Will 3g/4g tethering kill home broadband subscriptions?
andersonsonson
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I personally think broadband is a rip off compared to tethering with Three's one plan. The idea of line rental and also the speeds are not great. I get double the speed on 3g than my home broadband connection.
Will tethering deals come down in price, do you think more operators like EE and o2 will do what Three are doing, is there enough network for this without decreasing speeds? the idea of not having to get an engineer to install broadband etc, tethering good for people who move houses alot too. I'm really for this technology
Will tethering deals come down in price, do you think more operators like EE and o2 will do what Three are doing, is there enough network for this without decreasing speeds? the idea of not having to get an engineer to install broadband etc, tethering good for people who move houses alot too. I'm really for this technology
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I honestly I do agree broadband is a bit of a rip of. I doubt tethering deals will ever come down in price I expect Three are even likely raise there One Plan when 4G starts because of that reason. It is a lot more flexible I agree specially when engineers can sometimes take 2 weeks to install and days to come out and fix a problem with your internet plus the money and hassle you have to spend on phone to the company getting them to come out in first place. I always felt it wrong you still have pay the same even if it out mine was down for 2 weeks once but I still got charged for a month of use.
It's not just download speeds even the upload speeds are lot better a friend of mine has 100MB from virgin and only gets 3MB of upload speed.
I know this is a retention deal but i'm paying £14pm inc line rental for unlimited fibre optic (38mb) and evening/weekend calls. £14pm is standard line rental for nearly everyone so how i got this deal i do not know. But it's awesome.
I'm also paying £12.50pm for the one plan so for me both are great offers and attractive.
But at standard price 3G/4G is nowhere near competitive/stable/reliable/available (or unlimited) compared to fixed line. But for a small amount of people it's the best they can get at the moment. And that small amount will grow very soon.
I paid 38.40 last month for my broad band and line rental. Never use the phone and I get 18-25MB max it was actually down for three days last month. I pay slightly less than on the One Plan. See why I considering tethering when 4G comes across country.
I used 70GB yesterday on my fixed line. That's more than some BB packages which only offer 40GB per month. From what i've read the majority of households seem to be using that much every month now and that is only set to increase. So i agree. even 20GB (EE) isn't enough for today's average broadband user.
I end up using many gigs a day, so it wouldn't be suitable for me.It all depends if you just browse or whether you watch 1080p TV and download games etc.
Highly unlikely that other networks will do what 3 are doing because there simply isn't the bandwidth to compete with fixed line services. Nowadays folks are using broadband for watching catch-up tv and streaming Netflix and LoveFilm, gaming and downloading large video files. It's fine for a handful of folks to use mobile broadband for these but if the average street relied on wireless services to get the same as fixed line there would be little chance anyone would get much!
The question has to be asked..... If it was that easy to provide unlimited data on 3G or 4G why hasn't all the networks done it? T-Mobile match unlimited data but without tethering and the speed is capped to 4Mbps. GiffGaff have a £10 SIM only deal with unlimited data but only on the phone. Tethering may become an issue for 3 if folks use their mobiles to replace fixed line broadband. They have an answer to that problem when it arises and it has already been tested, Trafficsense, which is now more prominently mentioned in 3's advertising. Customers won't like the restriction when it's implemented but they can't say they were not forewarned and if they are at all realistic they should know that replacing fixed line with 3G is not possible for large numbers with the bandwidth any of the networks have.
It would also need to be a hell of a lot faster than my current 3g speeds.
In addition to that, we use out home telephone line for incoming calls, and free evening and weekend calls - its a lot more reliable than mobiles!
You must be in a bad signal area I used my mobile instead of landline for calls for years. And most people find it cheaper than using landline because you get included minutes then.
I agree about speeds though until is nationwide which is meant be 2015 it won't be good alternative but it will be specially for rural areas then some of them only get 4mb now but they will be able get 10-30mb via 4G.
As I mentioned in another thread I have 4g LTE on my iPad 4 (I'm in America, in case you are wondering how that's possible) and I get around 34Mbps and my land line broadband fiber connection is less than half as fast but ping times are quite a bit quicker. That may be important for a lot of people and something to consider when you guys get widespread 4G. Also, cellular connections, it should go without saying, are much more prone to being erratic in speed compared to a landline.
True they are more erratic. You only person in america I know who even still keeps a landline for internet. I know over there it's not mandatory like it is over here.
i used a mifi for a bit used to get 3meg avg (im 100m from mast)
wasnt to bad
What you're quoting is probably HSDPA though rather than DC-HSDPA, with the upgrades to Three lately the ping times have dropped if you're near an uncongested sites.
LTE will improve these further.
Example from now - http://oi39.tinypic.com/2qiuref.jpg
It's not mandatory here either to have a landline. You can get cable broadband from Virgin without subscribing to a landline because their broadband doesn't use the landline.
If you are buying a broadband service that does use a landline e.g. (e.g. ADSL, or VDSL) then you need a landline and there's a charge for it. Simples.
What's the point of a fibre connection if you're going to get slow speeds...unless it isn't a true FTTP service.
Who's your provider?
True you can these days get via virgin but isn't in available in all areas like BT and things.
It is also pointless as Virgin actually give it to you free, in fact in my case it's £1 more not to have it I think.
The way they package it means I've had a landline active but never actually use it as mobile calls are cheaper / included.
Even 0800 I just use 0800 buster, use skype or look for alternative numbers using saynoto0870. Loads of companies these days like Npower etc have realised that they need to have 03 numbers now because the landline is almost dead.
http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/Feature/25260/4G_-_The_business_challenge.aspx
I hope they don't follow the business model in the USA.
Even LTE won't fix all of that - particularly in urban areas.
Agreed, for a light user it would be fine though,
Not sure what it is you are trying to say as I was simply comparing my ping times using 4G LTE to my landline broadband connection as in example in saying that the latter offers better ping times. The fact that mine if a fiber optic line is not really relevant. It's simply what I have.
That said, how do you figure a fiber broadband connection is slow? The fastest Internet services in the world are usually based on fiber optic infrastructure.