Best data-only sim for 4G router

LeeUK

LeeUK

LeeUK

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Deep North
I've recently purchased a Cudy LT300 4G router for backup purposes (because FibreNest is poo).

Here's the problem - I acquired a sim card from Smarty and purchased the £20/month unlimited data-only plan but the speeds are so diabolical. Lucky to get more than 2Mbps down on a good day which makes it unusable for most things. I actually feel like I've been ripped off paying Smarty £20 for this.

I then decided to take my Lebara sim out of my car to test and see if that improved things, well slightly, I now get max 15Mbps down but still nothing to write home about.

Any recommendations for a data sim that actually comes true to their promises? or is it all just a swizz promising big numbers while failing to deliver?

I'm not too fussed over which network as they all have good coverage here.
 
AFAIK there is basically no difference between a data only sim and regular phone sim, 1-2 networks used to give slightly better traffic priority on data sims but I believe that is a thing of the past now as well.

I've found the best results for 4G in a router is going with EE - some of the other networks and/or MVNOs are pretty diabolical these days at peak times. A lot will depend on the signal quality of the networks in your area and then their network quality.

EDIT: Also placement of the antenna makes a fair difference - signal propagation and sources of interference can be weird - I've got a ~18 inch by 18 inch spot in my bedroom where I get basically double the bandwidth of any other location in the house despite it not even being in line of sight of windows, etc.
 
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I've got it on an upstairs windowsill on the side of the house pointing to the cell site whether that makes a difference or not. Heh
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I'd get a second hand Three router from CEX.
My daughter bought a 30 month 5g sim off Amazon and it worked out at £6 a month with a 300mb download.
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This basically.
What I'm doing too.
Zyxel router from CEX (£110) and 3 business SIM 500GB for £10/mth.
Can sell back the router for ~£90, making the monthly cost £12. Pretty cheap for 150-200mbps broadband if I may say so myself :cry:
 
tamzzy said:
This basically.
What I'm doing too.
Zyxel router from CEX (£110) and 3 business SIM 500GB for £10/mth.
Can sell back the router for ~£90, making the monthly cost £12. Pretty cheap for 150-200mbps broadband if I may say so myself :cry:
Click to expand...

My Sims are still under £3 per month. :D

LeeUK said:
I'm not too fussed over which network as they all have good coverage here.
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How have you determined the coverage? Have you mapped them on Cellmapper and found out which of them have good coverage on the various bands?
 
Pot luck depending on your location, congestion and how reliable your local mast is.

I tried SMARTY in a 4G dongle once and got 100Mbps in the middle of the night but in the evening it was below 1Mbps.

I've been using Talkmobile (Vodafone) it gave a consistent 60Mbps (4G) but the mast failed again and again; that seems to be sorted now but the speed has dropped during the day since the merger with THREE.


There's one spot where I get a 5 bar signal in front of a window so you do need to try different locations as well.


You will have to just try a few monthly SIMS but read the small print as well because unlimited doesn't always mean unlimited they often have a limit hidden in their fair use policy.

Talkmobile has a 150Mbps speed cap on their unlimited SIM but I've never seen above ~60Mbps on 4G I queried why this is the case when the SIM is now supposed to also have access to THREE's network which gave 100Mbps in the middle of the night but surprise surprise they havent bothered to answer me.


Note: they do have maps / post code checkers on their pages which give a basic idea of coverage but it shows that I can't get 5G here on Vodafone you might have better luck though.
 
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I've not found Vodafone that great anywhere around here - though we now get fairly widespread 5G coverage since the merger with Three. Lots of times the connection goes slow or drops out and sporadic 1+ second latency - speed tests will start at like 300+Mbit but after a few seconds drop to anywhere from kbit/s to 80mbit erratically day or night.

O2 not that much better - there seems to be a closer correlation with signal quality and network performance with O2 whereas with VF even a good quality signal doesn't mean you'll get good performance.

EE around here is a clear winner - you can even game on it with pings around upper 20s to 30ms without too much in the way of jitter or packetloss though not as good as fixed line but it would do in a pinch - Vodafone not a chance of gaming on it with the constant stalls and even best case pings are like 44ms.
 
Have a look at Scancom sims. We’ve just got an unlimited EE one for two years and it comes to about a tenner a month. Three are utter garbage for me.
 
It can't be because the coverage/location is poor, it's obviously they are throttling the speed because it's a router. I can be standing in the same place with my phone and easily get 100Mbps down on speedtest.net both on Talkmobile (Vodafone) and Spusu (EE).

I've checked Cellmapper and I'm pointing in the correct direction.
 
LeeUK said:
It can't be because the coverage/location is poor, it's obviously they are throttling the speed because it's a router. I can be standing in the same place with my phone and easily get 100Mbps down on speedtest.net both on Talkmobile (Vodafone) and Spusu (EE).

I've checked Cellmapper and I'm pointing in the correct direction.
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You are assuming your 4G router is connecting to the same cell on the same bands though, does that m4G modem even do CA? You might be connecting to the worst of the bands with like 5MHz available, and with no CA it's gonna be crap - your phone will most certainly do CA.
 
Journey said:
You are assuming your 4G router is connecting to the same cell on the same bands though, does that m4G modem even do CA? You might be connecting to the worst of the bands with like 5MHz available, and with no CA it's gonna be crap - your phone will most certainly do CA.
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The router tells me the Cell ID and band and also lets you select/unselect different bands. Although the Cell ID on the router never seems to appear on Cellmapper.

I did use an app on my phone a little while ago which told me the cell sites I was pinging off and they were listed on Cellmapper so no idea why the router is different.
 
LeeUK said:
It appears it doesn't.
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You'll probably get hooked on a low bandwidth low frequency Cell then, like B20 800MHz with only 5MHz bandwidth. I'd suggest you chose a different carrier or modem - you can get used 5G routers for ~£70.
 
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