Downsides to 5G home modem?

[Whoozit]

I'm approaching a Virgin Media renewal and it would be nice to take back control now and in the future. My phone gets ~250mbps download speed on Vodafone 5G exactly where the current router and wifi controller are. I really only need a dumb modem with a 5G unlimited data sim.

Any downsides I should be aware of?

[thr32]

Evening all,

The experience of using the internet can be less about download speed and more about latency (ping) and stability. It would be worth understanding and comparing all the Speedtest variables as well as pure speed.

TH

[Turtle Shed]

Whoozit said:

I'm approaching a Virgin Media renewal and it would be nice to take back control now and in the future. My phone gets ~250mbps download speed on Vodafone 5G exactly where the current router and wifi controller are. I really only need a dumb modem with a 5G unlimited data sim.

Any downsides I should be aware of?

My experience with Three suggests that there are no downsides. The upsides however are:

No wires
Cheaper
Can take on holiday etc...
Can place wherever in house gets best signal

Vodafone may not be cheaper for you, but for me, Three at £20/month on a two year contract, at speeds up to 100x better than a landline/copper could offer was the very definition of a "no-brainer".

As for ping times, we're talking 30ms.

For reference I live in a little hamlet with no fibre, but within a mile of the M5, and with line of sight to a very big area.

[Jordie Barretts sock]

I live on Exmoor. No phone line at all.

Neighbours (over a mile away) get 9meg down on a good day.

I've got a router with Vodafone sim. Runs my Sky Go and all the Alexa stuff with absolutely no issues. Last time I checked was 60meg down and 25 up.

When my son was at home, he was able to online game on his Xbox with no issues.

No downsides as far as I can see.

[Arrivalist]

Been using Three 5G for my internet for about 6 months now. Can’t see me going any other way as it’s totally reliable and fast.

Before this I had Vodaphone with 30mb down and 8 up.

[pidsy]

I have 3 5g unlimited £30 a month. I live in London but we have no fibre anymore.
Using a Teltonika RUTX50 router and an omni directional aerial on the roof.

It’s flaky - three has had numerous issues since the new year and although it does for day to day internet usage - I’m looking forward to moving so I can have a stable connection.

My 5G can be super fast at 250meg upwards but will then drop to 10-20 for no apparent reason. It is affected by the weather too.

[agent006]

Like you, I got price gouged by Virgin Media at renewal. I ony had their 50Mb package, and have changed to a 4G router. The SIM is from Smarty, which is on 3 network. It's an unlimited allowance on a rolling 30 day contract. Really impressed with it, we stream a lot of TV, youtube etc and it's been rock solid.

We didn't go for 5G as the routers are significantly more expensive, and the coverage isn't great round here yet.

[Brother D]

I've been using TMobile 5G box for well over 2 years and bar the occasional reboot it's been absolutely fine.

Only drawback is that here it uses IPv6 for the external IP and some VPNs will just not work with it (mainly legacy ones).

However considering how much cheaper it is vs cable it's a no-brainer for 99% of people.

Also check for data caps... This wasn't an issue but is now and with family of four streaming HD video you might start to come up against it.

[cobra kid]

I took back control at renewal time by getting a price reduction and increase in package, then continuing as I was with no messing around like this.

[gus607]

Been with Three for two & a half years, cant see me ever going back to any other BB supplier.
Got a deal when I renewed in January, half price £11 per month for twelve months then £22 for one year. Works out at £16.50 per month over two years.
Good speeds, ease of no installation & the ZTE router is brilliant.

[bunchofkeys]

My 5G connection in London. No line of sight to the mast, but i do have an external omni-directional antenna on the roof.
£19 a month for unlimited data and is pretty stable. There were a few weeks of st service, when the connection dropped to 20Mbps down and 1Mpbs up, but then i have a EE SIM as a backup, and just switch them over until normal service resumed.
So the downside, is that you would need a backup SIM with a different provider to keep your connection online, if your primary service goes to st.

There is only Virgin Media in the ground and their service is crap, BT infrastructure only support up FTTC. 5G was the best of all services.

[ZesPak]

Turtle Shed said:

Can take on holiday etc...

Beware of specific card for home internet, they are often geolocked. My FiL was looking into them for the camper and came to that conclusion. Of course a simple cellular subscription won't have that limitation.

Turtle Shed said:

As for ping times, we're talking 30ms.

I think ping/latency would be my biggest worry depending on your use. If you can verify it's sub 100ms, it'll feel plenty fast, sub 50 if you want to do some gaming.

[Calza]

I used it for 9 months in central London. I had LOS to the mast about 50m away. I was with EE and used a Huawei modem. It was not a cheap purchase.

It was perfect and I had no issues with ping during online gaming.

I did have issues when my partner would watch netflix as I tried to game though - it would st on my ping and I could never resolve it. Two video calls weren't an issue.