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Improving 4G home Internet - where to start?

Out of interest, what's the best EE unlimited data deal that people are currently using? I remember reading that you could call them and request a business tariff for working from home, but can't find any details.
 
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What router are you coming from? Also interested to see if I can get higher speeds with this.

Tp Link Archer MR200, it was about 100 quid from PC World 3 years ago. Also received some free EE SIM cards today so will do some testing tomorrow!
 
So it just arrived, did a couple of tests with current router on 3 and was about 20Mbs download, moved the sim card to the B818 and the first test was 39Mbs! Very encouraging, however, every test since is more like 20-odd that I'd get from old router!

Will test vodafone later and eventually EE. Any tips welcome. Guess I need to get ne head round the software for optimising and seeing signal strengths etc. so far has just been a quick test.

Screenshot below, bottom two are old TP link Mr200 router, the rest are B818.
 

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Try various places in the house, close to window, far from window etc. Curious how ee/vod will fare.
 
When I speedtest from my Samsung Galaxy S8 with the Vodafone SIM card I get about 20Mb donload speed, transfer it to the B818 and I'm only getting between 5-12Mb! Have loaded up the Huawei app and get the following numbers, still working out if they are good or not:

RSRQ -10.0
RSRR -87
RSSI -65
SINR -3

After my last post the speeds on 3 improved a bit, was getting between 25-30Mb, it really doesn't seem to like Vodafone though!
 
Yeah.. not an exact science.. not great rsrp and especially sinr, should be positive number, try some other location, height is important. If it doesn't work without fiddling too much with it, maybe don't bother with band locking and such, don't think that's a long term strategy imho. Curious if EE will be better.
 
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EE was about 38Mb then the dta in the free SIM ran out so couldn't do a second test! I might put 10 quid on the card tomorrow to test properly.
 
It's funny because I've just put the 3 SIM back into the old router and it's currently only getting 9-12Mb, so perhaps the B818 is getting much faster speeds! Its amazing how much is varies with each test, even when nothing has chaged or moved...
 
I ran some more tests early this morning, first few are the old router, then the B818, then back to the old router again. All were on 3 network.

As you can see I'd say the B818 is consistently higher. Ping times are not great though, they are around 60-80ms. I seem to get better ping times from Vodafone on my mobile, 40-50ms normally.
 

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Not bad. 3 gets bad near peak times, early morning and late night I also got good speeds.
 
I managed to achieve 60Mbs this morning at 6.15am! It had dropped off to about 40ish by 7.30am though, still pretty good. I still need to test the EE sim cards but been having issues with the new router and Microsoft Teams on my wife's NHS laptop, it keep dropping calls. Mine is ok though....

I don't really know or understand jitter, but it's been higher today at around 15-50ms, I figure it must be important because Speedtest reports it! I don't know if this could be affecting MS Teams?
 
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I managed to achieve 60Mbs this morning at 6.15am! It had dropped off to about 40ish by 7.30am though, still pretty good. I still need to test the EE sim cards but been having issues with the new router and Microsoft Teams on my wife's NHS laptop, it keep dropping calls. Mine is ok though....

I don't really know or understand jitter, but it's been higher today at around 15-50ms, I figure it must be important because Speedtest reports it! I don't know if this could be affecting MS Teams?
Jitter would cause some delays and distortion but MS Teams and most other apps like it are built to deal with it and in the vast majority of cases wouldn't drop calls.

Despite the good speeds on 3 you're still likely experiencing the other quirks such as packet loss and poor routing on their end which is probably causing your issues.

If you use the EE SIM you may see a drastic improvement even if the speeds were a bit lower.
 
High jitter might affect Teams and other audio/video apps.

We beg you to try that EE sim. :)
 
Yeah I know, just been so busy at the moment I haven't had chance! The Teams is a big issue, just did a test with the H818 and wife was getting kicked out of Teams constantly on her NHS laptop, swapped the SIM over to the old Archer MR200 and it works no problem! SO she wants me to send back the H818..... I need to resolve this problem otherwise it's back to the old router! Did a speed test before the Teams call, 15Mbs download, 40Mbs upload, 68ms Ping and 4ms Jitter....
 
They're probably using the bands differently..I am seeing this myself with O2.
Not sure what you could do, really. Messing around with band locking is like pi**ing against the wind, ultimately the router won't stay in that band forever, or possibly the cell could have troubles with the band etc.
That's why everyone is hopeful you'll change ISP..

Let the wife on the archer+3 combo, do your tests separately with the 818 until you think you've nailed it.
Or.. keep using the archer and wait for starlink.. :)
 
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