I'm getting sick to the back teeth of the pathetically slow and increasingly unreliable Broadband that we get in this village. There is no real prospect of getting fibre, no matter what promises are made, so I'm looking at 4G home hubs as an alternative.
Only O2 and Vodaphone have a good 4G signal here. EE (and BT) say they have, but there's barely any signal at all.
Anyone got any experience of these hubs? Any recommendations?
------------- Two drifters off to see the world.
I'm tired of reality, so I'm off to look for a good fantasy.
I cant help with ee and voda, but we had to install a 4g setup at our business as the Broadband via wires was terrible as we are miles from the exchange...most days we got half a Mb, which you cannot run a business with when it was even struggling on days to allow us to even take credit card payments! I seem to recall the engineer said our copper wire was over 2 miles long.
We installed our own 4g router (Teltonika 955RUT) and put a small aerial up to get a more solid signal. I got a sim from Three for £18 per month with unlimited data, and not looked back. I am fairly techy and knew that there was nothing any good off the shelf, hence got this setup. The great thing is, that we can take it away in the caravan too and have amazing connection if the signal is good on site.
We now also use a Voip phone via this and are totally wireless. And now consistently get 10-15Mb speeds which is adequate for our needs. It only slows for half an hour when the local school kicks out as they all turn on their phones after lessons (there are over a 100 kids there)!
We got a free sim with a bit of free data from Three to start with and tested it, so we knew signal was good for us.
Thanks for the replies... No '3', E3 or 'Smarty' signal here. Mrs. L has a smartphone, and in our lounge, she can get 42 Mb download from O2. I get around 2Mb from BT. This is the problem with living in a small village. It's all very well saying that 99% of properties will have fibre broadband, but in a very rural country that last 1% have no chance.
Had a very informative chat with the chap in the Tesco phone shop about the best SIM to use. I've no idea how much data I download as I'm on an unlimited service.
------------- Two drifters off to see the world.
I'm tired of reality, so I'm off to look for a good fantasy.
No sense being on BT mobile if you've no signal in the village where you live. That's why I use Tesco (O2) mobile. I don't have a 'smart' phone, don't use 'apps' so don't use mobile data. What I want to know is how much wired broadband data I download. I tried asking BT but they just tell me that I have an unlimited service.
I'll get it sorted out somehow.
------------- Two drifters off to see the world.
I'm tired of reality, so I'm off to look for a good fantasy.
Quote: Originally posted by Capt Lightning on 02/6/2021
No sense being on BT mobile if you've no signal in the village where you live. That's why I use Tesco (O2) mobile. I don't have a 'smart' phone, don't use 'apps' so don't use mobile data. What I want to know is how much wired broadband data I download. I tried asking BT but they just tell me that I have an unlimited service.
I'll get it sorted out somehow.
Ah sorry ... Obviously I misunderstood when you said your wife was on O2 and you were on BT!
I've no experience of 4g routers tbh other than knowing that all the major players offer them. The Starlink offering does look pretty good though and is likely to be ideal for those in rural locations where the obvious commercial implications mean that fibre won't be a priority without public funding.
I use an ee myfi (mini4gee) its unlocked so I can use any company I use pre loaded sims and have 2 suppliers so I usually have a decent signal and get around 12 to 15 gb and sometimes 20 i use pre loaded as I only use them when away
I simply use my phone to create a wifi hotspot and use the phones data. I am on contract and get unlimited everything for less than £30 a month. Most days at home I get about 50Mbs on download speed, upload is slower. I dumped my landline and broadband some time ago and now I know exactly how much I am going to pay each month.
------------- 'A sure cure for sea-sickness is to sit under a tree'
I had wondered about the phone, but that would mean having a dedicated phone switched on all day with an unlimited data sim. It would also need to have a good WiFi range to cater for devices in different rooms.
------------- Two drifters off to see the world.
I'm tired of reality, so I'm off to look for a good fantasy.
My son has just had some sooper-dooper kit fitted at home. He lives right in the sticks, and has always had pi$$ poor internet.
He had a satellite dish fitted to start with - apparently it was billed as the bees knees. It was useless. So he binned that, and has just had something else fitted. I dont know what it is yet, but his garden is 130ft long, and it works at the end of it.
Bought a 4G hub and an O2 sim. No problems - just plugged in and away it went. Not the trillions of Gigabytes that some providers would have you believe, but around 30 mbps which is lightning fast compared to BT's 2 mbps.
------------- Two drifters off to see the world.
I'm tired of reality, so I'm off to look for a good fantasy.
Quote: Originally posted by romany on 02/6/2021
I use an ee myfi (mini4gee) its unlocked so I can use any company I use pre loaded sims and have 2 suppliers so I usually have a decent signal and get around 12 to 15 gb and sometimes 20 i use pre loaded as I only use them when away