Three 4G HomeFi

[Dave Rice]

On Saturday I got a pair of genuine Huawei “rabbit ears” antenna. The results are in after a weekend of random speed testing.

Speeds are significantly slower with them installed. They cost 10 – 15 mbps in either direction, approx 33% reduction. The connection is rock solid though, wish I could say the same of TalkTalk’s FTTC.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Im not really surprised. It takes some doing to beat a simple dipole designed for the frequency you want to receive, half length, quarter lebgth etc.

Maybe a unidirectional antenna pointing at the mast ?

[Dave Rice]

That would be the next logical step but they are £125.

[Tippon]

I could cry. It’s my phone contract that’s about to end, not my fibre. That’s got about six months left 🙁

Sitting next to my router I’m getting 11Mb through my fibre, and 45Mb through my phone. Time to argue with Talktalk then…

[Drezha]

With the house completion going through today, I pulled the plug on this and I’ll be cancelling with Virgin (and paying the early repayment fees if I have to) as they wanted 30 days notice to change address and this means we’ll be without internet for Christmas (no thanks!)

Went through Quidco and could get the Unlimited deal for £20 a month with a free B535 – if I’d have gone through the Three website directly, it would have been £21 and only a B331. Should be able to get £60 cashback as well.

Will see how we get on with it!

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

[PlaneMan]

Good luck, I’ve no complaints with Vodafone here. Any maintenance issues have been texted to me on my Smarty number, the Vodafone SIM is in a router but there are no notifications for it and I keep forgetting to check the router itself.

[Dave Rice]

Apart from the national Three outage I’ve not had any issues. Speeds are up and down, that’s the nature of it, but mid to late 30’s is the usual which is fine for me.

[Tippon]

Drezha wrote:

Went through Quidco and could get the Unlimited deal for £20 a month with a free B535

Double check your paperwork when it comes through. I just did the same through TopCashBack, and the paperwork says it’s £29 a month after the various discounts. The initial emails all say £20 a month.

I haven’t had a chance to ring them yet, but I’ve got to chase up my phone bills too. My contract ended and they still charged for the phones.

[Drezha]

Tippon wrote:

Double check your paperwork when it comes through. I just did the same through TopCashBack, and the paperwork says it’s £29 a month after the various discounts. The initial emails all say £20 a month. I haven’t had a chance to ring them yet, but I’ve got to chase up my phone bills too. My contract ended and they still charged for the phones.

Thanks. No paperwork yet, but it all turned up and after the initial setup, it’s been fairly good.

However, I fell foul of Virgin’s follow up phone call from when I cancelled and they’ve signed me up for another 12 months, for 50Mb for £25 a month. Setup is just me screwing the router in to the cable at the wall, as this was previously supplied by Virgin. I think they managed to get me in a moment of weakness, as the first day of the Three deal was a bit poor – see below.

With that, the next day when Virgin offered me it, I accepted. However, it seems to be working nicely now and have not had anything as bad as that during the day (I’ve been working from home today and it’s been solid).

Now I’m in two minds which one to send back!

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

[Dave Rice]

In Amsterdam I was consistently getting 80mbps+ In Paris it was 20 – 30. All still faster than the hotels WiFi so I was phone hot-spotting the iPad for managing the photos and FB. Worked a treat.

The trains were as dire as ours are. Eurostar do tell you it’s 4G based so don’t expect too much. No idea if it works in the tunnel as I’d given up by then.

I think that “through the air” BB is the future, however it’s going to take 5G to do it right. In the meantime for me and a lot of people and small businesses it’s good enough speed and reliability wise at a decent price.

[Drezha]

I’m currently trying to cancel with Virgin now. They’re telling me I need an engineer out and they may need new cables etc. I’m not bothered with that – the 4G connection has been solid since the first day. Only hiccup was trying to browse whilst Steam was downloading updates.

Haven’t tried online gaming, but I don’t tend to do that to much. Speedtest seems to show pings averaging about 35-40ms.

interesting point but the Three deal isn’t for business – says so in the terms and conditions apparently (and is why it’s limited to 1000GB a month from what it says in the conditions).

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

[PlaneMan]

Drezha wrote:

I’m currently trying to cancel with Virgin now

Good luck, you may well need it.

Vodafone have been upgrading my local mast (again) so for the last few days I’ve been on about 20 down and 3-5 up. Just checked my speeds now.

That’s streaming V Wars on Netflix at the same time. I suspect that my area might have ‘proper’ 5G now instead of being on the edge but I’ll have to wait for the coverage maps to update to check, unless I can bag a cheap 5G phone. 🤔

[Bob Williams]

I am fine on FTTC nowadays, these speeds are great for me:

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Drezha]

PlaneMan wrote:

Drezha wrote:

I’m currently trying to cancel with Virgin now

Good luck, you may well need it.

Got there in the end! Phone call to the Indidian call centre was a pain, before they transferred me back to the UK, but once back to the UK call centre, it seemed to be fine.

This morning it’s a bit slower – might investigate where I can put the router this weekend and see if it’s quicker upstairs.

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

[Dave Rice]

Drezha, unlimited sims are available for business at the same sort of cost

[Drezha]

Dave Rice wrote:

Drezha, unlimited sims are available for business at the same sort of cost

Did not realise that! Thanks for pointing out. I’ll send it to the cadet unit I just left as we were being a bit naughty and using a personal SIM, but apparently should be using a business line (a restriction as cadets is a charity I believe).

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

[PlaneMan]

The TP-Link AC 750 has gone back to Argos.

It was dropping the 4g connection multiple times a day, even though the status light showed a strong signal. A reboot would sort it for a while bit it was winding me up. Amazingly Argos issued a refund, I was expecting them to send it back to be repaired or a refurb to be supplied after investigations.

Currently using my Nexus 5 as a hot spot which is working fine so far.

I may well get a refurb Huawei B525 when the refund has cleared, the Mi Mix 3 5g is tempting me though….

[Dave Rice]

Both Huawei boxes and a Draytek with a Huawei Unlocked E3372- LTE/4G 150 Mbps USB Dongle have been rock solid.

[Drezha]

Yeah, the 525 is fine now we’ve had it a few days.

Upload speeds have been noticeably quicker whilst at work backing up documents – getting 2.5Mb/s through Freefilsync, rather than the 1Mb/s was getting on Virgin.

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

[PlaneMan]

Fair play to Argos, the refund has landed!

I’ll leave it a while to see if I need the B525, something else or if the Nexus 5 does the job.

[Author]

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