Slow broadband - what can we do about it ?

[upnortheast]

Worth starting with a PAYG sim for a couple of weeks IMO, then you get an ides of your data use , then you can look at a contract. Contracts usually 12 - 18 months

 

[manhill]

Fed up with BT rubbish service. Paid a bit more and gone to mobile, just the phone on the landline now. Worth the extra cost. BT and Open Reach and Mr Hi --- having a nice day in Bangalore, will no longer be getting my Internet budget.

 

[Chasingmytail]

Seeing you are in Worcester - we have Airband. Works out £70pm. https://www.airband.co.uk/
Best we can get. We are nearly 2 miles from the exchange. Openreach wouldn't pay to upgrade our copper cable, the grants were rubbish and gave up with endless calls from people promising the world.

 

[Chasingmytail]

We had a Huawei router on mifi as a back up but the 4G was so intermittent it worked out so slow and the minute the whether changed it was rubbish. I had a £50pm set up data but had to keep topping it up in some months it was costing 70 - 80 quid for a poor service. They are so data hungry ideal if you want to switch it on for an hour a day but useless for us.

 

[Right-arm fast]

Seeing you are in Worcester - we have Airband. Works out £70pm. https://www.airband.co.uk/
Best we can get. We are nearly 2 miles from the exchange. Openreach wouldn't pay to upgrade our copper cable, the grants were rubbish and gave up with endless calls from people promising the world.

Tried airband don't cover our area unfortunately

 

[Andy26]

Here you go...

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index...huaewi-b593-omni-directional-antennae.237484/

Picks up a strong 4g signal where a smartphone can only get 2g (if that).

I used an EE 4G mobile broadband SIM, although Vodafone offered a better deal it was not as fast as EE (80Mbs).

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Tried airband don't cover our area unfortunately

Your EE 4G service looks alright to me...darker green indicates good indoor and outdoor coverage. Chuck in your postcode to their coverage checker get a better idea of cover.

As posted above best to stick an external 4G antenna up on a pole outside and runs the coax leads into your router inside. Get a third party router that has external antenna ports. EE will supply a pretty basic one on a contract, but stick that on eBay and put the funds towards your own device.

How much data are you currently using?

Latest EE 4G mobile broadband tariffs are as follows:
50GB for £45
100GB for £55
200GB for £70
300GB for £90

All on 30 days rolling (pay £100 up front) or it's zero up front cost on an 18 month contract.

 

[Right-arm fast]

Thanks for the info PS , that coverage link is the one I used. Looks good just a bit expensive. Will get on to it when work slows down as contract with BT isn’t up until November . Trouble is my missus is going to go and buy a new tv to connect it to the internet aswell.

 

[bobk]

Thanks for the info PS , that coverage link is the one I used. Looks good just a bit expensive. Will get on to it when work slows down as contract with BT isn’t up until November . Trouble is my missus is going to go and buy a new tv to connect it to the internet aswell.

You need unlimited data , smart tv's eat data .

 

[upnortheast]

You need unlimited data ,

Don`t think that exists on mobile broadband

 

[Big Blue Yonder]

when I moved to EE 4GEE broadband EE said I could have the router for 2 weeks and if I was not happy just to return it and they would cancel the contract.( distance selling rules) they also have new router than the haewai which are much more reliable and free, you can also get a netgear one as well. While their website advertised 100mb for £55 per month when they added on discounts I got it down to £40 per month we went from 0.25mb with BT to 45 mb with EE we then installed a directional aerial ( we could see the mast about 4 miles away, also cheaper to buy) when now get 70mb and like other posts just ran an ethernet cable to other parts of the house, instead of the smart tv we just plug an old laptop in so missus can watch her boxsets and then unplug it meaning we don't eat up the data, we have not used all of our our data in a month yet but run close when kids are home from uni also don't watch in hd that really does eat data. On the offcom website there is a map of all mobile phone masts in the uk if you scroll into your area you can see the local masts and if you click the mouse over the mast it will tell you which companies operate off that mast.

ps I did not have a phone with ee and they still gave me the discounts

 

[milkloss]

We’ve had fun trying to get fttc sorted here. Started with we could have it which didn’t work so an engineer reckoned he could bodge us onto a closer cabinet......which didn’t work. Turns out our cable goes past the cab but they can’t acces it across the road. Soooo, they bodge us all the way back to the main exchange and we have half the speed we started with!

Got a ‘friendly’ that is hopefully going to sort it out but it’s going to cost a few drinks from what I can gather.

Just installed a few ubiquiti AP points which create a WiFi mesh round the house. My chap suggested they would make the best of the connection and I was a little sceptical but I’ve got to give him points as it’s made a massive difference to speed. My ramshackle collection of WiFi points must have been choking the connection in the house quite a bit.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

when I moved to EE 4GEE broadband EE said I could have the router for 2 weeks and if I was not happy just to return it and they would cancel the contract.( distance selling rules) they also have new router than the haewai which are much more reliable and free, you can also get a netgear one as well. While their website advertised 100mb for £55 per month when they added on discounts I got it down to £40 per month we went from 0.25mb with BT to 45 mb with EE we then installed a directional aerial ( we could see the mast about 4 miles away, also cheaper to buy) when now get 70mb and like other posts just ran an ethernet cable to other parts of the house, instead of the smart tv we just plug an old laptop in so missus can watch her boxsets and then unplug it meaning we don't eat up the data, we have not used all of our our data in a month yet but run close when kids are home from uni also don't watch in hd that really does eat data. On the offcom website there is a map of all mobile phone masts in the uk if you scroll into your area you can see the local masts and if you click the mouse over the mast it will tell you which companies operate off that mast.

ps I did not have a phone with ee and they still gave me the discounts

Well done for beating them back to a decent discount level.

Glad the performance is good

 

[airband1]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your slow connectivity!

If you are looking for a more permanent solution to your connectivity issues, it may be worth looking into a wireless solution like Airband.

We're specialists in rural broadband, bringing high-speed wireless broadband and networks to homes and businesses, and can work to help you resolve your broadband frustrations using a quick, unobtrusive and inexpensive solution.

Feel free to call me at Airband HQ

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

While their website advertised 100mb for £55 per month when they added on discounts I got it down to £40 per month

After I replied to your post, I found out that EE have just reduced all their 4G mobile broadband tariffs across the board by £10 a month, as posted in the EE 4G contracts thread.

 

[airband1]

After I replied to your post, I found out that EE have just reduced all their 4G mobile broadband tariffs across the board by £10 a month, as posted in the EE 4G contracts thread.

200GB allowance for £60 ?

We can provide Unlimited usage for £60. food for thought

 

[airband1]

Tried airband don't cover our area unfortunately

Inbox me, we have new masts going up every month - I can check coverage.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

200GB allowance for £60 ?

We can provide Unlimited usage for £60. food for thought

Competition is a sweet thing.

What are your typical max, average and minimum uplink and downlink data rates and speeds? Ping times too?

 

[tommyurray]

Thanks for the replies. Not sure about the mobile thing due to the cost. Tried airband but don’t cover our area, not sure they cover many areas. There must be something!

Virgin were doing 100gb for £20 yesterday but deal has ended now,ditch the landline and go mobile.we are on a radio link and it is good. Tried satalite but it was crap great speeds but when you changed page it was slower than my old Bt copper
Other option may be to create a radio link (line of sight) to a friend who has fibre and pay their bill to piggyback on their broadband

 

[airband1]

a rates and speeds? Ping tim

Max is around 100 Meg up 100 meg down, average is around 30mb, ping times range between 15 and 25 ms.

Hope this helps.