Rural internet advice (Plusnet & Vodafone)

SophieLoui23

We’ve recently moved to a new home which is pretty rural and doesn’t get much 4G signal, except a few odd spots. I’ve got a couple of questions that I could really use some help with please: 

1. There was a phone line already installed so we assumed moving our Plusnet broadband over wouldn’t be an issue. However, the line was disconnected by BT and having spoken to the previous tenant, the line was installed with copper wire (I believe, sorry I’m not very techy!) and has very slow speeds if we manage to get the phone line connected. If we do that, there’s also no guarantee that Plusnet internet will work here anyway due to their network coverage. I’m loathed to pay £65 for a call out (or renew my contract to absorb that cost as the call centre staff keep trying to get me to do 🙄) to be told that it won’t work anyway. We still have 5 months left with our Plusnet contract, and I’m wondering whether there’s anything we can do to avoid the remaining £115 left of contract payments or whether we just have to pay it and write that off.

2. We ordered a Vodafone Mobile WiFi R219h dongle box thing on a 1 month contract and paid the £35 upfront cost. It seems to work okay if placed in certain spots where we get 4G. If this is the long term solution, am I able to give Vodafone notice for this contract (at £32pm) and keep the box which we’ve paid upfront for or do they ask for it to be returned? If they don’t ask for it back can we then get a standard sim only contract with unlimited data (under £10pm) and work it that way? If so, will the signal strength still be the same? 

Trying to keep our costs as low as possible whilst still having internet access so any advice very appreciated 😊 thank you! 

[Deleted User]

Your first job needs to be to use a broadband checker to see what services and speeds you can get at your new address. Then decide if they're acceptable or not.

neilmcl

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

SophieLoui23

Thanks! Not entirely sure what I’m looking at here, so hopefully someone will be able to tell me if these are acceptable speeds?

JJ_Egan

Reading that it says Fibre to the Premises is available at UP to 330 meg .

What do you have in the new house  Master sockets or a white box  .

iniltous

FTTP/oD isn’t native FTTP, it’s where the customer pays Openreach the costs of constructing the fibre network to their property, it can be very expensive.
The OP has made many incorrect assumptions, BT have nothing to do with providing service , unless BT are the company the OP wants to use…even if the previous occupant had BT as their provider , it’s Openreach that are responsible for the ‘line’.
If the OP wants to use Plusnet or Vodafone, contact them, the predicted speeds for FTTC is 9-17Mb, not great , but perfectly usable for most things, if the OP still has Plusnet active at their old address , they should use the home mover service if avoiding ETC at the old address is to be avoided, it may be too late if they have already left the old address

SophieLoui23

Okay, just trying to make sense of the above. 

Does anyone have an answer to my second question regarding the Vodafone dongle thing please 😊

QrizB

SophieLoui23 said:

Does anyone have an answer to my second question regarding the Vodafone dongle thing please 😊

I haven't checked Vodafone's T&C but you probably own the dongle thing.

It might be locked to Vodafone.

Using a phone SIM in a dongle is usually contrary to the phone contract T&C.

Data SIMs for dongles are considerably more expensive than phone SIMs (see MSE guide here).

matelodave

JJ_Egan said:

Reading that it says Fibre to the Premises is available at UP to 330 meg .

What do you have in the new house  Master sockets or a white box  .

Oh  no it doesn't, its says FTTP on Demand is available - that is not standard FTTP and could cost you severall to tens of £1000's to have installed.

The table suggets that you should be OK for around 9-16bit's assuming that everything is OK but you wont really know until you place an order and they've given you a firm estimate.

With regard to broadband over the 4G network, I'd be wary of a dongle as they only work in one device at a time (and it's got to have a USB port) and there's not much room for an antenna inside them.

Try it out first with your mobile phone as a hotspot and if neccessary get a couple of paygo sims from other networks (Vodafone, Three, EE etc) to ensure that you are getting a decent service.

Where I live (in the Cambridgeshire Fens) we can get a decentish speed with Three, but both EE and Vodafone are rubbish.  However, this weekend I couldn't get any service at all with Three whilst in the outskirts of Wolverhampton

A proper 4g router will give much better performance and allow you to use multiple devices (tables, kindles etc) and, if it's got connections for an external antenna, you may be able to enhance it even more by installing an external antenna.

JJ_Egan

FTTP  OD thanks guys i misunderstood thinking it was FTTP cabled  .

flashg67

SophieLoui23 said:

Okay, just trying to make sense of the above. 

Does anyone have an answer to my second question regarding the Vodafone dongle thing please 😊

As already suggested, a 'proper' 4g router is better (I use a used Huawei B525 from ebay), but if you use the one you have, you could use a Lebara sim which uses Vodafone signal. £25 p/m for unlimited data or £22.50 if you sign up for 12 months. This has worked great for me so far in my rural setting. I tried a few sims from providers to check which had the best signal.
You'll find the 4g router/dongle is more susceptible to being moved. By the window works best for me

I'd respectively disagree with 'Using a phone SIM in a dongle is usually contrary to the phone contract T&C' - Lebara's data can be used for whatever you like.