Should I upgrade from a B593 to B525 or B535?

gooner99 · 09-11-2020 10:08AM #1

Hi.

Has anyone in a rural setting upgraded from an unlocked B593 to a B525 or B535?

One of my local masts appears to support 4g+, so I'm thinking of upgrading from my B593 to a newer B525 or B535. From reading a wee bit I believe that like the B593, the B535 has the strongest build in Antenna. I currently get 4-5 bars on the B593 set to 4g using 3, 48 and Gomo sims. I'm not overly bothered with built in ability to add a phone handset to it.

Do you think I could benefit from an upgrade and do you think the B535 would be a better choice?

Please ask away any questions, as no doubt I've left out something important.

Thanks.

ArrBee · 09-11-2020 10:15AM

Sorry, I dont have any answer for you but I am interested in the sim plans that you are using...

Clearly you are using data only to server the house. How do you find 48 or gomo for doing that?
Dont they have small (for a house) data allowances - or is there a way to make that not a concern?

I will be interested in the answers you get too as I am thinking about how I can improve my own connection.

gooner99 · 09-11-2020 10:36AM

ArrBee wrote: »

Sorry, I dont have any answer for you but I am interested in the sim plans that you are using...
Clearly you are using data only to server the house. How do you find 48 or gomo for doing that?
Dont they have small (for a house) data allowances - or is there a way to make that not a concern?

I will be interested in the answers you get too as I am thinking about how I can improve my own connection.

I have 2 Gomo Sims which give 80gb limit each. My plan was to swap them every two weeks so as to give plenty capacity. But normally I don't need to as the level of gaming and streaming has not been as high as expected. Now once one of the Sims went over the 80gb and the speeds slowed to a crawl. I had great speeds at first, now I would describe them as decent. I guess more people are on Gomo now.

I only got the 48 SIM recently and it has a 100gb limit. Again speeds are decent. In general we have a better 3 service in our area and it seems to be the only one here with 4g+. Whether that would improve my speeds remains to be seen. If it works I may go for a second 48 SIM to double the monthly capacity.

Google "Editor Sean". I think his blog is very informative.

ArrBee · 09-11-2020 11:30AM

yeah, i've read his blog in the past but not recently. Might give it another go.

For my usage, I need a lot more allowance so will stick with the 20e a month deals. I guess it's similar enough to 2x the cheap ones.

If you have a phone that supports 4g+ you could put the sim in there and do some testing to gauge expected performance.
That might help guide you on if it is worth upgrading the router.

ednwireland · 09-11-2020 11:33AM

just an FYI GOMO has upped its data limit to 120gb

6.4 The fair usage threshold in relation to data usage for the SIM Only Service is 120GB. Should your data usage exceed 120GB in a billing cycle and we consider that other users are likely to be adversely affected, we reserve the right reduce your speeds . We continuously monitor network performance to ensure that the SIM Only Service received by you is not impacted through a minority of users placing high demand on network resources (e.g. large bandwidths over long periods).

https://gomo.ie/terms/

gooner99 · 09-11-2020 12:15PM

ArrBee wrote: »

yeah, i've read his blog in the past but not recently. Might give it another go.

For my usage, I need a lot more allowance so will stick with the 20e a month deals. I guess it's similar enough to 2x the cheap ones.

If you have a phone that supports 4g+ you could put the sim in there and do some testing to gauge expected performance.
That might help guide you on if it is worth upgrading the router.

Thanks. Any idea which phones support 4g+. Is it easy to find this out?

gooner99 · 09-11-2020 12:16PM

ednwireland wrote: »

just an FYI GOMO has upped its data limit to 120gb

https://gomo.ie/terms/

Thanks. Good to know this.

ArrBee · 09-11-2020 10:04PM

gooner99 wrote: »

Thanks. Any idea which phones support 4g+. Is it easy to find this out?

Not sure.
I know my latest one (nokia 8) does. but I'm not sure what to look for in the specs.

brav · 11-11-2020 09:15AM

4G+ can have different names, it is usually called LTE Cat 6 in specs or LTE Advanced or LTE CA2.
iPhone 6s added this, and iPhone 8/X added Cat 12, with iPhone XS and up having Cat 16.
Android devices would require more research but generally phones from around 2015 added CAt6/LTE-A/4G+.

Cat 6 uses 2 LTE bands for Carrier Aggregation(CA), and Cat 12 uses 3 bands.

westyIrl · 12-11-2020 02:55AM

gooner99 wrote: »

I have 2 Gomo Sims which give 80gb limit each. My plan was to swap them every two weeks so as to give plenty capacity. But normally I don't need to as the level of gaming and streaming has not been as high as expected. Now once one of the Sims went over the 80gb and the speeds slowed to a crawl. I had great speeds at first, now I would describe them as decent. I guess more people are on Gomo now.

I only got the 48 SIM recently and it has a 100gb limit. Again speeds are decent. In general we have a better 3 service in our area and it seems to be the only one here with 4g+. Whether that would improve my speeds remains to be seen. If it works I may go for a second 48 SIM to double the monthly capacity.

Google "Editor Sean". I think his blog is very informative.

Just wondering that if you have better Three service is there a reason you don't just use the 20 euro payg from Three? They do state a FUP of 60GB (pre-covid) but never enforced. Granted 2x48 sims cheaper but saves changing sims etc.

Jim

gooner99 · 12-11-2020 09:45AM

westyIrl wrote: »

Just wondering that if you have better Three service is there a reason you don't just use the 20 euro payg from Three? They do state a FUP of 60GB (pre-covid) but never enforced. Granted 2x48 sims cheaper but saves changing sims etc.

Jim

Good question Jim.

I got the 48 SIM to test it in my phone with the intention of moving from 3 SIM only contract to 48. I thought my contract with 3 was up, but found it's not till December.
So I've used it in my router to get some use from it. As for service, I get roughly the same from 3/48 and Gomo most of the time. My local mast would appear to support 4g+ on the 3 network. But I guess it could be that 3 will connect to this and 48 won't, as I'm not sure if 48 support 4g+?

I do also remember reading before that while 3 showed you good speeds on speedtests, they were slowing down certain popular sites to save bandwidth, especially at peak times. Can't remember what this was called. Is that still the case?

ArrBee · 12-11-2020 08:20PM

gooner99 wrote: »

Good question Jim.

I got the 48 SIM to test it in my phone with the intention of moving from 3 SIM only contract to 48. I thought my contract with 3 was up, but found it's not till December.
So I've used it in my router to get some use from it. As for service, I get roughly the same from 3/48 and Gomo most of the time. My local mast would appear to support 4g+ on the 3 network. But I guess it could be that 3 will connect to this and 48 won't, as I'm not sure if 48 support 4g+?

I do also remember reading before that while 3 showed you good speeds on speedtests, they were slowing down certain popular sites to save bandwidth, especially at peak times. Can't remember what this was called. Is that still the case?

Isn't 48 just 3 anyway?
I thought it was their budget offering like gomo/eir

My limit for 3 PAYG was 2 TB last time i checked on mythree.

gooner99 · 12-11-2020 10:29PM

ArrBee wrote: »

Isn't 48 just 3 anyway?
I thought it was their budget offering like gomo/eir

My limit for 3 PAYG was 2 TB last time i checked on mythree.

Yeah 48 is on the 3 network.

But do they still throttle the 3 service on some websites and services. So you run a speedtest it looks great, but they are slowing down certain websites and services. Maybe they don't do this anymore?

westyIrl · 13-11-2020 12:36AM

gooner99 wrote: »

Yeah 48 is on the 3 network.

But do they still throttle the 3 service on some websites and services. So you run a speedtest it looks great, but they are slowing down certain websites and services. Maybe they don't do this anymore?

I haven't noticed any throttling on Three. I even tested out my GoMo sim in recent weeks as I have access to Eir 4G as opposed to Three 3G. Definetly had some torrent throttling going on with GoMo (approx 8mb, so assume would have same on Eir) so sticking with my slightly slower Three service for now. Speed tests have been consistent regardless of which site I tested with on three sim. I am fortunate however to be on a mast that doesn't suffer any noticeable congestion for either Three or Eir.

Jim

ArrBee · 16-11-2020 09:17AM

westyIrl wrote: »

I haven't noticed any throttling on Three. I even tested out my GoMo sim in recent weeks as I have access to Eir 4G as opposed to Three 3G. Definetly had some torrent throttling going on with GoMo (approx 8mb, so assume would have same on Eir) so sticking with my slightly slower Three service for now. Speed tests have been consistent regardless of which site I tested with on three sim. I am fortunate however to be on a mast that doesn't suffer any noticeable congestion for either Three or Eir.

Jim

Lucky you!

for me, the three mast is by far the closest and gives great performance until the kids in the neighbourhood get home from school.

I was just testing vodafone and it is consistent but performance is somewhere in between 3's best and worst.
I think I will stick with 3.

Should I upgrade from a B593 to B525 or B535?

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