Any TV boxes that work with Mifi?

sophiejames

As title says, looking for any TV boxes that work with Mifi rather than broadband as our bb is mega slow at 1mbps. Tia

We're currently with Sky, broadband speed around 1Mb, other providers are the same, we're too far from the exchange & no "cable" available in our estate. I have a 3 one plan with unlimited tethering atm which we use for laptop, Netflix etc, however this runs out next month.
Since it takes more than half a day to download a movie with Sky I have cancelled sky movies & the basic sky channels are useless imho.
Basically I am looking for suggestions for a Mifi deal or similar which I can use with some tv box (?) so I can cancel sky (bb, landline, TV) & watch decent TV, ideally I am also looking for a new sim only mobile phone contract which might be useful for tethering at home.
Any suggestions gratefully received.

JJ_Egan

What do you mean by TV box??

sophiejames

JJ_Egan wrote: »

What do you mean by TV box??

Something similar to sky where i can watch movies, pause, rewind, record...if there is such thing?? I have no idea

Cornucopia

If you really are only getting 1Mbps, then streaming is not going to work.

You'd need to look at download options, which could include Netflix, which has just introduced this (alongside iPlayer and All4). This implies using a Laptop rather than a TV Set-top Box.

You also need to look at your data allowance, which tends to be quite small with mobile internet - video takes a lot of data, so this may limit what you can do, too.

iPlayer downloads at reasonable quality take 1GB per hour (roughly).

wongataa

They all could potentially but the costs could be high as streaming video uses a lot of data.

JJ_Egan

Another question is similar to sky ??
Watch movies what movies your own ??

Pause record etc is a standard PVR box but apart from freeview the question is what movies .

sophiejames

Cornucopia wrote: »

If you really are only getting 1Mbps, then streaming is not going to work.

You'd need to look at download options, which could include Netflix, which has just introduced this (alongside iPlayer and All4). This implies using a Laptop rather than a TV Set-top Box.

You also need to look at your data allowance, which tends to be quite small with mobile internet - video takes a lot of data, so this may limit what you can do, too.

iPlayer downloads at reasonable quality take 1GB per hour (roughly).

Yes we really are only getting 1mbps & there is no fast broadband available in our area (we're not even rural, just very unlucky).

We do have Netflix & currently tether through my iPhone on the one plan which stops next month

Could you please explain about the download/laptop option?

How much data would you think I should be looking for in a Mifi deal?

I would love to cancel our broadband all together, it's so hopeless & we all use mobiles with data contracts.

The only speed any broadband provider guarantees is 512k...totally ridiculous.

sophiejames

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Another question is similar to sky ??
Watch movies what movies your own ??

Pause record etc is a standard PVR box but apart from freeview the question is what movies .

Not my own movies but movies I can download or stream

Would it be possible to connect a now tv box with a Pvr and use Mifi with that rather than our super mega slow broadband?

sophiejames

wongataa wrote: »

They all could potentially but the costs could be high as streaming video uses a lot of data.

How much data do you think should I be looking for with a deal if we want to stream/watch a movie a day?

JJ_Egan

sophiejames wrote: »

Not my own movies but movies I can download or stream

But the question is where from legitimate sources are Sky Talk Talk BT TV etc .
Or do you mean illegal streams found on the internet .If the later then the answer to the original question is no.

Cornucopia

I think you're going to have to give more details, if you want to get the most effective advice:-

- Is it the landline BB or the mobile data service that is slow (or is it both)?

- What are you actually looking for in a TV service - is it access to catch-up and video-on-demand, access to Netflix/Sky channels or just "Sky+" recording services?

- How do you watch TV at the moment? Freeview? Sky? Cable?

- Have you checked on the availability of Fibre Broadband?

To answer your questions:-

Downloading allows you to bring content onto your device before watching it. It can (to an extent) compensate for a slow connection, although it then starts to take longer than real-time to download something i.e. takes more than 1 hour to download a 1 hour programme.

I had a quick search and it looks like the largest mobile data contract is 32GB per month with EE. On that basis, you'd be looking at an average of 1 hour of content per day, which doesn't seem that much. By comparison, unlimited landline BB contracts are very common these days.