UKH

Has anyone switched from fibre to 5G for home broadband? If so, what is your experience? I’m in London with good 5G coverage. I get about 150 Mbps on 5G and about 200 on fibre. With unlimited 5G data SIMs available for about £5 a month, why would I not get a router with a SIM slot and save a bundle per month? 

Research carefully the hubs. My experience was poor when more than 1 or 2 devices were using it. Can’t be an absolute bandwidth issue, as there’s plenty of that, but the hub couldn’t cope with distributing it apparently, leading to frequent dropouts and lag. With one device it was absolutely cracking. It seems a common experinece at least with the bundled hubs. Maybe higher end ones are better but idk.

There may well be 'fair use' exclusions on the 'unlimited data' SIMs. IIRC there's some issue with using them to provide home internet.

I don't have 5g but our  4g hub with an external antenna and mesh network has no issues with up to 6 devices connected.

when I was researching them end of last year, it seemed like you are too much at the mercy of the weather and ultimately decided against it. Also, I am not sure if they will let you use a phone data sim in a 5g router for too long. I am sure there is some small print like the previous posted mentioned. 

Are these deals definitely real?

Whilst I've not shopped around, I'm looking at rates (only provider with signal in my area) at £20 or more. https://ee.co.uk/broadband/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband-gallery

Why use a fancy router that accepts  SIMs and not an old phone ( just enable WiFi hotspot), assuming of course you don't live in a mansion or somewhere with stone walls

£5 a month is an amazing deal, that'd cost me £15 or so (but unlimited call and text also)

We had a 4G router for a while as the only other option we had was basically dialup. It was fine, download speeds were ok, but the latency wasn't great for gaming online. The Huawei router was ok, but only because it had a setting to reboot once a week. Our signal wasn't great and the router didn't have external antennae connections. With good signal I'd happily use it if your £5 SIM is actually unlimited. 

We use Teltonika 4G routers at work which are fairly reliable, but the 5G models are £££. 

I pay about £5 a month (ex. VAT, in fairness) for a 5G SIM with Three.

I had a 4G (I didn't need 5G, although 5G is available here, but it was a lot more expensive) temporary router to fill a gap between cancelling one (fixed-line) ISP and another, for about 6 weeks.  I had a couple of issues, that I couldn't pin down, but which went away when I went back onto the new fixed-line ISP.  I have a couple of voip lines (to a deskphone) and I got frequent drop-outs during calls.  Could it have been the weather (as someone else noted)?  I also had problems logging into one or two secure websites (I recall that nsandi.com was one).  I got all sorts of unpredictable behaviour that I couldn't pin down, but the hehaviour didn't continue when I went back onto the new fixed line ISP.  I couldn't pin any of it down, just a hunch, but telling enough that the unpredictable behaviour went away when I stopped using the 4G router.

Interesting about the issues you had. I've been using a 4G router on EE for about 4 years, with none of those issues (certainly better than the original lousy BT 'broadband' which our only other option). No issues accessing banking sites or remote access to works network. I fitted an external antenna bought on Amazon, which massively improved signal strength and upload/download speeds. 

Only real issue is network saturation at weekends and holidays when local caravan parks are full. This significantly affects download speeds, but not upload. Fine during working hours if working from home.

This is where 5g has a distinct advantage over 4g. The network can support a lot more nodes --- and in particular an individual cell tower can support a lot more nodes. Don't think of this as the number of phones people have, it includes smart meters, (daft over complex) cars with telemetry, bus tracking, police cars and a growing list of "things" (not people) that want to access the service 

Forget the theoretical max speed or lower latency, this is what's the bigger benefit for most people for 5g rollout, because you're not just competing with another mobile phone for your connection - no longer just about  phones, it's a changing world 

Is using 5G the way to get rid of a land line? If so, is it the only way? (I'm too old to know these things)

I had all sorts of issues on the boat that I'd probably attribute to either the specific router or my laptop. I have a different flavour of router now from the same manufacturer and those issues (on the WiFi side) have disappeared, but occasionally I just have shocking Internet. But I do live in a big ol' stone building. It seemed worth a punt for £100 of router to see if it'd work out before committing to a broadband contract. Still not sold on that, so maybe the logical step is to get a 5G router instead once I either have disposable income or they stop being so insanely expensive!

I got rid of the landline 3 or 4 years ago and just use mobiles and a 4G router.

Do you need a landline to have a router?

A router is a device that your devices connect to, that then connects to the Internet through a phone line OR a fibre optic cable OR in this case, wirelessly via a 4G or 5G phone mast.

We recently upgraded our copper phone line to fibre. The old landline phone would no longer work with this so they offer a digital phone that runs off the new internet router. (with the same number)

Though as Ridge says I should really have ditched the number and switched to just using our mobiles.

And that is unlimited data?

Yes; unlimited data, and in the case of my phone contract also unlimited tethering. I really rate Three for that.

I shall have to investigate then when I get a 5G capable phone sometime in the future.