Three UK - 4G Home Broadband - any users here?

[dmsims]

Just as well the WiFi on the 535 is pathetic

[IanA2]

JC06 said:

.... it would be good to hear about experiences with the Huawei kit.

I have been using the B618 for a couple of years.

Very good, faster than the B315, which is also good.

[entropy]

Neighbour gave me a spare Smarty sim whilst I wait for my router.

Does an activated sim work on any unlocked device?

Can the same sim be reactivated or reused at a later date so it can be used as a back up again.


BTW I'm tolerating average download speed of 15megs, over 20 at best.

[Dodsy]

I went with a huawei 535 which works well for me on 4g+ on three. Dont buy tplink if you plan to use smarty/three as they dont support 4g+ on the three network.

[MadProfessor]

Does anybody have advice on how to work out which provider will be best for 4G broadband at my property?

[dmsims]

MadProfessor said:

Does anybody have advice on how to work out which provider will be best for 4G broadband at my property?

The slightly obvious answer is try speed test on your phone (in different places)

Then if that's no good try friends/neighbours etc phones with different providers

If none are any good you are into suck it and see territory with antennas.

[towser]

MadProfessor said:

Does anybody have advice on how to work out which provider will be best for 4G broadband at my property?

Approach I took was to check the coverage maps for telcos....this shortlisted Three and EE. I then bought a PAYG SIM for each with a small data allowance and as previous poster mentioned did some speedtesting....

Also, with EE at least, when I decided to enter a mobile broadband contract - they had a 14 day cancellation policy - so if performance was unsuitable I could cancel within that time window.

Edited by towser on Friday 2nd October 11:22

Edited by towser on Friday 2nd October 11:22

[threadlock]

Hi all. I'm tempted with the idea of moving from 15^/2v BT FTTC broadband to 4G and have started the research journey.

Vodafone seems to be the only network in my rural road that has any decent coverage, and their cheapest unlimited-data SIMs are cheaper than BT (just).

Lots of people here seem to be suggesting using standard phone SIMs for their broadband, but I thought the providers had 'fair use' policies that meant that tethering (which is effectively what this would be) doesn't count within their unlimited usage. Anybody got any idea? I can't find anything about this in the Vodafone's Ts & Cs I've read.

(Last month my family consumed 450GB of data, according to my Google WiFi's stats. We have no cable/satellite TV so all our media is consumed through the broadband.)

[Yabu]

threadlock said:

Hi all. I'm tempted with the idea of moving from 15^/2v BT FTTC broadband to 4G and have started the research journey.

Vodafone seems to be the only network in my rural road that has any decent coverage, and their cheapest unlimited-data SIMs are cheaper than BT (just).

Lots of people here seem to be suggesting using standard phone SIMs for their broadband, but I thought the providers had 'fair use' policies that meant that tethering (which is effectively what this would be) doesn't count within their unlimited usage. Anybody got any idea? I can't find anything about this in the Vodafone's Ts & Cs I've read.

(Last month my family consumed 450GB of data, according to my Google WiFi's stats. We have no cable/satellite TV so all our media is consumed through the broadband.)

Not sure about Vodafone but I have an unlimited EE plan, 1000gb is seen as the fair use limit for it

[DuckSauce]

threadlock said:

Hi all. I'm tempted with the idea of moving from 15^/2v BT FTTC broadband to 4G and have started the research journey.

Vodafone seems to be the only network in my rural road that has any decent coverage, and their cheapest unlimited-data SIMs are cheaper than BT (just).

Lots of people here seem to be suggesting using standard phone SIMs for their broadband, but I thought the providers had 'fair use' policies that meant that tethering (which is effectively what this would be) doesn't count within their unlimited usage. Anybody got any idea? I can't find anything about this in the Vodafone's Ts & Cs I've read.

(Last month my family consumed 450GB of data, according to my Google WiFi's stats. We have no cable/satellite TV so all our media is consumed through the broadband.)

I use an unlimited phone sim from Vodafone and I've had no issues with their fair use policy and we use a lot.
My biggest issue with them, is their NAT. Its useless for gaming, I have strict Nat due to the type they use, which other networks don't use.

[threadlock]

OK thanks a lot! Might take a punt on a 4G router then. Lots of talk here about the Huawei models - are they the best value/quality at the moment? Being white they look nice enough to sit discretely on a windowsill.

Holding my phone out of an upstairs window right now and doing two tests I got 20/20 and 35/19, so I guess signal strength would be a factor in the speed of the connection. If a particular model of cheap-ish (£100?) router will work better than another then I'd appreciate specific recommendations.

I could fit an external antenna but I'd rather only go down that route once I've established a baseline success level for the idea of 4G, so for a month or two at least I'd like it work without an external antenna.

[page3]

Yabu said:

Not sure about Vodafone but I have an unlimited EE plan, 1000gb is seen as the fair use limit for it

Be careful though as EE recently reduced it (from 1 Sept) to 600Gb. Cheeky sods messed up initialising my account, so my start date was moved from 1st to the 2nd! Not sure they especially do anything if you go over a few times though. My family usage is only around 300GB anyway.

[Composer62]

Composer62 said:

Lemming Train said:

Ring the upgrades folks at EE. Your contract is up in a couple of months so I'm fairly confident they'll upgrade you to the phone SIM with a fresh 12 month contract if you ask them.

Just to close this off. I called EE to discuss this. To upgrade at the moment would cost around £100 as I'm still in contract. If I wait until mid Oct they're perfectly happy to upgrade to an unlimited data phone SIM at around £25 a month. That sounds like a good deal to me so will be doing that when the time comes.

Thanks All.

To finally close this off .. gave EE a call last week .. moved to an unlimited phone plan for £25 a month. All done over the phone. Couldn't have been simpler or more efficient. Very happy with that outcome !

[OnaRoll]

threadlock said:

Being white they look nice enough to sit discretely on a windowsill.

Just be careful with heat from Sunlight if putting in a window.

[threadlock]

OnaRoll said:

Just be careful with heat from Sunlight if putting in a window.

I actually get to try this 4G idea sooner than expected, since I accidentally cancelled our broadband at work and it got disconnected yesterday
Cue lots of grief from the team who either found themselves unable to connect to our VPN and get anything done, or were stuck in the office with no internet.

So I've got a Huawei 535-232 arriving today and (hopefully) a Vodafone SIM through our company Vodafone account. For a 12-month contract their unlimited/unlimited SIM would cost £16.50 a month (+VAT), but I'm trying it out on a 30-day contract for £31. Their fair-use policy would only come into play if we consumed terabytes of data, I was told.

Fingers firmly crossed for Monday morning...

Edited by threadlock on Saturday 24th October 12:31

[anonymous-user]

I need to cancel my EE Fibre as we are moving out of our house shortly, and EE offered:

A) to move our phone line and Fibre connection to wherever we are moving to.

B) or said we could simply end our contract early for £100

But, I would rather they kept us as a customer and changed our contract to a 4G router. Has anyone gone down this route?

Also, I went on EE’s website earlier and they weren’t showing any plans available for 4G home Wifi. Does anyone know why this is? They are only showing plans for 5G home Wifi at a whopping £70 a month, which isn’t any good for me as there is no 5G yet where I live.

[Lemming Train]

Read the thread. This has been explained hundreds of times.

[Phunk]

I’m about to sign my parents up to the three deal ind the Huawei B311 but there isn’t any stock anywhere.

Could they just go for a sim only deal like this: http://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Plans_for_phones?...

And then pickup a router separately?

And if so is there a recommended router that also has Ethernet ports?

[Dodsy]

Exactly what i did got a huawei b535 from amazon and an unlimited sim from smarty. The b535 is a great router but wifi range is poor .

ETA smarty (which us 3) currently £18 a month unlimited and no contract vs 3 which is a 24 month contract.

Edited by Dodsy on Thursday 12th November 07:38

[IanA2]

Phunk said:

I’m about to sign my parents up to the three deal ind the Huawei B311 but there isn’t any stock anywhere.

Could they just go for a sim only deal like this: http://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Plans_for_phones?...

And then pickup a router separately?

And if so is there a recommended router that also has Ethernet ports?

I can reccommend Huawei's B311 & B818. Both good, B311 cheaper and has more ports. Both will take a DECT phone. Strength of signal where your parents live will help you choose. Strong signal, and the cheaper B311 will be fine. We've been using Three's u/l everything (less than £20 pm)m for a couple of years now. No problems, and good speeds.

ETA: Amazon have the B311 in stock.