Do I need an external antenna / device with antenna ports?

Do I need an external antenna / device with antenna ports?

If you are located in an area of good/fair/excellent signal, then the answer is a resounding NO!

Why? Your device has anywhere from 4 to 16 internal MIMO antennas. If you connect two single antennas, you have significantly decreased the speeds available. This should only be done in the situation where your signal is so low (or no signal at all) that an antenna is your only option to receive internet services.

The idea behind MIMO (short for Multiple Input Multiple Output) is revolutionary, yet simple. In a nutshell, MIMO is a smart antenna technology for wireless communication in which multiple transmitting and receiving antennas are used at the source and the destination to send and receive more data. The use of multiple antennas increases performance, data speeds, and transmission data capacity.

Using MIMO antennas is similar to adding more lanes to both sides of a two-lane (one ongoing and the other oncoming) road. As a result, the volume of data that can be sent and received through that road increase by however many lanes (antennas) there are, which, in turn, increases data speeds.

Anyways, with MIMO, the two transmitting antennas on your cellular router (yes, there are cellular routers that use more antennas, but this is for simplicity) push out the same signal, known as data streams. A data stream is basically an action you want to perform, such as Googling something, streaming a video, or accessing a website.


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