Nice!

****UPDATE*****
OK, I have bought an unlocked (used) Huawei B593, 4G router (Ebay £50). And the cheapest external 4G antenna (Ebay £5).

I plugged my UNLIMITED DATA MAX Vodafone SIM (£32/month) into the router, entered the vodafone APN details, and after a bit of antenna adjustment, I am now getting 35-45Mbps and full bars (strong signal, from a mast 4km away). The whole house LAN is getting similar speeds (slightly reduced due to LAN limitations).

Previous comment "3TB /month" FUP allowance from vodafone is massive and easily enough.

I have managed to download a few games from Steam ~50GB in 5hours. After 13 years of only getting ~3Mbps this is a revelation for me and my family. We have finally joined the modern age.

It has been running for 1 week, the router is on full time, and only rarely seems to disconnect for a couple of seconds (only when kids are surfing the net/youtube). I have rebooted it a few times, as it seems to freeze occassionally (however, I suspect this is why the router was sold on Ebay).

So far so good..... I am now trying to work out how to use the unlimited calls and texts that come free with the SIM card. (IP phone? or Google talk?)

Thanks to everyone for the help and comments.

PS I talked to vodafone technical and told them what I was doing and they were cool with the whole thing..... yay!

No US power supply should be used with an adaptor for any period of time in the UK. It's not safe as the no US socket/plug combination provides protection against electrical shock when the plug is not fully inserted. You will note UK plugs have since 1984 (and many before that) all got sleeving on the live and neutral pins for this very reason. They are also not rated for 230V AC either.

The safe approach is to replace the power adaptor entirely with a known good one. At this juncture I would advise against getting anything off eBay/Amazon too as there is a lot of unsafe Chinese junk out their. RS or CPC would be more sensible. However it does say it can be powered by USB, so a £4 Ikea charger which has passed a bigclivedotcom teardown (and Ikea are big enough to sue to kingdom come if the adaptor burnt your house down or electrocuted you) would be a good starting point.

I am now trying to work out how to use the unlimited calls and texts that come free with the SIM card.

I don't have that router but on the B525 with the right firmware you can plug a normal phone with an adaptor into the grey socket on the back and make calls, it falls back to 3g so you may lose speed during the call. I instead configure it for voip and make no outgoing calls so no charge but its stays on 4G if I did. The SMS function is in the B525's onboard webpages, a bit clunky with no access to your google address book and if you try to store too many messages the page locks up until you delete some.

In reply to a post by Andoids:

****UPDATE*****
OK, I have bought an unlocked (used) Huawei B593, 4G router (Ebay £50). And the cheapest external 4G antenna (Ebay £5).

I plugged my UNLIMITED DATA MAX Vodafone SIM (£32/month) into the router, entered the vodafone APN details, and after a bit of antenna adjustment, I am now getting 35-45Mbps and full bars (strong signal, from a mast 4km away). The whole house LAN is getting similar speeds (slightly reduced due to LAN limitations).

Previous comment "3TB /month" FUP allowance from vodafone is massive and easily enough.

I have managed to download a few games from Steam ~50GB in 5hours. After 13 years of only getting ~3Mbps this is a revelation for me and my family. We have finally joined the modern age.

It has been running for 1 week, the router is on full time, and only rarely seems to disconnect for a couple of seconds (only when kids are surfing the net/youtube). I have rebooted it a few times, as it seems to freeze occassionally (however, I suspect this is why the router was sold on Ebay).

So far so good..... I am now trying to work out how to use the unlimited calls and texts that come free with the SIM card. (IP phone? or Google talk?)

Thanks to everyone for the help and comments.

PS I talked to vodafone technical and told them what I was doing and they were cool with the whole thing..... yay!

Hi,

You would only be able to use the unlimited calls & texts if the card is in a phone. Anything else would count as data.

HTH,

Have a browse through the VOIP forum on here, all the info. re. porting your landline No. to VOIP is available.

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/voip.html

In reply to a post by mking90031:

You would only be able to use the unlimited calls & texts if the card is in a phone. Anything else would count as data.

My Three HomeFi 311 with included data SIM is receiving SMS messages from them re my latest bill. The implication is I could receive them from anywhere, and also send.

I shall test over the weekend to and from a friend not on any form of Three, so as to rule out in-network v ex-network differences.

In reply to a post by mking90031:

You would only be able to use the unlimited calls & texts if the card is in a phone. Anything else would count as data.

That is certainly not true. I had a Lenovo laptop with built in cellular connectivity, and it took a SIM card. The software let you send and receive SMS messages, and also make phone calls (using the laptop speakers/microphone or a headset) in exactly the same way as a telephone handset. You could also make data connections, using the 1970s style AT command set... these connections were over 2G/3G or 4G and hence quick.

Some devices MAY be limited by their software, but generally not by the electronics or the mobile network operator.

You would only be able to use the unlimited calls & texts if the card is in a phone. Anything else would count as data.

Ummmm..... I have since found numerous people on other forums that are able to use the unlimited calls and texts through their 4G router..... it is possible.... it just isnt always obvious how to do it.

The Huawei B593-s22 router seems to be straight forward (with the right firmware) to simply plug an ordinary landline phone into it and use a landline phone over 3G data........... but the connection drops from 4G to 3G for the duration of the phone call.

kommando above has the Huawei B525 that can also do it.....

I don't have that router but on the B525 with the right firmware you can plug a normal phone with an adaptor into the grey socket on the back and make calls, it falls back to 3g so you may lose speed during the call.

Unfortunately I have the Huawei B593u-12, which is very similar to the B593-s22, I can send and receive SMS texts through the router (not exactly convenient) but I am not able to use a landline phone...yet..... I am trying successive firmware to see if any will work...... perhaps, maybe one of the versions will allow use of the phone......

I agree, you can most certainly use a compatible router to make calls and sms. My B525 works fine with a BT cordless phone to ring out. It drops to 3G as you say. Issue is when 4G+ is active inbound calls are not connected. Works fine when in 4G mode as router again drops to 3G when inbound call.