Does anyone have experience of using 4G broadband instead of landline? From what my phone can do when I hold it out of the window it should be 3 or 4 times quicker than my woeful BT Broadband but I'm wondering if anyone has made the leap to unwired fat pipe! If so let us know what the experience was like and if you'd reccomend it!
First of all: 5G is coming, so make sure you sign no contract you can't easily get out of. As for using 4G as a regular internet it works perfectly fine for regular use but where it falls flat however is gaming... while it offers more than enough raw bandwidth the latency and stability of the connection just can't compete with domestic broadband. Also beware of data caps, for example the supposedly unlimited data plans from 3 throttle after 1TB.
I think I could live with a throttle at a TB! Smarty are offering one month contracts (using the three network) on unlimited data so that could be worth a try but it would still mean investing in a 4g router with external antenna. I think 5g may take some time to get here!
EE have some pretty ridiculous data bundles on 30 day contracts and year contracts. Mister Tad has used them for years and been happy enough. (I bought one of his old 4G modems, which I in turn no longer need and am selling now). I used EE for a couple of months and I was happy with the performance even in my 2-bar location, I got 19Mbps down and I could play games, stream, and use discord. Was good. You can get always-on data from giffgaff - however they apply the following: *After 20GB of data used you'll experience a reduced data speed of 384kbps from 8am to Midnight. You may notice that activities which require high amounts of data, like HD video streaming, will be slower.
I have plugged a 4G dongle into the USB port of two different Asus routers I've had to provide temporary broadband at home after changing providers (and waiting through the invitable delay), worked fine with the bonus being the dongle is portable as well. It was good enough but my daughter complained about YouTube and Netflix being too slow when used at the same time!
I've replied to your for sale thread as it looks like a good option to try this out - especially since an external antennae can be attached. If you were getting 19Mb down and anything up that's a vast improvement on BT (5.5 down and 0.3 up!)
I've documented my ups and downs with LTE home broadband here - https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.p...nd-tribulations-of-wireless-broadband.341972/ FTTP became available end of last year though - I still have the setup active, but on PAYG as a failover.
That's really useful! I think I will try it out but not worry too much about the external antennae unless I get no luck without it! Hopefully at some point FTTP will come to us via Gigaclear but the way it's been handled so far is abysmal so I'm not holding my breath!
I basically put mine in the window and just ran an ethernet cable back to my switch and it wasn't too bad for me!
Placement is key - it's well worth experimenting. A lot. I discovered the biggest tweak for me by accident - I was using a fairly flimsy C clamp and a rack shelf to experiment with putting it in different places in the loft, and found somewhere that I was reliably getting >100Mbit. So I permanently fixed a shelf in the same place and tested again, 70Mbit... It turns out that by virtue of using a plastic C clamp to attach the shelf temporarily, it was flexing quite a bit, and the gateway was angled by around 15deg. When I bent the L brackets I used on the shelf to get a similar angle, the speed came back - I was eventually getting 120Mbit IIRC.
Nice! A fraction of that speed would do! Looking at your notes regarding Dual WAN, in simple terms that means connecting both the LTE and ADSL routers so any devices connected don't really know which connection they're using?
IIRC, Mister Tad was using a router which has policy based routing - traffic of types A, B and C, use LTE, traffic of types X, Y and Z, use ADSL. Although now I believe he instead has primary and secondary failover in case the FTTP service is down.
Almost - it was just divvied up on the source IP address. Though bear in mind this was when 100GB was the tip-top package available and going over was £1/GB. I'm not sure I'd bother today. Considering the cost difference between an EE 100GB, and 300GB or 500GB package, you're better off canning the ADSL, saving yourself the line rental, and any additional complexity/expense on dual-WAN IMO Correctamundo. Though the LTE has never been used in anger since and I'm thinking it probably won't ever be. I'm thinking I might pull it, or at least downgrade from the Huawei gateway and replace it with one of my EE ones.
Figured it was best to reply in here! I did not use the external antenna, no. There are the connectors you need in the little box right at the very bottom (keep removing the false floors and you will find it) that you need for it though. I simply put mine in the window and went with EE since they had the amount of data I needed for the price point I needed, however Vodafone is definitely the best signal here. You would probably already have a fair idea of which provider has the best signal for your area - but if you don't I would recommend experimenting with it.
I've gone with SMARTY for now is they allow cancellation after a month so no lock in. If things work out I could try another provider if they start offering unlimited data at a reasonable price. As it is I'm happy with being able to update software within a week so it's doing what I need it to right now. I can see this being the future for broadband in rural areas - especially once 5g is widely rolled out!
@Greentrident you're welcome to have my antenna for free to try if you want - one of these - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poynting-4...ised-Antenna/dp/B00C1DGFPS?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1 The catch is that you have to come get it, ~12m up the back of my house.
I wonder if I could use a drone to get it down!!! I think I'll take the advice from your notes on the other thread and try to get the router positioned right before Iworry too much about an antenna! I am seriously tempted to look into buying one of those B525 routers if this all seems to be working out though!
Give me a poke if you think you might want to swap out to a B525 at some point. As my LTE is now just failover, I'd be content to flog it and trade down to the EE one I have if there's a compelling reason to do so.
