Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: outoftownie on September 12, 2019, 09:37:41 AM

Title: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on September 12, 2019, 09:37:41 AM

Firstly... thank you for this site and forum, I've learned a lot, and already taken steps to improve my FTTC speed and collect better data about what is going on...



So... I have recently moved from the city with the choice of both FTTC and cable, to "the sticks", and am trying to make my BT FTTC line perform somewhere near the BT DSL checker prediction:
VDSL Range A (Clean) 32.1   20   6.7   4.3   16.5 
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 31.2   17.3   6.6   4   13.1 

Here's the actuals:
Max Observed Downstream Speed (Mbps)   25.42               
Max Upstream Observed Speed (Mbps)   2.38   
            
I've had the line live since last Friday. Previously it was only ever used for ADSL. Since installation, downstream has slowly risen from 20Mbps, I can manage with where it is now.... However, I could do with a couple of megs more upstream as I work from home including videoconferencing frequently.

The physical environment is 1 to 1.4km to the cabinet (I'm not quite sure of the route) which is a mix of underground and overhead, the DP is on a pole around 50m away, from there my drop wire runs through some trees, is attached to an electricity pole, then goes through another set of tree branches, before reaching the eaves of my house. There's a crappy small brown plastic BT box on the wall by the eaves, then about 20m of what looks like quite new drop wire, with a new OR master socket and MK4 faceplate. No extension wiring connected. I think I have a spare pair on the drop from the DP. Modem is now a HG612 (based on the recommendations here), and the router is an Ubiquiti ER-X. 

DSLstats results below and graphs here https://imgur.com/a/pfRNI2i (https://imgur.com/a/pfRNI2i). (note the ES graph covers more than the period I have been monitoring so far - there's always some error seconds on the upstream while I've been monitoring, and it seems to be typically 20 ES/hour)
xdslcmd info --stats
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:   0
Last initialization procedure status:   0
Max:   Upstream rate = 2348 Kbps, Downstream rate = 24884 Kbps
Bearer:   0, Upstream rate = 2389 Kbps, Downstream rate = 25420 Kbps
Bearer:   1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State:   L0
Mode:         VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile:      Profile 17a
TPS-TC:         PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis:      U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:      No Defect
Training Status:   Showtime
      Down      Up
SNR (dB):    6.1       5.8
Attn(dB):    26.0       0.0
Pwr(dBm):    11.3       7.3

xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason:   0
Last initialization procedure status:   0
Max:   Upstream rate = 2358 Kbps, Downstream rate = 24752 Kbps
Bearer:   0, Upstream rate = 2389 Kbps, Downstream rate = 25420 Kbps
Bearer:   1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205) (1972,2782)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1961) (2793,3959)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (7,32) (871,1205)
DS: (33,859) (1216,1606)
     VDSL Port Details        Upstream        Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate:        2358 kbps          24752 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power:          7.3 dBm           11.3 dBm
====================================================================================
  VDSL Band Status   U0   U1   U2   U3   U4   D1   D2   D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):   11.5   60.1   75.7   N/A   N/A   23.2   73.0   N/A
Signal Attenuation(dB):   11.5   59.6   N/A   N/A   N/A   37.9   73.5   N/A
        SNR Margin(dB):   5.9   6.0   N/A   N/A   N/A   5.9   6.0   N/A
         TX Power(dBm):   0.7   6.1   N/A   N/A   N/A   10.2   5.0   N/A

I am guessing U2 is just bad enough that I can't get the additional upstream band to give me that bit more upload speed?

Would there be any mileage in getting OpenReach out? Ideas I have

- try the other pair on the drop wire, or a different pair back to the cabinet
- re-route the drop wire so it doesn't go through trees - there is a direct route from the pole that avoids the trees, it would overhang a neighbours garden though which might not make me popular :-)
- get them to rejoint in the little brown box on my wall

Any other thoughts much appreciated! (or if you would like any more data please shout)

Many thanks!
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Weaver on September 12, 2019, 11:51:50 AM
You can certainly do a BT OR ‘change point of entry’ via your ISP. That might produce some benefit from cleaning up the incoming path. Nothing guaranteed tho. Trying a different modem might produce a bigger result.

If you really want some serious speed though, bond two or more lines together using a suitable router and ISP. If done right, this would double (or more) your transfer speeds in both directions even on single TCP transfers; that is, you don’t necessarily have to have two downloads/uploads going on at the same time to get the full benefit. I have four slow ADSL lines and I do indeed get full four times download speed even in single transfers (without needing multiple downloads in progress). See https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,23790.0.html for details

The upload situation is very weird for me though; I used to get full 90% * 4 times upstream throughput but at the moment I’m only getting very roughly 75% of the upstream performance I got a couple of months back, and this drop / rise has happened repeatedly. Anyway even when things are ‘bad’ I get ‘times-three’ speed upstream on a single upload with four lines.

To get multi-speed upload, my Firebrick router is doing the business. To get multi-speed download my ISP, aa.net.uk is routing traffic down multiple lines and it is targeted in to a single address range; A machine on my LAN does not have multiple IP addresses one per dsl-line. Machines put on the internet have no idea about the existence of multiple lines; they just send stuff to my LAN and the ISP sorts it out according to the fraction of speed that each line can handle, and everything even just works if lines have different speeds downstream. If lines have different upstream speeds, my router is configured per-line to send the right amount of traffic up each link; the router copes with links of mismatched speeds and splits the upstream traffic in the right fraction. It’s a nuisance having to do correctly configure upstream true link speeds.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: ktz392837 on September 12, 2019, 12:31:56 PM
ECI cabinet?

If on Huawei cabinet perhaps if Ginp/3db is enabled you will gain some speed but I'm not sure if either applies on upload?

Could have been dreaming but I think some modems now allow you to adjust the db down to get some more speed not sure which though?  Perhaps worth more research especially if your current errors are low and could handle a lower db.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tubaman on September 12, 2019, 02:10:11 PM
ECI cabinet?

If on Huawei cabinet perhaps if Ginp/3db is enabled you will gain some speed but I'm not sure if either applies on upload?

Could have been dreaming but I think some modems now allow you to adjust the db down to get some more speed not sure which though?  Perhaps worth more research especially if your current errors are low and could handle a lower db.

G.INP only seems to get applied to the upload side rarely, so I wouldn't get hopeful on getting speed that way. It may well improve your download speed if you are on a Huawei cabinet.
Your upload speed is however a lot lower than the dslchecker suggests you should be getting, so it can't do any harm to raise it as an issue with your ISP. I don't know what happens in these situations as the handback speed only seems to apply to download and as that side is within the clean limits it'll certainly be higher than that.
 :)
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on September 12, 2019, 02:27:11 PM
Thanks all for the replies.

Yes, it's a Huawei cab.

DLM works on both upstream and downstream together, right? So that I have no Error Seconds downstream might not help DLM drop the downstream SNR towards 3db because I have 300+ ES/day upstream - based on my understanding of the DLM bands that puts me somewhere between a "good" and "ok" line...

Maybe I should be a bit more patient and see if G.IMP kicks in downstream, the line has only been active 6 days so far...

I will also investigate modems where I can tweak the SNR myself... VMG-1312-B10A seems to be one, also Drayteks, but as I have a Huawei cab I should maybe stick to Broadcom...

Thanks for the idea of bonding. I could try a second line on a short-term contract with AAISP and see how what sync speeds I get before going all-in with a bonding solution. Alternatively I might experiment with a directional 4G antenna to offload non-critical upload - in one or two places in the garden I may, just, have line of sight to a 4G mast 3km away.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tubaman on September 12, 2019, 02:41:51 PM
If you have only been live for 6 days you may well have to wait a bit longer for the G.INP fairies to visit you.
 :)

Oh, and welcome to the forum by the way. It's a very friendly and informative place - enjoy!
 ;D
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: boozy on September 12, 2019, 02:44:41 PM
Hi Outoftownie,

It would be worth posting the qln and HLog stats just to rule out a line problem before spending on a second line.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: ktz392837 on September 12, 2019, 02:58:26 PM
Not sure but I don't think the Zyxels can tweak it to under 6db only tweak to making slower by increasing the db.  No knowledge at all of Drayteks.

Pity Ginp/3db even on Huawei cabinets is not really a thing.

I'm on ECI so have no experience of Ginp apart from a brief few days when it was enabled and disabled a few years back.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Weaver on September 12, 2019, 03:57:47 PM
If you are interested in 4G, then AA has a horribly expensive 4G-over-Three service or you can use their L2TP service and then combine that with an all-you-can eat flat rate 4G deal directly from one of the mobile operators ( Three?, someone else too ? Have been discussing this a lot in recent threads over the past six months or so.) A Firebrick or similar router and L2TP into the ISP would allow you to split traffic between 4G and DSL in the upstream direction. L2TP into AA could split downstream traffic coming to you between 4G and DSL lines even if the 4G is with a different ISP.

I use 3G but for backup only; only if everything fails do I then switch over. I haven’t got 4G hardware configured properly yet, something I need help sorting out. My Firebrick router could be set up to send stuff via 4G all the time to massively boost the total upstream, but with my current AA-over-Three 4G SIM it would bankrupt me, since upstream as well as downstream is charged per byte on this AA 4G deal. AA ought to really resell one of the carrier’s flat rate deals too,
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: burakkucat on September 12, 2019, 05:54:32 PM
It would be worth posting the qln and HLog stats just to rule out a line problem before spending on a second line.

Both the QLN and Hlog plots are viewable from the link (https://imgur.com/a/pfRNI2i) that OOT has provided in the initial post . . . but are somewhat small (for elderly eyes).

I can see that the Hlog plot is quite reasonable and there are no obvious signs of defects in the metallic pathway.

However the QLN plot does show a somewhat noisy environment. The US2 band is elevated by approximately 20 dBm/Hz thus ruling out its usage.

The bit-loading plot shows a very deep DSPBO notch in the DS1 band (hinting that the E-side length to the cabinet is of significant length) and, overall, the plot appears very much that of a VDSL2 circuit with a longish D-side.

The SNR plot is as expected (having considered the other three plots of the "snapshot" quartet).

Finally, the grumpy old kuro neko remembers to also say "Welcome to the kitz forum" (to OOT).
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on September 12, 2019, 07:06:59 PM
If you have only been live for 6 days you may well have to wait a bit longer for the G.INP fairies to visit you.
 :)

Turns out I hadn't clicked on all the tabs in DSLstats, I think I have G.INP already, downstream at least...

Code: [Select]
Downstream Upstream
General
rtx_tx          27401            0               
rtx_c            10260            0               
rtx_uc          1368            0               
LEFTRS          362              0               
minEFTR          25426            0               
errFreeBits      64013778        0               
Bearer 0
RxQueue          20              0               
TxQueue          10              0               
G.INP Framing    18              0               
G.INP Lookback  10              0               
RRC Bits        0                24             
Interleave depth 8                1               
INP              46.00            0.00           
INPRein          0.00            0.00           
Delay            0                0               
Bearer 1
Interleave depth 1                0               
INP              2.50            0.00           
INPRein          2.50            0.00           
Delay            0                0     

And thanks burakkucat for taking a look at my plots and confirming there's nothing terrible going on, just a long line... sorry they're a bit small, blame Imgur. Control-Plus to zoom. :-)

Quote
Oh, and welcome to the forum by the way. It's a very friendly and informative place - enjoy!
 ;D

Thank you all, you're all a fountain of knowledge! That you can't just plug in your router and get 80/20 is kind of new to me, but I suspect is a common issue for many of my new neighbours...!
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: burakkucat on September 12, 2019, 08:54:21 PM
Turns out I hadn't clicked on all the tabs in DSLstats, I think I have G.INP already, downstream at least...

Yes, you do seem to have the G.Inp goodness.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Weaver on September 12, 2019, 09:02:30 PM
And a welcome from me too.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Ronski on September 13, 2019, 06:22:39 AM
If you have deep pockets you could look into FTTP on demand, quotes for it have ranged from a few thousand to tens of thousands. Installation can take over a year as well, so it's not a quick fix. If you run a business from home there is a £2k voucher available.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tubaman on September 13, 2019, 11:28:14 AM
Turns out I hadn't clicked on all the tabs in DSLstats, I think I have G.INP already, downstream at least...
Hopefully it'll soon drop your SNR down from 6dB to give you a bit more download speed. Unfortunately that still doesn't help with the upload side of things.
 :)
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on September 13, 2019, 09:48:38 PM
Well after a 2 hour power cut this morning (welcome to the countryside!) I now seem to have the mythical G.INP upstream, as well as vectoring, and almost another meg of upstream...

Code: [Select]
Stats recorded 13 Sep 2019 21:44:48

DSLAM type / SW version: BDCM:0xa48c (164.140) / v0xa48c
Modem/router firmware:  AnnexA version - A2pv6C038m.d24j
DSL mode:                VDSL2 Profile 17a
Status:                  Showtime
Uptime:                  11 hours 53 min 17 sec
Resyncs:                0 (since 13 Sep 2019 09:59:24)

Downstream Upstream
Line attenuation (dB):  26.1 0.0
Signal attenuation (dB): Not monitored
Connection speed (kbps): 25970 3288
SNR margin (dB):        4.6 6.0
Power (dBm):            11.4 7.2
Interleave depth:        8 4
INP:                    47.00 41.00
G.INP:                  Enabled Enabled
Vectoring status:        1 (VECT_FULL)

RSCorr/RS (%):          0.1339 0.1999
RSUnCorr/RS (%):        0.0000 0.0000
ES/hour:                0.55 2.95

...and a much lower ES rate, on the upstream side...

Hopefully DLM will start to lower the target SNR over the next few days and squeeze a bit more out...

Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tubaman on September 14, 2019, 07:57:54 AM
Vectoring too - you are lucky as not many of us get that (although I'm not sure how much it'll actually be achieving on a 1km+ line).
It'll be interesting to see if the upstream G.INP stays - fingers crossed it will.
 :)

I bet you never knew you could have so much fun looking at line stats - beware though, as it can be addictive. ;D
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Weaver on September 15, 2019, 02:21:27 AM
Tuba man speaks the truth - beware :-)

I am certainly jealous of your upstream. I only get ~440k upstream IP PDU rate from the best one of my lines (which has a sync rate 525k upstream) and that gives a combined measured TCP SDU (?) rate of ~1.2Mbps; used to be a measured 2.56Mbps u/s TCP SDU rate a few months ago.

Firebrick current upstream rate limiters' IP PDU tx rates (egress speeds), in-force right now ::
    #1: 448076 bps
    #2: 436981 bps
    #3: 357607 bps
    #4: 423325 bps
Total ideal combined rate: 1.665989 Mbps

Fractional speed contributions:
    #1: 26.895%   [█████████████ ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒]
    #2: 26.230%   [█████████████ ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒]
    #3: 21.465%   [███████████ ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒]
    #4: 25.410%   [█████████████ ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒]

Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: j0hn on September 15, 2019, 11:20:57 PM
Do you by any chance record Connection Stats on DslStats?
It's the option in the attached image.

I'm interested in seeing if Vectoring was active immediately or enabled later (if you were recording from day 1 that is).
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Chunkers on September 18, 2019, 02:56:12 AM
I think you have done the easy stuff by having a decent modem, looking at your wiring etc

I had the same issue, living in the countryside but wanting to access my network whilst away from home makes low upstream bandwidth super annoying  >:(
I ended up getting a second line and using dual-WAN router (without bonding) which is a sort-of halfway house, albeit pretty expensive.

I also found that my upstream bandwidth was being capped by my ISP because when I upgraded to "unlimited" my upstream bandwidth doubled.

Recently BT kindly installed a new cabinet close to my home and suddenly both my connections instantly went to 80 /20 which is nice, so I can now get 40 Mb upstream which helps a lot when I am uploading files, hurrrah!

C
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on September 19, 2019, 09:49:37 AM
Do you by any chance record Connection Stats on DslStats?
It's the option in the attached image.

I'm interested in seeing if Vectoring was active immediately or enabled later (if you were recording from day 1 that is).

Unfortunately I wasn't recording from day 1 - I only got the HG612 a few days later when the initial speeds were meh. I have now turned on the option you highlighted!

In the past couple of days I seem to have lost the G.INP upstream, and upstream has dropped from 3400 to 2600kbps, while giving me anothe couple of megs of downstream - which I need less than another meg of upstream. Ho hum, what the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away...

I have got an external directional 4G antenna and am going to experiment with offloading non-essential uploads (e.g. IP-CCTV recordings) to 4G...

 
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tiffy on September 19, 2019, 10:37:32 AM
Quote
In the past couple of days I seem to have lost the G.INP upstream, and upstream has dropped from 3400 to 2600kbps, while giving me anothe couple of megs of downstream - which I need less than another meg of upstream. Ho hum, what the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away...

From observation of the 3 VDSL2 lines I monitor and record with DSLStats & RPi's, US G.Inp is applied if the associated DLM triggers are exceeded for whatever reason but has always been removed again via a DLM re-synch between a few days to a week later.

Of course, the application of US G.Inp in most cases removes or greatly reduces the error rates which were likely to have caused DLM to apply US G.Inp in the first place, historically and purely by observation on my systems, have never seen US G.Inp lasting longer than a week.

In all observed instances of US G.Inp application have also noted that Re-Tx low profile was applied, confirmed by Bearer 0, INPRein being "0" (zero).
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tubaman on September 19, 2019, 11:47:12 AM
...
Of course, the application of US G.Inp in most cases removes or greatly reduces the error rates which were likely to have caused DLM to apply US G.Inp in the first place, historically and purely by observation on my systems, have never seen US G.Inp lasting longer than a week.
...

I concur  - I've only seen US G.INP a couple of times on my line, and then only for a few days on each occasion. It just seems odd that once you get DS G.INP it seems to stick but the same is not the case with with the US side.
Is this perhaps something to do with the CPE (ie the customer's modem) having to do the work for US G.INP whereas it's DSLAM doing it on the DS side?
 :)
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tiffy on September 19, 2019, 12:25:59 PM
Quote
Is this perhaps something to do with the CPE (ie the customer's modem) having to do the work for US G.INP whereas it's DSLAM doing it on the DS side?

Valid point, never thought of that.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: ejs on September 19, 2019, 07:17:40 PM
Is this perhaps something to do with the CPE (ie the customer's modem) having to do the work for US G.INP whereas it's DSLAM doing it on the DS side?

Why would that be the reason? Does your modem have better things to do besides doing its job as a modem? :P
I think the DSLAM is more likely to be more constrained than a single modem - the DSLAM had to squeeze as many lines onto a line card as they could, a typical modem only has to do one line.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: tubaman on September 19, 2019, 07:55:59 PM
Why would that be the reason? Does your modem have better things to do besides doing its job as a modem? :P
I think the DSLAM is more likely to be more constrained than a single modem - the DSLAM had to squeeze as many lines onto a line card as they could, a typical modem only has to do one line.
My modem likes flashing its lights and contributing heat to the room in addition to its modem duties. ;D
So why do we think that DS G.INP almost invariably sticks but US G.INP almost invariably does not?
 ???
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: ejs on September 19, 2019, 08:27:06 PM
It probably dates from when some modems didn't support upstream G.INP, when it wasn't a mandatory requirement, and the G.INP Mk1 / Mk2 debacle.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: j0hn on September 19, 2019, 09:07:41 PM
https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/ginp-retransmission.htm

Interview was years ago but nothing seems to have changed.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on September 21, 2019, 06:57:36 PM

My upstream G.INP is back as of 7am this morning, giving me 3400kbps upstream (vs 2600 without), zero error seconds and no impact on downstream (also with G.INP, and vectoring).

Let's see how long it stays, it was about 3 days last time.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: j0hn on September 21, 2019, 11:40:45 PM
Until DLM sees the upstream is stable enough.

Some lines never see upstream G.INP as they never get enough errors.

Some go through a continuous cycle of DLM adding upstream G.INP, which helps prevent errors, DLM removes G.INP and the errors return, and the cycle starts again.

Some noisier lines keep upstream G.INP for extended periods.

Who knows what DLM will do with your line. The type of errors and their thresholds are a bit of a mystery with regards to G.INP.
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: outoftownie on October 13, 2019, 08:18:41 AM
Until DLM sees the upstream is stable enough.

Some lines never see upstream G.INP as they never get enough errors.

Some go through a continuous cycle of DLM adding upstream G.INP, which helps prevent errors, DLM removes G.INP and the errors return, and the cycle starts again.

Some noisier lines keep upstream G.INP for extended periods.

Who knows what DLM will do with your line. The type of errors and their thresholds are a bit of a mystery with regards to G.INP.

Just as an update, this seems to be what is happening with my line - now running for a month, it has had G.INP upstream for about half that time. When it's on, I get ~3400kbps upstream and zero error seconds, without it's 2600kbps and around 15-20 ES per hour. I wish it would stick, but seems determined not to...

Downstream has slowly risen over the past month and is currently at 29289kbps and seems to be stable at 3db with G.INP on. (vectoring is still on too)
Title: Re: improving upload on long rural line
Post by: Chrysalis on October 13, 2019, 09:06:19 AM
If you are interested in 4G, then AA has a horribly expensive 4G-over-Three service or you can use their L2TP service and then combine that with an all-you-can eat flat rate 4G deal directly from one of the mobile operators ( Three?, someone else too ? Have been discussing this a lot in recent threads over the past six months or so.) A Firebrick or similar router and L2TP into the ISP would allow you to split traffic between 4G and DSL in the upstream direction. L2TP into AA could split downstream traffic coming to you between 4G and DSL lines even if the 4G is with a different ISP.

I use 3G but for backup only; only if everything fails do I then switch over. I haven’t got 4G hardware configured properly yet, something I need help sorting out. My Firebrick router could be set up to send stuff via 4G all the time to massively boost the total upstream, but with my current AA-over-Three 4G SIM it would bankrupt me, since upstream as well as downstream is charged per byte on this AA 4G deal. AA ought to really resell one of the carrier’s flat rate deals too,

Ideally you want an affordable quota thats enough to tie you over for basic browsing when dsl is down, but also has the option of topups when needed, assuming one outage a year I think thats viable.

I use EE for that, I use the mobile data when out anyway but it works as backup to my dsl if it goes down also.

Although on my oneplusone I had to write a script to remove the tethering ip route stuff, as the phone is blocking traffic when tethered and EE swear to me tethering isnt blocked (to be fair it works fine on my s7).

Will the firebrick work with a phone plugged into the usb port in tethering mode?

Performance wise I find 4g browsing comparable to interleaved dsl.