Does anyone have an...
 

  You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more

[Closed] Does anyone have any experience of EE 4g home broadband?

16 Posts
10 Users
0 Reactions
402 Views
Posts: 4331
Full Member
Topic starter
 

I'm tired of our intermittent and/or slow home broadband.

EE 4g home broadband looks like it may let us have something more useable until Openreach sort out fibre to hone for us (several years away).

We're medium users of the internet so would get away with either the 30 or 50gb limit.

Any STWers use this? Any feedback?

[url= http://shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/4g-home-broadband/details ]EE 4g home broadband[/url]

Thanks


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 5:46 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Three. I have used a 3G dongle as home wifi from time to time. Ok for normal web browsing, email. Not for streaming tv. We pay £15 a month for that but had the contract ages.

As an aside even the 3G dongle was faster than terrible BT broadband which frequently ran at less than 1Mps. If you have the signal strength then 4G is pretty quick.


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 6:48 pm
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Parents used my EE MiFi box when their internet went down. 90mb and about 50mb upload ..... then again the mast is only at the top of the field about a mile away. Trying to persuade him to ditch his 0.7mb talktalk but all i get is, "the talktalk only cost me £5 a month" ..... yes and there is a reason for that!

If i move back out of a Virgin area then would defo use EE. JUst have to be careful on the streaming as it can soon it it up!


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 6:57 pm
Posts: 1967
Free Member
 

We've got EE and as said its good enough, it's the only signal we can get in our basement flat. Having said that my GF has rattled through 30gb watching crappy soap operas


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 7:03 pm
Posts: 4331
Full Member
Topic starter
 

Hmm, we occasionally watch a bit of Netflix, once or twice a week. I think that's 0.7mb per hour so 30gb should give us over 30 hours a month.

Currently with Sky, regular broadband was 0.9mb at best (Netflix just about runs with no buffering). Faster broadband became available so we signed up. It drops for days on end but runs at about 3mb when it's working.

I'm sick of having to ring Sky so may take the gamble with EE 4g broadband. I'll probably start with the 30gb and go on to the 50gb if necessary.

Looking at the EE coverage map we should 4g.

I'm on Virgin mobile (EE masts) at the moment and get H+ whilst at home.

We're not bothered about blistering quick downloads, 5mb plus and reliable connection is all we would like.


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 7:50 pm
Posts: 8849
Free Member
 

I'm on EE, just changed from Vodafone as I got an extra 6gb for only £2 more. I'm monthly pay as you go as only in this house for a few months, so not getting the sort of deals available to longer term users. Firstly I've got a tp- link m7350 which I'm happy with good reach round the house. So with Vodafone I was getting 15 mb/s download and upload speeds, EE I'm getting 21 mb/s speeds, so they are faster as they claim, but not so you'd notice in my case. But yes it's all fine. I was getting 10GB a month with Vodafone which was barely enough for basic surfing, eBay, shopping, news etc certainly no youtube or any video. EE 16gb per month should be a bit better, but I'll still need to be careful with any sort of streaming. Basically it all works like normal broadband but with the usage limits


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 8:17 pm
Posts: 8849
Free Member
 

Btw look into buying an untied box like my m7350 and writing it off over the period, and look at how much better the deals for data only sim cards are. Also if the service turns out to be really bad you can easily cancel and find another provider and simply just replace the sim.
PS I didn't do the comparison, just bought the box as made sense with only being on monthly deals.


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 8:30 pm
Posts: 1736
Free Member
 

We've got EE normal broadband - shower of poo of a company. Customer service is a joke - can't wait for contract to end so we can move. Although most service providers of broadband seem to be similarly poor!!


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 8:32 pm
Posts: 8849
Free Member
 

I meant to say look at buying a separate mifi box elsewhere and their seperate sim card only deals (as opposed to their sim and mifi box included deals). Hope that makes sense.


 
Posted : 19/09/2016 8:50 pm
Posts: 4331
Full Member
Topic starter
 

Some food for thought, cheers.

I'll look into buying a MiFi box and see what SIM deals are out there.


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 3:55 am
Posts: 17
Free Member
 

There are several things to consider, if you have 4g on a phone do a speed test to see what the actual tower will deliver. Repeat at a few points of the day - like when you want to use netflix. The speed between you and the tower is irrelevant as that is just the size of the pipe, if there are a lot of users or a poor connection to a backbone service from the tower speeds will be poor.
I get a noticable change in speed going from home to a bigger city where the number of users increases, there are also spots where a solid 4g signal delivers 3g performance.

Some netflix stuff which is quite good about setting rates
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/43701
Looks like things like iplayer just try to do the best your connection will take
http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/tv/mobile_3G_costs

The Sim free box looks good as you can both mix and match offers and stronger providers.


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 4:20 am
Posts: 1967
Free Member
 

As above I've got tp link router and just bought the sim only data plans, what about three they've been great up until my current location plus they do better deals.


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 5:32 am
 cp
Posts: 8928
Full Member
 

In probably about to go to ee mobile broadband using an old 4g phone as a hotspot. Testing in Sheffield at home suggests it's going to piss all over our virgin cable service.


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 5:41 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Yep. Just recently bought an unlocked ZTE MF910 and went for an EE monthly sim. I don't like to be tied in so its great I can cancel after a month. I didn't know what it would be like and expected the worse.

Im actually really rather impressed. Im hoping the usage screen on the front might also help us think about our usage at home and might reduce some of the "facebooking" that we have started using too much....


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 7:00 am
Posts: 8849
Free Member
 

This article in PcAdvisor gives a fair bit of info
[url= http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/buying-advice/internet/best-mifi-2016-uk-best-mobile-wi-fi-buying-guide-3637018/ ]http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/buying-advice/internet/best-mifi-2016-uk-best-mobile-wi-fi-buying-guide-3637018/[/url]


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 9:49 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

dashed - Member
We've got EE normal broadband - shower of poo of a company. Customer service is a joke - can't wait for contract to end so we can move. Although most service providers of broadband seem to be similarly poor!!

Going to contradict you completely on that one.
The best customer service I've had of any provider regardless of what they are supplying is with EE.
UK call centres, problem solved every time, if not email, texts and calls back are all honoured, etc.


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 10:30 am
Posts: 4331
Full Member
Topic starter
 

EE seem to be the only network that provide 4g to my address.

I might get a PAYG EE sim and see what kind of speed we're likely to get.

Thanks for the feedback guys


 
Posted : 20/09/2016 12:15 pm

6 DAYS LEFT
We are currently at 95% of our target!