4G/5G connection

So I am literally stuck for connection options at home and only real option for a decent speed is Virgin Media.

Now I can go the 4G (soon to be 5G here) route speed wise it does the job, I need recommendation for a 5G (ideally) external kit/bridge modem to link into my current pfsense setup.

Secondly the other thing that has been putting me off is I need a public IP, static not necessary to enable access for my CCTV and other little bits. Does anyone know if this is possible with EE? pfsense works with IPv4 or IPv6 so have options, I know there is the A&A L2TP service as I am a VOIP customer of there's it is something I have looked at and their packages seem to have changed recently as before the costs were higher data wise.

Any recommendations in this matter as I would like to review my setup in the coming months with a view to possibly moving until say a better offering is available via BT lines.

Cheers

I know a lot of people here use pfsense on Raspberry Pi kit for some reason, but I have no knowledge or understanding of why. However!

For years now I have used purely mobile broadband. Initially for a few months by simply tethering kit to my phone, the phone in hotspot mode. Later for other reasons I got a mobile broadband router. Which works just like a landline modem/router. Ethernet and WiFi I/O.

The one I have, see my sig, replacing the first is 4G, not 5G. There are no doubt better ones available. Just like most landline modem/routers its DHCP can be turned off. Effectively turning it into a bridged modem/router if you ignore its WiFi.

Four gigabit ethernet ports. Three more than you need .

As far as I know you can't get a public IP with EE.

A few words of caution on using mobile for your main Internet connection...

I went down the same path about four years ago, after FTTC got slower and slower and BT/OpenReach wouldn't/couldn't improve it.

It was great to start with, on Three with a public IP and nice fast 80/40 speeds. But then a few months in Three started to break things. Something was broken in their core network to do with TCP and HTTPS. I put up with it for a few months, worked around it with A&A's L2TP service but finally gave up and moved to EE.

That worked fine for a while as well, again 80/40 speeds. But then after a few months, EE also broke something in their core network around TCP/HTTPS that looked oddly similar* to Three's problem. It only seemed to impact some routers, but that included my Mikrotik. I spent ages with Mikrotik and EE trying to get it addressed, finally ended up working with EE's network engineers and in the end they rolled back whatever had broken it. But I had to put up with months of broken TCP/HTTPS before it got fixed.

It then worked ok until COVID happened. Then lots more people working from home found their landline broadband wasn't good enough and switched to mobile...

So I wasn't getting 80/40 any more and in the evening streaming TV peak times the connection wasn't reliable enough to watch HD streaming. So I had to give up on mobile for primary Internet access.

Thankfully Starlink came along at just the right time, so I now have a decent speed, if expensive, Internet connection.

Hopefully one day FTTP will be an option here, it stops about 600 metres from my door at the moment.

* I suspect that EE were rolling out the same kit/software that Three had done, with the same TCP/HTTPS breaking option turned on, sadly I never did get any detail from EE on what they rolled back to fix it.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I know a lot of people here use pfsense on Raspberry Pi kit for some reason, but I have no knowledge or understanding of why. However!

Unless I am mistaken it not possible on RPi to run pfsence as far I know. It much more likely to be something like OpenWRT.

In reply to a post by MattL:

Does anyone know if this is possible with EE?

Not on any consumer plans, you would need to explore the AAISP L2TP service.

I had a similar quandry in 2019, Openreach services providing too slow uplink for my needs (due to crosstalk) and my options being mobile data or Virgin Media. EE providing insane speeds over 4g (today I see 200+ megabit download, 18mbps upload) but Three and Vodafone only managing 30 Mbps.

I went to Virgin Media for 200/20 for £50/month, and you get a single dynamic IPv4 fully routed..

Thanks for the responses I thought that would be the case.

the AAISP L2TP I'm probably going to go down, my pfsense is an existing to my network so just need a good 4G/5G industrial type router mainly for the modem to link in.

I frequently drop onto 4G on a device during the day as VM has its issues, don't get my wrong that is stable but going to explore the 4G route a bit more.

My Three service is fine . And cheap.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

My Three service is fine . And cheap.

Everyone's radio based communications service is fine for them but the crucial thing about radio based services is how they are impacted by much more than any fixed line communications service.

Its not helpful to say "it works for me", in the same way it doesn't help me (20 miles from Heathrow) to say that to a Virgin Media customer in Hounslow whom is on a completely differently designed coax segment with too many users per node.

I wonder if you do the same sort of internet activities as the other poster? The internet is diverse, and mobile ISPs that only support "web browsing" generally vanish.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 09-Jan-22 13:16:12)

In reply to a post by pluralist:

There are no doubt better ones available. Just like most landline modem/routers its DHCP can be turned off. Effectively turning it into a bridged modem/router if you ignore its WiFi.

Given that the OP is after a public IP address, no turning DHCP off on your mobile router is not turning it into a bridged modem/router. It will still be a router and still be NATting the connection, taking the OP even further away from their aim for a public IP.

Some mobile routers can be put into a true bridged mode, passing the IP address they get from the ISP through to a router inside your network. But most of them don't have this feature.

I run security cams through mine with no trouble. That's what I bought it for. Dynamic IP address.

Sony Smart TV is connected to it, with various uses such as NOW Sports; Netlflix; iPlayer and other catchups. An occasional ".tv". A few Alexa Echoes and my iPad.