should I ditch my VDSL and move over to 5G?

martco · 15-05-2023 08:51AM #1

TL;DR assuming the physical environment is suitable, well served by masts etc. is 5G performance subject to throttling whims by a service provider, contention etc.

not looking for precise answers here but I spotted something that made me stop and think...

I'm stuck in a pocket of Dublin that despite many many years of promises I think will never see FTTH...I believe the term is "openeir legacy"...probably due to the fact that the area has low density but who knows...house of teenagers and I work from home etc VDSL performance is "ok"

anyway my yearly renewal coming up, every year same story I'm boxed in and only have either Eir or Vodafone billing to choose from...I don't need their bloat (landline no. TV packages etc) just the BB the mobiles are all 9.99 sim only etc. I think they know my predicament over the years they're never proactive I dance between them for a couple of hours and end up with my monthly bill for the next contract with whichever of the pair of them

anyway the €€€ costs have gone up again so I started thinking about a 5G approach, it seems my area is well 5G serviced, maybe go for a sim only + my own device dunno yet...BUT when reading thru some T&C's I read the "Estimated download" is quoted at 50Mb/s....I thought (environmental allowing) that's very LOW? my understanding is that it's supposed to be around the 200 mark? I'm also reading horror stories about service in the UK typically where the perf (in areas supposedly with favourable conditions) can suffer get driven down to 20Mb/s...

am I chasing my tail here?

grimeire · 15-05-2023 10:27AM

Im in Cork pretty close to city center and been using mobile for about 10 years as it was my only option for more than 5Mb.

The main thing you have to understand with mobile broadband is congestion and different band.

During the morning till about 3-4pm i can get up to 300Mb dl but after that it can be less than 10Mb. When 5g was first out it was a lot better but now everyone has 5g phones so congestion is worse. Worse thing for me about mobile is the upload speed is always crap and never better than 10Mb but on average around 3Mb. It makes doing calls where i am sharing screen or video a nightmare. The Equipment for it is expensive too. Between 5g router and aerial it was definitely over €500 but things are cheaper now. When you consider the cost of it you would expect the router to be decent but if left on for more than 24 hours it becomes trouble some. Its on a timer to turn off and on everyday.

I am in a nightmare of a area as im in a valley so cant connect to other towers so it may be different for you but my advise is if you can get more than 50Mb download then stick with it as mobile will never be as reliable. If you are going to go down the mobile route I would advise you test with a 5G phone and a 4G phone high up in your house and see the different speeds you get during the day. Depending on what phone you have and if its rooted you may be able to select the bands you are connecting to. Different bands give you different speeds and if i was not able to select the bands on my router i would be stuck with speeds less than 50Mb.

I use three for mobile and they dont seem to throttle me but during friday and weekend i could not get more than 30Mb no matter what band i used. Not sure where they doing work on the cells or what but it seems to be fine now. When testing other ISPs some did throttle but that was a few years ago so not sure if its the case now.

should I ditch my VDSL and move over to 5G?

Comments