Pimp my internet?

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2003
Posts
3,335
Location
South East Coast
Hello,
So I live in a very rural village - in fact in 2011 it was named the UK's slowest village in the country! They have improved since then and FTTC is available, which I currently have through Plusnet about 47MB down, 9ish Up. I have searched many individual FTTP providers and none are planning it in my area for at least the next 5 years. Without spending £10k+ I can't get it.

My internet just went down for whatever reason, back up now. But in the interim I put my phone in the porch and used that as a Wi-Fi hotspot - 65MB down, 11MB up on 4G.

Even though every provider states it is not available in my area if I go to the field in front of my house 5G! Speedtest max 100MB down, 20ish Up. Not sure whats going on there but is what it is.

I game occasionally, nothing that competitive so 10 ping vs 40 ping isn't important to me.

However, I live in a 3 storey house and the main internet point is on the lower ground floor which receives absolutely no mobile signal due to the level above being concrete flooring with underfloor heating. So have to use Wi-Fi on my phone to get calls/texts via EE. As said the internet is down here so it is spread to the rest of the house via powerline and the BT home wifi Mesh network.

My Plusnet contract expires in November so I am looking at alternatives. I have been looking at Starlink but at £89 p/m for 50-150 i'm wondering about a 4G/5G external modem/router with an unlimited Data sim and just getting it as high as possible, not expecting 5G but even the 4G is close to 20MB faster than my landline.

What would people recommend? Am open to any suggestions - I work from home, frequent video calls, file uploads, sometimes I have Netflix/Amazon on the side so streaming, plus another person streaming. Hence the bandwidth gets limited at points.

What would be the best recommendation for a reliable but faster connection? I just use the Plusnet router currently but have a spare i5 PC that I have seen you can convert into a router etc really willing to do anything to get better consistent speeds without spending outside of the initial external router/basic (not £10k+) costs.

Any help much appreciated.
 
Richeh said:
My internet just went down for whatever reason, back up now.
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Definitely check Bidb as @chrisd mentions but how unreliable is your FTTC connection currently?
If it drops relatively frequently and you can't get served by FTTP, then i would consider doing the jump to 4G using an external antenna or use something like a Mikrotik SXT (relatively inexpensive, £100-150).
However do a number of speed tests throughout the day (especially around peek times) over a handful of days, as this might highlight congestion at your local mast - if you are that remote, then it's possible you only have a mast or two near you and neighbours might have had the same idea of using 4G rather than *DSL/FTTC.
 
That is brilliant guys thank you so much! I had not heard of that site before despite many googles, apparently I can get Trooli of upto 900MB! 10 Weeks lead time but should time nicely with my Plusnet contract ending.

Much appreciated, thank you - although strangely, 5G just not available but get it 20 feet from my house. How odd!
 
Richeh said:
That is brilliant guys thank you so much! I had not heard of that site before despite many googles, apparently I can get Trooli of upto 900MB! 10 Weeks lead time but should time nicely with my Plusnet contract ending.
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Well there you go! Just be aware that there may be build delays, so don't cancel PlusNet until the new provider is in and working. You'll have to suck up out of contract price rises and also ensure they don't automatically renew you or something.

As for 5G, it's reasonably accurate but it takes data from the operators themselves and sometimes at the edges they won't publish 5G being available even though you might be able to get it.
 
Given your choices I would also stick with the FTTC. However for extra reliability if you don't mind a bit more effort/cost you could consider having 4G/5G in an automatic failover role and possible with policy based routing so certain traffic where latency isn't key uses it all the time.

I currently have the VM 1.1Gbps service but it goes down on occasion and I have 4G in primarily a failover mode which works really well. However despite the much slower download speed on 4G, the upload is not far short of VMs awful 52Mbps so I use the 4G with policy based routing for a couple of tasks that are more upload than download leaving as much of the VM upload capacity for use with general traffic.

Edit: Written before the 900Mb find. Good result!
 
Armageus said:
Another thank you for that site - not come across it before
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I can't take any credit, the chap who makes the site did register on here some time ago.

It might be worth creating a 'which ISP can I get' sticky and including the link and some background info perhaps?
 
On another note, have you considered properly wiring up each floor with ethernet? I would imagine once the full fibre is installed the powerlines and potentially mesh (especially if it has to go through concrete) would hold the speeds back.
 
Hello,

This is a big bump but just wanted to give an update.

I signed up for Trooli as soon as I saw it was available. Almost a year later, delay after delay and still don't have it so whether that is down to Trooli or BT do not trust the timescale. I may actually be moving so do not know if I will have anymore success with the new property, Trooli says it is available but only for 2 properties (neither of which I am looking at). But yeah just for an update almost a year later after it was 'Available soon' still no Trooli!
 
Orcvader said:
On another note, have you considered properly wiring up each floor with ethernet? I would imagine once the full fibre is installed the powerlines and potentially mesh (especially if it has to go through concrete) would hold the speeds back.
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Yup plus those things just never work properly.

A few years ago I did it and wired the whole house on proper ethernet, and for the sake of about £130 all in, some research and a few days doing it, I wish I had done it many years before.
 
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