Replacing ADSL with Three tethering?

ethos

ethos

ethos

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I'm currently stuck on a 3Mbit ADSL line, with no sight of FTTC or any upgrades in the near future.

I was in Three looking around yesterday and the chap I was speaking to mentioned that the tethering add-on is only £4 a month, and that they had a "2000GB" FUP on the package (seems to actually be 200GB).

Having done some speed tests in the shop, and experiencing up to 20Mbit (there was one in the history or 25Mbit too), I was pondering subscribing to the one plan, and dropping my ADSL altogether.

My main concerns are:
  • Will it kill the battery? With a non-replaceable battery I can see this being a problem
  • Do Three throttle, do any package shaping or block ports
  • Latency to first hop... (although I don't really game much nowadays)
  • Is this a bad idea...

I'm having a look around the net, to see what I can find but it'd be good to hear from people that either use their phone like this or have experience with Three.

I can't remember the last time I really monitored my internet usage at home, being on an unlimited SkyBB package- but I'd be surprised if I went much over 20GB most months.

Thoughts?
 
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I'm on the one plan and have done this when moving between houses before net is setup.
Works well tbh - I get about 2 bars of signal at my current place and that is still fast enough for normal browsing.
Not gonna do 1080p youtube but works well enough.
My ADSL ping is about 17-25 and through my phone it was about 90 so cant really be used for fast paced gaming but may be better with better signal.

Depends how heavy your use is I guess i.e. what kinda of sites your browsing.

Oh and I have downloaded 30GB of Max Payne over my phone with no reduction in service that I have noticed and know there are people on this forum who do it a lot more.
My phone sits in a dock at home so battery is no concern (iphone4)
 
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gaming would be a complete failure, especially if said game uses lagg compensation.

i would imagine you would need to have it connected to a power socket whilst tethering otherwise battery would drain rapidly and the radius of the tether would be much smaller than a router i imagine too.

say you have a few devices around the house which require internet, the phone may not be able to transmit to all of them.

looks like your not a heavy user, therefore your current 2MB line should suffice, not too long ago we were all on 56K, those were the days.
 
I am in the same situation as you (2Mbit/s line, on Three). Wouldn't rely on 3G for my main connection as the latency is bad enough, let alone the switching between HSPA and HSPA+ taking time (the phone will switch to the former to preserve battery life when not in use). Can be quite annoying for normal browsing, as the real-life speeds will actually end up being slower this way.

Three throttle P2P traffic during busy hours, and something else but I don't remember off the top of my head.

Your battery will be fine, provided they you don't drain and full charge it. Lithium polymer and lithium ion batteries don't like big drains and charges IIRC, so it would be best to keep the phone plugged in and tethering via USB (slow charge/little drain). Temperatures could be a tad warm if in a low signal area (not to mention speeds being bad in a low signal area of course).
 
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Heres the kind of latency you'll likely get:

@android:/ $ ping bbc.net.uk
PING bbc.net.uk (212.58.246.95) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=15 ttl=35 time=100 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=16 ttl=35 time=74.5 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=17 ttl=35 time=85.5 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=18 ttl=35 time=87.8 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=19 ttl=35 time=85.9 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=20 ttl=35 time=92.2 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=21 ttl=35 time=129 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=22 ttl=35 time=108 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=23 ttl=35 time=108 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=24 ttl=35 time=114 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=25 ttl=35 time=104 ms
64 bytes from bbc-vip016.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk (212.58.246.95): icmp_seq=26 ttl=35 time=103 ms
Click to expand...

Its far more choppy in games tho due to the spikey bandwidth, momentary signal fallout, etc. so i.e. in FPS games people will hate you as you warp around.

TBH I doubt you would end up dropping the ADSL altogether, it can be useful to have both 3G (if you get a good signal at home) and ADSL if you have a relatively poor ADSL connection and a reasionably decent 3G one but I can't see either entirely replacing the other.
 
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i wouldnt use it for games but if i had a better 3 signal where i live i would do it!

1.5mega bit here
 
This is why its so difficult to find a contract that allows tethering these days. It's not supposed to be a replacement for your home broadband :(
 
Yup, tragedy of the commons. The infrastructure is simply not ready to be used as a permanent replacement unless you only use about 10GB/Month. Granted they should allow unlimited downloads during the graveyard shift (~11pm to 8am) but otherwise we have to be fair and share bandwidth appropriately.
 
I wouldn't want to game with it, but for downloads of 600mb+, I tether to my phone, as it's at least 3x quicker than my broadband, often a lot more.
 
I use my HTC one to tether to as i'm spending a lot of time in hotels at the moment through work.

Its OK for browsing and watching video on, video calling is OK as well, but the phone gets very hot if you do it for any length of time.
 
[TW]Fox;24504319 said:
This is why its so difficult to find a contract that allows tethering these days. It's not supposed to be a replacement for your home broadband :(
Click to expand...

You can't really blame the customers though, the Broadband infrastructure in this country is so poor compared to a lot of others.

I had several friends around the world with 100mbs, before Virgin even had 20!
 
If kits advertised as unlimited and tethering then that's what you can use it how you like. Three is very good with this.
If they don't want it to be unlimited, then don't advertise it as unlimited but with a 3gb FUP.
Or offer a true unlimited and tethering tarrif, but make it cost effective and charge twice the amount for it.
 
CasKirensys said:
You can't really blame the customers though, the Broadband infrastructure in this country is so poor compared to a lot of others.

I had several friends around the world with 100mbs, before Virgin even had 20!
Click to expand...
If our wired connections aren't up to scratch then it puzzles me why people think Wireless transmissions are up to the task. Even if 4G gets deployed it won't have enough bandwidth to service everyone if they treated it like a fibre optic line.
 
Three is a viable broadband option for me for download big files. I get a measly 0.4mb on the land line cant even watch youtube on lowest quality without buffering. Whereas I get up to 18mb download with three, with typical speeds around 10mb. I pay £15 a month without the tethering option and seem to tether just fine but it is considerably slower during peak times.
 
Thanks for the replies, a bit to think about then... looks like it might be a nicer supplement rather than a replacement.
 
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