Home Broadband through 4g or 5g Mobile Sim Router Terms and Conditions

[summerhousemartin]

Hello

I have been a long time lurker on this forum (sorry) but today decided to make an account.

I was reading last night posts on the thread "****The Official 5G Home Broadband Thread****" and that seriously caught my attention because I did not know that you could buy sim based broadband routers and have broadband through a mobile sim card (with unlimited data).

At the moment my elderly parents are with sky broadband and can only get less that 13mb download and 3 mb upload and we are paying £55 per month including sky talk anytime and line rental. (I live at home with elderly parents) In my opinion they are paying way to much for what they are getting in return. So after reading some posts on the ****The Official 5G Home Broadband Thread**** it inspired my to think about trying a mobile router and a unlimited data sim from Smarty using the three network. I did some reading on the three Terms and Conditions and noticed this section on there unlimited data usage:-

Quote From Smarty Terms and Conditions:-
"Responsible use – Unlimited Data Only Plans
5.15 Our Unlimited Data Only SIM plans are for personal, non-commercial use only and can be used in SIM enabled tablets or
laptops and portable mobile WI-FI devices and is uncapped for this use. This SIM card should not be used as a permanent
long-term alternative to home broadband. If we determine in our sole opinion that your use of the SMARTY Services is in
breach of these Terms and Conditions and/or exceeds that reasonably expected of someone using the Service for legitimate
personal, non-commercial use, then we may at our discretion terminate (in accordance with Section 9), or Suspend (in
accordance with Section 8), or restrict your SMARTY Service. As an example, without limitation, we consider that if you
regularly tether more than 8 devices that this is unlikely to be legitimate personal, non-commercial use."

So after reading "This SIM card should not be used as a permanent long-term alternative to home broadband" the idea of using a sim based router to "possibly" replace our sky broadband package has put a different perspective on the idea. It would have been idea for £20 per month with no long term contract (monthly rolling) and moving the landline number over to voip. My long term goal is to have full FTTP then use the mobile router as a backup if therer are any outages with the FTTP. I have questions about an FTTP isp but I will save them for another thread later so not to confuse things.

After that long winded post my question is what would your advice be on using an Unlimited Data sim as a means of broadband usage for home use for browsing, streaming video on the internet and on 2 or 3 firesticks. My elderly parents and others in the household do not do online gaming so that will not be a problem.

Thank you in advance and appologies for my long winded rambling post.
SummerHousemartin

 

[radderfire]

Is it the price you are worried about? Why aren't you considering 4G/5G home broadband products from the likes of Three?

Have you checked the mobile broadband signal available?

Even with 4G signal, the experience of mobile broadband is not as good as FTTP because it can have a lot of latency, and the connection can be flaky.

 

[summerhousemartin]

Hello radderfire and thank you for your reply.

I have been reading on other forums that people in rural areas use the smarty unlimited data sim card (uses three network) as there home broadband yet smartys terms and conditions as I outlined above says that the sim cannot be used as a replacement for home broadband. I am just wondering if all unlimited sim card providers (no matter what network they use) employ this same policy and has anyone been affected by this policy when using a smarty unlimited data sim?

I have looked at the bidb.uk site and I can mainly get 4g and possibly 5g with a vodaphone sim in my area of stoke-on-trent.

Yes I understand that FTTP is better than mobile data sim broadband but I am looking to use it as a backup for FTTP is there are outages etc. I have not decided on FTTP yet because we have been with Sky Broadband as our ISP ever since the AOL dialup days (a long time) and the price has increased greatly over the past year and I cannot see the justification of paying £55 per month for landline and 13mb "Fibre" from sky but at the same time we are nervouse about moving over the a FTTP ISP because of bad reviews etc. (I will expand on the FTTP concerns in another thread later)

Thanks
SummerHousemartin

 

[Philyaris]

I used Smarty for my mobile broadband in a router for around 3 years with no issue for daily use. It worked for streaming Netflix and Amazon prime video and browing.
I ended up moving to Talkmobile for £16 per month rolling contract with unlimited data, only moved because the 3 signal got almost unusable due to slow speed when it had started off at great speed.

 

[radderfire]

All unlimited mobile broadband services will have a fair use policy to prevent people abusing the service and really going mad with it. Whether you can get away with Smarty for home broadband will depend on how heavy your usage is going to be. If you have continual heavy usage of streaming/downloading you are likely to be at risk of triggering their systems for over-use, but I don't know what the limits are. If you won't be using it continually, you will probably be able to get away with it.

 

[MissChief]

Even if you don't take up a 5g service they should absolutely call Sky and see about reducing their package or at least recontracting,if not moving to another provider for less.

 

[summerhousemartin]

Thank you all for your replies.

Yes MissChief we are looking to move away from sky and looking to go onto FTTP for better downloading speeds to help with streaming and other online activities. At the moment if my parents want to watch "Midsomer Murders or Vera" on ITVX via the Firestick and I am upstairs using the internet or watching youtube then there stream starts to buffer and I can hear faint sounds that resemble moaning and cursing from downstairs and if a steam update takes place then all the internet is taken up lol. (No online gaming only offline)

Again thank you for your replies.