Thinking of a 4g/5g internet back up, anybody got any real world experiences?

[Jaan]

Short story is our ADSL backup is pointless (up 1.5mbps). Instead of getting an additional fiber as a back up, was thinking that 4g/5g might be an option.

 

Anybody got any real life experiences with this?

 

We have a Sophos XG and would have that doing the failover, Already in talks with providers. Just wanted to hear what you guys think?

 

Regards

 

John

[PotNoodleTech]

Assuming your literally 10 meters from the mast you'll get a maximum of about 50Mb/s from 4g. 5g of course should be much more useful.

[Davit2005]

I have 4G backup for home. For business I'd suggest getting a sim with Static IP. With my setup at home it fails over without me noticing to the extent I was watching streaming services and it failed over and used all my monthly allowance in a few days :-( . Since implemented change that streaming devices have no internet access on the 4G connection.

 

I use a DrayTek 2620LN for the backup 4G. I had a Teltonika RUT955 but frequently found had to reboot.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Davit2005

[Michael]

This is just my opinion, but I think if you're with the right provider, you don't need a backup line.

 

I'd say there's a higher probability (certainly in my experience), that localised power issues in schools will negate any connectivity backup solution.

[SchoolsBroadband]

The DFE advises that everyone should have a backup line.

 

4G isn't always great but is cost effective and is of course better than nothing if your primary line fails. If you do use 4G then I'd recommend putting application control and QOS profiles on the 4G to ensure it doesn't "melt" if you were to put all school traffic down it.

 

In testing we've had around 250Mbps using 5G although you can't still get it everywhere.

 

We advise all schools to take FTTC or 4G as backup depending on what their primary connection is.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[dhicks]

Anybody got any real life experiences with this?

 

We've had a 4G / 5G connection at home for several years now - now, around 5:30pm, I'm getting a reading of around 30Mbps download from Google speed test. As already pointed out, now much use for a whole school for general use, but should be enough in the case of the main line going down for admin staff to able to get information home to parents. Same for a power cut - if the power goes out, you'd ideally want a UPS that can keep your network infrastructure up for long enough to give admin staff some time to contact parents and so on. You could possibly just have a (charged) spare laptop and hotspot-capable phone wth a 4G/5G connection as the backup.

[yac2016]

This is just my opinion, but I think if you're with the right provider, you don't need a backup line.

 

I'd say there's a higher probability (certainly in my experience), that localised power issues in schools will negate any connectivity backup solution.

 

Seeing a load more power cut issues then Broadband outages past 12 months.

[Progress]

Just had real world experience when a digger tore up our fibre..

 

The contractors "loaned" us a 4G backup - Find your best signal areas first I would say at this point, and this worked well, only initial issue was we also lost the VOIP phones so some extra configuration might be necessary through your provider to keep everything up.

 

We are with Schools Broadband who offer a 4G backup option that we are investigating, looks like £650 pa, plus a one off for the router, preconfigured.

[DrCheese]

I ran an LTE router at home for over a year as it was the only way to get more than 8mb...

I could regularly pull down 150mb in the small hours of the morning, which would drop to around 50 during peak rates

 

The only issue you'll run into using it for a school is that most carriers use CGNAT now, so it won't be great if you're hosting services behind it.

 

As the SchoolBroadband chap says tho, the DFE do now say schools should have a backup connection tho, so it's one to look into.

[timbo343]

Another real world example here...

 

We have 3 lines for our internet connectivity. 2 of these lines run over FTTC (Zen and TTB) and both of these lines have failed - the main cable into the school has become damaged. Speaking to Zen, it started to fail around the time the council decided to re-surface the roads.

 

Fortunately we have a FTTP with 250mbps down and 200mbps up which comes into school via another route.

 

I am thinking about getting rid of one of these FTTC and converting it to a FTTP line with TTB as a "backup line" going for the full 900mbps down and 115mbps up which is on offer at £43.00 per month in a 24 month contract.

[Wave9_Lee]

Just had real world experience when a digger tore up our fibre..

 

The contractors "loaned" us a 4G backup - Find your best signal areas first I would say at this point, and this worked well, only initial issue was we also lost the VOIP phones so some extra configuration might be necessary through your provider to keep everything up.

 

We are with Schools Broadband who offer a 4G backup option that we are investigating, looks like £650 pa, plus a one off for the router, preconfigured.

 

I believe you'll need fixed IP on the 4G for voip to work properly. Also can be challenges around VPN and hosted services etc. We offer fixed IP SIM for this reason, but it's more expensive.

 

Obviously, if both your primary and secondary connections terminate in the same supplier kit in their datacentre, then both could be affected by an outage there. For resilience I would always look for different telco/ISP, different technology where possible. That's why we operate the model we do.

[PaddyNewman]

full 900mbps down and 115mbps up which is on offer at £43.00 per month in a 24 month contract.

 

That would be criminal to not take advantage of!!

[dhicks]

only initial issue was we also lost the VOIP phones so some extra configuration might be necessary through your provider to keep everything up.

 

I've just found the same thing - I can't connect to our new 3CX VoIP system from my home 5G broadband connection, although other external connections are fine. I'm guessing the provider (Three) blocks VoIP in some way on their home connections, although I haven't looked in to the exact details.

[Michael]

Seeing a load more power cut issues then Broadband outages past 12 months.

 

One of my schools had three power outages in an hour last week. It was out of hours, but it proves my point. In working hours no backup would have worked, without putting all your equipment on a UPS.

[Wave9_Lee]

I've just found the same thing - I can't connect to our new 3CX VoIP system from my home 5G broadband connection, although other external connections are fine. I'm guessing the provider (Three) blocks VoIP in some way on their home connections, although I haven't looked in to the exact details.

 

 

[i believe you'll need fixed IP on the 4G for voip to work properly. Also can be challenges around VPN and hosted services etc. We offer fixed IP SIM for this reason, but it's more expensive.]

[PaddyNewman]

Depends on the VoIP system, can use mine from anywhere, but its an authenticated cloud setup. If its an older one that relies on you supplying the source public address, then it will be a problem.

[MatthewL]

I have used 3G/4G as it was then daily as my main method of connection and never had issues with speed, can pull some good speeds down at various times of the day. I have been thinking about ditching my connection and going down the 5G route at some point too does for what I need so is ideal for backup.

 

As regards to static IP I havent found any that do but Andrews & Arnold do provide a L2TP service with static IP you could use that for 4G/5G connectivity as that is what I was going to do for what I need on a static. Maybe other companies that do this but these seem to be the key player plus I get my SIP from them.

[Oaktech]

We've gone down this rabbit hole and come up with from a value for money point of view an FTTC line with another provider was a better bet than a cellular router. Bonus, we can route our VOIP over the FTTC.

[Aprice]

We've had to resort to 4G for some new builds while waiting for fibre to be run in, this was a couple of years ago granted but it did work ok. Balancing the load between a few 4G routers using Mikrotiks helped to improve the performance as well.

[SchoolsBroadband]

I have used 3G/4G as it was then daily as my main method of connection and never had issues with speed, can pull some good speeds down at various times of the day. I have been thinking about ditching my connection and going down the 5G route at some point too does for what I need so is ideal for backup.

 

As regards to static IP I havent found any that do but Andrews & Arnold do provide a L2TP service with static IP you could use that for 4G/5G connectivity as that is what I was going to do for what I need on a static. Maybe other companies that do this but these seem to be the key player plus I get my SIP from them.

 

 

 

Yep we take L2TP from some mobile providers so can put on real world static IPs and terminate the connection into our hosted FortiGate solution as well. Great for backups to leased lines, particularly when FTTC or ADSL is poor. With unlimited data plans there's a lot to like about 5G, if you can get it of course.

 

Dave