With 2 kids homeschooling, the missus working from home on VC the whole day and the various modern day needs to stream music / video and download weekly Fortnite updates etc etc our current broadband connection is really creaking!
We're way out in the sticks so any chance of Virgin or fibre to the house is out of the question. 5G will probably hit some point towards the middle of the decade.
We've got WAPs all over the house and can get a perfect connection everywhere we need to, unfortunately the max speeds are low single digit dl and frequently sub 1Mbps upload. BT is about the best around here but I'm willing to throw money at the problem if there is a better solution out there. We looked at microwave over the last mile but there are too many trees between us and the transmitter to get a reliable signal. We've got a 4G modem which helps out in emergencies but I was wondering whether there are any other alternatives... I'd kill for 20 or 30Mbps and 100+ is the stuff of dreams!
Any thoughts?
Experts will be along shortly but you may benefit from less access points and going mesh if you haven't already, along with making everything possible ethernet instead of WiFi.
If desperate and willing to throw money you might even consider (in addition to the above) a second line and leave one internet connection for adults, the other for kids.
Fiber to the premesis will be rolled out to you eventually.
I am way out in the sticks of rural west wales and had less than 1 Mbps download.
They have discovered a new technology called fiber to the node where fiber is more easily spead all the way to the houses in rural areas.
I went from under 1 Mbps to 120+ Mbps overnight lol.
The fiber cables are everywhere like a spider web, even going down farm lanes and the most rural places.
I never thought it would happen here in my lifetime but it did lol.
In a way it is better that we are late in rural areas because the new technology is better with fiber all the way into your house.
the only way to do tis properly when you have a crappy speed connection is bonded ADSL.
2,3, or 4 ADSL glued together to give you one line, one IP address, one router .
I get sub 1mb through the landline, switched to 4G a year ago and it's much quicker, anything from 6-20. When you say your 4G router is for emergencies, what speed do you get using that? You can get pretty cheap unlimited 4G contacts now
FTTN looks interesting... no mention of it locally so I don't know what sort of roll-out it has round here.
The 4G router round here returns about 4-5Mbps, comparable to the broadband so useful when we need a bit of a boost e.g. if there a particularly important Teams meeting we can take that device onto the 4G router so it's less affected by the other traffic but not really a long-term solution at the moment.
I'll do a bit more digging into bonded ADSL - that's not something I'd looked at.
There was a thread a while back about people using 4G modems and Smarty sims to get 30+Mbps speeds. It just replaced their ADSL lines for them. They also got better directional aerials to up the signal strength.
What are the 4G speeds like?
I live in the middle of nowhere and have used 4G broadband only and find it faultless. I would not go back to a wired connection now. We are very lucky to have a very good 4G signal though with EE.
Just tested with Ookla:
91.83mbps down
39.15mbps up.
We have also hard-wired the house wherever possible and added a BT wifi mesh throughout too due to our very thick stone walls.
There is a thread on here with lots of useful info.
EDIT: Found it:
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...ight=broadband
Last edited by Maysie; 16th February 2021 at 16:17.
It’s what I did…. It’s ok, but, found they started slowing down after a while…Originally Posted by reecie
The first week or so I was getting 40 mps
Then it’s slowly but surely started dropping
Be careful the way your router is set up…. It’s needs to be managed the right way if you have a load of connected devices it divides the overall bad width between them slowing you up to a snails pace
Wow!
Maybe I need to do a bit more research on 4G through some different providers. On EE here I'm getting at best 8-10 Mbps and when I last had a SIM for the router we were paying £60 a month for about 200Gb so it looks like things have changed a bit.
We do have a ton of stuff attached to the network, not all of it requiring internet access but I don't doubt that it could benefit from some optimisation.
We had the same problem at an old office - middle of the garden was very strong 4G (EE) signal and so we set a Draytek Router up a pole and ran a cable. It would be easier now I expect with POE etc. other thing to consider is ligntning protection - we put protectors at each end although as far as I know the cable was never struck by lignting (buried outdoor ethernet cable). Eventually BT gave us 10MB but when we had 1MB on BT we were getting over 25 reliably via EE.
You can get unlimited on smarty/Three for about £20
Re 4g I’m sure you’re aware that you could get vastly different speeds from different networks have you looked into this?
Also if you use a dedicated 4g router with an external areal you’re likely to have a faster service.
I think you have to have an account to use this site now but it can be useful in determining what are your local towers and there direction.
mastdata.com/0/login/login.aspx
Edit:
I see mast data are now charging for access.
This alternative might help locate other local masts
https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=2...apType=roadmap
Last edited by Captain Morgan; 16th February 2021 at 17:47.
I use 4G networks to provide my broadband solution and have used EE, SMARTY, Three and am now with O2. I started with EE which has offered the fastest speeds and I only moved as it was expensive at the time: £62.50/month for 200GB; after this all contracts have been for unlimited data. SMARTY was excellent until lockdown when Three (SMARTY uses the Three network) started to throttle those who piggyback off its core network. I moved to Three and found it unreliable and so moved again to O2. O2 has been faultless but is more expensive at £36/month (cheaper now).
Another option is satellite broadband but it comes with significant latency; if you're a gamer this will be an issue. If you're not then it's a consideration.
I was initially with Three but found their service became very unreliable. It would occasionally drop out for a few hours every week or two, following which the speeds were sometimes dreadfully slow for weeks (often running into months) after each drop out - which became more regular. After bashing my head against a brick wall with their utterly useless 'Customer Services' (all online chat based) for days on end, I finally binned them off and paid more for EE.
I now have unlimited EE broadband for £35/month, which also comes with a free subscription to Amazon Prime Video too, or Britbox, or BT Sports, which effectively makes it cheaper if you want that too.
For us, with two people working full time from home, it was well worth paying the extra for what has so far been a far superior service.
We use an external roof mounted aerial to get a 100% signal strength, so the speeds quoted above are as good as it will get around here until 5G arrives (if it ever does).
Our home phones have all been ported over to VOIP, so it ends up being cheaper for us than having a standard 'wired' broadband connection.
Things are moving on fast and prices are coming down, as customers demand higher amounts of data. When we moved to our home about 4 years ago, we could not get an EE signal here at all. I speed tested each available service with a PAYG SIM in my iPhone before doing more research into the 4G route. When we decided to trial it in more detail, we ran both services in tandem (ie wired and 4G) at the same time and just NEVER needed the wired connection at all.
Skier's post/advice above is very good too and is exactly the research we did before committing. The MastData info also helps to find your nearest signal mast, so you know which window to stand in to trial your service. Put the 4G router up as high as you can and in a window facing towards where the mast is. Sounds obvious, but most wired routers are located downstairs as that is where the wires come in, so it initially seems a bit odd moving it upstairs.
How are you guys getting unlimited with EE & O2? Using a phone sim? Do they not pull you up on that?
I'd like to try O2 when my Three contract runs out, as i get much better speeds on my o2 phone that the Three modem
Have you considered satellite broadband. I had it for a couple of years before we got decent broadband. Good speeds and reliable, the only downside was a sizeable dish in the garden about 3 times the size of a sky dish.
Essentially it is just an unlimited phone SIM shoved into a TP Link 4G router bought off Amazon. All above board and in accordance with the EE terms. EE haven't offered an unlimited 4G SIM for that long (18 months??) so lots of people still dont know it exists.
Scroll down to the bottom for the £37/month deal on here:
https://shop.ee.co.uk/mobile-phone-d...nlimited-4g-34
I get a slightly cheaper price as it was cheaper when I signed up and I have two other mobiles on EE also.
I looked at this before going down the 4G route. It was way more expensive at the time, but there were some grants available towards the install depending on where you lived.
It is more expensive but not crazily so, I was getting 30-40mbps on an unlimited contract for around £40 a month.
Found this to give an idea of price.
37mbps for £45 per month (RRP) so could be discounts.
Last edited by Top Cat; 17th February 2021 at 16:46.
That’s certainly one of the cheapest options though that package is subject to a 60Gb fair use policyFound this to give an idea of price.
37mbps for £45 per month (RRP) so could be discounts.
https://europe.konnect.com/sites/eur...heet_final.pdf
Some other options
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/isp_list..._Satellite.php
Lol, how can they call it unlimited and then throttle you after only 60Gb? I've been looking at GiffGaff/O2 and was put off by their 650GB limit as i checked my last year of bills on Three and went over that 3 times (though i think that coincides with getting my xbox and joining game pass as all other months are around 400)
I did look at Satellite BB very quickly but it looked like the data limits were quite low - although I didn't look very hard tbh. I think about £70 for 150GB was the best I managed at a claimed 30-40Mbps.
I wonder whether it would be worth getting hold of an unlocked 4G router and a handful of PAYG Sims and see what we get here. The router does need to be downstairs in the boiler room as that's where all the other kit is, but it is at the base of quite a tall chimney so it wouldn't be beyond us to get an external aerial mounted quite high and in the direction of the closest mast.
Stupid question but is 4G impacted by trees? There's a whole common of them between us and the o2 / Vodafone masts but more direct line of sight to the EE one.
Yes trees will impact it
Don't assume that the nearest mast is the one you'll connect to. Use the cell mapper thing and pick each supplier and click on your nearest towers to see which way they point. I hadn't realised they were directional and none of the towers anywhere near us point our way, so we connect to one miles away, probably explains our slightly average speeds
https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=2...apType=roadmap
Best bet is as you say, get some free payg sims and try them, can just be in a phone
To be fair it’s a niche product and putting up satellites is a touch more expensive than using copper that’s been in the ground for donkeys :-)
The latency inherent with satellite would rule it out for online gaming or video conferencing.
Not necessarily. This is a good video talking about the Starlink system for gaming:
Never tried online gaming, but would imagine I’d have run out of limit very quickly too. We only had satellite internet at the farm in Australia, and it was ok for video conferencing for me, but limited to a max of 120GB per month, and then throttled back to emergency only speeds.
It's just a matter of time...
Have you tried the old school checks and possible fixes, so make sure your router is connected to as close as possible to the main inlet box, I assume you have ADSL filters so might be worth trying to get a better filter. For me back in the day, getting a good quality cable to connect from the main phone line inlet to the router yielded the largest increase in speeds.
Another thing worth trying is disconnecting any extension cabling and seeing what sort of speed the router syncs at.
If you tried all of this then ignore my ramblings
Some quick checks.... and I ask these questions to know it all’s every day.....
Are you in the master socket?
There is only one. If so unplug your router - take the front plate off the socket (often held with two screws) and you’ll see a test socket....
plug straight into that - that’s essentially plugging into the “internet mains” at your property and will help if there are any gremlins
Then.... do some housekeeping.
Take any items off your network you don’t use.
Ethernet up what you can direct to the router to give you a direct a d stronger connection more than any WiFi will give you
Now.... do a master reset of the router - not switching it on and off - there’s normally a small hole in the back of the router that you press something like a paper clip into to knock off the router lights and let it reboot - this will in essence give your router a clear head, getting rid of any migraines it’s had, and it will
Optimise over the next few days
If you’re not in your master socket (I’m sure you probs are) yours totally plopped
I’d certainly look at 4g routers and dump your bb contract if it’s not within contract range
Thanks for all the thoughts and ideas...
Our current set up is 'optimised', the company who put in all the WAPs and suchlike moved the master socket and removed the rest. I'll post a picture of the rack once its been tidied up, it's a thing of wonder.
I'm sure we have far too much running off it, but from what I can tell it's all 'essential'. Everything that reasonably can be ethernetted has been.
I might try and pick up a TP-Link 4G router and see what sort of speeds that gives us with various providers. If it's any good then I'll invest in an external antenna as well and look to switch the BT one off.
Last edited by Meesterbond; 23rd February 2021 at 13:40.
Just to bump this up, I’ve seen that starlink is available in some U.K. locations now, I did a check and they say 3-4 qtr of 2021 for my location and £89 for unlimited use.
A couple of the youtube channels I follow have tested it and they seem to get 70-120gb/s depending on satellite coverage .
If 4/5G isn’t an option it might be worth checking if you are covered yet, the site looks us centric but accepted my U.K. address fine
https://www.starlink.com/
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