Choices choices - up to 1mb broadband or go mobile?

jojonic

We're moving from a fairly rural location where we enjoy lightening broadband speeds of up to 8 meg (with the wind behind it) to a very rural location where we have been quoted to be able to get up to 1 meg. Apparently this is similar to dial up.

Whilst I will enjoy this wee trip down memory lane, I would prefer to be able to read more than two emails an hour. So... now I wonder whether to accept this lousy speed or go for a mobile broadband provider? I hear mobile dongles give up to 8 meg, is that right in practice does anyone know? The downside of this is there are two of us in the house who use the internet so we'll either need to get two dongles or face the consequences

The other option is to do some sort of upgrade to my 3 mobile to use it as a wifi hotspot more often. I do this already but Im only allowed a small amount of downloads with the add on I have. Does anyone know the types of speeds we would get through my mobile phone? Will it decrease if there are two people logged on? By much?

Will we suffer other issues or potential issues if we dont have a Wifi network in the house? I know my hubby uses a NAS of some sort and I also have the Xbox and Wii on wifi currently... can we use these with mobile broadband / phone hotspot?

So, blatantly trying to avoid hours of laboured research, would the brilliant minds of MSE recommend accepting the 1mb speeds of home broadband in lieu of having a wifi network, getting mobile broadband or boosting the allowances for my phone hotspot?

Thanks :cool:

macman

1Mbps is actually 20 times faster than dial up (56KBps). Very slow by today's standards, but perfectly adequate for surfing and emailing.
My first broadband service was 0.5MBps, and I remember being amazed how fast it seemed then.

Mark_In_Hampshire

We can only get 1.7Mbps from our landline, and so we've used 3G for years. It runs at anywhere between about 5Mbps and 10Mbps downstream and averages about 1Mbps upstream.



3G can do well in rural areas since there aren't many people using the cell and congesting it.

That 7.2Mbps speed or 14.4Mbps speed (however it's quoted) is per cell not per user. So if you got two dongles on the same network you're only fighting with yourself for bandwidth.

I'd suggest you find out your nearest cells (sitefinder.org.uk) and see if you can get a "take it back if it doesn't work out" option, probably on PAYG, and try it out.

Several things:

1. You can't have a fixed IP address (unless you have a more bespoke business service which will be very expensive)
2. If you want to share the connection you'll need a specific router (not an ADSL one) - we have an Edimax one which is OK, we're changing to a Solwise one this week (with a big fat 3G antenna on the chimney), but you can try out 3G by plugging the dongle directly into one machine via USB in the meantime
3. Ping times (latency) can be variable, between about 40 and 80. So it's not great for online gaming and even though you can prioritise gaming traffic using "QOS" (your kids/husband might know about that stuff) I wouldn't want to be gaming while someone else is watching e.g. iPlayer. But then that's probably true of any slow-ish connection
4. Dongles generally outperform tethered phones not least because you can position the dongle outside the window, which you can't so easily do with a phone - in our house, it needs to be outside to go above about 3Mbps.

If it works out you could then go the full route we're doing which is - as above - get an antenna on the roof with a specific router which accepts a SIM card. But our dongle based setup with Three and an E367 modem and an Edimax router has worked quite well.

Do ask away if you have any more questions..

jojonic

Great info guys... Macman thats a good point, I guess for most of what we do it will be adequate. Im being quoted around £15 per month for broadband which seems awful expensive for such an archaic speed... you'd think those of us who have to put up with a slower speed would get a discount, but it seems to work the opposite way!

Mark_In_Hampshire, sounds like you have it all sussed. We dont do much online gaming... I would like to but even here with our 8mbps service the xbox is horribly laggy in online games. Hubby likes to download stuff but I think he's already accepted he is going to need a lot of patience for that!! So, just to explain again to me (because it takes me a minute) with your 3 contract, you have a dongle and a router which provides a wireless network in your home that anyone can connect to right? Will my xbox / wii / smart phone be able to connect into it as well as the pooters? How much are you paying on your contract?

Thanks again for replies.

jojonic

Also, whats the disadvantage of not having a fixed IP address? Does that cause security problems with online banking or anything?

Mark_In_Hampshire

jojonic wrote: »

Great info guys... Macman thats a good point, I guess for most of what we do it will be adequate. Im being quoted around £15 per month for broadband which seems awful expensive for such an archaic speed... you'd think those of us who have to put up with a slower speed would get a discount, but it seems to work the opposite way!

Plus line rental...

We don't even have a landline. We do have a landline number over a VOIP service that calls in to my PC and/or mobile though.. onto your points:

jojonic wrote: »

Mark_In_Hampshire, sounds like you have it all sussed. We dont do much online gaming... I would like to but even here with our 8mbps service the xbox is horribly laggy in online games. Hubby likes to download stuff but I think he's already accepted he is going to need a lot of patience for that!!

I don't do any online gaming. I suppose I could play Scrabble online, the lag times wouldn't matter much when each turn takes ten minutes. But I don't think that's what your husband and kids had in mind

Online gaming doesn't actually need much in the way of connection speeds; 1Mbps should be adequate. Until it comes to downloading patches, packs and updates. Because you can usually get greater data allowances with landline or cable broadband it works out cheaper, but in this case is slow.

jojonic wrote: »

So, just to explain again to me (because it takes me a minute) with your 3 contract, you have a dongle and a router which provides a wireless network in your home that anyone can connect to right? Will my xbox / wii / smart phone be able to connect into it as well as the pooters? How much are you paying on your contract?

Thanks again for replies.

Started off with just a dongle 4 years ago. That died about 3 years ago and got replaced with a newer one. Both were PAYG so I just paid for the modem itself. The one I have at the moment is the Three E367 one called a "premium dongle".

Since getting that experimenting with positioning paid off. It does matter. For instance it will barely get a signal downstairs (stone built cottage on a hill) yet upstairs it has near line of sight as I know where the cell is.

The snag with it is: the performance is best with it very near a window or outside. Once you find the "sweet spot" you don't really want to move it. Think of it as radio, which is very similar to what it is. Reception quality matters.

I then bought a router, so the connection can be shared around the house like a fixed/cable one (e.g. laptop, mobiles). The dongle plugs into that, and the router creates a wifi network. (The dongle only plugs into one PC with the USB cable which also restricts where you can put it as the cable is only so long)

Because the "sweet spot" for my modem is on the outside of the house, and the modem doesn't like the rain (it's not supposed to live outside) I'm having an antenna put on the chimney tomorrow (well in about 10 hours) which will work with a new router. That router accepts the output from the antenna (like a TV aerial plug) and also accepts the SIM card directly, and creates the wifi network. There is then no dongle and the setup is "permanent".

All of that said: if I were into online gaming, or decided to get into it, I might well find the latency (ping times, "jitter") not good enough (for more than Scrabble anyway) and end up possibly having the landline put back on with an ADSL service. While it would be useless to me (less than 2Mbps, I work from home) for just about everything the ping times might be less (should be less) and it might just make it possible.

All of this is predicated on

1. You being able to get a good 3G service where you are (providers' sites coverage maps are usually quite truthful, ideally you want to see "Indoor coverage available"

2. You finding somewhere in the house that the dongle can live where it gets a consistently decent signal (check sitefinder.org.uk to see where the cells are, Three will tell you if you ask - I know ours is 1.89 miles away)

3. Being happy with the performance of that, potentially buying a router (Three do quite a funky one now, the only drawback is that the dongle lives inside it, so you can't position it quite how you might like) to share the connection round the house (not just to the PC the modem is plugged into - that said there's a fiddle to workaround that and onwardly share the connection but it's a bit tech)

And I guess all that might depend on whether you end up seeing maybe 1.5Mbps so not much of a step up, or 10Mbps which would see a big difference. Do check but you can normally take the dongle back if it doesn't work out for you.

Finally, we still have the PAYG option which is £25 per 7GB. You can have a contract which I think supplies 15GB and is about £15/month but it lasts for two years and I suspect we'll have moved back somewhere cabled by then. So we never bothered with a contract. Mind you I said the same 2 years ago.

Mark_In_Hampshire

All that and I still forgot your second question:

You'll want a fixed IP address to

- Be able to access your computer(s) from outside home (e.g. get to your desktop from the office) though this can be worked around
- Set up a more complex internal setup for remote access mapping internal IP to external (NAT)
- Be able to secure e.g. things you access on the net like servers, via IP address, so only you can get to them (this one impacts me and is a nuisance, but then not everyone needs that access)

jojonic

Thanks again for your helpful reply Mark.

Ive checked Sitefinder and we seem to have 2 Orange transmitters within a mile or two of the house, but just GSM. Ive checked 3, Orange, O2 and Virgin and we seem to get 'good' 2G coverage, but 'Poor' mobile web and 'No' mobile broadband.

So that scuppers that plan them

thanks for your help anyway, the setup sounds great so will bear it in mind when we move again (or when they build some more transmitters in Wales!!)

david29dpo

I only get 1 Mb (not bad considering how far i am from the exchange) and never seen it has a problem, it even just keeps up with Iplayer!