Using 4G home broadband with a router

Pecker

Distinguished Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2004
Messages
22,825
Reaction score
4,671
Points
4,123
Location
Huddersfield, People's Republic of Yorkshire
Okay, our BT 'broadband' is pants - we get maybe 1.5 megs.

I'm looking at one of these 4G wi-fi pointers:

Huawei E5776 4G SIM Free Mobile WiFi UK - Black: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

I can get it from my mobile operator (T-Mobile/EE) for free. They've checked and 4G is good in my area.

My understanding is that it receives 4G over the ether, then you connect home devices to it using wi-fi.

What I'd like to do is connect it to a wireless router at the centre of my network so I can place this right next to the router (so the pointer to wi-fi connection is as good as possible) then hard wire everything else to the router using cat 5. I'm guessing the cat 5 from my router will carry a better signal round the house than wi-fi.

Comments? Suggestions?

Cheers.

Steve W
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
I don't think I'd use a lashed up mi-fi. I'd look for a "proper" SOHO type router, but one that has 4G as it's ISP link instead of DSL/Satellite/etc. as a simple fork lift replacement for your existing router.

If you do persist with the mi-fi - you may need to separate the mi-fi & your existing router a bit to get the best link rates (ever erroneously called "speed") as the tricks MIMO technology uses to increase the link rates requires a bit of physical separation. If your link speeds aren't good, then try moving the two a foot or two apart - you can actually have wi-fi "too close" together!

I'd also check that either mi-fi, your router, or both have wi-fi capabilites to establish a "client mode" link or a wi-fi "bridge" mode as it's sometimes called or WDS or you may struggle to get the two talking to each other.
 
Get an Asus RT-N66U router for about £100 and plug the 4g dongle into one of the USB ports which you can setup as a WAN port
.
David
 
@Pecker

I've exactly the same issue with BT - only getting 1.2mb down with no option for Fibre or Cable in my area.

Currently paying BT £45 monthly just for broadband. Well, I know I need to pay for line rental too but I really don't use it at all.

Was looking for an unlimited 4G plan so I can also move to using that for home broadband.

Did you find anything suitable?
 
@Pecker

I've exactly the same issue with BT - only getting 1.2mb down with no option for Fibre or Cable in my area.

Currently paying BT £45 monthly just for broadband. Well, I know I need to pay for line rental too but I really don't use it at all.

Was looking for an unlimited 4G plan so I can also move to using that for home broadband.

Did you find anything suitable?

Strange that this should come up.

I returned from a week's holiday at the weekend to find EE 4G has gone 'double speed'. A quick check on a speed test and I'm now getting 20-30Mbps on my iPhone - that's over 10x my BT 'broadband'.

I'm thinking of following DavidT's advice (post #3) - would this work by using my iPhone's USB cable and setting up a Personal Hotspot'?

Steve W
 
Yeah @DavidT has come up with the same solution I was looking at - Amazon have plenty of 4G routers available, I might go for a netgear model.

My problem is getting a SIM with sufficient data limits - I need at least 50GB I reckon. Could have gotten away with less if it wasn't for Xbox One and it's massive patches!

I see Three are advertising unlimited 4G on some of their voice packages, but not on their data packages which is a little strange.
 
Yeah @DavidT has come up with the same solution I was looking at - Amazon have plenty of 4G routers available, I might go for a netgear model.

My problem is getting a SIM with sufficient data limits - I need at least 50GB I reckon. Could have gotten away with less if it wasn't for Xbox One and it's massive patches!

I see Three are advertising unlimited 4G on some of their voice packages, but not on their data packages which is a little strange.

The problem with EE is they don't do unlimited. The largest they do is 20GB, then it's a further £15 just for 2GB more.

Steve W
 
Something to keep an eye out for - spotted this in Three T&C's.

If your smartphone plan includes all you can eat data, then this is for data consumption actually on your smartphone. It does not include using your smartphone as a modem to connect other devices such as laptops and tablets – also known as “Tethering”. Tethering is included in (i) The One Plan; (ii) the One Plan SIM only; or (iii) By purchasing an Ultimate Internet Plan with the Tethering Add on. The add-on can be purchased via My3 on your handset and is also available to customers on our Talk and Text plans.

So unlimited data, but only if you use it in a phone.
 
As others have said, you probably want to use a USB 4G Modem in conjunction with a USB/4G capable Wireless Router. For example, this TP-Link Router and ZTE 4G USB Dongle (but check that the USB dongle is on the supported list for your WiFi router!). Also, make sure your 4G SIM plan allows the use you're intending (some don't).
 
— As an Amazon Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases —
I use a Huawei B593s-22 UK 4G Router with a 50GB EE4G+ data sim. Had to sign up for 24months and get free mifi with it but get discounted price from £50/month to £40/month.

Originally set contract up at 25GB for £22 but not enough so increased to 50GB which is OK with limited standard Netflix viewing and controlling when my Steam games update. Really easy to monitor realtime usage with EE app and data sims are capped so no fear of racking up massive bills.

Think code I used was MBB20DEVICE but no idea if still live.

Get speeds as high as 32/20 with minimum around 8/5 busy evening but still vastly superior to the 1MB I had on landline before having it disconnected.

PS you can't get a public IP with consumer 3G/4G so if you need to remote to a home server/pc you will need to use a VPN or Teamviewer type app to connect. May also limit some online gaming but no issue with Steam or my sons PS3

A £40/month for 50GB offer looks to be currenty on the Osprey2 with code OSPREY10
 
Last edited:

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom