Which router in the motorhome?

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Which router is recommended for a motorhome is an existential question for some, a rather minor question for others.
What are the advantages of a router? And which one should you give preference to? These questions, as well as related ones, will be discussed below.

Router – mobile or stationary?

Mobile

Mobile routers are very compact, have their own battery, which is replaceable in the best case scenario, a USB port for charging, as well as two antenna ports for connecting an external antenna, as well as integrated WLAN antennas for connecting to other devices via your own WLAN to enable internet access. The battery also serves as a power bank for cell phones, tablets, etc. A SIM card slot, like a cell phone, holds a SIM card from the respective provider.

The mobile router may be interesting for those who need access to the Internet with two or three tablets - in the great outdoors. The cell phone offers internet availability anyway, including a hotspot that a tablet can connect to. But if you want to connect several devices to the Internet at the same time - outdoors - you are well served with such devices. It should be noted that these devices generate relatively high levels of heat during operation. Heat is enemy No. 1 of all electronics because it leads to faster aging of the components and thus to earlier failure.

Stationary

External routers do not contain a battery, but are permanently connected to the on-board network. They are larger in design, offer four or more ports for external antennas (2 or 4 for mobile communications and one each for 2.4 and 5 GHz WLAN), as well as two or more LAN ports through which end devices can be connected directly.
Routers suitable for mobile networks also provide one or two SIM card slots. In the case of two SIM cards, four mobile network antenna connections are required if load balancing or failover functions are desired. The choice of antennas also requires special attention.

The stationary router is usually more powerful. has better reception, more robust and is available at a relatively low additional cost compared to its mobile counterpart.

LTE 4G or 5G router?

The expansion of 5G is progressing, especially in metropolitan areas. Although 5G is rightly criticized for its undesirable health effects, the radiation from these frequencies can only be avoided if you are not in such areas, which will hardly be possible in practice.

The use of a 5G-capable router is therefore not a health-relevant burden because the 5G radiation is emitted via the external antenna, but not through the router inside the vehicle.
On the topic of electrosmog, shielding, health and 5G here several posts available.

This answers the question posed at the beginning. Anyone who needs high transfer rates for work will use this option anyway. But if you only need the router for surfing, email traffic and messengers, you will be able to get by comfortably with 4G.
However, since the price of 5G-capable routers has been increasingly falling, people may be inclined to give preference to the 5G router, even without necessity. We know it from computers: faster is always possible!

Consumer or industrial router?

There are many router manufacturers and each would like to dominate the biggest piece of the market. So a battle develops more about the most effective advertising statements than about the technical data. Here it is important to compare thoroughly and, above all, to understand what which value actually says and to decide whether an obviously outstanding value is even relevant for the application.

The situation is a little different with routers that were designed for industrial use. Factual standards apply here rather than pithy advertising statements. In addition, they are intended for reliable, even vital applications, as well as extreme environmental conditions.

Well, extreme environmental conditions in the RV? Yes, absolutely, because there are constant vibrations while driving, which is probably the case at home on the desk at most in the event of a temper tantrum... In a vehicle there may be temperatures of 60 °C and more, as well as humidity of around 90 %. Both values that are rarely achieved at home. In this respect, the home router is less suitable for mobile use, even if it could be used in mobile bases using a plug-in power supply and more or less usual voltages, such as those that may also be available in the vehicle using a DC converter.

Anyone who relies on Internet availability even under the most unfavorable conditions will be best advised to go with a router for industrial applications, such as those from Teltonika.
In terms of price, such routers are quite interesting and quite acceptable.

If you look at a mobile router for around 320 euros, for the same amount you get a CAT-6 Teltonika RUTX11 with two SIM card slots (fallback - e.g. two SIM cards from different providers: if the coverage of one is no longer available, it will automatically switched to the second SIM card), 3 LAN, 1 WAN port, WLAN, Bluetooth and GPS, as well as USB port, for example to make hard drives available in the network via an integrated Samba server.
When using an antenna with an already integrated GPS module, no additional cable entry is required. The GPS can be used to locate the vehicle, but also to set a virtual fence. When you leave the defined zone, an alarm is sent via SMS or email. In addition, the router can be configured remotely from anywhere via SMS commands.

A 5G-capable router with load balancing (double the data transfer rate is achieved by using both SIM cards in parallel) is the RUTX50 here – including configuration is described in more detail.

Antenna choice

There are different antennas that differ primarily in their performance. The antenna gain, which is often used to great effect in advertising, is unjustifiably given greater importance. Only directional antennas offer significantly higher reception strength gains due to their directional properties. All omnidirectional antennas receive the same level of horizontal reception from every direction, but with different quality due to their different lengths.
In addition, the antenna gain is frequency dependent. Connection cables also cause attenuation of the received signal, as does every plug connection between the antenna and router connection.

The term “gain” simply represents the ratio between the received signal and the signal present at the receiver, which, due to the antenna properties, is higher than it would be if a simple antenna were used.

In terms of transmission technology, every router has a legally regulated maximum permissible transmission power, which can quickly increase to x times the permitted limit value if antennas with high gain are used. This aspect must also be taken into account if you do not want to risk disrupting other radio services.

The better, the more expensive?

The best antenna does not have to mean the highest price! Sometimes the cheaper antenna is even the better choice. For example, there are antennas in the range of 300 to 400 euros that even have mechanical disadvantages compared to antennas of around 80 to 130 euros.
Due to their overly compact design, the antenna modules within the antenna housing interfere with each other from an electromagnetic perspective, which precludes use with load balancing capable routers. In this case, it is better to choose two independent antennas of a smaller design, mount them at a distance (20 cm is enough) and thus enjoy full load balancing.

More on this topic is here to read.