replace broadband with 4G?

J_B

Our rural home receives broadband via copper wires. We are about 3Km from the exchange which is NOT LLU
Our speed is usually sub 3Mb down and 0.3 up
We are currently on the free broadband with plusnet, but think my 12 months will soon be up

My new 4G phone can get a good 4G signal in the back bedroom window and speedtests at around 50Mb down and 5Mb up

We have data cabling throughout the house connected to an Abitana box under the stairs.

I know nothing about dongle type receivers, but what would be my options on sending this speedy 4G signal around the house?

I can only see three months usage on the plusnet site, but our maximum in August was 41GB

Could 4G manage this or would the costs be prohibitive??

Cheers

20aday

Which network are you on and do they have a data cap in place?

If you're on Three I know some of their Advance tariffs have "unlimited data" and from what I can find you'd have to chomp through 1TB of mobile data a month to get kicked off their network.

J_B

20aday wrote: »

Which network are you on and do they have a data cap in place?

I'm on Three and I have a cap of 500Mb on my phone ... as I normally use the wi-fi when in reach (which is most of the time) as I 'work' from home

A near neighbour reports a good 4G signal on his EE phone

psychic_teabag

J_B wrote: »

We have data cabling throughout the house connected to an Abitana box under the stairs.

I know nothing about dongle type receivers, but what would be my options on sending this speedy 4G signal around the house?

Your phone might have the option to set up a "portable wifi hotspot". That just means that other wifi devices in your home can connect to it, and it will route all the traffic out over 4G.

D_M_E

I'm going to do this when my current landline broadband contract ends.

Three currently do a data sim for £15 a month and for that you get 20gig of 4g a month - just need to get an unlocked (or locked to Three) mifi dongle from somewhere, such as the EE cube or something similar which can support up to 10 devices.

Cost of the three sim £15 a month no landline

Cost of landline broadband after contract ends £35 a month includes landline cost.

Expected download rate on 4g is 70meg while the max available where I am on landline is 38meg using FTTC.

J_B

psychic_teabag wrote: »

Your phone might have the option to set up a "portable wifi hotspot". That just means that other wifi devices in your home can connect to it, and it will route all the traffic out over 4G.

My contract doesn't include tethering, and even if it did, I wouldn't want to tie up my phone as the home wi-fi.

JP1978

Best option is to pop a SIM card into something like

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Huawei-Unlocked-Mobile-Router-Genuine/dp/B013P15G4K/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1480363096&sr=8-8&keywords=huawei+4g

(you can get them cheaper 2nd hand from eBay).

They take a micro SIM card (they are generally unlocked) and are made for just this - they have external antenna ports so you can put on a variety of external/internal antenna. The one I have picks up 4G much better than my phones does.

Im just using one now as moved house, the Virgin was cut off three weeks before we moved and we wont have BB in our new house for another week. I bought mine 2nd hand and will probably sell it on in a couple of weeks.

I just use a 50GB DATA only SIM from VF (the max data I could find, EE do a max of 32GB on a 30 day SIM and Three dont do unlimited data any longer, except if used on a phone)

jshm2

No. Firstly you should check your exchange's providers as some can give better speeds than others.

Secondly you can get a better speed, even if you have copper wires, as it's likely they have a FTTC setup in your rural area.

4G is not really stable in most parts and the speed can be pretty erratic. Not to mention it's cost and coverage can be on a very slidy scale. You can go for a SIM only plan and use an old Android phone to bypass the data limit.

Just remember though that it's a grey area and the ISP could penalize you.

paddyrg

Yes it's doable, I do it. Don't waste time with a mifi portable hotspot that'll serve a room at best, get somethingg like http://www.ebuyer.com/727236-tp-link-300mbps-wireless-n-4g-lte-router-tl-mr600 which you can also plug into your home network so use printers etc and the wi-fi will have a decent range.

Nodding_Donkey

We used to use 4G as our fixed line broadband was pitiful, less than 700kbs most of the time and the best deal we could get for data sims was 15GB for £15 pm which meant changing sims in our 4G router at least twice a month. With this we got about 7mbs. EE was a lot faster but the DNS server was so slow as to make browsing impossible although we did get one EE chip for downloading. From memory we paid £165 for the router and about another £75 for an external aerial.

Luckily we qualified for the broadband subsidy which paid for the equipment and set up of satellite broadband which we have now.

J_B

jshm2 wrote: »

No. Firstly you should check your exchange's providers as some can give better speeds than others.

Neighbour has Bee Tee - speed is the same

jshm2 wrote: »

Secondly you can get a better speed, even if you have copper wires, as it's likely they have a FTTC setup in your rural area.

Sorry, not available, although they have put in some ducting to carry a piece of rope up the village high street - maybe will have FTTC there one day, but still 3Km of copper wires

jshm2 wrote: »

4G is not really stable in most parts and the speed can be pretty erratic. Not to mention it's cost and coverage can be on a very slidy scale. You can go for a SIM only plan and use an old Android phone to bypass the data limit.

Well, it's certainly going to cost more than our current 'free' service

jshm2 wrote: »

Just remember though that it's a grey area and the ISP could penalize you.

Que?
Can you explain?