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[forkies]

Hi all,

 

Looking for some advice. My parents house is on up a shared driveway with no ducting, leaving only aluminium cable (according to BT) coming up the drive being joined to copper at the road then fibre at the cabinet. Therefore they are struggling with home broadband providers as Virgin keeps saying they can get fibre up to the premise but when they send out a team they say they cannot. Currently with BT they can get a maximum 18Mbps download which is fine for home use but my dad also runs his business from home and it is quite internet intensive work.

 

I want to look at providing a 4G service to provide faster internet. I have done some quick tests and on my phone I get 22-30Mbps on 4G with 50-80% signal. This isnt really fast enough to justify the cost of going down this route. Would any of you have experience with EE external mounted antenna and if this improves speed quality/speed? When I am out and about I get speeds of 70Mbps on 4G in the local area.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations or experience with 4G home broadband or even any business 4G solutions that may offer a static IP? Or does anyone else have any solutions they have implemented?

 

I was contemplating asking our neighbors if we could go halves on a broadband line to their house, then have a wire or wireless link between buildings to share as they can get fibre to premise. Very frustrating situation at the moment. Anything cheaper than digging up the driveway though.

 

TIA,

Tom

[ShellfishClive]

I would recommend getting in touch with an ISP for a business line to be installed. They are far more likely to rewire and get you a proper line, it's slightly more expesnive you it will pay off in the long run.

 

Running a business on 4G isn't a great idea purely because downtime is more likely.

[SchoolFibre_Paul]

Have Virgin given any indication when they are looking to roll out FTTC?

 

It sounds like a Leased Line (sometimes referred to as FTTP) may be best in this instance. A Leased Line which is a dedicated fibre connection may be more expensive but will be a much more reliable solution (typically with a 99.99% uptime). In the event of downtime, the best industry-leading resolution time is currently a 30minute response and a 4 hour fix.

 

How much would 4G cost? Depending on the cost of this, it may be worth looking at a leased line.

 

With the leased line you could look to share it out between neighbours and segregate the bandwidth (i.e. 4 residents, each get a fully synchronous 25Mbps connection, pay 1/4 of the line each). This tends to be a popular choice when people are unable to get FTTC in the area.

 

Is your dad's business a limited company? I know some organisations who provide leased lines will only deal with limited companies as the cost can be significant (depending on supplier, the existing infrastructure etc).

 

If you need any further help, feel free to drop me a message.

[forkies]

Thanks for the replies. I have got into contact with Virgin Media again, last time we spoke to them was a couple years ago as they came out but said they couldn't go up the drive as it wasn't owned by us (our neighbors drive we have shared access). I spoke to them again and they said they would be able to do it now, but I am not sure as that is what they said last time and when the installation team arrived they said they couldn't.

 

I have gone and ordered a 300 Mbps line which will give us enough download and upload for the work my dad does. If needed I will have to get it changed to a business line for higher upload speeds but think it is a massive improvement on what he has now.

 

I have an installation date of 2 weeks tomorrow so lets see what they say when they come out, they did say I could call a number and ask for a pre installation visit but I don't think it is worth it. I am going to try and force them to come in round the back of the house if they say they can't go up the drive, we have a public footpath from their duct up round the back of the fence so should be ok to go that way with a soft dig.

 

Now I just need to get a cabinet and power in the loft which is where I am planning on running it all from. Will be a bit of a waste if they can't do the install. I will let you guys know how I get on.

 

Thanks,

Tom

[forkies]

Just an update for anyone interested. I managed to get the Virgin Media surveyor out when I was home (lucky I had been home letting the dogs out when he showed up) and I showed him the route I wanted them to take, by digging up from their duct in the main alleyway down another alleyway up to our back fence, the surveyor agreed and marked it up. I had a update phone call a few weeks later saying they had referred this to the construction team who had agreed to do the works (for free) and they were just waiting for a permit from the local council to dig it up. Fast forward about 5 weeks and the construction team turned up without notice and dug up the alleyway, put in a duct over to the back fence as agreed. A couple of teams did various works and it was all finished in a few days.

 

I dug a nice trench in the back garden over the bank holiday weekend, stretching about 20 meters up to the house (keeping the 300mm deep for data services) and popped in my own duct so Virgin could jump into this up to the house. The next week another team turned up to pull in the cable, they again came without notice so luckily I was able to pop home and show them where to bring the cable in, they did not have information about the new duct and no access to the garden so were going to leave. I showed them the new duct and my duct and they pulled the cable in and left a coil for the installation engineer.

 

I then had a call booking my installation, and today was the day. The engineer came about 1pm, installed the cable and after 3 years of trying to get Virgin, I now have broadband from them! I have done a speed test and am getting a nice 410MB download and 21MB upload on it, not bad if I say so myself. I am sure this will get throttled down a bit but it is a vast improvement on the 20MB down and 2MB up we are receiving with BT.

 

So, anyone who is in a similar position, just get the surveyor to come out when you are in, talk them through how they can get to your property and hopefully they will get it approved even if it takes a 2.5 months.

 

Thanks,

Tom