Mega Maniac
Established Member
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Messages
- 727
- Reaction score
- 35
- Points
- 135
- Age
- 36
I have just moved into a new flat, frustratingly despite being a fairly new complex and being close to central Manchester I am limited to ADSL speeds, this maxes out at an 'estimated' 17Mb down, but realistically this is actually 8-9mb, sometimes half of that, with a frankly pathetic 300kb up. I am also obviously left paying £12pm for a phone line I dont use and this "top" package brings the bills up to about £35 pm.
I have heard a lot recently about Three and their one plan, they allow tethering and their angle is truly, truly (no really i promise) unlimited mobile broadband. I am inclined to suspect they block certain traffic, but I cant seem to find anything that suggests this.
So, given this knowledge I could go ahead and stop getting ripped off by BT for the phone line I dont use and the internet that costs too much for the speeds I get.
As far as I can see there are two flaws in this plan, one is reception, and the other one is real world speed and latency.
Reception - this one is pretty simple, if its bad the plan is moot, but this is near enough central manchester, the 3G on my t-mobile phone is full bars all the time. Three is likely to be good, if not great, and if its rubbish the sim only contract is a one month roller, so easy to cancel.
Real world speeds and Latency - So even when I have full 3g, my speeds are pretty rough, around 0.5-1mb down, and roughly the same for the upload, with a 150ms latency. This could be better on a less used network like three, but its no replacement for home broadband.
But this is where LTE comes in, its theoretical speeds are crazy, but even in real world usage it will be beating out my home broadband and for a better price. In addition to this the latency drops down to below 50ms making gaming totally possible.
BBC News - Not so fast - testing 4G - bbc article on real world speeds
Three plan to roll out 4g/LTE this year, I have assumed that it will simply be an upgrade to the existing network, meaning "The one plan" would simple get faster and retain its unlimited nature. This may be a bit hopeful, but I can keep my fingers crossed.
So what are peoples opinions on this, can anyone poke a huge hole in my LTE home broadband dreams? I honestly believe that this is the way broadband will be in a few years, with the advent of LTE paying for that landline and homephone you just dont use any more is going to sting ever more. Not just this but the mobile companies have got to realise that there is a huge market here, the home broadband folks have got to be a bit worried, if the networks can get to the stage where they can cope with the demand then why would anyone stick with a more expensive home option? The days of tying your mobile contract into your home broadband and them both operating on the same network are near... if you ask me.
I have heard a lot recently about Three and their one plan, they allow tethering and their angle is truly, truly (no really i promise) unlimited mobile broadband. I am inclined to suspect they block certain traffic, but I cant seem to find anything that suggests this.
So, given this knowledge I could go ahead and stop getting ripped off by BT for the phone line I dont use and the internet that costs too much for the speeds I get.
As far as I can see there are two flaws in this plan, one is reception, and the other one is real world speed and latency.
Reception - this one is pretty simple, if its bad the plan is moot, but this is near enough central manchester, the 3G on my t-mobile phone is full bars all the time. Three is likely to be good, if not great, and if its rubbish the sim only contract is a one month roller, so easy to cancel.
Real world speeds and Latency - So even when I have full 3g, my speeds are pretty rough, around 0.5-1mb down, and roughly the same for the upload, with a 150ms latency. This could be better on a less used network like three, but its no replacement for home broadband.
But this is where LTE comes in, its theoretical speeds are crazy, but even in real world usage it will be beating out my home broadband and for a better price. In addition to this the latency drops down to below 50ms making gaming totally possible.
BBC News - Not so fast - testing 4G - bbc article on real world speeds
Three plan to roll out 4g/LTE this year, I have assumed that it will simply be an upgrade to the existing network, meaning "The one plan" would simple get faster and retain its unlimited nature. This may be a bit hopeful, but I can keep my fingers crossed.
So what are peoples opinions on this, can anyone poke a huge hole in my LTE home broadband dreams? I honestly believe that this is the way broadband will be in a few years, with the advent of LTE paying for that landline and homephone you just dont use any more is going to sting ever more. Not just this but the mobile companies have got to realise that there is a huge market here, the home broadband folks have got to be a bit worried, if the networks can get to the stage where they can cope with the demand then why would anyone stick with a more expensive home option? The days of tying your mobile contract into your home broadband and them both operating on the same network are near... if you ask me.