Home internet: Landline Broadband vs 4G?

Home internet: Landline Broadband vs 4G?

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anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Hi all,

We currently use EE for our broadband at home.

It costs us £20 for combined line rental and broadband, which includes free calls from the landline phone (which we pretty much never, ever use)

The speed is poor and always has been with every provider we've had . Around 4-5Mbps.

We get EE 4G in the house, and I just did a few speed tests using the same app on the phone to measure the current broadband speed, and it confirms my suspicion that 4G is providing me with 18-19Mbps, absolutely peeing all over the landline data speed.

EE offer a 4G Wifi thingy for £20 a month, which could, I presume replace our landline rental and also broadband cost.

So I could get almost 4x the internet speed at home for the same monthly cost, using 4G.

Am I missing something here or is this plan as foolproof as I think?

sgrimshaw

7,311 posts

249 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
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The EE 4GEE Wifi for £20 per month is for 15GB - is your other connection capped?


MissChief

7,095 posts

167 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
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As above. The 4G is likely a capped service or has very draconian charges if you go over that. No fibre available I take it? Whack your postcode into www.superfast-openreach.co.uk

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
sgrimshaw said:
The EE 4GEE Wifi for £20 per month is for 15GB - is your other connection capped?

I did note the 15gb cap but feel it's doubtful I would go near that, but I suppose with more frequent use of music streaming and use of Sky's on-demand then I might do.

Fibre is available here but I just don't really want to pay £35 a month for the Internet, which I believe is what it costs (inc line rental).

Hmmm...

survivalist

5,614 posts

189 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
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I'd say if you're doing any steaming at all then a capped 4g connection is out. In fact, if you're doi more than just web browsing it might be as Windows/iPhone/iPad updates can be several GB each. Also, the range of those mifi things are pretty poor so you may have to invest in another modem/router to get decent coverage.

I get through about 3-4GB a month on my phone without any video streaming (some audio streaming) so if you have a few devices it'll add up. I also find that while 4g is fast, the sustained speed drops over time which might be annoying for video streaming.

chrisga

2,087 posts

186 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
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When we moved in to rented accommodation which was only supposed to be for a few months we went with the EE 4g internet box option rather than take out a years contract on broadband. It's ok, as other have said it's capped and once it runs out it is more expensive per gb than your data allowance.
There are two of us, we don't do massive amounts of streaming, certainly don't watch movies, but maybe the odd youtube clip, email, and general browsing, but we each have an ipad and a laptop and if these decide to update it rinses the data. We'll usually use the 15gb in about 20 days and have to buy top ups for the remaining 10. It is an expensive way to work, and now we have been there 6 months, it probably would have been cheaper to just commit to the years contract.

Other slight issue we have is signal sometimes drops out as we are int he middle of nowhere but that may not be such an issue for you. I'd say a wired broadband connection would be preferable but the 4G box thing is an acceptable alternative if you can live with the cost.

SwissJonese

1,393 posts

174 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
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When we bought our house I used an EE monthly package with Kite Mobile Wifi Dongle. Was £30 a month for 25GB download. I work from home so was essential until the new broadband was installed. It worked perfectly for that time, but yes 25GB isn't a huge amount.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

53 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
So the general concencus is that I'm underestimating how much data a couple will tear through in one month, which is a good point I think.

I think if they stopped capping these 4G Wifi devices or gave limits of say 30-40gb a month for £20ish they could seriously be a huge contender to the landline/broadband option.

I'm really surprised at how fast 4G is for home browsing compared to normal broadband. Clearly it isn't fibre, but for most people the thick end of 20Mbps would be great.

Ray Luxury-Yacht

8,910 posts

215 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
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Three years ago, I went back to University to re-train in a new career. Co-incidentally, at about the same time, Vodafone put up a new mast that I can see from an upstairs window. So I swapped to Vodafone on my mobile.

Then, looking at ways to save money as a student, and having a landline which I never used but which used to call me with nothing but flipping PPI claims - alongside having landline broadband which gave 2 gig speeds at best - I binned my landline and broadband and put my faith in my mobile only for internet tethering.

I signed up to a plan which gave me a 12 gig limit, and the download speeds on 3g when I started were in the region of 18 gig.

Then about 2 years ago, the mast was upgraded to 4G, and I then started seeing download speeds of 30 gig. Pretty damn good!

In the three years of doing this, I have never looked back to be honest. In all that time, I have had a 100% reliable connection (more than I can say about the landline) and it just works.

I'm now on a 15 gig limit contract. YES - as others have said, if I do exceed the limit, the charges are horrendous. But then I have only done that once - my phone is setup to warn me periodically about my usage. If you want to download movies or watch TV - especially in HD - then it's no good, you burn through the data pdq. However, that's not important to me - and so for normal internet browsing, plus the odd bit of pron (and who needs more than about 10 minutes of that anyway biggrin ) it is perfect.

Works for me anyway! I'm very happy with this setup. Plus this year, my new employer (NHS) attracts a 20% discount with Vodafone too. Winner all round biggrin