Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Mobile broadband => Topic started by: meritez on August 28, 2019, 06:32:30 PM
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So,
Smarty have an £18.75 for life offer on at present: https://smarty.co.uk/
Unlimited Data, Unlimited Calls and Unlimited Texts, for £18.75 pay upfront, 30 day sim, no contract.
So I went for it, picked up a Huawei B525 from Amazon, put the sim in, speeds are 45 down and 43 up, does what I need it to and I can cut the landline.
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Those prices look pretty good. Thanks for sharing.
I was quite tempted by one of their rates for my mobile which comes out of contract this month (I own the phone anyhow).
The one thing that swung the balance for me personally, is I just got notification of Vodafone's recent introduction of OneNumber for use for free with Alexa. I think Vodafone are the only network atm which do this. If it wasn't for that, then I would be thinking of switching mobile provider. I'm not quite ready yet to get ride of my landline dsl, but I bet there are many who are.
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The 25% off promotional period ended on 28th August, just before midnight. Been reading it ran for 14 days, from 14th. So sadly no longer available, but certainly good value for those who managed to pick it up given it is a 1 month plan and 5G will be launching soon (Three is the parent).
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Those speeds on Three seem to be the exception rather than the rule, sadly. Must be a good area. I wouldn't trust it to remain consistent, its not been remotely comparable to FTTC for me.
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The offer is back until the 22nd October 2019
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Not available for existing customers, but the terms and conditions don't say anything to suggest it wouldn't be available to another person in the same household, who's not an existing customer.
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I only get 2 Mbps / 0.4 Mbps with 3G even in excellent line of sight but perhaps my Huawei USB 3G ‘dongle’ NIC is just rubbish.
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A 3 SIM in a decent smartphone would answer that.
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I only get 2 Mbps / 0.4 Mbps with 3G even in excellent line of sight but perhaps my Huawei USB 3G ‘dongle’ NIC is just rubbish.
Without wanting to digress too much, I thought this was because your device is rated for 3.6 Mbps. Discussion here (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,23777.msg401439.html). I'd agree that is rubbish by today's standards. :D
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A 3 SIM in a decent smartphone would answer that.
If you want to test decent equipment, please let me know, I have FTTC being reinstalled on the 4th October, long story, will write it up and post if anyone is interested.
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. . . I have FTTC being reinstalled on the 4th October, long story, will write it up and post if anyone is interested.
Yes, please.
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+1
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On the 18th August 2019, I purchased a Smarty unlimited sim monthly cost £18.75 a month.
I live in Northampton's NN1 postcode, so I have an abundance of 4g masts, and decent LTE-A speeds of around 40 MBps.
Now all I needed was a decent 4g router, reading several forums, thinkbroadband, hotukdeals, ispreview, the Huawei B525 seemed like the ideal choice.
Huawei B525 is a LTE CAT6 Wireless Router, which pushes and eliminates black spots giving you a smooth and quick Internet connection. The WiFi covers a huge distance, reaching through to each device in any room. Have high-speed Internet for family, friends and yourself all day long!
SPECS:
Download speed: 300Mbps
Upload speed: 50Mbps
Sim Card Size: MicroSim
Dimensions: 16.3 x 22.6 x 5.2 cm
Share: Connects up to 64 WiFi enabled devices.
Sounds ideal, but it's probably the main reason I'm going back to FTTC.
It will achieve 40 down and 40 up, but only if it's on LTE B3 1800mhz.
If it switches to LTE B1 2100mhz, speeds drop to 2mbps or worse.
What is going on, and for a device that supports LTE-A Carrier Aggregation at speeds up to 300Mbps, why is CA never enabled?
Reading up, to upgrade the firmware, I need to open the b525, boot it in emergency boot mode using testpoint, and this will allow me to select bands and give more options.
My FTTC connection ceases on the 30th August, the real testing begins.
My work VOIP phone works without issue.
Email not an issue.
Browsing the web not an issue
Streaming not an issue
Downloading anything takes days during peak hours...
The needed USB-A to USB-A cable arrives 9th September, maybe I should have sent the B525 back, but I have now taken out the warranty sticker screw and have the bare printed circuit board in front of me.
I use balong-flash, which is a beautiful piece of code on github written by rust3028 to flash the b525 from linux.
Success, I have not bricked it, I can now manually choose which bands to connect to, but Carrier Aggregation still does not work.
I read further, the Huawei B525 comes in two different models, B525s-23a for EMEA, and B525s-65a for the rest of the world which supports more bands.
Intrigued, I start reading into what bands they can aggregate:
I find the b525s-23a product specs here: https://www.hetinternethuis.nl/productbestanden/HUAWEI-B525s-23a-datasheet.pdf
B525s-23a supports:
z LTE: B1/3/7/8/20/32/38
FDD: 2100 MHz/1800 MHz/2600 MHz/ 900 MHz/800 MHz/1500 MHz/
TDD: 2600 MHz
Intra-band contiguous: B3+B3, B7+B7, B38+B38
Inter-band: B3+B7, B3+B20, B7+B20, B7+B8, B3+B8, B1+B20, B1+B8,
B20+B32
So, CA (Carrier Aggregation) is supported on B3+B3, or B3+B7, B3+B20 B3+B8, B1+B20 and B1+B8.
I find the B525s-65a specs here: https://www.4gltemall.com/downloads/dl/file/id/354/product/1019/huawei_b525s_65a_lte_modem_datasheet.pdf
B525s-65a supports:
l LTE: B1//B3//B7/B8/B28/B40/ 2CA(DL):
CA_1A-3A,CA_1A-28A,CA_1C,CA _3A-3A,CA_3A-7A,CA_3A-8A,CA_3A-28A,CA
A_3C,CA_4A-28A,CA_5A-7A,CA_5A-38A(SCC),CA_5A-40A(SCC),CA_7A-8A(SC
C),CA_7A-28A,CA_7C,,CA_40A-40A,CA_40C,
Well I can see why the 65a exists, more carrier aggregation bands, but as Smarty is Three UK MVNO, which bands do they support for Carrier Aggregation?
i find my answer here: https://halberdbastion.com/intelligence/countries-nations/united-kingdom and here https://halberdbastion.com/intelligence/mobile-networks/three-uk-3
Carrier Aggregation
CA_1A-3A (B1+B3)
So the Huawei B525s-23a that Amazon sell is not suitable for 3 UK :lol:
I have a lovely WiFi4/WiFi5 LTE router crippled by being on the 3 uk network which do not support the Carrier Aggregation required.
Options available:
Move to EE unlimited data or Vodafone unlimited data sims, twice the price.
Send the Huawei B525s-23a back to Amazon as unsuitable, but I have already opened it and voided the warranty sticker :-X
Try another LTE Modem to prove it.
Get FTTC re-installed.
Simplest option is to try another LTE modem, so I place a couple of orders:
ZTE MF823 Cat4 USB Dongle £15, runs Linux OpenEmbedded, root is possible
ZTE Softbank 403zt Cat6 Usb Dongle £25
Mikrotik RBSXTLTE3-7 Cat3 modem £60 < absolute bargain
ZTE MF823 Cat4 arrived first, getting pretty much identical speeds as the b525, and does not support CA.
Mikrotik RBSXTLTE3-7 arrived next, pretty much brand new, excess stock from a Wireless ISP in Ireland.
The SXT is a CAT3 modem, it supports 100Mbps down and 50Mbps but only on Band 3 1800Mhz LTE and Band 7 2600Mhz LTE, but it contains a 9dbi antenna with 60 degrees alignment.
The SXT is pulling the same speeds as the B525, but also shows something else, it arrived on the 18th September.
The SXT is showing spikes of 14 - 16 Mbps, all the way down to 0.5Mbps on the download during the day, constant 20Mbps upload on speedtests, and only on B3 as it only supports B3 in my area
Basically I'm in a heavy usage area, at night the speed is fantastic, by day, the download is appalling, it looks like traffic flow is applied, but if I was uploading the internet I would be fine.
After 3 hours of reading the information from the SXT that the B525 does not show, I place an order with Vodafone, free install and 80/20 FTTC for the price of 40/10.
The CAT6 USB modem arrived this week, but I'm not testing any further.
While the 4g has performed admirably, and if you were someone who was only streaming video, reading emails and browsing the web, it would probably suit you.
It's just not for me.
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So the Huawei B525s-23a that Amazon sell is not suitable for 3 UK :lol:
Uhh... The B525s-23a IS suitable for Three, just not Carrier Aggregation using CA_1A-3A. Three also has CA using CA_3A-20A, and I have experienced that as I previously owned a 23a. I believe CA_3A-20A is more common than CA_A1-3A is since 2100 MHz (Band 1) has not been refarmed extensively to my knowledge.
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Thank you for writing-up your experience of 4G mobile broadband. To me, someone who has not researched the topic, it seems as if there are numerous pit-falls for the unwary.
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Does the SXT support carrier aggregation? I didn't think it did. Irrelevant for me as I only get B20 anyway. By the way I also started off with a B525-b23 but ended up returning it for credit. Too many stupid limitations.
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I have an EE SIM. I'm curious to try it in my area, we'll see.
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Does the SXT support carrier aggregation? I didn't think it did. Irrelevant for me as I only get B20 anyway. By the way I also started off with a B525-b23 but ended up returning it for credit. Too many stupid limitations.
No, that was the point of purchasing it, it does have a very sensitive to B3 1800Mhz antenna.
Uhh... The B525s-23a IS suitable for Three, just not Carrier Aggregation using CA_1A-3A. Three also has CA using CA_3A-20A, and I have experienced that as I previously owned a 23a. I believe CA_3A-20A is more common than CA_A1-3A is since 2100 MHz (Band 1) has not been refarmed extensively to my knowledge.
B20 is non-existent here in the centre of Northampton, VoLTE connects to B1 2100mhz LTE, seen on several Huawei and Xiaomi Devices.
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This has been very valuable. Any service without a guaranteed minimum performance - with the usual reasonable caveats to that, re bottlenecks - is not for me.
> Basically I'm in a heavy usage area, at night the speed is fantastic, by day, the download is appalling
That has been my concern.
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So as my FTTC is being installed tomorrow, here are several screenshots of how the connection has performed since it's last reconnection:
From the SXTLTE3-7
(https://imgur.com/SifMZCZ.png)
As you can see the Mikrotik sees the full 15mhz B3 1800mhz bandwidth:
(https://imgur.com/oMWrnai.png)
Grabbing the B525s-23a:
Networks available:
(https://i.imgur.com/bUgqYok.png)
Network selection from a cold boot:
(https://i.imgur.com/C8LwcnJ.png)
Speedtest on Band 20 800mhz:
(https://i.imgur.com/cnLn9cA.png)
Network selection forcing B3 as CA has not activated, even though 3 uk supposedly supports Carrier Aggregation of B3 and B20:
(https://i.imgur.com/D55TrRJ.png)
Speedtest on Band 3 1800mhz:
(https://i.imgur.com/MDIbfKp.png)
Network selection forcing Band 1:
(https://i.imgur.com/vHtrwQr.png)
Speedtest on Band 1:
(https://i.imgur.com/Urw04wa.png)
Band 20 does well, but it's a piddly 5mhz bandwidth, compared to B1 at 10mhz and B3 at 15mhz.
Both Band 3 and Band 1 show the network congestion in my area, and Carrier Aggregation for whatever reason is not enabled in my area, even though the B525 supports it on B3+B20.
Edit: adding to this, if you go to www.cellmapper.net and look at the centre of northampton, the 3 UK LTE-A masts are all B1+B3.
Though I would take that with a pinch of salt as apparently I do not have B20 coverage?
I shall have to go exploring this new B20 mast location
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Thank you for that further update. It clearly shows why you are returning to a FTTC (VDSL2, ITU-T G.993.2) based service.
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Openreach Engineer due between 8am and 1pm, line already live, stats:
Line Quality
Downstream Upstream
Current Rate 61554 kbps 19999 kbps
Maximum Rate 74595 kbps 28376 kbps
Signal-to-Noise Ratio 6.3 dB 15.4 dB
Attenuation DS1 8.3 dB, DS2 19.2 dB, DS3 29.9 dB US0 4.8 dB, US1 16.2 dB, US2 23.7 dB
Power 12.6 dBm 3.5 dBm
CRC Errors in last 11 minute(s) 0 6
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) 0 0
R (number of bytes in RS code word) 12 16
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) 0.0269 0.3781
D (interleaver depth) 1205 1
Delay 8 ms 0 ms
Downstream Upstream
Super Frames 394898 171613
Super Frame Errors 0 6
RS Words 100946997 7204580
RS Correctable Errors 1291 26
RS Uncorrectable Errors 0 0
Downstream Upstream
HEC Errors 0 0
OCD Errors 0 0
LCD Errors 0 0
Total Cells 80729321 0
Data Cells 4013 0
Bit Errors 0 0
Downstream Upstream
Total ES 0 5
Total SES 0 0
Total UAS 31 31
Just need to wait on Vodafone to complete the order as there is no routing, but this Vodafone Voxi 3.0 Technicolor THG3000G is a nice piece of kit
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Mine seems to vary between 16 and 20meg down, and 6 to 10 up. However just now it reads super quick for some reason
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I considered switching to EE. (EE is 100% the fastest mobile provider, I've tried them all).
I get 125mbps down and 15mbps up in my house and at work I can hit 267mbps down and 60mbps up. I have the Unlimited plan for £33 a month which has a soft cap of 1TB per month.
Only problem with 4G is the latency. 22ms is far too much. I could handle maybe 10ms but any more is no good for me. I use my 4G for downloads and my BT VDSL for anything ping reliant.
Note: I get MUCH faster speeds on my phone because of the MIMO 4x4 antenna inside. I have a Huawei 4G router and can only hit a maximum of about 70mbps because of the MIMO 2x2. I don't think there is any 4x4 routers/antennas yet. Only the newest top end smartphones have 4x4 (2019/2020 ones).
I live in the middle of nowhere. 7 miles to the nearest town. Fields all around for miles. And I get awesome speeds! 4G heavily depends on your equipment and carrier. Vodaphone and Three just can't hit the same kinds of speeds. The highest I ever saw when I was on Three was 111mbps. Vodaphone was considerably slower. Three has poor coverage though. And O2 is in the same boat as Three with poor coverage.
I expect it will be a few years before 5G hits my area. But with the reduced latency I should be able to finally cut the landline.
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Only problem with 4G is the latency. 22ms is far too much. I could handle maybe 10ms but any more is no good for me. I use my 4G for downloads and my BT VDSL for anything ping reliant.
I'm surprised you get less than 10ms latency (by which I assume you mean round trip time) on VDSL. We seem to be around 24ms on the office FTTC, round trip time to the first ISP hop. A customer's 300 on a Gig dedicated Internet shows around 15ms.
Out of interest, what do you do on the Internet that needs less than 10ms?
Aside from that, regarding the EE service have you come across any issues with the number of devices connected? I'm referring to their clause "If you regularly tether 12 or more devices, we will consider this non-personal use and have the right to move you to a more suitable plan.". I am not sure how they're detecting tethered devices, I've seen suggestions that it's by TTL indicating that the IP packet is at least on hop removed from the actual mobile device.
I'm interested in EE because that's the second fastest carrier at our house, around 40meg compared to 20 from Three or 60 from O2.
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10ms to where exactly? I've never seen lower than about 14ms out to the Internet and my trip to the ISP is the lowest I've ever seen.
(https://csdprojects.co.uk/forums/gateways.jpg)
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That depends where in the country you are really.
There's plenty users in central London with 4-5ms pings with hundreds of UK based servers giving sub 10ms round trips for them.
I couldn't count the number of sub 10ms ThinkBroadband BQM's I've seen.
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Exactly, you're going to have to be next door to telehouse or something. Anyone outside of London, you're not really going to get sub 10ms to pretty munch anything, as all the big companies are going to have their data centres in London.
I think when I was with Origin on Digital Region, which had the POP in Sheffield, my latency was still around 10ms to the Sheffield data centre of the peer Origin used for their Internet connection. I'm practically sat on top of all that infrastructure, I've cycled past the data centre. ;)
Presumably even on FTTP, your latency is limited by the time slice you are allocated on the PON on top of the actual distance.
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So,
I'm coming to the end of my Vodafone FTTC 80/20 £23 a month contract in April 2021, and I'm wondering if the mobile connection in Northampton has improved.
Looking back at my notes, any 3 UK network, 3, ID Mobile, Smarty, need a router that supports B1+B3 for carrier aggregation so:
Huawei B535
Huawei B618
TP-Link MR600
Mikrotik Chateau LTE12
ID Mobile offer unlimited data on pay as you go for £20, no contract, including 4G Calls and Wifi-Calling, though the wifi bit will be a bit useless in a router, and you can call customer support.
3 I'm not touching unless I need to
Smarty I'm not touching as it's behind Carrier Grade NAT and no customer support.
Looking at my current 4G Modem, the SXTLTE3-7 https://mikrotik.com/product/RBSXTLTE3-7 (https://mikrotik.com/product/RBSXTLTE3-7) it supports both Band 3 1800Mhz and Band 7 2600Mhz, modem is capped at CAT3 100/50 but to truly see if this would work I really need to look for a carrier that supports Band 7.
According to Halberd Bastion: https://halberdbastion.com/intelligence/countries-nations/united-kingdom EE and Vodafone support both frequencies.
For Vodafone:
If I upload a blank image to Voxi's Jobseeker page: https://www.voxi.co.uk/for-now I can have unlimited data for £10 a month for 6 months, I'm aware of people doing it, but I do not want to be dishonest.
True Unlimited data from Voxi is £35, but includes 5G when available
For EE:
Utility Warehouse do Unlimited data for £20 a month
BT Mobile do mobile broadband for £45 for 15mbps max speed 24 month contract.
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Looking at my current 4G Modem, the SXTLTE3-7 https://mikrotik.com/product/RBSXTLTE3-7 (https://mikrotik.com/product/RBSXTLTE3-7) it supports both Band 3 1800Mhz and Band 7 2600Mhz, modem is capped at CAT3 100/50 but to truly see if this would work I really need to look for a carrier that supports Band 7.
I don't believe that version supports carrier aggregation. My "SXT LTE Kit" which is a later model does not. The "SXT LTE6 Kit" does support CA, I know someone who's using one on Three and aggregating B3 and B20.
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I don't believe that version supports carrier aggregation. My "SXT LTE Kit" which is a later model does not. The "SXT LTE6 Kit" does support CA, I know someone who's using one on Three and aggregating B3 and B20.
Have you seen the new LHGG: https://youtu.be/lY2l6FD-Z-Y
Gigabit Ethernet
Dual Core CPU
CAT6
https://mikrotik.com/product/lhgg_lte6_kit
no mine does not support Carrier Aggregation, might try and find a Band 7 signal with it though
I need to find out if my Tapo camera will be accessible over a mobile data connection.
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Cheers, I hadn't specifically noticed that one. Elsewhere Mikrotik reps were hinting or implying forthcoming product releases with Gigabit Ethernet.
I've found a few issues with the Smarty/3 connection after using it as our full time home Internet for nearly two years now. Quite a few services seem to be uncomfortable with the changes in IP address, for example Paypal always makes a fuss, and once even refused to let me log in without changing my password. Our company ERP system also gets upset and used to keep throwing me off, to work around that I've directed that URL down my VPN so my connection originates from the office Internet. However I'm starting to think that to get a fully functional home network on 4G you want to run a VPN over the top of it, maybe something like AAISPs L2TP service.
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I've just picked up a Huawei B818 for some experiments (and potentially cover me if I cancel VM due to price rises), these i also a Huawei Huawei 5G CPE Pro and Huawei Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2
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Cheers, I hadn't specifically noticed that one. Elsewhere Mikrotik reps were hinting or implying forthcoming product releases with Gigabit Ethernet.
I've found a few issues with the Smarty/3 connection after using it as our full time home Internet for nearly two years now. Quite a few services seem to be uncomfortable with the changes in IP address, for example Paypal always makes a fuss, and once even refused to let me log in without changing my password. Our company ERP system also gets upset and used to keep throwing me off, to work around that I've directed that URL down my VPN so my connection originates from the office Internet. However I'm starting to think that to get a fully functional home network on 4G you want to run a VPN over the top of it, maybe something like AAISPs L2TP service.
I paid upfront for a five year purevpn deal in August, might get that working.
Ordered a £10 voxi SIM, interested that YouTube, Netflix and prime video doesn't count against usage.
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I've just picked up a Huawei B818 for some experiments (and potentially cover me if I cancel VM due to price rises), these i also a Huawei Huawei 5G CPE Pro and Huawei Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2
Any particular network you'll be trying those with?
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I'll be testing on Three, I'll start a thread later in the week. I've only got the B818, the other two are far to expensive for an experiment as we don't currently have 5G available. Rather annoyingly Margate has Three 5G according to the checker, which is just over two miles away, so close yet so far.
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@Ronski
A Mikrotik LHGG would reach, sadly it's not a 5G device yet.
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Update, Vodafone have no band 3 or band 7 coverage in Northampton :lol:
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I paid upfront for a five year purevpn deal in August, might get that working.
Ordered a £10 voxi SIM, interested that YouTube, Netflix and prime video doesn't count against usage.
I've also ordered a Voxi SIM, as its not hard to just route my video playing devices over a given WAN so it could be useful to offload video off my VDSL lines entirely. I do wonder though if they will be heavily throttled, like forcing 1080p when I should get 4K, we shall soon see.
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@Ronski
A Mikrotik LHGG would reach, sadly it's not a 5G device yet.
There's also an awful lot of buildings between us and Margate.
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Just to follow up, Voxi so far has been nuts here.
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/a/6984446736.png) (https://www.speedtest.net/result/a/6984446736)
That's faster than both my VDSL lines combined, which incidentally if I run all concurrently:
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/10840684100.png) (https://www.speedtest.net/result/10840684100)
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Just to follow up, Voxi so far has been nuts here.
That's faster than both my VDSL lines combined, which incidentally if I run all concurrently:
That's pretty impressive, is that via the huawei b535?
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Alex, you're getting great 4G results there - hope you're able to get 5G soon.
I've had my connection over 10 days now and it has been pretty consistent.
Just got this speed during the evening peak - bloody impressive.
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/10853472982.png) (https://www.speedtest.net/result/10853472982)
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That's pretty impressive, is that via the huawei b535?
Yeah that's the impressive part, Voxi is working as well as the S10 whereas Three was a lot slower. But then the Vodafone mast is insanely close by, was able to have the b535 in pretty much line-of-sight sat on top of my router.
(https://csdprojects.co.uk/forums/Network Shelf.jpg)
Currently back on Three as I missed the little detail that you can't upgrade your Voxi package mid-month so I ran out of data. :(
Interestingly even though I'd think this would be more obstructed from the Three mast, it improved my upload.
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Alex, you're getting great 4G results there - hope you're able to get 5G soon.
Its not really worth the investment as FTTP should be available later this year. But as a short-term solution to improve downloads, if it stays like this then its definitely worth it.
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Alex, you're getting great 4G results there - hope you're able to get 5G soon.
I've had my connection over 10 days now and it has been pretty consistent.
Just got this speed during the evening peak - bloody impressive.
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/10853472982.png) (https://www.speedtest.net/result/10853472982)
That is impressive, if I could get 5G like that then I probably wouldn't bother with FTTP if/when it becomes available, you can get an unlimited 3 sim for around £15 a month, a fraction of the price of comparable FTTP speeds. I'm currently running on 3 4G, see my thread for further details https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,25565.0.html Best I've got on 4G is 207/19 but more often get closer to 100/30, I'm 440 meters from the cell with line of sight - should be perfect for 5G
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Especially as I believe the average for 4G is 20Mbit and 5G 200Mbit.
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Just a quick update on the Huawei b525-23a, it's at a relative's house and today I manually set it to b20+b32 only.
It's hitting 60 down 20 up without issue on Smarty.
https://www.hetinternethuis.nl/productbestanden/HUAWEI-B525s-23a-datasheet.pdf
It's the last supported carrier aggregate on the attached spreadsheet.
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I was testing Smarty as I was planing to move networks and noticed my phone was showing 5G (5G NSA according to Network Signal Guru, not "proper" 5G). They enabled it a few days ago.
It's not as fast for me as other speed tests shared here, but my flat is half under the street level and it's still faster than my wired ~60Mbps FTTC connection.
Indoors, by the window, I can't get past ~130Mbps during the day. I've seen speeds just over 200Mbps after mid night. If I open the door and walk just 5 steps, I can get very good download speeds:
(https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/random/Screenshot_20220114-055607_Speedtest-163.png)
This is Vodafone 4G in the same spot:
(https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/random/Screenshot_20220114-055854_Speedtest-d78.png)
Speeds can fluctuate a lot, especially during the day. One moment I might be getting 300Mbps, see a drop to 50Mbps for 30 seconds, and then an increase to 100 or 400Mbps.
I wanted to see how good or bad it was in practice, so for the past few days I've been using my phone's hotspot. Web browsing, video calls, 1440p YouTube videos, some heavy downloads (1-5GB), email, etc. After 100GB I can say that it's usable, but not super reliable/stable (keep in mind that Three's signal isn't good inside my flat).
While it works fine 95% of the time, sometimes I may have to reload a page because it failed to load. Pings can be as low as 15ms and then jump to 100ms. YouTube videos at high resolutions will be fine most of the time, but I may experience buffering during one of the speed drops. The slow upload speeds cause problems with VPNs (due to the encryption overhead) and obviously 5Mbps might not be enough if you have multiple people uploading stuff (eg: video calls).
Most of these issues seem to be related to Three's signal in this area... I'd like to compare Smarty's 5G to Vodafone and GiffGaff (O2) as I have their SIMs too, but neither support 5G in this area. In any case, indoors, Smarty's 5G is better than Vodafone's (40/10Mbps) and GiffGaff (terrible, 2/2Mbps) 4G. I think EE's 4G could compete with Smarty as I've tested with a PlusNet Mobile SIM and was getting 110/40Mbps during the day (and PlusNet has a speed cap and doesn't have access to all EE's bands).
In any case, even with the issues I have, I think this is a good alternative for many. If it wasn't the slow upload speeds and my need for low latency (I play online games), I'd cancel my FTTC connection. Not only download speeds are better (and the lower speeds sometimes are faster than FTTC), but it's also cheaper than FTTC: £20/mo unlimited monthly Smarty plan vs ~£30/mo.
I don't know if I'd do any long term contracts though. Three is investing a lot in 5G, but their cheaper prices paired with a lot of/unlimited data will probably lead to the same problems their 4G has in parts of the country. They oversold it and their speeds are a joke in places like central London. Unless they install one of those high band cells just outside, I'd be surprised if a year from now speeds are as good as they are today.
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I was testing Smarty as I was planing to move networks and noticed my phone was showing 5G (5G NSA according to Network Signal Guru, not "proper" 5G). They enabled it a few days ago.
AFAIK all networks use 5G NSA right now apart from a few trials. Its quite annoying as Three launched 5G here the middle of last year and during quiet hours:
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/12166359785.png) (https://www.speedtest.net/result/12166359785)
However during the peak hours I get random bouts of high ping (much more frequently if you use their public IP APN 3internet rather than their CG-NAT APN three.co.uk) and much slower speeds, almost certainly down to upstream contention as I got identical behaviour on 4G which is why I originally cancelled Three and moved to Voxi.
As I don't generally play online games though it has been a HUGE improvement for downloading games while keeping my typical browsing to Zen and AAISP L2TP over Libera 4G as the main backup.
Considering its my cheapest broadband connection, its kinda hard to complain but I wouldn't want it as my ONLY connection.
Worth noting, I'm using a Hauwei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 which is really pricey and seems to be constantly out of stock now. My phone could barely hold onto the Three 4G connection, a good router makes a world of difference especially as I have houses and trees between me and the mast. So its actually performing far better than I expected.
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Smarty unlimited is currently £16 a month, currently awaiting replacement sim card.
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Smarty unlimited is currently £16 a month, currently awaiting replacement sim card.
Where can you get unlimited for £16? On their site it's £20/mo.
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Where can you get unlimited for £16? On their site it's £20/mo.
https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/
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https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/
Ah, I see. Thanks!
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;D
(https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/random/usage-ba2.png)
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;D
(https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/random/usage-ba2.png)
Impressive, both O2 and EE limit their unlimited plans to 600GB a month, you are way past that.
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No slow downs so far either (as far as I can tell) on 5G:
(https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/random/Screenshot-2022-03-25-at-20.51.15-01f.png)
The weak signal inside my flat is still a problem. Sometimes my phone falls back to 4G and Three's 4G is terrible in this area (eg: see the upload speed in the screenshot above). On top of this, when doing heavy downloads, my phone gets hot and the hotspot sometimes drops.
But I still find it useful. I had to download around 200GB the other day and used 5G because it's way faster than my FTTC connection... I managed to find a spot near a window where I get up to ~500Mbps after midnight!
Regarding EE, I checked their site and it seems that they either slow down speeds during peak hours or ask customers to move to a business plan. But their business plan (which I assume doesn't have the same 600GB limit) is cheaper than the normal plan (£30 vs £35/mo on a 24mo contract)? If that's the case, then it's cheaper and better to get a business plan.