4G/5G home broadband

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I was just wondering if anyone has experience with either Three or EE:s 4G home broadband. We can't get fibre in our area and this looks like a good alternative especially as Three are rolling out, 5G this month

http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Devices/Huawei/HomeFi?memory=0&colour=Black

[GC91]

I had EE's 4G home broadband and it was great but have switched to Three's HomeFi, £22 a month for unlimited is unbeatable, no other network comes close and EE does not currently offer an unlimited plan.  Service for me is absolutely fantastic and leaves my wired broadband options where I live in the dust.  But just as with Fibre it is a postcode lottery and so the answer to if it would be any good for you is "it depends".   I would suggest buying a Three Pay As You Go Sim (if you don’t already have a Three Sim) and put it in your phone and do some speed tests, you will get at least the same if not better speeds from the HomeFi router.  You need to try it in different parts of the house to see if and where you get decent speeds, and don’t forget to try it outside as well because you can add an external Antenna to improve signal strength/quality.  The other thing to take into account is how densely populated your area is as I have seen some people complaining about congestion causing their speeds to slow dramatically at peak times.  I had the following experience, I tested a Three Sim in my phone and I got 40mbps download speeds so I decided to go ahead with it.  When the supplied router arrived I tried it out in various locations and found I could get 60mbps.  This was excellent and way better than the 2mbps I was getting with wired broadband (I have now got rid of the landline all together) but after doing a bit of reading realised I could improve this and once I go that itch I had to scratch it.  So I purchased and installed an External Antenna and a top of the range 4G router rather the cheap commodity version Three send you.  Now I get up to 120mbps down and 40mbps up.  Of course as I said this is all location dependent, I live in a sparsely populated semi-rural area with direct line of sight to the Three Cell tower so for me it is perfect,  I was in despair with the quality of the Broadband service I could get but going to 4G has been truly transformative and I now feel like I am living in the 21^st century instead of the 1990s.  And with 5G rolling out over the next few year there is a path to the service getting even better.

[GC91]

a

Edited August 5, 2019 by GC91
Duplicate post- delete

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Thanks for the reply and solid advice. It has swayed me to signing up as it has to be better than the 2meg we are lucky to get.