Emergency broadband backup

Trekkie2020

Like many people, I am working at home. My broadband connection is usually fine but I have had a few problems recently where it has dropped out because of external problems. If this happened while I was working, I would be expected to go into the office, which for health reasons I want to avoid as Covid cases are very high in my area. I’ve been thinking of backup plans to keep me online at home. Does anyone have advice about the technicalities of tethering or purchasing a dongle? I have to connect to my work network and spend a large part of my day sharing my screen on Teams.
 I have an iPhone SE but my contract  is the MSE blagged Lebara £5 per month option with 2GB mobile data (usually more than enough.) I don’t want to change sims as I also need my phone for work. I don’t know how easy it would be to move to a Lebara option with higher mobile data included and then return to the MSE contract. Has anyone tried this?

I could get a PAYG sim for my very old Samsung handset but I think it might be too old to take the strain! I wondered if it would be simpler to buy a PAYG dongle but don’t know much about them.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Deleted User]

The obvious answer to me is to use your iPhone SE as a hotspot. You said you only have 2GB but if you are always at home to avoid Covid then your phone is usually on Wifi so can't see how you would use much of your 2GB in a month during only essential trips out of the house?

If you have a broadband outage and all you do is the essential working from home, then you would use less than 100MB an hour even using Teams with screen sharing so that isn't going to use much of your allowance - it will give you 20 hours. Probably a lot less if the screen is relatively static (video calling is about 200MB an hour)

In the spirit of a money saving forum, use you iPhone SE as emergency backup and deal with the cost of needing more than your 2GB allowance if and when that emergency happens.

Trekkie2020

Thanks tallmansix, that's put my mind at rest! I had no idea how many MB my laptop would gobble up, and as I'd gone for the lowest possible amount in my contract I'd assumed it wouldn't be enough. If I can rely on my phone as short term backup, hopefully that's all I'll need. (And you're right, I'm using virtually none of my allowance currently.

mohammed1111

Trekkie2020 said:

Thanks tallmansix, that's put my mind at rest! I had no idea how many MB my laptop would gobble up, and as I'd gone for the lowest possible amount in my contract I'd assumed it wouldn't be enough. If I can rely on my phone as short term backup, hopefully that's all I'll need. (And you're right, I'm using virtually none of my allowance currently.

Maybe set windows to metered connection when using a tethered connection to avoid updates or background data