Helping neighbour to keep costs under control

My neighbour is with BT with LRS up for renewal on 31/05 and Fibre1 on 16/09/22. With everything increasing she wants to minimise ongoing costs. She is not a heavy/intensive internet user - Iplayer, Ipad etc. We’re FTTC and FTTP is not available. VMO2 is in the street.

My thoughts were:
1) Delay LRS renewal until Fibre1 renewal because we may have more haggling power with BT. However, BT is asking to renew on MYBT so may not be an issue. I'll look at those offers later.
2) Change package from Fibre1 to Fibre Essentials. Sometimes Essentials can be more expensive than Fibre1. She does not qualify for the social tariffs.
3) Wait, do not renew LRS and move provider towards the end of the Fibre1 contract. Moving to say someone like PlusNet on a 12 or 18 month contract would move away from the 2x CPI+3.9% increases that are within scope for a BT 24 month contract. I appreciate an 18 month contract with PlusNet may mean 2x CPI+3.9% increases are in scope for some contract periods. Possibly move her mobile from O2 to PlusNet giving another saving but need to consider whether she will roam.
4) Look at "mobile broadband". Three seem to offer the best value unlimited tariffs but EE has the best coverage in our area. I’m on Three for mobile phones and a speedtest (inside) has just returned 19.7 down and 4.84 up.
5) Move to a broadband only package because she doesn't use the phone and if BT was renewed they could charge upto £5 per month for a PAYG package (ability to make calls and call emergency service etc). I think broadband only wouldn't reduce the cost by a lot. Apart from BT and VMO2 are there any other broadband only providers?
6) Drill a hole in our walls and connect my network to her network and disconnect her services. This may be the cheapest option. My Fibre1 (45/9) would probably handle the additional increase in traffic.

Off to do some more research and cost benefit analysis, plus also look at her HH5 logs that shows it is restarts and drops the link frequently which may explain the (possibly capped)

07:56:49, 24 May. ( 148.360000) PPPoE is up - Down Rate=24968Kbps, Up Rate=6556Kbps; SNR Margin Down=13.1dB, Up=6.1dB

which is considerably less than our 45/9. We’re on the same cabinet.

Does anyone have any comments regarding my suggestions?

Thank you

Ditch line rental saver at the end of the month. Ditch FTTC and landline at end of minimum term.

Option 1: Try simply giving her your wifi login details (now) and see if that works for her broadband speed and data needs without overusing your data limit.

If that is fine then either continue and let her FTTC do nothing till term end then ditch her FTTC and landline.

Option 2: Similar re her existing stuff but consider a Three or EE mobile broadband router for her. But bear in mind the mobile router may not be as up to date tech as a recent mobile phone, so could be slower. (See my sig).

Given the cost saving from getting rid of the landline even EE's mobile broadband with a decent allowance (say 100GB or maybe less) should save a lot

Option 3: Has she any need for broadband when out if the house? If not, upgrade her mobile phone allowance on whatever service and simply tether her computer and iPad to it. That's what I did initially. My mobile router was added later as I installed security cameras needing internet access so they wouldn't have worked when I was out.

A bit testing of broadband data usage is what is needed at this stage to aid decision-making re the mobile broadband possibility.

Option 4: For non-geeks TalkTalk isn't as bad as its reputation on these forums. My brother has been on it for decades with no trouble and so has one of my neighbours who never moved away when it took over his Tiscali service. Certainly better CS received by both of them than Plusnet seem to provide these days.

Option 5 p: Also consider Pulse8Broadband which has minimal phone call prices (no call packages as simply not needed). They run on TalkTalk Business Wholesale which is a far better beast than the retail offering.

(Don't forget that all landline PSTN services are ending in 2025 on current plans. Though AIUI BT has just paused their Digital Voice rollout as it seems they have only just realised the implications of power cuts for vulnerable people's access to the emergency services by phone or the fall-detecting pendants and suchlike).

In reply to a post by BarkingMad:

My neighbour is with BT with LRS up for renewal on 31/05 and Fibre1 on 16/09/22. With everything increasing she wants to minimise ongoing costs. She is not a heavy/intensive internet user - Iplayer, Ipad etc. We’re FTTC and FTTP is not available. VMO2 is in the street.

My thoughts were:
1) Delay LRS renewal until Fibre1 renewal because we may have more haggling power with BT. However, BT is asking to renew on MYBT so may not be an issue. I'll look at those offers later.
2) Change package from Fibre1 to Fibre Essentials. Sometimes Essentials can be more expensive than Fibre1. She does not qualify for the social tariffs.
3) Wait, do not renew LRS and move provider towards the end of the Fibre1 contract. Moving to say someone like PlusNet on a 12 or 18 month contract would move away from the 2x CPI+3.9% increases that are within scope for a BT 24 month contract. I appreciate an 18 month contract with PlusNet may mean 2x CPI+3.9% increases are in scope for some contract periods. Possibly move her mobile from O2 to PlusNet giving another saving but need to consider whether she will roam.
4) Look at "mobile broadband". Three seem to offer the best value unlimited tariffs but EE has the best coverage in our area. I’m on Three for mobile phones and a speedtest (inside) has just returned 19.7 down and 4.84 up.
5) Move to a broadband only package because she doesn't use the phone and if BT was renewed they could charge upto £5 per month for a PAYG package (ability to make calls and call emergency service etc). I think broadband only wouldn't reduce the cost by a lot. Apart from BT and VMO2 are there any other broadband only providers?
6) Drill a hole in our walls and connect my network to her network and disconnect her services. This may be the cheapest option. My Fibre1 (45/9) would probably handle the additional increase in traffic.

Off to do some more research and cost benefit analysis, plus also look at her HH5 logs that shows it is restarts and drops the link frequently which may explain the (possibly capped)

07:56:49, 24 May. ( 148.360000) PPPoE is up - Down Rate=24968Kbps, Up Rate=6556Kbps; SNR Margin Down=13.1dB, Up=6.1dB

which is considerably less than our 45/9. We’re on the same cabinet.

Does anyone have any comments regarding my suggestions?

Thank you

Out of those two options, the one's that are the best in my opinion are, a 4G / 5G option as first choice, the reason is because of phone personal hotspot which would work if speeds are suitable and no second cost as long as its an unlimited or high data plan.

The alternative running ethernet through the wall, I hope to an access point e.g. One of these (cheaper are available).
would definitely be suitable if you trust your neighbour with access to your network, I don't know how technical you are, but if you know how to configure a VLAN to segregate access I would.
The reasons are VLAN's can "separate" the two networks and just means you don't see each others devices more for security .
It's just a security thing for me really. It's like I have a guest network, but its on its own VLAN with a login portal and simple password it basically makes sure no one can start messing around and intercepting traffic etc.

A VLAN can only be configured with some routers so its worth remembering.

Otherwise if access isn't a big concern than I don't see why not.

It would be my prefered option from a reliability point of view as 3, 4 , 5G is very variable at times so personally its the best bet.

If it was me I might charge a small amount monthly e.g. £5 to 10 to cover the costs of the access point and cable and to contribute partly to the internet bill, but that's obviously not my decision to make. I only mentioned it as if I didn't have the hardware or none spare its a cost to me, if you see where I'm coming from.

Thanks pluralist,

I've done some digging.

BT will allow recontract at £2p/m reduction for 24 months and no PAYG call package and LRS. Approx £28 per month overall.
If she switched to PlusNet now she'd be looking at £22.99 for 18 months, with a £75 reward card on top. I estimate ETC from BT would be around £48.
She could get Virgin M100 for £24 for 18 months
Three Mobile Broadband isn't available in our area - according to the Three website. Strange because I have a Three mobile plan.
EE (only 4G at the mo) in our area, A 5GEE device (future proofing) has £100 upfront and £20 p/m for 40GB for 24 months. It has a lan port. The 4GEE wifi mini 2020 is £0 upfront and could have the same usage plan as above. I don't think the 4GEE has a lan port.

Looking at your options, wifi would work for sharing my network, but she has an ethernet connected YouView box so either I'd need a cable from me to her which would plug into Youview box, or a router set up in AP mode (if I have got that correct) - connects to my wifi and then ethernet ports can connect to the Youview. I think the 5GEE would be useful in this regard.

I did consider Pulse8 but it is £30 per month. I've just checked TalkTalk and can get Fibre65 or Fibre35 for £23.50 over 20 months.

I need to work out how much data she is using. Hopefully the HH5 will tell me!

I'm willing to bet I'm asked why I'm not using a mobile solution.

Thank RR_The_IT_Guy,

A good point about the VLANs. I'll probably be able to set one up although the neighbour is a retired professional and not a geek. My Billion 8800NL R2 supports VLAN. I'll need to try when the wife isn't working from home in case I need to reset the 8800.

I've picked up a PAYG EE SIM to test signal and speed in my Iphone.

In reply to a post by BarkingMad:

Thank RR_The_IT_Guy,

A good point about the VLANs. I'll probably be able to set one up although the neighbour is a retired professional and not a geek. My Billion 8800NL R2 supports VLAN. I'll need to try when the wife isn't working from home in case I need to reset the 8800.

I've picked up a PAYG EE SIM to test signal and speed in my Iphone.

Of course, nothing worse than accidently kicking someone off the network trying stuff out.

I know I have done that before, wasn't popular, in the process also caused a bigger issue so went from working and in under half an hour of changes went to hours of downtime, working to make it work before the next day. That evening didn't go down well, no streaming and no internet from 8PM until i finally got it working again at 3AM.

That was a massive software upgrade, I did have redundancy but I obviously rolled out the upgrade to every device at once, thinking that it wouldn't be a problem.
Always nice when things go to plan.

But yeah on a serious note the VLAN and cable, with an access point and since there is that youview box a cheap switch would do nicely.

Let's no go into what I'm about to say but one of the neighbours and I have been considering doing dual WAN so we both pay for a connection from a different network, e.g. me on Virgin them on Openreach FTTP when available in September and running cables between us, so different traffic can go over different connections for performance and redundancy at no extra cost to either of us as I already have the cables spare.
It would mean that we have a VLAN each in the scenario and rate limiting so neither of us could obtain more than the max speed on our own connections even if it using each others for different traffic, e.g. streaming traffic would go over VM and as much other traffic as possible would go over the FTTP connection as long as there is always spare bandwidth somewhere to ensure that neither of us maxes out 1.6Gig's of combined bandwidth.
All dependant on many factors, but we agreed that if we did anything we would need to do some testing first before laying cables to see how things looked and what the plan was if either of us was on holiday and a network fault developed.
you get the general idea.

It's similar in a way, so I have thought about the issues with sharing connections

RR_The_IT_Guy,

Thanks for the reply.

Results from the EE Ookla speed test stood at the window showed EE was 21.6/5.72 compared to Three 19.7/4.84. I thought EE would be much better in my area.

About to discuss findings so far with the neighbour and see if I can see how much data has been through the HH5.

In reply to a post by BarkingMad:

RR_The_IT_Guy,

Thanks for the reply.

Results from the EE Ookla speed test stood at the window showed EE was 21.6/5.72 compared to Three 19.7/4.84. I thought EE would be much better in my area.

About to discuss findings so far with the neighbour and see if I can see how much data has been through the HH5.

No problem at all, I'll be honest, that's a lot better than I get on any network round my area, (even outside). The max i used to get on EE was 100Mbps at night like 2 up (but that was me pointing my phone at the mast across the road from the window, (must clearly be the only mast in KM's as its clearly overutilized)) and the rest of the time between 5 and 10Mbps down 1UP on 4G, three is 3G only hitting a whopping 5-9Mbps constantly with half a meg sometimes 1.5 max up. Vodafone and O2 are exactly the same at 5Mbps if i'm lucky as they have utilisation issues at the moment.

Your speedtest is very good, (at least compared to my expectations) Back when I had fixed line with Openreach I was on 10Mbps download although after power cuts got 13down, 1up until the 13th of october 2018 and just about coped on that, FTTC was available but It wasn't suitable due to international calling being required at the time, and it being included with ADSL on talktalk for no additional cost. FTTC was considered but wasn't as viable as VM due to VM being cheaper, as their network is reliant on customers not using their connection. If more than three customers in the same area max it out, that's it, slow for everyone, (obviously i'm exaggerating a bit, but it feels like it at times)

I mean you can see for yourself in my signature. All I will say is I have seen it all while on Virgin Media, it's been interesting to say the least.

As long as those 4G speeds you shared stay like that during the peek then you might just about get away with 4K streaming, HD should definitely be okay.

Edited by RR_The_IT_Guy (Wed 25-May-22 15:25:34)

Your contract with the provider may prohibit sharing of services with other parties. My contract (residential) says

You may only use the Services and the Equipment for Your own (and the members of Your household's own) purposes only and not for any business or commercial purposes.

Thanks Thinker27,

I guess if you take the wording at face value then I shouldn't allow anyone who visits me to use my wifi.

My use wouldn't be business or commercially orientated.

Interesting.