EE broadband

[neilo]

I had EE on the phone the other day, trying their hardest to sell me their broadband & landline package. It was certainly much cheaper than what I am paying currently (BT line & PlusNet broadband) at £17/month for the whole lot, saving us about £15/month. They give a £10/month discount to EE mobile customers, which we are tied to anyway as nobody else has any reception at all round here.

Can't fault PlusNet for customer service, and would need to be a substantial saving to consider moving.

Has anyone got broadband/phone with EE? Are they any good?

 

[muzza]

We had orange broadband which changed to EE. When it changed they gave us a cheaper deal, they sent us out new router which is much better, and our broadband is much quicker! Also got discount on the mobile so cant fault them

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

We're with PlusNet too and although their service has been fine, the limiting factor is the copper pair from the BT exchange. I think we're just about the furthest from our local exchange (next village), so we've really never got better than 2 or maybe 3 Mbps tops download speed. In theory we're supposed to receive up to 8 Mbps. This is what Better Broadband for Suffolk says about our area:

"This postcode is currently within the Suffolk Better Broadband intervention programme and subject to our minimum commitment of 2Mbps by 2015. We actively seeking additional funding to introduce fibre deployment into our plans for this area as soon as possible as we look to push our 90% fibre coverage target higher." ....gee great thanks for that!!! All the phone lines here are direct exchange-tied, so the prospect of Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) is slim to zero really.

I've been researching EE's 4G coverage. Their official website coverage checker says 2-bars of "4G" outdoors here. Technically its not really 4G but actually LTE, but lets not get too picky, it should be a darn bit faster than what goes down the phone line. With a decent outdoor antenna, I reckon I'll be right.

I bit the bullet and ordered this antenna from Solwise and plan to mount it near the chimney up on a length of ally pole, to get it as high up as possible.

In terms of 4G data plan, I decided that I didn't want to be tied into a 24-month plan as I reckon the plan prices will take a tumble when 02 and Vodafone ramp up their "4G" networks. So I've gone for a 30-day rolling contract, and bought my own Huawei B593S-22 4G router from eBay from a guy in Hong Kong. Its supposedly the latest 'Category 4 LTE' box, so good for up to 150 Mbps download speed and 50 Mbs upload speed.

You don't have to buy your own 4G router of course - A1 Comms were offering them for *I think* £75 on a 5GB plan and a bit cheaper on the 8GB plan, but then you're tied into a 24-month contract.



I'll let you know how I get on with EE and "4G".

 

[neilo]

I don't think mobile internet is an alternative here. I can only get 3G (occasionally) if I stand on the nearest hill. 4G is a distant dream.

 

[J B]

Neil

I recently phoned plusnet to 'enquire' about a better deal - we had occasionally exceeded our 10GB allowance over the festive period (bl**dy kids, back at uni now ) - and was fobbed off a little till I asked a bit more (maybe I said I'd had a better offer) then got the 'I'll put you through to someone in the 'disconnections department' who offered me unlimited BB at 6.50 per month, which for a 'non-LLU' exchange is a good deal IMHO

I don't think that EE have a very good 'service' reputation whereas P/N do



EDIT - this is where I took my 'inspiration' from
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4875973&page=3
Start at post #45 (?)

 

[neilo]

Neil

I recently phoned plusnet to 'enquire' about a better deal - we had occasionally exceeded our 10GB allowance over the festive period (bl**dy kids, back at uni now ) - and was fobbed off a little till I asked a bit more (maybe I said I'd had a better offer) then got the 'I'll put you through to someone in the 'disconnections department' who offered me unlimited BB at 6.50 per month, which for a 'non-LLU' exchange is a good deal IMHO

I don't think that EE have a very good 'service' reputation whereas P/N do



EDIT - this is where I took my 'inspiration' from
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4875973&page=3
Start at post #45 (?)

Thanks J B, but I tried that a fortnight ago and got nowhere. We had the same problem with usage/YouTube a year or so ago, and got put onto the unlimited package before it was launched. Didn't want to give me a good offer to keep me & sell me line rental too, for some reason.

 

[Sparrow]

been with EE since middle of Dec, pleased so far £15 month cheaper than BT what sold it to me was the 1000 minutes to Orange mobiles included in the package, if you change make sure you get a mac code as BT tried to charge £30 for leaving, after a on line chat (which was a quick connection to a operator) I got our money back. The ironic part is that our local exchange is a BT only one, so we are still using their exchange and line of less money, one other good thing is EE's operators are based in the UK.

 

[J B]

Thanks J B, but I tried that a fortnight ago.

Try again?

Did you threaten to leave???

 

[Fran Loake]

I bit the bullet and ordered this antenna from Solwise and plan to mount it near the chimney up on a length of ally pole, to get it as high up as possible.

Did you ever try one of these antennae?

I have recently been using a Huawei B593-22 with some success. BT landline was awful for broadband at about 0.3 mbps and now we get between 6 and 20 mbps with the router in the attic window and a 4G EE sim card in it. But wondered about putting an external antenna on the tv aerial pole about 15 foot higher to give even greater reception.

Any thoughts??

Cheers. Fran

 

[Collie lovers]

Not guaranteed that e e help is in uk. Poorer service agreement than bt. Wait till you have a problem on the line and see how long it takes to get it repaired. They are cheaper because of the second rate service agreement they have with bt to get line faults resolved.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Did you ever try one of these antennae?

I have recently been using a Huawei B593-22 with some success. BT landline was awful for broadband at about 0.3 mbps and now we get between 6 and 20 mbps with the router in the attic window and a 4G EE sim card in it. But wondered about putting an external antenna on the tv aerial pole about 15 foot higher to give even greater reception.

Any thoughts??

Cheers. Fran

Hi @Fran Loake

Apologies for the delay. We're in a pretty marginal 4G area, so with the Solwise antenna suctioned-cupped "temporarily" inside a double glazed dormer window, the router gets precisely 1-bar of signal!

Saying that, the router is holding the 4G connection and its not slipping down to a lower connection speed, so even with one lowly bar of coverage, we can still reliably get 14 Mbps, which is way, way better than the BT land line.

I tested the router with the rabbit-ear antennas in the same location, and it was slipping out of 4G, so not great. Theoretically we should be able to get 2-bars, or wait for it, possibly 3-bars of coverage on 4G *IF* the antenna is placed high enough above the house.

So with the original plan in mind, I might clamber up on the roof later on this week and get the 10 ft ally pole mounted on the chimney to get some extra height and see if that can catch another bar or two of signal....

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Pretty sure when I got the antenna last year, Poynting and Solwise hadn't released the high-gain version 4G-XPOL-A0002 antenna. This is a bit dearer, but it is much higher gain 8.3 to 9.3 dBi versus just 2.5 dBi for the earlier incarnation.

I wonder if they'll do an exchange....

http://www.solwise.co.uk/4g-antenna-panel-xpol-a0002.html

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

This looks like its the daddy....going to see if I can "upgrade" before hoisting it up the pole outside.

The CEO from Poynting has done a couple of other videos in the series, Parts 1 to 6, which are quite educational if you want to learn a bit about 4G LTE antennas

As the youtube comment says, "Brilliant product. And your accent is awesome!"

Edit: Can be bought direct from SA, but the postage might be as much as the box! Tempting at £60 odd though....

http://www.antennas.co.za/Products/ProductList?cat=LTE

 

[Fran Loake]

That's all incredibly helpful thank you. We have about 4 bars of signal with our router balanced "temporarily" : ) on the attic window sill and are pretty pleased really but the signal does occasionally drop, and i'm just plain greedy always wanting better!
I guess that the antenna might incur import duty at customs if you were to buy direct from SA?? Worth a go though. I've just tried to contact them via online chat but no one there yet.


Fran

 

[neilo]

I guess that the antenna might incur import duty at customs if you were to buy direct from SA?? Worth a go though. I've just tried to contact them via online chat but no one there yet.


Fran

The last thing I imported had the import duty itemised as VAT and collected by Parcel Force before they'd deliver it. Obviously your 4G router is only to get your SFP forms done online in a timely fashion, so 'VAT' can be reclaimed anyway.

Still bubbling away on PlusNet Business here anyway.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

will the 4g router pick up 3 g as well

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

will the 4g router pick up 3 g as well

Yes the Huawei B593s-22 router will drop back to 3G if it can't get a strong enough 4G signal.

Edit: looks like you can buy these via eBay for about £140 inc. postage from a UK based seller (has a UK plug-in power supply). No antennas included at that price from the UK guys I don't think, so you might have to pay a bit extra for some rabbit ear antennas or get a proper external antenna like we've been discussing.

I bought mine from the guy in Hong Kong (smscaster on eBay), he sells them bundled with UK power supply and can sell versions with the rabbit ears included too.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Yes the Huawei B593s-22 router will drop back to 3G if it can't get a strong enough 4G signal.

Is that the one shown that you put outside on a mast

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

No, that's the external antenna. See my edited post above.

The router looks like this and stays indoors.



If you have good signal; you can use the *internal* rabbit ear antennas, which screw into the back of the router:



If you have crap signal then you need an *external* antenna (like in post 13) that you put up somewhere high outside, and run the 2x leads back to the router and screw them in.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

That's all incredibly helpful thank you. We have about 4 bars of signal with our router balanced "temporarily" : ) on the attic window sill and are pretty pleased really but the signal does occasionally drop, and i'm just plain greedy always wanting better!
I guess that the antenna might incur import duty at customs if you were to buy direct from SA?? Worth a go though. I've just tried to contact them via online chat but no one there yet.


Fran

By way of update, today the new 9 dBi high-gain antenna was mounted in its "proper" place, hoofed 3 metres up an ally pole, strapped to the chimney, and connected back to the router which is sitting on top of the hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard!

I'm pleased to say its bettered the performance of the router quite substantially, especially the upload speed, which I suspect the extra gain antenna has really helped.

We are also at the very edge of acceptable 4G reception here, so with a solid 2-bars of 4G signal showing, the performance is now:

Ping: 36ms
Download speed: 18.66 Mbps
Upload speed: 13.62 Mbps

Its not going to set the world on fire, but I'm pretty happy with the results, considering the best we could get before on the ADSL line was 1.28 Mbps download and a paltry 0.45 Mbps upload.

4G rocks!!