We live in a village... not a particularly small village, something in the region of 4000 people I'd guess and yet getting a fast broadband service seems to be impossible.
We're with Sky at the moment and in the evenings, in particular, we use 4G from tethered phones rather than the wifi as it's just too slow / unreliable. The signal seems to be strong enough, it's just there isn't the bandwidth. We were with BT before that and they were just as bad.
Anyway I thought I'd found a solution from a company that provides an 'over the air' internet connection to a aerial on the roof but after doing a survey on our property, they couldn't get a signal, so back to the drawing board.
Fibre broadband has been 'coming soon' for the last 6 years at least so I'm not holding my breath for that.
Is there any other technology available to us? I almost don't care how much it'll cost now as I'm fed up of seeing rotating circles ever few seconds on whatever I want to watch online!
One option is get a 'proper' 4G router fitted with an external 4G antenna. The get the new EE 200Gig a month data sim package; £60pm!
Check the ofcom site for your coverage using an outdoor antenna
https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/mobile-coverage
Not ideal but might your only option.
Note 200gig sounds a lot but one telly doing 2 hours internet TV a night at HD will go through most of that in a month!
Originally Posted by solwisesteve
Thank you! That might well be an option - particularly as it's a monthly contract... I'm with EE at the moment and the signal isn't too bad, with a separate antenna it should be fine.
If you know you get a good signal with EE then the solution above is the way ahead. I started THIS thread to discuss the EE 4G Router and have been using it for 4 weeks. So far it has been excellent and a neighbour has also gone the same route. I have the WiFi disabled in the EE router and use a Netgear Orbi mesh WiFi system to get good WiFi throughout the house.
When I was determining the location of the router I placed it adjacent to a window with a line-of-sight to the mast and got a full 3 bars signal strength. I found this made little difference from my preferred location where I got 2 bars signal strength. It's worth taking a bit of time determining what works best for you. If you struggle with signal strength then consider the external antenna. I haven't needed it.
Tooway satellite broadband is fast but very expensive. I had to get it for work.
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Lol, 200 gig is about 2 weeks max of "regular" internet use. Anyone using the the internet in a "normal" way, eg, skype, gamming, youtube, i player etc, is gonna blaze through a pathetic 200 gig. Not to mention if there is more than one person online....
There's no such thing as 'regular' internet usage. You may use 200GB in two weeks but that's only regular for you. In this house we get through about 80-100GB a month. We don't stream much TV and certainly not 4K as until I went with this solution there was no way to receive it (I don't have/want Sky) so at this point I don't have a 4K TV. The 'pathetic' 200GB is far more than other 4G providers are offering. You may enjoy the benefits of FTTC/FTTP but in many areas of the countryside (Gloucestershire in my case) it's simply not available.Lol, 200 gig is about 2 weeks max of "regular" internet use. Anyone using the the internet in a "normal" way, eg, skype, gamming, youtube, i player etc, is gonna blaze through a pathetic 200 gig. Not to mention if there is more than one person online....
I am in precisely the same boat. Large village in Hertfordshire, sandwiched between two major towns and our WiFi is appalling. I went to Thailand a couple of months ago and got better speeds on a bus journey in the middle of nowhere than I get at home.
Very frustrating
Another option... is there anyone within 5Km that you have line of sight to who CAN get FTTC? You could always do a ptp bridge wifi connection with them if they're willing. tbh even upto 10Km is doable but with a speed drop. You do need line-of-sight though.
Last edited by solwisesteve; 9th March 2018 at 13:36.
I was going to suggest that if you run out of bandwidth on 4G - then 4G Bonding Routers can combine multiple 4G connections into a single/bonded connection.
Having just googled them - looks like these are enterprise devices as they cost many thousands.
http://www.4gon.co.uk/imo-4g-routers-c-233_735_852.html
We had a similar problem when we moved into the country late last year. We were getting 2Mbs over copper if we were lucky. Tried the 4G route and got a really decent speed (40Mbps at times) but we got through the monthly 100Mb allowance in a week and additional allowance was crazy expensive (plus they would only give me 20Mb in total per month). In the end I got lucky to get BT fibre direct into the house at 300Mbs!!
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