Internet sense check
Discussion
Ok, just checking I’ve covered all options.
We’re moving in a couple of months. I work from home 2-3 days a week so need a reliable, stable connection. We regularly watch 4k streamed content. I occasionally game. The house will have a few home automation and green features which will require continuous connectivity.
Our new place is a bit in the sticks, normal broadband is relatively slow at about 10 Mbps, which isn’t going to cut it for potential simultaneous 4K streaming, WFH, Spotify, YouTube etc. The Openreach infrastructure isn’t going to be improved anytime soon, nor is it likely there will be a viable local solution or a fibre provider.
As far as I can see the options are mobile broadband (4g max) or Starlink. Am I missing anything?
We’re moving in a couple of months. I work from home 2-3 days a week so need a reliable, stable connection. We regularly watch 4k streamed content. I occasionally game. The house will have a few home automation and green features which will require continuous connectivity.
Our new place is a bit in the sticks, normal broadband is relatively slow at about 10 Mbps, which isn’t going to cut it for potential simultaneous 4K streaming, WFH, Spotify, YouTube etc. The Openreach infrastructure isn’t going to be improved anytime soon, nor is it likely there will be a viable local solution or a fibre provider.
As far as I can see the options are mobile broadband (4g max) or Starlink. Am I missing anything?
Where abouts are you moving to as round here Airband https://www.airband.co.uk/ tend to provide service to more remote spots, other places may have different options.
And another question often rural areas have poor 4g coverage, here we only get 4g via EE and then its a low signal, we are only 5 miles from the nearest town.
And another question often rural areas have poor 4g coverage, here we only get 4g via EE and then its a low signal, we are only 5 miles from the nearest town.
I used to have fixed wireless, 2 x 4G on separate networks and Starlink
Fixed wireless was probably the most stable, certainly the lowest most consistency latency, but thats only an option if there’s an operator in your area and you’re within reach of a mast (line of sight normally needed).
Starlink offered the greatest bandwidth by far and seemed like a game changer but did drop out fairly frequently due to the nature of the satellites passing I suppose. It may well have improved since then (2021)
4G probably the best overall value and easiest to setup but in a less than optimal signal situation do explore use of properly mounted external antenna/radio.
Money no object, you might be able to commission a leased line install, but excess construction charges are likely to be immense.
Fixed wireless was probably the most stable, certainly the lowest most consistency latency, but thats only an option if there’s an operator in your area and you’re within reach of a mast (line of sight normally needed).
Starlink offered the greatest bandwidth by far and seemed like a game changer but did drop out fairly frequently due to the nature of the satellites passing I suppose. It may well have improved since then (2021)
4G probably the best overall value and easiest to setup but in a less than optimal signal situation do explore use of properly mounted external antenna/radio.
Money no object, you might be able to commission a leased line install, but excess construction charges are likely to be immense.
Thanks for the comments. I've done a bit of digging and there's nothing local such as airband.
What puts me off 4g is that, after checking Cellmapper and Signalchecker, as well as physically going to the property, mobile appears marginal. There's no EE indoors or outdoors and although you can (just about) get a signal on the other networks, it's certainly not fast, which stands to reason as it's not in direct line of sight of any towers, which are also all a good distance away). Unfortunately the property is in the lee of a hill on one side and undulating countryside on the others. I appreciate an external aerial may improve that, but will it be enough is the question?
Interesting comments re Starlink, I hadn't considered dropouts. Perhaps the best, if not cheapest, option will be a combination, Starlink for bandwidth intensive activities and mobile/wired broadband when reliability is needed.
What puts me off 4g is that, after checking Cellmapper and Signalchecker, as well as physically going to the property, mobile appears marginal. There's no EE indoors or outdoors and although you can (just about) get a signal on the other networks, it's certainly not fast, which stands to reason as it's not in direct line of sight of any towers, which are also all a good distance away). Unfortunately the property is in the lee of a hill on one side and undulating countryside on the others. I appreciate an external aerial may improve that, but will it be enough is the question?
Interesting comments re Starlink, I hadn't considered dropouts. Perhaps the best, if not cheapest, option will be a combination, Starlink for bandwidth intensive activities and mobile/wired broadband when reliability is needed.
Greedydog said:
Ok, just checking I’ve covered all options.
We’re moving in a couple of months. I work from home 2-3 days a week so need a reliable, stable connection. We regularly watch 4k streamed content. I occasionally game. The house will have a few home automation and green features which will require continuous connectivity.
Our new place is a bit in the sticks, normal broadband is relatively slow at about 10 Mbps, which isn’t going to cut it for potential simultaneous 4K streaming, WFH, Spotify, YouTube etc. The Openreach infrastructure isn’t going to be improved anytime soon, nor is it likely there will be a viable local solution or a fibre provider.
As far as I can see the options are mobile broadband (4g max) or Starlink. Am I missing anything?
You're maybe missing that life goes on, even at much lower bitrates.We’re moving in a couple of months. I work from home 2-3 days a week so need a reliable, stable connection. We regularly watch 4k streamed content. I occasionally game. The house will have a few home automation and green features which will require continuous connectivity.
Our new place is a bit in the sticks, normal broadband is relatively slow at about 10 Mbps, which isn’t going to cut it for potential simultaneous 4K streaming, WFH, Spotify, YouTube etc. The Openreach infrastructure isn’t going to be improved anytime soon, nor is it likely there will be a viable local solution or a fibre provider.
As far as I can see the options are mobile broadband (4g max) or Starlink. Am I missing anything?
Most people don't need a great bit rate to WFH, unless they are doing live video editing or something.
Spotify and youtube are not hugely demanding.
The plot of the film is the same in PAL as it is in 4K.
Around here lots of people are getting by with bit rates in the 10M league.
Many of them don't see huge value in upgrading.
Solid is more important than fast.
Better Internet Dashboard
https://bidb.uk/
This website is great for finding what broadband services are available in an area.
It also shows the mobile phone coverage in good detail and since we moved house recently I have found it to be very accurate.
https://bidb.uk/
This website is great for finding what broadband services are available in an area.
It also shows the mobile phone coverage in good detail and since we moved house recently I have found it to be very accurate.
OutInTheShed said:
You're maybe missing that life goes on, even at much lower bitrates.
Most people don't need a great bit rate to WFH, unless they are doing live video editing or something.
Spotify and youtube are not hugely demanding.
I'd agree with this. We moved about 18 months ago , and went from 50Mb FTTC to 1MB ADSL which was no fun, particularly as I WFH full time.Most people don't need a great bit rate to WFH, unless they are doing live video editing or something.
Spotify and youtube are not hugely demanding.
We put a TP-Link MR6400 upstairs and tried a few 'free' sim cards. ASDA Mobile (Vodafone MVNO, £30/month unlimited) worked best, gave us a pretty robust 10-15mb 4G link, but quite heavily contended in evening peak hours..
Zoom/Teams calls, iPlayer, Amazon prime, Netflix all worked just fine on this. Occasional buffering issues, but generally solid. (VOIP calls were a bit rubbish, admittedly, but then so were regular mobile calls)
We've got gigaclear now: 600mbs, but unless you're downloading huge files it's really difficult to see any difference day to day - except it's a bit cheaper...
I have virgin gigabit that I 'needed' because of all the download reasons listed above, even though knowing full well as an ex telecoms/Unified Comms specialist that video only takes a super small bit of bandwidth in practice.
The cable from the pavement to the house was degraded due to rodents, and I hadn't really noticed we'd been running at about 100Mbit of a couple of weeks, I only found out when I idly looked at my speediest reports on the router one evening.
Where gigabit does shine is doing all the console, OS and er, alternate video provider updates. Even the 'Microsoft Teams is just updating, we won't be a moment' when you're already 5 mins late for your next virtual meeting.
The cable from the pavement to the house was degraded due to rodents, and I hadn't really noticed we'd been running at about 100Mbit of a couple of weeks, I only found out when I idly looked at my speediest reports on the router one evening.
Where gigabit does shine is doing all the console, OS and er, alternate video provider updates. Even the 'Microsoft Teams is just updating, we won't be a moment' when you're already 5 mins late for your next virtual meeting.
The encoding used by the streaming services is really quite spectacular (and truthfully the only way it could realistically work on the scale it does).
You'd be astonished how little throughput a high definition film with surround sound actually needs. I usually see about 2-3Mbps from Netflix, that's all.
Personally, before trying to solve the problem, I'd check it actually is a problem...
Big downloads like game updates would be an overnight job, I guess, but otherwise you might find 10Mbps is actually sufficient...
You'd be astonished how little throughput a high definition film with surround sound actually needs. I usually see about 2-3Mbps from Netflix, that's all.
Personally, before trying to solve the problem, I'd check it actually is a problem...
Big downloads like game updates would be an overnight job, I guess, but otherwise you might find 10Mbps is actually sufficient...
Greedydog said:
What puts me off 4g is that, after checking Cellmapper and Signalchecker, as well as physically going to the property, mobile appears marginal. There's no EE indoors or outdoors and although you can (just about) get a signal on the other networks, it's certainly not fast, which stands to reason as it's not in direct line of sight of any towers, which are also all a good distance away). Unfortunately the property is in the lee of a hill on one side and undulating countryside on the others. I appreciate an external aerial may improve that, but will it be enough is the question?
Interesting comments re Starlink, I hadn't considered dropouts. Perhaps the best, if not cheapest, option will be a combination, Starlink for bandwidth intensive activities and mobile/wired broadband when reliability is needed.
I was in a very similar situation a couple of years ago - a property that had zero 4G signal from any of the providers. However, a 4G router with an external antenna (a small thing) managed to sniff out a couple of bars from EE and I had internet speeds of around 35Mbps. Not earth-shattering, but good enough.Interesting comments re Starlink, I hadn't considered dropouts. Perhaps the best, if not cheapest, option will be a combination, Starlink for bandwidth intensive activities and mobile/wired broadband when reliability is needed.
I guess you could buy a 4G router from Amazon, try it out (with your phone's SIM) and return if it doesn't work? If you have other SIM's you can borrow, on other networks, this would help too.
The other thing I might mention is that there seems to be a bit of a grey area (or there was a couple of years ago) between a 'Data SIM' and a regular phone SIM. I ultimately went with a regular phone SIM with unlimited data as 'Data SIM's' were more expensive and had restrictions of sorts.
Most points seem to be covered but it’s worth noting that starlink offer a 30 day money back trial & have launched a significant number of satellites over the last few years, they also offer a subscription model now.
Re 4G as other have said a external antenna can make a significant difference especially if it’s directional assuming you can get the correct bearing for the cell tower.
It’s also worth checking on the openreach wholesale service checker as it will indicate if fttp-on demand is a option, fibre installs of this type of run into the £000’s but if the need for higher throughput & the funds are there it can be a option. Though it would take months to provision so you’ll need one of the above in the meantime.
Re 4G as other have said a external antenna can make a significant difference especially if it’s directional assuming you can get the correct bearing for the cell tower.
It’s also worth checking on the openreach wholesale service checker as it will indicate if fttp-on demand is a option, fibre installs of this type of run into the £000’s but if the need for higher throughput & the funds are there it can be a option. Though it would take months to provision so you’ll need one of the above in the meantime.
Greedydog said:
North east Fife.
You might find there's a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) in your area, who can provide a solution.A friend of mine covers the area around Marykirk, so whilst you're probably outside his area, he'll probably know who you can contact. Give him a call and have a chat:
https://www.marykirk.com
HTH
M
camel_landy said:
Greedydog said:
North east Fife.
You might find there's a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) in your area, who can provide a solution.A friend of mine covers the area around Marykirk, so whilst you're probably outside his area, he'll probably know who you can contact. Give him a call and have a chat:
https://www.marykirk.com
HTH
M
https://www.ukwispa.org/members-map
HTH
M
camel_landy said:
That coverage map looks woefully optimistic. Many of the claimed "providers" don't even exist, AFAICT.silentbrown said:
camel_landy said:
That coverage map looks woefully optimistic. Many of the claimed "providers" don't even exist, AFAICT.M
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