong suit by any means. And thank you so much.

 

TL;DR - I need a 4G backup connection with exterior antenna due to poor signal - what hardware do I need and what are some dos and don'ts, any advice?

[Falcon1986]

23 hours ago, Euphoria said:

I received a signal across a valley.

Sounds like you would be the perfect candidate for Starlink.

 

23 hours ago, Euphoria said:

I need a 4G backup connection with exterior antenna due to poor signal

Since you live in Europe, take a look at the UniFi LTE Pro (U-LTE-Pro-EU). Check to see if the LTE/WCDMA bands are supported based on the cellular/data provider available in your region. It's based on the U-LTE-US which is limited to the AT&T network in the US, but works pretty well from what I've heard. Don't expect these failover devices to be perfectly seamless during a transition, but they're probably better than any other device out there.

 

If you decide to get the Pro, you'll need a UDM-Pro or USG. The UDM-Pro can host the UniFi Controller locally, whereas the USG needs a separate unit to do that for you.

[Euphoria]

1 hour ago, Falcon1986 said:

Sounds like you would be the perfect candidate for Starlink.

 

Since you live in Europe, take a look at the UniFi LTE Pro (U-LTE-Pro-EU). Check to see if the LTE/WCDMA bands are supported based on the cellular/data provider available in your region. It's based on the U-LTE-US which is limited to the AT&T network in the US, but works pretty well from what I've heard. Don't expect these failover devices to be perfectly seamless during a transition, but they're probably better than any other device out there.

 

If you decide to get the Pro, you'll need a UDM-Pro or USG. The UDM-Pro can host the UniFi Controller locally, whereas the USG needs a separate unit to do that for you.

 

Thanks, I have registered to be contacted for StarLink some time ago and registered again with a different email just in case a few months ago.

As for the other thing you mentioned, I will look into that, never seen it before but I think I see what you mean.

So, I would need the U-LTE-Pro-EU which is an exterior antenna and a UDM-Pro which is a switch/router. OK, that's a nice, seemingly simple, solution. I will take a look, thank you.

[Falcon1986]

2 hours ago, Euphoria said:

So, I would need the U-LTE-Pro-EU which is an exterior antenna and a UDM-Pro which is a switch/router.

There are other standalone devices out there which I'm not familiar with, but this is the solution that came to mind. They integrate well with each other through the UniFi Controller and setup is easy. Watch the video I mentioned earlier.

 

Again, if you decide to go with any 4G/LTE CPE gateway device, you need to ensure that the device supports the necessary bands of the data provider's network.

[Euphoria]

20 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

There are other standalone devices out there which I'm not familiar with, but this is the solution that came to mind. They integrate well with each other through the UniFi Controller and setup is easy. Watch the video I mentioned earlier.

 

Again, if you decide to go with any 4G/LTE CPE gateway device, you need to ensure that the device supports the necessary bands of the data provider's network.

Thanks, I appreciate the help and info.