Anybody using 4G as their main means of internet access?

[Ditto]

I'm interested to hear the experiences of anyone that is using 4G (or 5G!), ideally at home, due to poor internet access over traditional telephone lines.

How well is it holding up? How much is it per month? Is it up to deep MS Teams collaboration work?

[Norphy]

Outside of tethering my computer to my phone when my broadband connection died a few times, I haven't done this much at home. When I did, it was with a 4G signal and for using Teams and Office etc, it worked fine. I've also tethered my iPad to my phone on more than one occasion for my son to watch Netflix or Disney+ on long car journeys and while that eats my data at a horrific rate, it works well enough for that as well.

 

One of my schools used a 5G connection with Vodafone for a long time, as it was a new build and we couldn't get a fibre in for $reasons. It's not an experience that I'd want to repeat but to the device's credit, I'm absolutely certain it would work perfectly well for a few people doing normal internet type stuff. It was getting > 200mbps down and > 50mbps up and could handle Teams conversations for ~20/30 teachers at once.

[Zoom7000]

A little bit off the main topic, but I have a 100GB SIM only deal that I managed to bag from EE for £16/month. For this reason, I've stopped using WiFi on my phone, so that when it comes to renewing my deal, EE can't turn around and only offer me a deal with less data, using the excuse that I don't use my data! I've had that loads in the past. I'm now averaging around 50GB of usage a month, compared to 1-2GB/month when I was using WiFi.

[rogerdnixon]

I've got EE 5G + external antenna they fitted at home. Got around 300-400Mbps down and around 50-60Mbps up. However, we are not far from the mast. Lot better than my old BT VDSL on about 20 down and 3 up! Download games on Steam while a cup of tea brews rather than over night. Speeds do vary a bit - but always 350-450ish mark.

[Ditto]

I've got EE 5G + external antenna they fitted at home. Got around 300-400Mbps down and around 50-60Mbps up. However, we are not far from the mast. Lot better than my old BT VDSL on about 20 down and 3 up! Download games on Steam while a cup of tea brews rather than over night. Speeds do vary a bit - but always 350-450ish mark.

Do you mind sharing the price of this - PM if preferred. I suspect for staff that we are looking for a solution, 5G is unlikely to be available, but 4G would probably suffice. Oddly, I live just a couple of hundred metres from a newly installed massive EE 5G mast, but a search shows no availability in the area.

[rogerdnixon]

https://shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/huawei-5g-cpe-pro/details?CTTag=CT_Ser_5GRouter_Top_Shopnow5GHBB_Q4_2020

 

Not cheap - but I was fed up of the speed of my old BT line and no sign of fibre. You do need to be in the right place.

[Jamman960]

I’ve just used a portable hotspot with a smarty(3) sim for our sports day at a local athletics track, It handled a days worth of social media uploads, spreadsheet via OneDrive/forms/email usage very easily

 

So long as you’re in an area with good coverage you’ll probably forget you’re on a 4/5g connection

 

Currently paid £10 for 30gb on a rolling 30 day contract but £20 gets you unlimited(650gb fair usage apparently)

[DrCheese]

I was stuck on ADSL for years (Still would be if I sat around waiting for Openreach!)

 

I bought a 4g modem during the lockdown after tethering to my phone for a while & it's absolutely fine. Speeds vary between 30/60mb in the day & hit around 150mb at night. I'm not far at all from a 4g tower.

 

Costs me £20 a month on smarty for unlimited data & I've had no real problems during that time. I kept the ADSL as a backup but I'm tempted to cut it off now, as it doesn't make sense to keep on paying.

[Securly_Chris]

I've been trialling 5G as my main Internet at home with mixed results. Vodafone were offering a good deal on unlimited data sim around the same time I was have a load of trouble with VM.

 

Pros:

Speeds typically 200-150DL/40UL Mbps Although this varies much more than fixed line - can occasionally drop as low as 30/10 at very busy times in the evenings.

Seems to be true unlimited - pulling 500-600GB/month no trouble.

Simple to hook up - can just use your phone to tether (I'm using a Pixel5).

Cheap - Just part of my mobile contract so much cheaper than separate line.

 

Not so good:

Network not as robust - I can live with the speed changing but occasionally get periods of high packet loss which can be very disruptive.

CGNAT Only - no public IPs or IPv6 on Vodafone. Might cause problems with some VPNs.

No stand-alone 5G available yet, this means 5G data is piggybacking on existing 4G LTE masts. Found a big downside of this is even when the phone is set to prefer 5G services it will sometimes attach to a LTE mast with no 5G enabled. Speed drop is immediately noticeable and I have to disconnect/reconnect while waving the phone in the right direction . A dedicated 5G modem with directional external antenna might be be able to resolve this. Also have to factor in local 5G coverage.

 

Been using it for a few months and still not entirely convinced I'll keep using it long-term.

[Davit2005]

I have a Teletonika 955 4g router for backup but it does not support IPv6 but good apart from needing a reboot every once in a while. I seriously considered going 4g at home but BT gave me a good discount compared to last contract on vDSL package after I negotiated due to lack of fttp in the area and the fact that 4g is faster. Maybe next year I will.

[dhicks]

How well is it holding up? How much is it per month? Is it up to deep MS Teams collaboration work?

 

We've had a 4G/5G connection as our main home connection for several years now, originally via Relish, but they've now been taken over by Three. That's the connection we had all through lockdown, with no issues - it handled two of us working via assorted remote desktops and video conferencing just fine. I haven't done a speed or latency test recently, my guess would be that latency might be a little higher than ideal if you're streaming games, but otherwise it's not significant. One thing I did notice with Relish's service is that SSH connections tended to drop if you weren't active on them for a few minutes, although that issue hasn't cropped up so far on Three's service.

[hardtailstar]

A little bit off the main topic, but I have a 100GB SIM only deal that I managed to bag from EE for £16/month. For this reason, I've stopped using WiFi on my phone, so that when it comes to renewing my deal, EE can't turn around and only offer me a deal with less data, using the excuse that I don't use my data! I've had that loads in the past. I'm now averaging around 50GB of usage a month, compared to 1-2GB/month when I was using WiFi.

 

I have 100GB too, I used almost 100GB last October/November/December when I was in and out of hospital.

 

They rang me up in March saying I hadnt used as much data as last year so they were looking at reducing it. When I pointed out I'd been in hospital and now at home on wifi. They basically said to turn the wifi off otherwise I would keep getting these calls.

 

Now I just use the data at home too.

[chazzy2501]

what about starlink?

 

doesn't cellular data have quite bad latency in spite of the bandwidth? (making videos calls bad and the experience sluggish)

[Norphy]

what about starlink?

Not sure if serious, but if so, not available here yet

doesn't cellular data have quite bad latency in spite of the bandwidth? (making videos calls bad and the experience sluggish)

 

I've run a quick speedtest on my phones, the latency on o2 <40ms and on EE it's 55ms. Not as good as a wired connection obviously (11ms on Virgin Media) but anything below 150ms is usually acceptable for voice and video calls.

[chazzy2501]

not serious but I can get it in Bridport and you cant get it in London? (if I put my address in it allows me to proceed with prices and order mid to late this year)

[Norphy]

OK, I didn't realise that. When I last looked they were just covering the continental US.

 

Although

 

£89/mo! Wow! They're also "targeting" mid to late 2021, which means that it's not here yet and may not be in the timeframe they're giving.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Norphy

[MatthewL]

I've got EE 5G + external antenna they fitted at home. Got around 300-400Mbps down and around 50-60Mbps up. However, we are not far from the mast. Lot better than my old BT VDSL on about 20 down and 3 up! Download games on Steam while a cup of tea brews rather than over night. Speeds do vary a bit - but always 350-450ish mark.

 

How did you go about getting the external antenna mounted at home? Is the router far from where the antenna is mounted?

 

Following this with internet as BT offerings are poor ADSL only bearing in mind I am in a town but VM are in the area, have had lots of issues with this so looking to bin them off possibly if I can.

[rogerdnixon]

EE offer this as a service - you just phone them up and they send their people out. Kit is free, install is £100.

[southhamster]

Been playing with this myself. We are rural with ADSL at around 7 Mbps. A VDSL upgrade should give us 11 but for the cost it's hardly worth it. A Teltonika 4G router with an 8db Omni aerial on a pole gets around 12 Mbps so a useful backup but again hardly worth the monthly cost. Starlink sounds interesting provided the trees don't get in the way! I wonder how it copes with snow and rain?

[rogerdnixon]

Starlinks dish is heated - so it melts snow and apparently copes well with rain - at least according to the YouTube reviews. Clear line of slight - so no buildings or trees in the way seems the most important thing.

[nadeem]

not serious but I can get it in Bridport and you cant get it in London? (if I put my address in it allows me to proceed with prices and order mid to late this year)

 

Haha, so is that how the West Bay web cam is connected

 

Back on topic, I can tell you that in Bridport a Smarty (Three) sim in these devices has been fine, D-Link + Huawei MiFi type devices and a Huawei router - unlimited data package (with a discount) so £18 per month, does things like Teams, Zoom, Netflix, Disney+ etc with no bother at all.

[fredesq]

Spent 3 years with 4g as main internet source at home. Used EE, Vodafone and Three, and two different 4g Routers. I solidly got 45-50mpbs on all of the careers were I lived which was a lot better than the 3-4mpbs on adsl.

 

I had line of site to a mast, perhaps 400ft away - even with that, it dropped quite a lot. So for home use, was tolerable - i would never use it in a business unless it's a backup connection, even then it wouldn't be my first choice.

 

Latency is really sporadic and on a good day only got as low as 60-70ms

The biggest issue though for me, is CGNAT - i bought a VPS in some dodgy IP block for £16 a year and ran an OpenVPN server on that so I could get an exeternal IP address.

 

I know the CGNAT thing is changing as more people are requesting this to be the default - I think this will be better with 5g and IPV6.

[dhicks]

I haven't done a speed or latency test recently, my guess would be that latency might be a little higher than ideal if you're streaming games, but otherwise it's not significant.

 

Working from home today, I've just ran a Google Internet speed test (the one available right from Google's home page) - it reckons around 60 Megabits/sec download, 10 Megabits/sec upload and, interestingly, 1ms latency time. This is on Three's "wireless home boradband" service - I'm not sure how available bandwidth is split between customers, or how many other people in the area are online right at the moment. I'm in a fairly densly populated area (sunny, exotic, downtown Tooting), and I'm guessing a fair few people are still working from home.