Broadband Internet & ISP Recommendations?

From which I think an EE 4G router might be the way forwards, I'm surprised at how very shit Three is.

Ok, I had forgotten to turn the VPN off on my Mac, so done again and using Internet Speed Test this time to get upload:

Three 0.88 down, 0.56 up
EE 11.7 down, 3.26 up
Zen 14.1 down, 0.1 up

Which I think shows a clear winner in EE as I do a lot of Zoom/Teams for work for which upload is key.

It's just a bit of a shame that the EE website is so very, very bad - makes buying anything difficult in the extreme.

If you do go with EE 4G and get their Huawei hub ping me a PM and I'll give you an external antenna for it. Will squeeze out a few more Mbps of sync speed if you are in a less than perfect signal area.

For this thing?

If so that would be tres bon - merci.

Thats the one. It has two external antenna ports behind blanking plates but they don't mention it in the specs.

Really improves SNR if you're in a less than 100% signal area.

In which case then I'd be delighted, thanks.

I'm tempted to buy the unit outright and pay monthly simply to avoid the 18 month commitment, is this silly?

I don't think so. That's what we did. The resell value of the modem is pretty good too.

You guys should have a chat with hyperoptic. They might be happy to cable your building for free.

I've got TP-Link MR600 4G+ SIM-free router for sale, PM if interested.

It was working beautifully with 15-25% 4G coverage we had last year, and easily outperformed any of our mobile devices.

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/3g-4g-router/archer-mr600/v1/

That would require dealing with the managing agent and I’d rather eat glass.

We also bought ours, means we are no longer tied to a contract and as/when new lower price unlimited data plans are available we can jump between deals.

As Stonehedge said the resell value of routers is good and the purchase price isn't that high.

I took the plan in the end as the 30 day option was capped at 500 gig/month. Who knows if we’ll ever go past that- but faster speeds might do.

Thanks but I opted for the EE one.

Worth wandering around your flat testing the speed in various places. I found massive variations in my place from about 5Mbps up to 30Mbps+ just depending on which room it was in.

Usually 500GB per month is ample for us but a few accidental 4k streams soon eats it up.

The football was chewing up nearly 50Mbps on BT Sport last week!

Message me your address and I'll put an antenna in the post. Don't fancy riding today.

Unit arrived, first test - the excitement!

Internet speed test

7.87
Mbps download
2.71
Mbps upload

Hmm, lets try somewhere else in the flat.

Moved it two feet to the left, two feet up:

12.6
Mbps download
6.51
Mbps upload
Latency: 2 ms
Server: London

The antenna should give you a bit of a boost I think. Look forward to seeing if it does.

Yes, that will be very interesting.

Moved it to the other side of the room:

29.6
Mbps download
1.95
Mbps upload
Latency: 9 ms
Server: London

Seem to have picked up a whole lot of download but at the expense of upload.

Any recommendations for a MESH network system beyond those listed in the following article?

https://uk.pcmag.com/wireless-networking/87178/the-best-wi-fi-mesh-network-systems

Place is relatively small I'm in although router is at one end of the house with kitchen/walls in between.

Starlink is now taking pre-orders for a late 2021 rollout in the UK.

Low latency, decent connection, probably better than any copper DSL connection you may have.

If you cannot get fibre or cable, this seems like an option. May actually purchase for my partner in Forest Hill.

I was just watching a video on it yesterday - 130 down, 25 up with a 20ms ping.

Seems nuts considering it's literally internet from space.

Results like that, this early in the roll out, makes me think it could be a genuine contender when the full network launches.

130 down, 25 up with a 20ms ping.

That ping is low AF. Only double what i get on 4G and the mast is on our roof!

Results like that, this early in the roll out, makes me think it could be a genuine contender when the full network launches

Yup.

But only to a point.

In the most populated parts of the world, the contention will be such that few people consistently achieve those speeds. In Europe that basically means UK, France, Germany will all share contention.

The LEO means that even in a valley in the Peak District you are sharing a satellite with people with crap DSL in London.

However... move far enough away in longitude or latitude and the contention will go down as the population thins out and those speeds will be all yours. i.e. Scotland, Iceland, Norway, etc.

There's definitely a sweet spot period for early adopters though... the first few years will have lower uptake and so lower contention.

Yeah - I have 360Mb fibre so no real need either. I guess most people in urban areas will be the same.

My parents plan in the middle of nowhere in France however - they only got mobile signal in June for the first time. Could be a genuine game changer for them.