adsl and 4G bonding

rangor gubbins · 24 Aug 2017 at 13:56

I'm trying to figure out best (speed and cost) option for improving our internet connection at home. We're on the outskirts of a little village. Current internet provider is Plusnet. We get 6 mbps download and about 0.5 upload via the adsl connection, which is pretty pants but is cheap at about £9.99 per month.
We do have pretty good 4G connection though and I can get +20 mpbs on my mobile via 4G from Vodafone.
I've been reading about modem bonding, e.g. boosty that can combine an ADSL line and 4G, but it does it via a mobile phone running their app.
Does anyone know something similar that allows bonding via ADSL and a 4G sim card (or dongle). I'd also want to be able to manage the data sharing between lines, so that the 4G is only used for certain data types and with a data cap.

Or any other ideas!

Thanks.

rangor gubbins · 24 Aug 2017 at 20:55

Orcvader said:
There's a way but it won't be cheap. Not to mention you'll struggle to find a good 4G provider that can provide a good amount of data for tethering (due to the traffic mobile networks will highly likely class it as this) Before going down the bonding route though, have you checked for other alternative providers? I'm guessing Openreach and Virgin doesn't provide fibre?

EDIT: Had a quick look at your location in your profile, does Vfast cover your home?: http://www.vfast.co.uk/coverage/

Vfast is in my area apparently. I'd never heard of it before. Thanks for the info!!

lsg1r said:
Can't say I've tried it but there is ADSL bonding. Basically 2 or more telephone lines with their own adsl lines attached which are then 'connected' at the router and supplier level. At the very least it would cost 2 line rentals and 2 adsl packages.

There's also ethernet to the premises (or last mile) but that is not cheap and when I say not cheap, I mean not even worth looking into unless you're a business and loaded lol.

As to the 4G, plenty of routers support failover and load balancing via a usb dongle (I know some draytek, fritz!box and billion routers do for example) but I've never looked into what it can or can't do etc because to put it simply I don't really have a need for it.

Sounds like either 2 ADSL lines or ADSL + 4G is most affordable. I'll have a look at Draytek and other routers.

Rroff said:
Voda currently do 50GB @ £30/m for tethering and there are ways to get a little more/lower cost slightly not amazing but if you are a moderate user it isn't too bad.

sith said:
As Rrof says, Vodafone do the 50GB package for £30 a month. It's not a bad package but will depend on your useage. I'm assuming no current Fibre prospect for your village?

50 GB for £30 / month. That's a pretty good deal!
I don't think fibre is very likely this century where we live.

rangor gubbins · 24 Aug 2017 at 21:07

Openreach says:

We're working with government and industry to explore ways to bring Superfast fibre to as many people as possible but don't have a plan for your area yet.
You might consider co-funding fibre access in your community. Knowing there's a healthy demand in your area can also really help.

Exchange name: Doddington
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: -
Technology: Pending - EO Line

rangor gubbins · 24 Aug 2017 at 21:21

BigT said:
Point still stands though right, what's the problem trying to be solved here?

MissChief said:
I think he wants a faster connection? What he has is ok for general use but Netflix, sky on demand or digital games it's not great.

BigT said:
Sometimes people think they want a faster connection when, if you understand the problem trying to be solved, isn't actually the case. And bonding is quite expensive comparatively.
So take streaming. What's wrong with just buying and using the faster 4G - that'll be quick enough and dump the ADSL? Why go to the expense of bonding? Streaming might be OK at 6Mbit/s actually. Certainly I have no problems streaming Netflix at 3Mbit/s in everything except UHD. The real problem might be that streaming is crap if others are using the connection also. Well bonding isn't the smartest or most cost effective way to address that. Load balancing two ADSL connections might be - one for streaming and one for all other internet use. That's why I'm trying to understand the real symptoms being experienced.

You might be right, perhaps we can just use 4G and no need for the ADSL line especially now I've seen that 40 GB 4G package from vodafone.
The problem we find is that our connection is OK for streaming if nothing else is using the internet connection, but constant buffering or just failed connections if other devices are using the connection. Plus downloading media is quite slow. The reason i was thinking of bonding ADSL and 4G is that for most of the time ADSL is just about good enough for us, but there's times when it's nowhere near enough so it would be good to be able to utilise 4G to increase capacity when needed. But a large download 4G package is expensive, hence the thought behind cheap ADSL + fast 4G.

rangor gubbins · 24 Aug 2017 at 21:57

Just been looking into vfast. Could be just the thing!

rangor gubbins · 26 Aug 2017 at 21:11

Don't really want to be spending a bucket load!
I also contacted someone who is a vFast customer and he said that it used to be fantastic, but is now not good at all during peak times.

rangor gubbins · 9 Oct 2017 at 17:36

So after some more thinking I'm going to go for the 4G only option. I can get a 50GB download limit for £30 / month from vodafone. This would give us download speeds of around 37 Mbps and upload of 8 Mbps (tested on my mobile phone), compared to what we get with ADSL (6 Mbps down and 0.2 Mbps up).
I already have an Asus RT-N56U which i will use as the router.
I plan to buy one of these :
https://mikrotik.com/product/RBSXTLTE3-7
(but can only access LTE bands 3 (1800MHz) and 7 (2600MHz), but vodafone uses 800 Mhz and 2600 Mhz for 4G)
Or one of these:
https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/15382-solwise-4g-xpol-a0002/
(can access all 4G bands and 3G and 2G), but would need to buy another router that accepts LTE.

Anyone get any tips or experience with installing a 4G antenna at home and connecting to a router for wifi?

rangor gubbins · 9 Oct 2017 at 18:00

I think you might be right there. Maybe I'll try a USB sim dongle in the Asus RT-N56U which i think can accept that.

Another alternative i found was this: LTE 3G/4G Sim Slot Wireless Router with A/VDSL support from Draytek 2860Ln but it's quite pricey at £400.

rangor gubbins · 9 Oct 2017 at 18:52

Sounds very sensible!
I still wonder if ADSL + 4G bonding might be the way to go. But i can try out the 4G only route quite cheaply with the USB dongle. thanks for the suggestion

rangor gubbins · 9 Oct 2017 at 22:35

I've been looking at out data usage over the past 3 months, and according to Plusnet we've used between 25 - 46 GB / month. But I'm thinking that if we have a better connection it's very likely we'll use more.

Rroff said:
Dunno about the RT-N56U but the RT-N66U with Merlin firmware, etc. can do load balancing between a VDSL and secondary (4G) connection - I assume the 56 can do similar.

Thanks Rroff. That's a great tip. I will check it out. Would be brilliant if this works!

rangor gubbins · 9 Oct 2017 at 22:39

Ah, unfortunately the RT-N56U doesn't seem to be supported by the Merlin firmware. But good to know that load balancing doesn't need to be that expensive.

rangor gubbins · 10 Oct 2017 at 17:58

2 adsl lines would give us download speed of 2 x 6 Mbps, and upload speed of 2 x 0.2 Mbps.
Adsl + 4G gives us download speed of 6 + 37 Mbps, and upload of 0.2 + 8 Mbps.
For general browsing or streaming only the adsl would be enough. But the problem we have is if someone is streaming and someone else is browsing, or if we are working from home and need to download / upload large documents, or want to download other large files quickly.
I'm going to hunt around in the Members Market to see if anyone has a load balancing router with ADSL and USB for a 4G dongle.

rangor gubbins · 12 Oct 2017 at 14:10

The current router is a plusnet job, and is pretty rubbish. certainly can't do any QOS.
I've just bought a secondhand draytek 2830n+, so i can set up QOS with that. I'm also going to try out 4G load balancing and see how it is.
If it turns out to be too expensive or not working very well, i may try a second adsl line instead. The problem is no amount of QOS tweaking is going to help uploading large files if the upload bandwidth is 0.2 Mbps.

rangor gubbins · 1 Nov 2017 at 19:00

So, time for an update....
Bought a second hand Draytek router (2830n) which has a USB port that allows a 4G dongle to be used as modem.
Bought a data sim card from Three with a few GB of data on.
Plugged it all in. No joy. I might be using the wrong settings for the modem, but i don't think so. It looks like the USB modem i bought is not compatible with the router. According to Draytek (https://www.draytek.co.uk/download/support/DrayTek_USB_Modem_Support_160117.pdf) the modem is compatible with the later version of my router, but not the version I've got.

I tested the usb 4G modem just plugged straight into the PC and i get pretty good reception and 20 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. A massive improvement on our ADSL.

So i think we're going to go ahead with using LTE for our home internet service and scrap the ADSL altogether
I now need to find the right hardware to get the best out of it.

Anyone got suggestions for a LTE router. Or I could use an LTE modem + the Draytek.
Not sure whether its worth putting an LTE antenna on the roof to maximise reception.

rangor gubbins · 1 Nov 2017 at 23:22

It's a Huawei E3372

rangor gubbins · 7 Jan 2018 at 12:36

Thanks for the info Cottee. I've seen a similar deal available online but it states that even though data allowance is 100GB, for tethering only 30GB is allowed.
Does your deal allow the sim card to be used in a wifi router so multiple devices can be connected, or would be classed as tethering in Three's eyes and therefore only have 30GB allowance?

Are you using a load balancing router to manage the adsl and 4g together? If so, which one?

rangor gubbins · 8 Jan 2018 at 10:13

I've signed us up for the 100GB data allowance deal with 3, which sounds like the same deal you've got. Comes with the huawei router too.
They told me Netflix and TVPlayer are both exempt from the data which is handy. Shame that amazon fire isn't as that's what we usually use, but not in 4K so hopefully it won't use up too much data. According my current adsl ISP we use between 60 - 100 GB of data per month. I'm hoping our new 100 GB data allowance will be enough!

rangor gubbins · 10 Jan 2018 at 11:00

Cheers chaps.
Have signed up to Gigaclear and will suggest my neighbours do the same.
Three sim and router arriving today.

rangor gubbins · 15 Oct 2018 at 20:49

Hi Pvtbanner
Where did you get the unlimited data sim from 3 from? We've got a 100GB data limit from 3, didn't realise they did unlimited.
How much is it per month if you don't mind me asking?

I gave up with bridging/bonding and we just use lte for our Internet connection.
Brilliant speed and reliability so far. Have to be a bit careful with streaming TV but otherwise its working out really well .

rangor gubbins · 16 Oct 2018 at 09:23

There is a statement in T&C regarding unlimited data, saying that for connecting more than one device, i.e. for using the sim as a hot-spot means the data limit is only 30GB.
However, would they be able to tell if a sim is being used in a router to provide Internet to multiple devices?