Cancelling home broadband - is there a mobile alternative?

[Panamax]

I have a basic mobile phone contract with "3" for £9 a month and am separately paying £15 a month to Hyperoptic for home broadband. The home broadband isn't used for anything other than home wifi, which includes service for iPlayer etc on TV.

The home broadband price is about to jump from £15 a month to £25 a month.

Is there a way to switch everything to a mobile contract while still supporting decent TV picture etc at home? Can the mobile phone essentially become a wifi hotspot working off 4G and what sort of cost would I likely be looking at? Would this involve some sort of dongle or just the existing equipment?

I don't need massive, unlimited data or superfast connection for gaming etc.

[grumbledoak]

"3" do a broadband router that will do this. I imagine the others have similar.

Not sure the price would drop much. I think mine is £24 pm, but it was £12 for an introductory offer.

[Lucas Ayde]

There are quite a few 4G/5G routers out there (look on Amazon for 4G router) which could theroetically act as a full replacement for a BB router/hub, especially since you can get data-only SIM deals with 'unlimited' data for around 18 quid or so. 70 quid can get you a basic model, pay a bit more and you get dual link and more hub features.

eg: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-MR6400-Unlocked-Config...

If you are in a suitable area with decent coverage, you can actually get quite good speeds too but things like ping time/latency are typically lower than regular cabled Broadband. Not really suitable for cloud gaming but fine for regular streaming video services. They are also more susceptible to congestion at peak times when people use their mobile phones a lot ... but not necessarily the same peak times as regular broadband.

I have cable broadband in a place I rent for proximity to work (yes, I still go into the office a bit) and I'm currently paying over 50 quid a month for the broadband there (it was just over 30quid when I first got it!) so am gonna change it to 4G/5G using the above router and save a bit. Should pay for itself within a couple of months.

[Panamax]

A couple of great answers there already - thanks guys!

[nuyorican]

Why the need for a dedicated hub/router thing? Can't you just use your phone as a hotspot?

But anyway, I'd been a long term broadband customer with Virgin, all the way back to the Telewest days. About five years ago i got annoyed at them constantly putting up the price and cancelled my contract, thinking i'd get a broadband deal elsewhere. But i never did. I just use my phone for everything, my computers and TV also use my phone's hotspot.

Works fine. But with one caveat: it's all about getting the right provider. I had a Smarty unlimited SIM for a while which was dirt cheap, but I could barely get any signal at home so was pretty useless. Moved to EE and it's been great so far.

[nuyorican]

nuyorican said:

Why the need for a dedicated hub/router thing?* Can't you just use your phone as a hotspot?

But anyway, I'd been a long term broadband customer with Virgin, all the way back to the Telewest days. About five years ago i got annoyed at them constantly putting up the price and cancelled my contract, thinking i'd get a broadband deal elsewhere. But i never did. I just use my phone for everything, my computers and TV also use my phone's hotspot.

Works fine. But with one caveat: it's all about getting the right provider. I had a Smarty unlimited SIM for a while which was dirt cheap, but I could barely get any signal at home so was pretty useless. Moved to EE and it's been great so far.

• ignore this. So others can use when you're not at home i guess. I live on my own so don't have this issue.

[Lucas Ayde]

nuyorican said:

nuyorican said:

Why the need for a dedicated hub/router thing?* Can't you just use your phone as a hotspot?

But anyway, I'd been a long term broadband customer with Virgin, all the way back to the Telewest days. About five years ago i got annoyed at them constantly putting up the price and cancelled my contract, thinking i'd get a broadband deal elsewhere. But i never did. I just use my phone for everything, my computers and TV also use my phone's hotspot.

Works fine. But with one caveat: it's all about getting the right provider. I had a Smarty unlimited SIM for a while which was dirt cheap, but I could barely get any signal at home so was pretty useless. Moved to EE and it's been great so far.

• ignore this. So others can use when you're not at home i guess. I live on my own so don't have this issue.

Even with just a single device connected for a single person, phones can be pretty unreliable. I found that when using Wifi tethering, mine kept dropping internet connection. This was when there was work being done on my line and I had to use my Phone for work - it was borderline unusable despite having a decent >30mpbs download on the phone.

If you want to use it as a substitute for a regular home router than a phone can't handle very many simultaneous connections, is susceptible to varying mobile connection quality as it moves around the house, doesn't have a good WiFi range and doesn't have good WiFi performance. Plus, you might want to use wired ethernet for some devices. Better to at least get one of the more capable WiFi hotspots (some are better than others) and even better to get a proper 4G/5G router.

[Turtle Shed]

I have the Three home 4g/5g hub. Absolutely brilliant but you need to be in a location with good coverage.

No phone line needed of course, mine sits by a window and I've seen 200Mb/s down and 100Mb/s up. Free for three months, then £20/month for unlimited data on a two year contract. Brilliant value and the chaps in the Three store couldn't have been more helpful.

The alternative was copper wire all the way to the exchange, peaking at 3Mb/s down and virtally zero the other way.

Plusnet accepted that this wasn't what could be regarded as a service, cancelled the remainder of my two year contract (I'd moved house) and didn't want their Hub Two router back. This proved very convenient as it is now attached to the Three hub and extends my WiFi all over my fairly big bungalow.

Have to say that even if BT offer me fibre all the way to my house, I won't be interested unless it's ten quid per month or less.

[MM]

I ran a my broadband on a 3 network (smarty) for a few years. bought a second hand router off eBay, though make sure its cat 6 or up, as this does carrier aggregation and ignore the quoted speeds as they are lies. only works if you can get good signal.

[Panamax]

By an extraordinary coincidence an email has just come in from "3" offering their 4G router free for three months and then £20 a month. Looks like a result.

[GDL]

Lucas Ayde said:

.....especially since you can get data-only SIM deals with 'unlimited' data for around 18 quid or so.

Don't bother with a data only SIM, they are usually more expensive than a standard phone SIM. Just get the cheapest one on the network with the best signal. Though be aware that some deals have a max speed cap.

We have 3, unlimited everything and paying £16 a month.
The router (Huawei B818) has a phone port in the back (RJ11), so it also serves as our home phone for outgoing calls using the SIM.

[MM]

GDL said:

Lucas Ayde said:

.....especially since you can get data-only SIM deals with 'unlimited' data for around 18 quid or so.

Don't bother with a data only SIM, they are usually more expensive than a standard phone SIM. Just get the cheapest one on the network with the best signal. Though be aware that some deals have a max speed cap.

We have 3, unlimited everything and paying £16 a month.
The router (Huawei B818) has a phone port in the back (RJ11), so it also serves as our home phone for outgoing calls using the SIM.

I second this, Data only sim is not required

[Chuffedmonkey]

nuyorican said:

Why the need for a dedicated hub/router thing? Can't you just use your phone as a hotspot?

But anyway, I'd been a long term broadband customer with Virgin, all the way back to the Telewest days. About five years ago i got annoyed at them constantly putting up the price and cancelled my contract, thinking i'd get a broadband deal elsewhere. But i never did. I just use my phone for everything, my computers and TV also use my phone's hotspot.

Works fine. But with one caveat: it's all about getting the right provider. I had a Smarty unlimited SIM for a while which was dirt cheap, but I could barely get any signal at home so was pretty useless. Moved to EE and it's been great so far.

In the UK we only have 4 major mobile providers, 3, EE, O2 and Vodafone. All the others resell on one of the 4 networks. As mentioned above about Smarty, it may be cheap but it may be a reseller using the Vodafone network for instance which may have a poor signal in that area. In the case above EE works well for coverage in that area.

Cheap mobile resellers are not always the answer if the signal from any of 4 mobile providers is poor.

[Panamax]

nuyorican said:

Why the need for a dedicated hub/router thing? Can't you just use your phone as a hotspot?

Because if "Dad" goes out and takes his mobile phone with him the rest of the household is left at home with no internet.