mogish
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Post by mogish on Jan 1, 2022 10:51:50 GMT
Where I live we are still on copper wire and 3 mls from the exchange resulting in 2mb/sec... no point in having a smart tv as we get buffering .totally frustrating. Working from home occasionally means tethering mobile. I looked into government Grant's last year to get satellite broadband..... still waiting on an update.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 1, 2022 11:58:33 GMT
Where I live we are still on copper wire and 3 mls from the exchange resulting in 2mb/sec... no point in having a smart tv as we get buffering .totally frustrating. Working from home occasionally means tethering mobile. I looked into government Grant's last year to get satellite broadband..... still waiting on an update. We were similar (8mbps) until Openreach suddenly out of the blue upgraded our road to FTTP last year. We now have the luxury of 100mbps, and up to 900mbps is available (although my installing engineer advised not to pay above 500mbps, since that is the limit of BT's router in his view). Before that, however, I was seriously tempted to tether everything to a 4G MIFI unit. Now that you can get unlimited data for £15 - £18 pm, at faster than 2mbps, might that appeal? I've used MIFIs for holidays in the past and found them quite satisfactory, and a bit more versatile than tying up one person's phone for tethering.
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mrdc
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Post by mrdc on Jan 1, 2022 19:05:41 GMT
My current contract runs out in three weeks time (Shell Energy) I have been content enough with them but their 'best' offer still costs more than my 'effective' amount over the last year. Experience tells me the 'best' offer usually gets better when the move is started but would have to get a lot better to match the 'effective' rate I will be getting with my chosen replacement (NOW broadband). Broadband is the only utility/service I am uncomfortable with changing it does seem to have become fairly key to my lifestyle. Having read through most of the review sites I have come to the conclusion that only the unhappy and disgruntled tend to leave reviews (I sort of knew that anyway) and the only real benefit is it highlights a few obvious weaknesses. I guess you are all on broadband, any observations? I have had a contract with Virgin for years and been able to negotiate a deal easily until last April. They didn't want to budge much at all so i decided to try tethering to my mobile (4g) for a couple of weeks before given Virgin notice. It worked fine so i increased the data a little on our mobiles and this has worked for our use since. We get about 20meg which streams iplayer well and it has been very reliable. The only problem i can think of is National savings & Investment website which seems to log me out unexpectedly because the ip address is dynamic and not static. During the notice period for Virgin they called me a couple of times with better deals, the last call was £9 a month cheaper than i had been paying and £19 cheaper than the price they offered initially on renewal.
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Jan 2, 2022 16:09:42 GMT
My current contract runs out in three weeks time (Shell Energy) I have been content enough with them but their 'best' offer still costs more than my 'effective' amount over the last year. Experience tells me the 'best' offer usually gets better when the move is started but would have to get a lot better to match the 'effective' rate I will be getting with my chosen replacement (NOW broadband). Broadband is the only utility/service I am uncomfortable with changing it does seem to have become fairly key to my lifestyle. Having read through most of the review sites I have come to the conclusion that only the unhappy and disgruntled tend to leave reviews (I sort of knew that anyway) and the only real benefit is it highlights a few obvious weaknesses. I guess you are all on broadband, any observations? I have had a contract with Virgin for years and been able to negotiate a deal easily until last April. They didn't want to budge much at all so i decided to try tethering to my mobile (4g) for a couple of weeks before given Virgin notice. It worked fine so i increased the data a little on our mobiles and this has worked for our use since. We get about 20meg which streams iplayer well and it has been very reliable. The only problem i can think of is National savings & Investment website which seems to log me out unexpectedly because the ip address is dynamic and not static. During the notice period for Virgin they called me a couple of times with better deals, the last call was £9 a month cheaper than i had been paying and £19 cheaper than the price they offered initially on renewal. Interesting not really an area I had given any thought. Did a quick read up on MIFI and looking at some of the prices would probably be only just viable currently, did look a bit like an area that is expanding. It would certainly be worth considering for somebody with very slow speeds currently. I am somewhat obliged (comes under the heading, do not pick fights you can't possibly win) to keep the landline phone as well, still a lot of people who call in on it for various reasons. All outgoing are by mobile (yet oddly the proposed new NOW broadband comes with free anytime calls).
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mrdc
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Post by mrdc on Jan 2, 2022 17:16:46 GMT
I have had a contract with Virgin for years and been able to negotiate a deal easily until last April. They didn't want to budge much at all so i decided to try tethering to my mobile (4g) for a couple of weeks before given Virgin notice. It worked fine so i increased the data a little on our mobiles and this has worked for our use since. We get about 20meg which streams iplayer well and it has been very reliable. The only problem i can think of is National savings & Investment website which seems to log me out unexpectedly because the ip address is dynamic and not static. During the notice period for Virgin they called me a couple of times with better deals, the last call was £9 a month cheaper than i had been paying and £19 cheaper than the price they offered initially on renewal. Interesting not really an area I had given any thought. Did a quick read up on MIFI and looking at some of the prices would probably be only just viable currently, did look a bit like an area that is expanding. It would certainly be worth considering for somebody with very slow speeds currently. I am somewhat obliged (comes under the heading, do not pick fights you can't possibly win) to keep the landline phone as well, still a lot of people who call in on it for various reasons. All outgoing are by mobile (yet oddly the proposed new NOW broadband comes with free anytime calls). Agreed, it would only be financially viable if you use your phone as a hotspot and do not purchase a separate router and sim card
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mogish
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Post by mogish on Jan 2, 2022 18:45:03 GMT
I also did a bit research into mifi. Would certainly give me more options rather than mobile tethering, but I did find both the cost and the fact I could use this abroad quite handy at reasonable cost. Ie on a trip to Japan a while back, we ended up paying £6 per day to use mobiles mainly to get about when out with wifi range. The other option was a similar mifi box you can rent at over £100 per week. Using a mifi owned box and Japanese( or other country) sim card might be cheaper in future.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 2, 2022 20:23:15 GMT
I also did a bit research into mifi. Would certainly give me more options rather than mobile tethering, but I did find both the cost and the fact I could use this abroad quite handy at reasonable cost. Ie on a trip to Japan a while back, we ended up paying £6 per day to use mobiles mainly to get about when out with wifi range. The other option was a similar mifi box you can rent at over £100 per week. Using a mifi owned box and Japanese( or other country) sim card might be cheaper in future. What I've bought (not rented) in the past is much less than £100 per week! This type of thing, or EE's equivalent... www.amazon.co.uk/E5576-320-Portable-Networks-Genuine-Warranty/dp/B081S5KRZ7/ref=sr_1_4Stick a cheap monthly data SIM in and you're good to go. Similar to tethering to a phone, without tying down somebody's phone. Having said that, my wife and I now find the phone tethering is cheaper than a MiFi for our sporadic usage, so we've allowed our previous MiFi's to lapse. As a substitute for slow wired broadband, though, I'd certainly research a little portable MiFi unit.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 2, 2022 20:52:02 GMT
EE specifically markets this MiFi as a replacement for slow broadband:- 40GB, £20 per month... shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/4gee-wifi-mini-2020/detailsEDIT: Sorry, link iffy... Just Google 4GEE WiFi Mini 2020 Others are available, and we found cheaper data SIMs than that, but you need to check the unit you purchase is open to other networks. Our Huawei was, but EE wasn't, as I recall.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jan 2, 2022 22:47:30 GMT
We had a MiFi a decade ago, when we were travelling around the continent for a year in a camper. It was only 3G, of course, back then. But - before EU roaming charge caps (remember those?), and when campsites mostly charged a chunk for wifi - it was great... Hit a new country, buy a cheap PAYG SIM, chuck it in, job jobbed.
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