4G/5G broadband

moldy_sea

Are there any companies that will visit a house to determine which of the networks would provide the best 4G/5G broadband? How do people choose between providers?

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058219730/4g-5g-broadband

Not really. They can't make a recommendation they can stand over because mobile data is highly variable.

Take for example, my area. Full signal across 3G/4G/5G from both Eir and Three, no Vodafone signal at all.

Do a speedtest at 1PM on a schoolday, and you'll get ~100Mb on Eir and ~280Mbps from Three on 4G+.

Do a speedtest at 8PM in the evening today and you'd be lucky to get double digits on either provider, even on 5G.

Yet, a year ago, had you done a speedtest at 8PM in the evening, you'd have still gotten well into the high double digits on both providers.

Now, imagine you took out a 24 month contract a year ago based on the advice of that company that surveyed for you, you'd be screaming absolute blue murder at them today because you're only half way through a contract you took out on their advice that is practically unusable come evening time.

Now, imagine further that company came out and recommended to all of your neighbours in your area to also go with Company X as well because they were giving speeds into the 100Mbps+ range, and now all of your neighbours are stuck in unusable contracts and screaming blue murder at them for their useless recommendation as well?

Not worth it.

It's something only you can do yourself. Get yourself a prepay SIM card from all three of the network providers and test test test them all. Test at the times you need it most. Test it working from home. Test it watching Netflix in the evening. Then go with whoever is the most stable and consistent.

However, the caveat is one provider might give you far faster speeds during the day that then shrink back to nothing come the evening, while another provider might give you slower headline speeds that are more consistent. Be prepared to have to change provider in the future, a provider that works well for you this month might become massively oversubscribed next month and become completely unusable for you next month. Also be prepared to have a backup SIM from another operator in case a cell goes down and you lose all signal. You'll be best off buying your own modem unlocked and then swapping providers as and when you need as opposed to going into a contract with any one provider and then being stuck with subpar performance in the future.

Darc19

Look up siteviewer https://siteviewer.comreg.ie/#explore

Find the closest site to your house. See who operates from that mast (sometimes multiple operators)

Put and external antenna up (some can be suction capped to windows) pointing to the antenna.

Works particularly well in rural areas. I'm rural Kildare and at peak times I'm 10mb average now since installing the antenna where it used to be 2-4mb. Off peak such as 8am, I'll exceed 50mb.