5G broadband: good idea or too soon?

[Breezin]

I'm thinking of switching from my expensive Virgin fibre broadband to Three 5G, thus saving €24 a month.

Has anyone tried this? Is it any good? Fast and reliable? Or is it a turkey?

[Hugh_Bigazz]

You're not comparing like with like, 5G is a mobile service not designed as a fixed broadband substitute! It could work if you just do some light browsing, it could also be disastrerous if you've a family of users using it and it not being up to it

[kadman]

I have 3 mobile broadband, 3g and 4g signals.
I am in direct line of site, with a modem aerial booster. In my area the signal consistently fluctuates between .5 mbps and 20mbps download.

Its frustrating to say the least, but its the only option in my area all for a cost of 30 euro per month, unlimited.
I put up with it, but I doubt I could work from home , but I'm retired so it does not matter.

[CelticRambler]

I'm not sure I'd swap fibre broadband for a mobile internet connection. Fibre hasn't arrived in my village yet (another two years, maybe) so I have an old-fashioned copper cable connection and the sluggish speeds that come with it. That makes my 4G connection much better if/when I need some serious uploading/downloading power.

BUT on the odd occasion the landline connection goes down (lightning strikes, certain ethnic groups making off with the cable, planned maintenance, etc) the 4G speed drops drastically as everyone within sight of our local antenna switches to mobile data.

I could save myself 36€ a month by ditching the broadband and landline number that seems to serve no purpose these days other than to attract robo-calls and miscellaneous spammers ... and yet I can't quite bring myself to kill it off. It's one of the first things most visitors look for when they get here ... and I do use it all the time when I'm at home. The aforementioned "sluggish" speed is still fine for streaming, downloading, browsing, e-mailing, etc, etc, etc when I can walk off and leave the 'puter to handle the file transfers while I do something else.

[Hairy-Joe]

I've fiber to the home and given the patchy coverage I have, I wouldn't switch at all. I consistently get the advertised speed, no matter what time of the day or night. I tried the mobile broadband a few years ago with 3 (different address) and the speeds were very variable.

[Breezin]

Thanks all for your responses.

I think the experience would be totally different to 4G shortcomings. 5G is 10 times faster, and I'd be looking at a tech install on an outside wall.

Three claim 250mbps. At the moment this is equal to the 'up to' speed on my Virgin plan, but the reality is significantly slower.

[BrianD3]

I'm also interested in this, my Eircon landline broadband gives 1 mbps download, 0.3 mbps upload. Actually that is enough for the browsing I do but I might want to get NowTv at some stage.

[kadman]

Thanks all for your responses.

I think the experience would be totally different to 4G shortcomings. 5G is 10 times faster, and I'd be looking at a tech install on an outside wall.

Three claim 250mbps. At the moment this is equal to the 'up to' speed on my Virgin plan, but the reality is significantly slower.

The only way you could get 250mbps from 3 on a mobile broadband set up is if you were attached in person to their satellite.

Their claims of up to means anywhere from 1mbps upwards, probably nearer to 1 mbps.

[Hugh_Bigazz]

Thanks all for your responses.

I think the experience would be totally different to 4G shortcomings. 5G is 10 times faster, and I'd be looking at a tech install on an outside wall.

Three claim 250mbps. At the moment this is equal to the 'up to' speed on my Virgin plan, but the reality is significantly slower.

You're completely swallowing the marketing hype, theoretical speeds are never obtainable, remember we saw a few hundred mbit tech demonstrations of 4G. These are only achievable in a test environment with only one device connected to the cell and they only need to do it once. You cannot compare fibre to the curb and mobile it's an absolute crazy move to take out a working fibre connection for mobile. On fixed broadband they control the contention by limiting physical connections, on mobile the only way to control contention is to stop devices connecting but they cannot do that and have a long history overselling until their networks cannot cope

[765489]

I remember a telephone engineer telling me that when some mobile operators were marketing 3G, it was actually 2G. Don't know how true it was though, but I know all phone companies are basically cowboys and not much better than dodgy used car sales operators.

[CelticRambler]

The marketing guff isn't always excessively hypey, and in some ways it's no worse than (for example) being told your solar panel can pump out 6amps of power when everyone knows that you'll be lucky to get 70% of that.

The real problem with being entirely dependent on mobile data is that the speeds are immensely variable. When our 4G service first came on line, I was consistently getting 110Mb/s, but as the number of users increased that started to drop. These days, in term-time, it's typically around 45-50Mb/s, and can drop as low as 20 in exceptional circumstances as described above. But right now - because we're not a tourist destination and everyone's fecked off for the holidays - I'm getting 80Mb/s.

The landline is always 4.8 +/-0.2Mb/s

[Breezin]

You're completely swallowing the marketing hype, theoretical speeds are never obtainable, remember we saw a few hundred mbit tech demonstrations of 4G. These are only achievable in a test environment with only one device connected to the cell and they only need to do it once. You cannot compare fibre to the curb and mobile it's an absolute crazy move to take out a working fibre connection for mobile. On fixed broadband they control the contention by limiting physical connections, on mobile the only way to control contention is to stop devices connecting but they cannot do that and have a long history overselling until their networks cannot cope

Er, I said Three 'claim'. I am not a swallower of hype. That's why I'm on here asking.

I wonder if anyone has actual experience of 5g broadband that they could share?

[Hugh_Bigazz]

Er, I said Three 'claim'. I am not a swallower of hype. That's why I'm on here asking.

I wonder if anyone has actual experience of 5g broadband that they could share?

And even if they do share their speeds, you cannot ever trust that they will stay that way. The minute you tell your neighbour you'rr getting good speeds you've just halved it

[Hairy-Joe]

From walking around at home and from studying the telegraph poles, I'd say well over half the houses that could take Fibre have taken it. The cables all end up in the local exchange (the joys of living the country and walking the roads). I get the advertised speed morning, noon and night. I'm with Eir.

I experienced Vodafone 4G when living up the country and never achieved close to the advertised speeds. Some of the guys at work use mobile broadband (5G I think) and sometimes they struggle to maintain a stable connection when working from home.