Quick setup and short contract?

My 350MB Virgin internet connection can't handle the increased load of Covid wfh users. Bandwidth is fine but latency is terrible to the point that remote desktop isn't possible. (https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/b8be607ad3898650ad4115cb89c1c37f43c6a555-27-03-2020)

As a result I can't work from home.

I have 3 options right now:

1. Work at night time (12-7AM) when latency has dropped to manageable levels.

2. Go into work (which as me and my wife work for a "key" industry I potentially could do, but I can and should WFH with even a poor internet connection... just not a terrible one, also we'd have to send our children to the already stretched school).

I don't want to do either of these.

3. Get another internet connection temporarily. Someone not far from me has a 10mb BT connection and his latency is fine. I've heard others are fine too.
Are there any packages with any ISPs that are likely to set up quickly and ideally have a short contract?

30 day sim contract and use 4G on EE/Three ect?

A lot depends on what is available to you.

In immediate short term mobile 4G wifi hot spot from phone if your allowance will suffice.

Otherwise firms like IDNet, AAISP, Zen Internet, Pulse8 and others have 1 month contract options.

Set up times might be an issue, i.e. if you have no active phone line from Openreach in the property you then its going to be a long wait.

I have no active phone line, no. So I guess that means no one will setup quickly then?

4G is a great idea. I had already tried with my Vodafone 4G, but the mobile signal is too poor where we are for that to be effective. I hadn't considered trying another network.

It's probably worth trying another network in the area, but I don't think coverage maps will help me because Vodafone claims to be good here.

I'll ask around neighbours and see who has the best network/signal for 4G.

Try a few £1 SIMs from the nearest convenience store.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

A lot depends on what is available to you.

In immediate short term mobile 4G wifi hot spot from phone if your allowance will suffice.

Otherwise firms like IDNet, AAISP, Zen Internet, Pulse8 and others have 1 month contract options.

Set up times might be an issue, i.e. if you have no active phone line from Openreach in the property you then its going to be a long wait.

I had an Openreach install done yesterday (new line, NowTV fibre broadband) and the installer mentioned that I was lucky because it was the last day of installations - they're all suspended indefinitely from Monday. He wouldn't be in the same room as me - I had to go into another room and close the door while he performed the installation, which is fair enough.

I use 4G from Three as my main broadband, but it's been having major issues recently, dropping to 1Mbps and even falling back to 3G fairly regularly. Given that I'm using my connection more than normal, relying on it for work and entertainment (and that fibre has become available in my area since I signed up for Three) I thought it prudent to have a backup.

This was a great idea. I went and got one from every network.

I was beginning to think my house was part Faraday cage until luckily the one from Three worked reasonably well. It's better than the Virgin connection at least (for latency anyway).

Fingers crossed it's still good on Monday when everyone signs into work!

It may be worth trying different locations in your house, upstairs? to find the best spot. Or even a directional aerial.

Are you using a dongle, portable wi-fi or a router with a sim card slot?

Cheers!

I was using my mobile phone and walked around the house with it + my laptop on ping to places like my work server and google. Slightly better up in our loft but not much.

I think i'll try ordering a 4G router, sticking it in the loft and then running cable down to the 2 office computers in the house. Unsure what router to go for, but I guess one with a giant aerial would be best...

On separate note:
Virgin engineer came and confirmed large areas of south of London including my area (BR3) are severely overloaded. Overall download bandwidth is fine, but latency is terrible for just about everyone. He says fix is not likely to be soon as normally the capacity is at 10% under normal circumstances and it's now at 99.5%, so I think virgin are unlikely to make major network upgrades in order to solve this for a few months .
No timeline can be given. Frustrating!

I cannot recommend a 4G router, but a couple of points to consider.

If you know where the mast is, you could consider a directional aerial, assuming that the router has provision. There are aerials for when you need more than one in a MiMo configuration. Likely worth asking in https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/mobilebroadband.html Don't forget that different mobile operators use different frequency bands.

I had a good deal with a 3 Sim, but a rubbish signal. Considered an external yagi aerial then found that our local Vodafone mast, 250 metres away, was also o2 and was blasting in.

Also, you could run your office pc's via WiFi and save running a network cable. All you would need in the loft is power for the router.

Cheers!

Edited by Ancient_Mariner (Tue 31-Mar-20 21:45:48)