Cell phone now working 50 miles out

That's an average of 1.6 hours of TV a day.......

Thank you, I'm aware of it. T-Mobile is currently the preferred provider for cellular data here in the PNW. My router has two SIM card slots. Current thought is T-Mobile's will be in one.

I'm also investigating a commercial provider with a proprietary SIM card for data only that purportedly offers very attractive data plans. My data use would be for accessing my business network online and zoom calls with partners and clients. The system's been validated by an active user who's been running his law practice remotely. Of course his data use has been running $300-400 monthly but it's a business expense as it would be for me.

On T-Mobile's site they show pretty good coverage north of Vancouver, along the Sunshine Coast, into Desolation Sound and even the Broughtons (though to a lesser extent). Though hopeful, I'm skeptical because they must be using Canadian towers located at communities scattered up the coast, and I know how challenging it is to get those signals.

I will have external antennas mounted high on the new mast on my flybridge roof. This season I'll put it to the test. Fingers crossed.

Further north above the Broughtons it gets even more "sketchy". Then I'll rely on my sat phone for essential voice communication.

Noted your reply to MBevins. Good point. TV for entertainment purposes (which I have no interest in currently) certainly requires satellite connectivity and comes with significantly higher costs - hardware and airtime. For data for my purposes I'm hoping to get by with my system for now. Will move up to satellite for comms if it proves necessary. I don't know if I'd go for TV at that time, though. We'll see.

In that region it probably was NASA cell repeater tech, they have boats in the area to recover return vehicles. However, throughout the world you will occasionally find you have excellent cell reception in odd places because there is a balloon way above your head carrying around a pretty powerful cell repeater The tech companies have been experimenting with them for a while now.

5G is very short range, they need a repeater about every 300 yards, unlike 4 G. 4G Cell phone antannae's are somewhat directional but in populated cities, they overlap and so forth and so on, so it is possible to get a signal for 10 or so miles offshore.