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Johnmcl7

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I have a Talktalk Cityfibre FTTP connection which went down last night and organised an engineer to check it on Monday, I'm suspicious of the timing since it went offline just after midnight so it may be a wider issue but looking to get a mobile broadband connection set up over the weekend at least.

I'm trying to work out what the best pay as you go option is that I could pick up in town today. I was looking at EE since they seem well rated but their pay as you go are capped at 25Mb/s which isn't much use. Three look not to cap their PAYG and have a starting 100GB pack for £13.50 so leaning towards that.

The second issue is I don't have a 4G router and they only seem to sell them as part of contract packages. I've checked the local Cex but not seeing any for sale there, any other high street shops I could check? I can run the sim in a phone as a portable hotspot if I'm really stuck.
 
I had a temporary outage a few days back due to a damaged fibre cable and managed to get the family up and running on a cheap and quick budget!

As I have a Unifi Cloud Gateway Ultra, the plan was to plug the router in as a "failover" however the unit alone will provide lan and wireless if you can't use a failover option on your existing device.

I paid £35 for a "used like new" device (but hard reset that as soon as you get it). I had the option for "Delivery by 10pm" which is the reason I picked this unit - Not sure they offer that at the moment.


I went to a local shop and bought a Vodafone PAYG Sim and that had a deal where you get 70GB for £15




Over 24 hours we used around 20GB which included my Nest cameras uploading, the kids on their PS5's and Youtube for kids too.

Now that I've resolved my connectivity issues I've actually decided to keep the kit for failover use which for the price seems a bargain.
 
I had a temporary outage a few days back due to a damaged fibre cable and managed to get the family up and running on a cheap and quick budget!

As I have a Unifi Cloud Gateway Ultra, the plan was to plug the router in as a "failover" however the unit alone will provide lan and wireless if you can't use a failover option on your existing device.

I paid £35 for a "used like new" device (but hard reset that as soon as you get it). I had the option for "Delivery by 10pm" which is the reason I picked this unit - Not sure they offer that at the moment.


I went to a local shop and bought a Vodafone PAYG Sim and that had a deal where you get 70GB for £15




Over 24 hours we used around 20GB which included my Nest cameras uploading, the kids on their PS5's and Youtube for kids too.

Now that I've resolved my connectivity issues I've actually decided to keep the kit for failover use which for the price seems a bargain.
It's also worth checking out the everyone.connected SIMs on eBay. 40GB a month for 6 months is about £23 from one listing that popped up for me, which is pretty decent (you could use it in your phone if the issues end up resolving since there's plenty of data).

 
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I found Argos were selling Smarty sims with £18 for unlimited data for a month so that seemed a good bet.

Funnily enough I was about to head out to get the sim and a 4g router when the connection came back online however I will look further into getting a backup connection available since it shouldn't be too expensive.
 
It's also worth checking out the everyone.connected SIMs on eBay. 40GB a month for 6 months is about £23 from one listing that popped up for me, which is pretty decent (you could use it in your phone if the issues end up resolving since there's plenty of data).

That's a pretty good deal - Something I'll consider once the vodafone data expires - thanks!

@Johnmcl7 - It's probably something nice to have for those unexpected outages. I'm pretty chuffed that I had a happy family while my main connection was down :)
 
It's a bit of a hard question to answer, you'll need to check coverage in your area and ideally if you have a friend who's on that network get them to run a speed test from their phone next time they are visiting.

3 tends to be cheapest for data and EE one of the more expensive but the performance on any of the networks can vary significantly from one location to the next, when indoors it can vary significantly from one room to the next depending on the signal strength and even depending on the device and how good it's radios/antenna are.

By varies significantly I mean the difference between 100's of megabits and about 2 (at least that's what happens here)
 
It's also worth checking out the everyone.connected SIMs on eBay. 40GB a month for 6 months is about £23 from one listing that popped up for me, which is pretty decent (you could use it in your phone if the issues end up resolving since there's plenty of data).

I got one of those 40GB a month for 6 months and only started using it today and after registering an acc on Vodafone I noticed it says -

"Your minutes allowance for bundle 38 of your Big Value Six Pack 20 will end on 02 Oct 2024.

Your Big Value Six Pack 20 will expire on 18 Jan 2022."


so ignoring the 2022, because I think thats some kind of date error as the SIM is working why does it say 18 Jan as that will mean it will expire in 4 months from October instead of 6 months right?

Anyone else got one of these SIMs and getting the above? 🤔
 
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USWITCH Lebara (Voda) has unlimited data for £9.98 PM on a montly contract, that's where I would go. I have an unlimited 3 sim but coverage round here is pants.

On the Lebara hotukdeals there is 50GB pm for £1.25 monthly contract, their sims come really quickly too.

You don't 'need' a 4G/5G router if you hotspot from a phone, but best to have one
 
I got one of those 40GB a month for 6 months and only started using it today and after registering an acc on Vodafone I noticed it says -

"Your minutes allowance for bundle 38 of your Big Value Six Pack 20 will end on 02 Oct 2024.

Your Big Value Six Pack 20 will expire on 18 Jan 2022."
Take it up with the vendor, and read the small print of the order you placed.

If you deal with the cheapest random seller on eBay, I'm afraid you need to set your expectations accordingly.
 
Take it up with the vendor, and read the small print of the order you placed.

If you deal with the cheapest random seller on eBay, I'm afraid you need to set your expectations accordingly.
do you have one of these SIMs then?

...also not the cheapest, as item is selling for £28.95 and not a random seller on eBay either - this seller has 1,630 reviews with 487 of the same item sold ->

240gb_sim_2024-09-03_14-10-48.webp
 

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do you have one of these SIMs then?
Nope... just general advice. I hope they will be clued up enough to help you. If you're unlucky, they might just vanish. But definitely if you bought from them, they are your point of call for support for queries about validity.

FWIW, a private account called "markets2000" sounds to me about as random a supplier as you could get. Registering as a private seller is a way for them to avoid their obligations under consumer protection law, as eBay clearly flags. They are very clearly *not* a genuine private seller, based on the number of SIM cards they are flogging.
 
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If you want prepaid data sims try scancom either via amazon or via their site (I think amazon is better as the prices include VAT)
 
USWITCH Lebara (Voda) has unlimited data for £9.98 PM on a montly contract, that's where I would go. I have an unlimited 3 sim but coverage round here is pants.

On the Lebara hotukdeals there is 50GB pm for £1.25 monthly contract, their sims come really quickly too.

You don't 'need' a 4G/5G router if you hotspot from a phone, but best to have one
Lebara has some sort of speed cap at around 150mbps

Managed to get Virgin to do M125 for £29 which is fine (nvm I thought this was the other thread)
 
do you have one of these SIMs then?

...also not the cheapest, as item is selling for £28.95 and not a random seller on eBay either - this seller has 1,630 reviews with 487 of the same item sold ->

View attachment 18420
@Bubbles121 might know better considering he's currently using one for Vodafone

Can't help but notice they didn't spell "preloaded" correctly

(also no, I don't have one of these SIMs; I run O2 unlimited data £7.37/mo, Seeek 23GB data at up to 60-150mbps £0/mo, Firsty Free 100kbps £0/mo)
 
do you have one of these SIMs then?

...also not the cheapest, as item is selling for £28.95 and not a random seller on eBay either - this seller has 1,630 reviews with 487 of the same item sold ->

View attachment 18420
I am using one. The price keeps getting higher and higher - bought my first for £10, then another for £20. And now £30, which suggests the supply is running thin perhaps.

Mine is great, full access to Vodafone 4G with the nice added bonus of data rolling over those months and inclusive calls and texts if I was ever going to need to use them.
 
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