As those houses are only "part of the rollout" (i.e., I assume they've not got it yet) then your only immediate solutions are bonded ADSL lines, or satellite. It could be weeks, or it could be a year or more before those houses have fibre.

Satellite is a sort of "burst mosde" broadband, i.e. there's a bit of a delay between clicking and receiving/transmitting data. So it would be a bit frustrating when doing something like browsing (I have read, multiple times, but I've not experienced it myself); but if your priority is big uploads/downloads because that's where you're losing all of your time, then it might be the answer.

You could try it, and make sure there's a decent period in which you can cancel for free without having to prove that anything is "wrong", i.e. a grace period. Then you'll have either found your solution, or eliminated another option.

Bonded ADSL is a bit of a "rubbish" solution these days, but compared to the other options everyone is talking about, it's going to be cheap(ish) and assuming an ISP says they'll sort it out for you with no anticipated problems, you'll have roughly halved your wasted work time. Assuming the ISP is true to their word, it shouldn't take that long to migrate, either - it's been ages since I migrated, I think they might have changed the system now, so someone else might be able to give you a better guess at how long it'll take - with the consideration that you might have to migrate from BTW > LLU for a good bonded service. You might not, though.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by ryannn:

Just ADSL available, I'm on an EO line. Houses just up the road, under 500m away are part of the rollout, yet we're getting excluded...

Know anyone in those houses? Do you have line of sight?

If so, you could always ask them to host a fixed-line connection for you, and then run your own point-to-point wireless connection back to your place.

I know someone about 2 miles away, not direct sight. I don't know the people up the road personally unfortunately. Has anyone had any experience with a bonded line, seems the only viable solution at the moment.

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

As those houses are only "part of the rollout" (i.e., I assume they've not got it yet) then your only immediate solutions are bonded ADSL lines, or satellite. It could be weeks, or it could be a year or more before those houses have fibre.

Satellite is a sort of "burst mosde" broadband, i.e. there's a bit of a delay between clicking and receiving/transmitting data. So it would be a bit frustrating when doing something like browsing (I have read, multiple times, but I've not experienced it myself); but if your priority is big uploads/downloads because that's where you're losing all of your time, then it might be the answer.

You could try it, and make sure there's a decent period in which you can cancel for free without having to prove that anything is "wrong", i.e. a grace period. Then you'll have either found your solution, or eliminated another option.

Bonded ADSL is a bit of a "rubbish" solution these days, but compared to the other options everyone is talking about, it's going to be cheap(ish) and assuming an ISP says they'll sort it out for you with no anticipated problems, you'll have roughly halved your wasted work time. Assuming the ISP is true to their word, it shouldn't take that long to migrate, either - it's been ages since I migrated, I think they might have changed the system now, so someone else might be able to give you a better guess at how long it'll take - with the consideration that you might have to migrate from BTW > LLU for a good bonded service. You might not, though.

Okay, thanks for this info! Very interesting.

EE is about to be bought by BT who currently do not allow tethering so I would not bank the mortgage on that one until it is clear whether BT will change their mind and allow tethering.

I hope that switching to a business package helps. Certainly if your speeds vary by that amount when not using wireless you need to be complaining to your ISP. Even with a residential package I wouldn't accept more than a 20% drop during peak hours. I'm with Plusnet on a residential package and get the full speed for my line 24/7/52, so it can be done and it needn't cost the Earth.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 14-Apr-16 15:39:26)

In reply to a post by ryannn:

Has anyone had any experience with a bonded line, seems the only viable solution at the moment.

Yes. A few years ago my old employer used one at our offices. If I remember correctly one line syncd at 3M/bs, the other at 2Mb/s.

We got about 4.5Mb/s down and nearly 2Mb/s up. It worked quite well, albeit at a cost. The only problem we had was that the slower line was unstable and despite Cisco and our ISP claiming otherwise when it disconnected it would often take out the whole connection. Still - the throughput improvement was useful.

In the end though we replaced it with a leased line. The costs were shared by several other business on our park.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 14-Apr-16 15:43:06)

BT allow tethering

Can't confirm about EE though.

How do they allow tethering? When I switched from O2 to BT Mobile the personal hotspot option in the settings of my iPhone disappeared and I can no longer attach my iPad to the Internet using my iPhone. If you are aware of a way to re-enable this on an iPhone (without jail breaking it) I would love to know. There are a number of forums where this was discussed with no solution.

EE do also.. but you could just get a MiFi device and then an EE Data SIM if you have a good 4G connection, so you don't need to worry about tethering then.

Before I had my phone line installed thats what I used.
You can hook up around 10-15 connections depending on the MiFi device used.

TP-Link, Netgear and Huawei devices are worth looking at and come in around £80-120, unlocked so you can always swap networks.

If your 4G signal is good you could be looking at over 50Mbs (up and down) connections on EE at least in my experience.

Very interesting, hopefully when this switch from residential to business settles down, we'll see if it improves.

Not sure what to do really, stuck in limbo!