Three 4G HomeFi

[Dave Rice]

There will be no weight to it. Ubiquiti do a rubber cup windows mount and they work well so it may be OK.

[PlaneMan]

That’s the same kind of attachment that the one due today has.

Good to know that it might be viable option, thanks Dave.

[JayCeeDee]

Dave Rice wrote:

A lot could happen between now and then including 5G. My guess is that Three’s offering will do well and the others will start to offer the same services, especially Vodaphone. It’s a game changer that’s for sure.

Just seen HERE on the news, EE has just switched on the first part of their 5G offering with Vodaphone in close pursuit.

PM – it’s in limited areas of Cardiff!!

[PlaneMan]

JCD, it’s available in my area-for a large price!!!

[JayCeeDee]

PlaneMan wrote:

JCD, it’s available in my area-for a large price!!!

I saw in the article it was £54 for 10Gig a month – top ups available as Rory Cellan-Jones found out on his first live trial today – they used up the allowance on test transmissions!!

[PlaneMan]

JCD, I can believe that.

[keith with the teef]

Off topic but this new 5G looks like it could kill off land line. Or definatley shake things up.

[PlaneMan]

Just had a hobble across the road and on my Mate 20 Pro I could get 45 down and 23 up. That would do me nicely.

[Richard]

keith with the teef wrote:

Off topic but this new 5G looks like it could kill off land line. Or definatley shake things up.

Not at the prices quoted the other day when the launch dates were being talked about. A Tiny allowance for huge money would make it a non-starter for me. The question of if it will arrive for this area in my life time is another matter. Voice is at best flaky at the moment, so much so callers are usually told to call the landline if they would like an answered call.

[PlaneMan]

EE have some good news for perspective 5G customers, they have a range of Swappable Benefits which are included on Smart plans (5G with a phone are Smart plans) so you can have Amazon Prime, Netflix, BT Sport and some other stuff with unlimited streaming. If YouTube was on that list as well I would possibly be interested when they launch the 5G router.

[PlaneMan]

EE have some good news for perspective 5G customers, they have a range of Swappable Benefits which are included on Smart plans (5G with a phone are Smart plans) so you can have Amazon Prime, Netflix, BT Sport and some other stuff with unlimited streaming. If YouTube was on that list as well I would possibly be interested when they launch the 5G router.

[PlaneMan]

The antenna just came and it was the wrong connector type. It’s already on the way back.

Dave, I see what you mean about the lack of weight, must be about 100g if that. I tried the sucker mount on a plastic storage box and it was rock solid.

[Dave Rice]

I wouldn’t touch 5G for at least a year. TBH I think 4G is going to do all I need with little compromise.

I’ve converted all the customers Synology backups to my server to a C2 Cloud service. 1 TB in Frankfurt with all the bells and whistles for 85 Euros a year, a tenner each. No brainer for many reasons.

Might be a solution for your Eire server @Drezha. Basic 100GB is only a tenner a year Plans.

[Drezha]

Dave Rice wrote:

I’ve converted all the customers Synology backups to my server to a C2 Cloud service. 1 TB in Frankfurt with all the bells and whistles for 85 Euros a year, a tenner each. No brainer for many reasons. Might be a solution for your Eire server @drezha. Basic 100GB is only a tenner a year Plans.

Already on the 300GB plan, as I’ve got my NAS backing up to it as well. 😉 I planned to replace it with my Mac Mini, but that hasn’t seemed to have happened yet. I am still using the Mac Mini, but as a standard desktop, rather than a NAS.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[PlaneMan]

Got the correct antenna today and I can’t get better than 15 down and 7 up. And it’s flaky.

At one stage I had a full 5 bars on the router and got 7 down and 12 up.

The only other SIM I have (apart from a 3 one) is 02 and OFC I get a full 5 bars of 4G in the very first spot I try. ?

I even had the antenna out in the front garden pointing at the mast, full 5 bars and 8 down and 12 up.

I’ve tried the front of the house, back of the house, waving my arm out of the window and every thing in between.

Looks like I’m stuck with the Virgin muppets for now. ?

If mum doesn’t want it’s all going back. Gutted.

[Dave Rice]

That’s a real shame. As I mentioned I think some others will start moving into the unlimited data market this year as the Three offering is going down very well.

Over the coming months I’m going to do some more research into antenna with some specialist suppliers. May cost quite a few bob more but the savings to be made are also high.

Went onsite today but they’ve changed the locks and forgot to tell me Doh! But remote access to the CCTV system has been spot on and 100% reliable, which is the main purpose of the project. There’s a PC and printer going in next week as they are now confident enough it can be used as a satellite office.

Permanent VPN connectivity to HQ’s Draytek via the Huawei router client slows things to a crawl, it’s just not up to it, but using Windows built in VPN client on a PC works a treat. In the reverse direction I have a Pi set up with an OpenVPN server which was great, but it’s inaccessible lately. Whether it’s crashing or not recovering from power off I won’t know until I get there. If the routers pass through (modem) mode works I’ll get a Draytek for that end too.

So far so good. I intend to also set up Raspberry Pi Internet Speed Monitor to see if there are any changes over time of day etc.

[PlaneMan]

I learnt some stuff from messing about with it so apart from the annoyance factor it’s not a total waste of time.

Couple of tings that I learnt:

Don’t rely on the password on the bottom of the router to access the router settings, it doesn’t work even after a reset. The good old combo of admin and admin for username and password does work.

It helps if you enable the external antennas in the router settings.

[PlaneMan]

Spent an hour or so trying different locations at mum’s today, worst I got was 20 down and 13 up.

The best I got was 70 down and 30 up, that was on a windowsill and it would get baked on a sunny day.

In a ‘nice location’, mum speak for not being in the way, 50 down and 25-30 up. Solid 4 bars out of 5. Set up a wildlife camera set to 30 second shots while I and her fella were down the Legion and me cooking lunch for us all. About 4  hours.

Never dipped below 4 bars and sometimes hit 5 for a minute or so.

In short, if you have the signal it’s a cracking piece of kit.

It’s staying there for a month while mum has to serve her notice with Virgin and it’ll be run with a month SIM  3 unlimited    to see if it works as it should. Then if all is well it’ll be a 12 or 24 month contract. £60 topcashback available for either as well. Helps with the cost of the router. The extra antenna wasn’t needed so is going back.

 

[PlaneMan]

Today mum jumped through the cancelling Virgin hoops. Over an hour.

At one point the the ‘customer service’ woman insisted that you need at least 35 down per person to stream TV/Netflix/Youtube and so on.

Mum gave me the phone and I told the woman that she was doing one of 3 things: 1, blatantly lying 2, massively unaware of the facts 3, reading from a script.  No response. Line goes silent for about a minute then the voice comes back ‘we have a technical issue so can’t check on the actual speeds required’. Virgin kicked to the curb in another 30 seconds.

I’ll get a Smarty unlimited SIM for the first month, £15.15 Topcashback and a £25 Amazon voucher. That’s getting done tomorrow.

[Drezha]

Thanks for the Smarty idea – just ordered that for cadets. It’s Unlimited and not speed limited like the GiffGaff unlimited SIM, so we’ll use that until the civilian committee can figure out a broadband package…

 

35Mbps? Lol – I managed to stream the Guy Martin 4OD documentary this evening on my crappy 2.5Mbps Travelodge wifi, so something doesn’t add up there!

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

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