Is 5G mobile broadband better or part fibre? The joys of navigating what company will give me also speeds and bankruptcy.

[-]

nathderbyshire@reddit

Unless you need better speeds specifically wired will always be best and the most reliable. Most people won't need more than 60/20 so if you know you need more for whatever (cough 🏴‍☠️) reason (cough🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️) then it's worth a try. 3 do 30 days free to test

[-]

VinceyBincey@reddit (OP)

I've been known to sail the high seas from time to time and in return I like to help people with their gardens after so 67mbps isnt doing it's best!

[-]

nathderbyshire@reddit

It should be more than fine then. Try and find out if there's a 5G tower close by and if so which part of the property it's on, three will show coverage on their site as well. The great thing about mobile routers is you can move them around to find the best location.

They only have two ethernet ports but it's easily fixable with a switch, or you can just get your own router with whatever you need. If 3 gives you the ZTE MC888 though it'll be more than satisfactory for what your needs are.

3 also offer a staticIP which can be really important for if you need to talk to the wider internet for gaming and sharing your ISOs and stuff, remote access to a server and so on without using a VPN. It's far easier and afaik only 3 offer it.

I've been using it for about 4-5 years and it's had it's ups and downs, mainly due a really outdated router but it's been far better than FTTC.

I've got my fibre install on Wednesday though so hopefully all goes well, but 5G is still a solid replacement if you get good reception at home.

[-]

VinceyBincey@reddit (OP)

I've had it 4 days and I'm going back to slow ol' faithful part fibre. Vodafone can't give me a static IP and I'm stuck in CGNET hell despite trying to port forward and upnp with splitting my bands, rang support and they just said they it's not something they can sort out despite them advertising it as for intense gaming. Intense single player gaming is apparently all they offer.

[-]

nathderbyshire@reddit

Only 3 do a staticIP, and it has to be 3 directly not through SMARTY or another sub brand or you'll be behind CGNAT as well. It's why I've been stuck with them all these years as they're the only mobile home broadband to offer one.

[-]

fernofry@reddit

Had 5g ee router for 3 years and recently switched off of it. When it works it's great but 5G in my area had regular drop outs and the router failed to properly switch to 4g on auto fail back. At best, speed went up to half gigabit and over 100mbps upload. When I tweaked the settings to be 4G only it worked flawlessly and never had any dropouts but at a lower speed. Used for online gaming as well.

The latency isn't great though and the other downside was that every website thinks you're a bot with it being a mobile connection so you're more frequently have those "are you human?" Cloud flare warnings.

Overall, the service was a bit expensive considering that the 5g wasn't reliable but it was my only option while I was in a HMO and the house router speed was also limited to 67mbps.

[-]

VinceyBincey@reddit (OP)

I've decided to go back to part fibre now, I've had the 5g hub for about 4 days and whilst the speed I'm getting is a massive improvement they can't give me a static IP so I'm stuck in CGNET hell so the speed is useless as it needs to serve two gamers that like to sail the high seas and stream everything known to man, and being stuck on nat 3 means no online gaming, 14 day cool off period is a life saver.

[-]

zephyrmox@reddit

I have moved to 5g entirely. The max I can get wired is about 80mb. I get 300mb down/200mb up all day with three. Latency is fine. I don't game but do not think I would have issues even if I did.

[-]

LuckyNV@reddit

If you play games or need reliability/good latency it may be a downgrade, can you not get full fibre 1Gbps or something in your area?

[-]

VinceyBincey@reddit (OP)

No unfortunately it's not available here yet, and I've been having issues with part fibre as I had to keep getting them out every 4/5 months to fix it!

[-]

LuckyNV@reddit

Personally I need the reliability and latency of a wired connection. The speed difference isn’t worth it to go 5G. I went from 70mbps to 2.5gbps, other than downloading from steam, installing updates etc , the day to day use is the same (shared with family)

Need to ask yourself how much are you sitting there maxing out your connection.

[-]

indigomm@reddit

Our Vodafone tower was recently upgraded with new hardware and converted to have both Vodafone and Three on it. It drops out for an hour every few weeks which is annoying, and they keep having to do work on it overnight. Fortunately we're close to the tower, so the speeds are competitive with FTTP. But it's really only to get by until FTTP is installed round here which I'm expecting in the next few months.

[-]

PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

Have you done a speed test from your phone to determine what speeds you're actually getting on 5G?

67Mbps might sound slow but only relative to the gigabit speeds companies can offer on the cheap now.

The real question is what are you going to use the connection for? If it's gaming then the latency might be more important than the bandwidth, and 5G isn't great for latency. If it's mainly watching UHD Netflix and doing work, then the bandwidth is likely to be more important. But even 67Mbps is plenty for those.

[-]

VinceyBincey@reddit (OP)

Over 200mbps on my phone on 5G and I'm not in the area yet where three has merged with Vodafone so I imagine it'll be a lot higher when that does happen. Downloading is important as I and my partner play a lot of single player games so downloading them quickly is always ideal when undecided on what to play!

[-]

ActionBirbie@reddit

The first question is, What are you doing on a day to day basis that 67Mbps is not adequate for?

[-]

VinceyBincey@reddit (OP)

I do a bunch of streaming and downloading games and things so higher download speeds is the main thing I'm after as time is a premium after all

[-]

niteninja1@reddit

i use EE 5G for this.

i purchased my own 5G router. link
And a sim from Scancom

notes:

most of these say unlimited back actually have a fair usage cap of either 600gb or 1TB (scancom sell a EE 1TB sim). personally ive never come close To reaching that 600gb limit.

i get between 200-400mb down on EE and a ping of \~20-30.

i recommend buying a 30 day sim and the amazon router using it for 14 days and seeing how you find it including checking how much data you have used. If you like it buy a longer term sim if you dont return the router. My long term sim is costing me the equivalent of 10.50 a month.

scancom occasionally have salaes and you can almost always find voucher codes online.

[-]

meteobear@reddit

Try Three, their data only plans are cheaper and they use the Vodafone network now too. You could get a one month sim and see how it goes.

[-]

AutoModerator@reddit

Please help keep AskUK welcoming!

When replying to submission/post please make genuine efforts to answer the question given. Please no jokes, judgements, etc. If a post is marked 'Serious Answers Only' you may receive a ban for violating this rule.
Don't be a dick to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
This is a strictly no-politics subreddit!

Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.