No fibre available - what do I do?!

The_Fat_Controller

@SebC, read the first post !

The OP does not currently have an ISP, they were hoping Virgin would serve the property but cabling stops short of their home.

The full fibre rollout could still be years away for @dsingh26.

@dsingh26 speeds on 4G will vary according to signal strength, but this article may give you some ideas.

https://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/ask-our-expert/can-i-use-4g-for-home-internet

iniltous

If the previous occupant had Sky FTTC ( Openreach based service ) then as they are no longer at the address , that port is either already reused by someone that was also waiting for a port on the fibre cab to become available or it’s in the course of cessation, and will pop up as available sometime soon,
Calling Sky doesn’t really help as far as the status of the service that used to be at that address , Sky wouldn’t be in a position to offer any advantage for a new service at the address, as this would break the equivalence rules, but obviously if the OP wanted to use Sky they would have the same visibility when the port , or any other port becomes spare .

matelodave

You wont know whether 4g/5g will be any good unless you try it out at the location where you'll be using it. My suggestion would be to grab a couple of cheap PayGo data sims from different providers and try them in your smartphone as not a lll providers (EE, Vodafone, Three or O2) have the same coverage.

We use a MiFi unit with a Three Paygo sim card when we go away in the caravan and in some places we can get 40-50mbit's and others nothing at all.

At home (out in the Cambridgeshire fend) I get around 25mbits with Three and 5mbit's with EE, I've not tried Vodafone or 02 because we have 76mbits with BT FTTP (hopefully soon to be 100mbit/s with Vodaphone FTTP for £20 a month less)

BTW we had to put up with around 1.8mbit/s for nigh on eight years before Openreach installed FTTP in our "hamlet"

dsingh26

I understand the timing element and happy to wait, but I need a reliable and fast solution in the meantime.

I've got Sky Q arriving Friday, a PS5 the week after and still no internet! I really wanted to move in before the end of the year but that doesn't seem possible until I get the internet sorted.. 

dsingh26

matelodave said:

You wont know whether 4g/5g will be any good unless you try it out at the location where you'll be using it. My suggestion would be to grab a couple of cheap PayGo data sims from different providers and try them in your smartphone as not a lll providers (EE, Vodafone, Three or O2) have the same coverage.

We use a MiFi unit with a Three Paygo sim card when we go away in the caravan and in some places we can get 40-50mbit's and others nothing at all.

At home (out in the Cambridgeshire fend) I get around 25mbits with Three and 5mbit's with EE, I've not tried Vodafone or 02 because we have 76mbits with BT FTTP (hopefully soon to be 100mbit/s with Vodaphone FTTP for £20 a month less)

BTW we had to put up with around 1.8mbit/s for nigh on eight years before Openreach installed FTTP in our "hamlet"

I have ordered a few sims from Three and Vodafone and will test them out when they arrive before I make the final call..

The_Fat_Controller

@dsingh26

https://www.signalchecker.co.uk/narborough-leicestershire

ciderboy2009

OP - up until 6 months ago when I was finally able to get an FTTP connection we had to make do with an ADSL connection which was only 4Mb guaranteed download.

We actually got just over 5Mb download and 0.8Mbs upload.  I don't know about the PS5 but 2 of us were regularly in Teams conference calls and I would sometimes have cricket streaming at the same time.  As you will be getting at least 10Mb then I'd be surprised if you had any problems.

SebC

@The_Fat_Controller

Sorry so they will just have to contact ones and check availability, some exchanges are set for stopping copper orders next year so it is something that will happen sooner rather than later but, they will just have to keep on trying to get the cabling finished, as said fill in the availability checkers online and get multiple people in the area to do the same.

Most 4g speed issues are backhaul, 4g likely won't be getting any better due to 5g rollout    

dsingh26

ciderboy2009 said:

OP - up until 6 months ago when I was finally able to get an FTTP connection we had to make do with an ADSL connection which was only 4Mb guaranteed download.

We actually got just over 5Mb download and 0.8Mbs upload.  I don't know about the PS5 but 2 of us were regularly in Teams conference calls and I would sometimes have cricket streaming at the same time.  As you will be getting at least 10Mb then I'd be surprised if you had any problems.

Really appreciate your feedback and good to know that ADSL doesn't seem as bad as first feared and could work for a household of just 2.. 

My priority is finding something decent for now before eventually moving to fibre when it becomes available. I'm just torn between ADSL and mobile broadband but hopefully when the sim cards arrive I can test them out and see how they work. If they are rubbish, then it leaves me with no option but to go for ADSL..

flashg67

I have only 2mb via landline so used a 4G Huawei router (£50 used on ebay). Testing different sims showed Vodafone to have he best signal, so I now use a Lebara unlimited sim for £25 p/m which gives me between 25-70 mb down and around 8mb up, depending on the time of day. It's been a good solution for me, working from home, streaming and running several smart devices. 
I'd ignore the online signal checkers - all the providers said I'd get a good signal, but only Vodafones was really any good in reality. Depending where you are, you may be able to get a wireless provider - member list here - WISP internet providers, UK: Members list of UKWISPA