Rural peeps on bad broadband - a solution?

[ycbm]

I've put this in tack room deliberately to get it out to as many people as possible.

For all of us on dreadful broadband speeds in rural locations, help may be at hand. My wonderful OH has just obtained a new and super effective 4G router using EE which is delivering speeds we thought we could only dream of. I've just uploaded nearly a minute of video to youtube in a fraction of a second.

So if you have sludge for a broadband service, check your 4G coverage. He tells me you need a signal of at least 10 megabits, and if you have that and one of these multidirectional routers, you're away.

We have cancelled our satellite contract (which was slower than this by far) and we only have BT as a backup now.

Happy surfing everyone!

 

[blitznbobs]

Yes we did this but a warning for those with kids ... don’t let them play online games on EE my son ate 30gigs of data in less than 30 minutes... so it was no good for us. We eventually got fibre to the premesis but the EE is a good stop gap

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I've put this in tack room deliberately to get it out to as many people as possible.

For all of us on dreadful broadband speeds in rural locations, help may be at hand. My wonderful OH has just obtained a new and super effective 4G router using EE which is delivering speeds we thought we could only dream of. I've just uploaded nearly a minute of video to youtube in a fraction of a second.

So if you have sludge for a broadband service, check your 4G coverage. He tells me you need a signal of at least 10 megabits, and if you have that and one of these multidirectional routers, you're away.

We have cancelled our satellite contract (which was slower than this by far) and we only have BT as a backup now.

Happy surfing everyone!

That is what we do, except that we don't have BT at all, they were absolutely hopeless when we had a landline. It didn't matter who we paid for our landline, BT had to maintain the infrasrtucture and they weren't very efficient at doing so. We are in a very exposed location, the cables are overhead, so that is a bit of a recipe for disaster and we were often without connection for a week at a time.
We don't bother with Netflix etc but we can run several cameras as well as all the computer connection that we could ever want, (most of the time).
.
ETA, having read bnb's post - there is no way we will ever get cable in any form here, so we just have to use it sensibly

 

[canteron]

Oh I am envious - the only mobile we can get here is Vodapone and even with a booster it’s very wonky. Satellite was weather dependent and BT is also weather dependent -(our rather dodgy above ground line has a mile of trees to contend with) Only hope is to vote Jeremy and hope he can deliver on his broadband promise 🥴 (we are in true blue country so I cant see him caring though!)

 

[conniegirl]

We’ve used it for years as our only alternative is KCom which is inefficient, slow and very expensive.
we get 65gig for £25 a month and have only once hit the limit (when i was off work sick after my ankle operation and started dowloading lots of box sets)

 

[SatansLittleHelper]

I e got EE for everything, love them..!!!

 

[paddy555]

I am envious but no mobile signal whatsoever and no possibility of any masts being allowed.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

I have line of sight rural broadband from Sugarnet. No BT and limited mobile signal unless you run around the garden like a demented banshee. It's very reliable, BIL WFH, the kids game, download movies and sister and I surf. Phones in the house are on a VOIP and we pay £20 each a month. Occasionally drops out but not often and they let you know straight away it's being fixed.

 

[southerncomfort]

We've been using the EE router for the last 18 mths. It's been very good, and the couple of times where their has been a fault and we've had no service, they gave us compensation.

We were finally connected to super fast fibre last month...hallelujah!!

 

[paddy555]

I have line of sight rural broadband from Sugarnet. No BT and limited mobile signal unless you run around the garden like a demented banshee. It's very reliable, BIL WFH, the kids game, download movies and sister and I surf. Phones in the house are on a VOIP and we pay £20 each a month. Occasionally drops out but not often and they let you know straight away it's being fixed.

we were offered that 6 years ago, we could also have had an excellent mobile signal from a mast in direct line to our kitchen window. Sadly due to NIMBY's we can't

 

[CMcC]

ycbm I thought you were going to advise me to vote Labour 😂😂😂

 

[Violet]

I've put this in tack room deliberately to get it out to as many people as possible.

For all of us on dreadful broadband speeds in rural locations, help may be at hand. My wonderful OH has just obtained a new and super effective 4G router using EE which is delivering speeds we thought we could only dream of. I've just uploaded nearly a minute of video to youtube in a fraction of a second.

So if you have sludge for a broadband service, check your 4G coverage. He tells me you need a signal of at least 10 megabits, and if you have that and one of these multidirectional routers, you're away.

We have cancelled our satellite contract (which was slower than this by far) and we only have BT as a backup now.

Happy surfing everyone!

BT could only deliver 0.4 Mbps on a good day and sometimes nothing at all. We did have satellite for 5 years got up to 18 Mbps but then Europasat was sold to BigBlu and everything went downhill from there except the cost which went uphill.
We decided totry 4G and even though none of the mobiles cover our area according to online checker we have manged to get EE 4G with speeds up to 47 Mbps. Monthly allowance is 25 times higher than satellite too for the same price.
I did try it out first with hotspoting my mobile to my laptop to see if it would work and had speeds around the 38 Mbps.
We can now use catchup etc easily and quick.

 

[OlderNotWiser]

Thanks for this! We have BT and have to download a film from Sky the day before we want to watch it as it takes so long! I’ll definitely be looking into this!

 

[PapaverFollis]

We've got an EE thingy too. BT were woeful up here and can't see it getting better anytime soon!

 

[TotalMadgeness]

I've put this in tack room deliberately to get it out to as many people as possible.

For all of us on dreadful broadband speeds in rural locations, help may be at hand. My wonderful OH has just obtained a new and super effective 4G router using EE which is delivering speeds we thought we could only dream of. I've just uploaded nearly a minute of video to youtube in a fraction of a second.

So if you have sludge for a broadband service, check your 4G coverage. He tells me you need a signal of at least 10 megabits, and if you have that and one of these multidirectional routers, you're away.

We have cancelled our satellite contract (which was slower than this by far) and we only have BT as a backup now.

Happy surfing everyone!

Yep we've just got rid of our satellite broadband for an EE router. I use BT homespots to get it around the house and over to the stables... PERFECT!

 

[Bojingles]

Vote Labour, obvs.

 

[ycbm]

For anyone who has tested before and not had a strong enough signal, OH is waxing lyrical over a new kind of router with multiple aerials, which picks up the 4G wave from multiple directions at the same time and radically increases the effectiveness. So could be worth a recheck.

We are testing streaming to the TV later - whoop whoop!


Or vote Labour and wait until 2030 🤣

.

 

[EventingMum]

Our 4G signal comes and goes so not sure if it would work for us. Our broadband is pitiful, we can get superfast but are only guaranteed an extra 0.5mb over our current under 2mb as we have so much cable between our house and the cabinet so it doesn't seem worth it. Considering we are in the central belt of Scotland I would have expected better, a friend is currently visiting from North Uist and is shocked how slow our internet is compared with hers.

 

[pixie]

We are in a dip, so mobile coverage is a bit sketchy!
We too have line of sight broadband, which had to be bounced off one of our higher up barns to get to the house

 

[Violet]

You may also qualify for a free external antenna. Scheme finishes on the 29 November 2019.
https://basicbroadband.culture.gov.uk/
We had to buy the router first from EE and then had to ask for the antenna. EE sorted the voucher out and once I was approved it was supplied and installed free of charge.
It is just a small box which sits on the wall outside of our house, a lot smaller than the now obsolete satellite dish which I have taken down and have to dispose off.

 

[Violet]

Our 4G signal comes and goes so not sure if it would work for us. Our broadband is pitiful, we can get superfast but are only guaranteed an extra 0.5mb over our current under 2mb as we have so much cable between our house and the cabinet so it doesn't seem worth it. Considering we are in the central belt of Scotland I would have expected better, a friend is currently visiting from North Uist and is shocked how slow our internet is compared with hers.

My signal was dodgy in some parts of the house. I had good signal 2-3 bars in one bedroom corner. The external antenna picks up the signal better so now we have good signal in all our house (WiFi calling). Might be worthwhile getting the signal checked outside your house. If you are quick you should be able to get the free voucher too with your appaling speeds.

 

[Hack4fun]

How do you know if the 4G signal is good enough for this option?

 

[Nudibranch]

Despite having no 3G coverage, so no mobile phone reception, we have 4G and so use Vodafone mobile broadband. Landline gave us <0.3mb, so this has transformed our lives. We can actually download stuff! Not get cut off every 2 minutes! And having iplayer, Now TV...it's a never ending novelty.
On top of that we have now been joined up to a community fibre not-for-profit, and in 2 years will have unlimited 1000mb fibre to the door, for £30 a month. Our local wind farm are paying everyone's share so there's no set up cost. Even better!

You can usually test run a box to see if you have coverage. I didn't believe it would work until my neighbours lent me theirs. 15mb, reliable broadband. Amazing.

 

[ycbm]

How do you know if the 4G signal is good enough for this option?

There are coverage maps on providers websites. Then you can test what you are actually able to get with a mobile phone connected to the 4g service and running an app which OH tells me is called Speedtest.net

As people above have said, the signal is very patchy and you need to walk around the house and possibly the garden to find where to place the router. Ours is in the apex of the loft. Once you've got the signal into the router, you should get good coverage throughout a normal house.

Hope that helps.