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meritez.

"Anyway, yes your Huawei band locking thread is probably your best bet, I have a Huawei b525 locked to band 20+32"

I have not progressed quite that far yet so all help is welcome.

Tomorrow (partly as my wife is out so the mice can play) I intend to check the other three suppliers in case any are so much better than my Smarty Three. If Smarty still wins I know which signal I want to get so advice on what to lock on to would be much valued - maybe in the other thread for logic sake.
 
meritez.

Can I flush this up and see if you have any advise for locking my Huawei 5g CPE Pro 2. I did install the LTE-H Monitor v4.63 and it is showing this info.

Monitor 1.webp


Any use?

Maybe the Huawei is best left on auto but you achieved some big speed improvements for your chums.

Tony
 
Ah but you don't need a second SIM running all of the time.

Let me give examples, Giffgaff allows you to top up every six months.

So your main SIM could be three, O2, Vodafone, EE.

Main SIM goes down, for whatever reason, you then buy a Giffgaff goody bag, £20 for 80gb or £35 for unlimited.

Script running on the router works out that the second SIM is working, switches connection and your back online.

Of course if you are going dual SIM then you may need to point at a different mast.
meritez.

Just looking at this again as I am coming to the conclusion that a Vodafone deal gives me best stability for money.

I have a Giffgaff card I can put in my Huawei or my A22 phone if Voda dies.

If I have no broadband how do I buy the £20 goody bag? Are you saying the Giffgaff card, that I have not used for some time, will give me a broadband service to enable me to send them £20?


Tony
 
meritez.

Just looking at this again as I am coming to the conclusion that a Vodafone deal gives me best stability for money.

I have a Giffgaff card I can put in my Huawei or my A22 phone if Voda dies.

If I have no broadband how do I buy the £20 goody bag? Are you saying the Giffgaff card, that I have not used for some time, will give me a broadband service to enable me to send them £20?


Tony
Yes, it is possible they allow traffic to giffgaff.com even if you don't have credit, but this is just speculation, you should test somehow.
 
meritez.

Just looking at this again as I am coming to the conclusion that a Vodafone deal gives me best stability for money.

I have a Giffgaff card I can put in my Huawei or my A22 phone if Voda dies.

If I have no broadband how do I buy the £20 goody bag? Are you saying the Giffgaff card, that I have not used for some time, will give me a broadband service to enable me to send them £20?


Tony
Any network allows you to access their website free of charge via one of their sims. This doesn't always apply for the apps but the website is deffo free. most networks do cut an inactive SIM off, think it's 180 days for Vodafone and Three based networks, 6 months for O2 and EE based networks.
 
Thanks guys.

So it's a matter of making sure the SIM is not inactive for over the 180 day or six month limit.

My understanding of GiffGaff is that their goody bags only last a month. If they keep the card alive you could on month five buy the cheapest goody at £6 and make a diary note to repeat half a year later.

Another option is 1p who want £15 for 180 days but they roll forward any unused data allowance.

Both, when compared with what I would be paying per month for my Vodafone unlimited data, are a small price to pay for a backup service. My thoughts, until someone picks holes in the idea, is to pay the bit more for 1p as when the main supplier fails one wants to move to the backup with the minimum speed and hassle.
 
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No, meritez.

Not sure how I could get points. I was sent a card to pass on to a friend yesterday but I am not clear from their site what else I need to do.
 
@Tony Gamble have you factored in giffgaff payback?


So far I have obtained this much for my December Payback:
View attachment 3513

That could increase in the next few months, and the Giffgaff sim would pay for itself.

Screenshot_20220930_104759_Edge.jpg

I still keep getting free months from Smarty due to my early spamming referral days lol, they must have worked well, I keep thinking that my free months surely must be over now.

Will find out tomorrow, still the £150 credit will last well especially if the normal £6 has been reduced to £4 for the next 12 months with their latest offer.

I was supposed to have been moved to the £4 deal but I'm not convinced, I'll find out tomorrow when it renews.

Anyway, not bad for the original payment of £16 unlimited a whole 15 months ago. 😊
 
Thanks WB.

I am on £16 unlimited from Smarty but mystified by the variations on speed from Three. My log is showing variations from 256 down to 55 - whereas my Vodafone has only varied from 195 to 119 since I started it on Wednesday.
 
Thanks WB.

I am on £16 unlimited from Smarty but mystified by the variations on speed from Three. My log is showing variations from 256 down to 55 - whereas my Vodafone has only varied from 195 to 119 since I started it on Wednesday.
I'd give anything to have any of your speeds Tony, surviving just fine on my lowly EE 30 megs though. (10 megs on three) 😊
 
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I live under a pin cushion of aerials.

But would you not feel happier paying a bit more for the service that had fewer ups and down? Currently I can have Three from Smarty for £16 and the best Vodafone feed I see would be Scancom and six months for £125.
 
I live under a pin cushion of aerials.

But would you not feel happier paying a bit more for the service that had fewer ups and down? Currently I can have Three from Smarty for £16 and the best Vodafone feed I see would be Scancom and six months for £125.
Unfortunately Vodafone and O2 are pants in my area so it'll have to be three and EE.
 
And my question. How much value do you put on stability? You've been around this game a lot longer than I have.
I've not had many problems with three at all over the years and now that I have EE too, I have 2 networks to chose from should one go down, only problems with three here is the speed due to being oversubscribed, never had any stability problems.
 
I think Three is oversubscribed down here. Almost all their clients will be residential. If the kids are playing their games and the grown ups streaming their Netflix it is bound to take its toll in the evenings.
 
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Mobile Broadband Backup

The first principle of backup is to understand what you are backing up against, the probability of that happening, how long you are prepared to be without service and the worst-case capacity/cost of running the backup.

There are four primary backup methods:
  • Manual switch
  • Failover (often by DNS ping)
  • Load Balancing (prioritisation of 2 or more services)
  • Redundancy (bonding or software network duplication)
Each has various options and impact depending on the kit/service used

Likely failure could be something on the lines of:
  • Mobile Account cessation, profile or plan exceeded
  • SIM or CPE Equipment failure
  • Mast configuration change
  • Mast(s) shut off for maintenance or HSE safety
  • Mast equipment failure
  • Backhaul failure
  • Power Failure of mast installation
  • Localised loss of Mobile operator’s network
  • Wider loss of Mobile Operator’s network
Manual Switch could consist of:
  • Self-requisitioning one of your existing phone SIMs for broadband use during an outage
  • Having a Retail SIM in a draw (unregistered – monitor date) or going down to the corner shop and getting PAYG SIM
  • Having a low data plan on a monthly pay live SIM such as Sky (O2) which has data rollover that can accumulate over time (around £60 per year).
  • Permanent monthly SIM with sufficient capacity for backup
The task therefore is to determine what failure types you are intending to cover and whether the chosen backup solution will address them. This may vary between the middle of London and a very rural location.

THREE are installing their own masts now but many are shared with other providers particularly EE. Therefore, 1p may not be a good backup to THREE but be a better backup to Voda. Unfortunately, you may not know until the failure occurs.

Where providers transmitters are roof mounted it is unknown to us if anything is being shared by them. For example, if the building lost its power supply to the mobile installation (scheduled or failure) would the backup work?

My view is that for backup (whether unregistered SIM or permanent monthly SIM) you need to ensure that the backup is with a provider with as little in common with the main provider as possible and ideally from a different mast location and direction.
 
My understanding of GiffGaff is that their goody bags only last a month. If they keep the card alive you could on month five buy the cheapest goody at £6 and make a diary note to repeat half a year later.
Even cheaper is just to add £1 credit and send a text using the sim every 6 months to keep the number live.
 
Sorry k but I don't understand.

I have looked at these goody bags and now look at Add Credit and the smallest amount I see is £10.

Where are you looking?

T
I did it sometime ago and had some cashbacks I loaded into credit, but £10 credit will last many times longer than one goody bag at 6 months.
 
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