Shall I Ditch Broadband Completely and Use Mobile Internet?

tooblue on 23/09/2019 - 23:36
Last edited 24/09/2019 - 12:46

I am currently on $70 home phone (unlimited landline) and unlimited Internet plan. Monthly data usage is around 60GB. Around 10 devices at home albeit only 3 to 4 devices will be running at once. Family members are all using cheap prepaid mobile service as we use WiFi most of the time. I am wondering is there anyway to reduce the $840 annual bill.

I've found $60 to $70 is the minimum for most of the broadband plan, some have limit data, some don't include phone. So I am thinking switch to mobile plan completely. I could sign up a mobile phone plan and use one mobile phone as router for the whole family at home. Hence the questions:

  • How does 4G network's speed and reliability compare to ADSL2+?
  • Any adverse impact of using mobile phone as router? Dedicated 4G modem better?
  • Are there any providers offer under $50 mobile plans that allow over the quota but throttle the speed? (I did go through Mobile Plan Deals page but didn't find any)
  • Does providers limit the number of devices tether to a phone? Is this considered unfair use?
Mobile Mobile Broadband Plan

Comments

  • dcep on 23/09/2019 - 23:41
    +2

    I could sign up a mobile phone plan and use one mobile phone as router for the whole family at home.

    That won't save you much at all

  • idonotknowwhy on 23/09/2019 - 23:50
    +3

    Please don't. I did this and it's gradually getting too congested.

  • DuckKnight on 24/09/2019 - 01:30

    Are there any providers offer under $50 mobile plans that allow over the quota but throttle the speed?

    Telstra has 5GB for $15 that gets throttled to 1.5mb/s. That's the cheapest plan, you can go higher if you want more data.

    Does providers limit the number of devices tether to a phone? Is this considered unfair use?

    It's fine to do so.

  • [Deactivated] on 24/09/2019 - 07:29
    +2

    lol no

  • ESEMCE on 24/09/2019 - 08:01
    +1

    If you're happy to live with throttled speeds, a super cheap option is to piggy back off a neighbors' or a Phone Box's Telstra Air.
    You need to set up an old laptop with Internet Sharing and you'll need an active Telstra account, prepaid is fine.
    Log into Telstra Air with the laptop (you need to do this once every 24 hours), attach the LAN port of a Router to the Laptop's Ethernet port and you can share the "free" Telstra Air internet around your home.

    I've done this for a few weeks while NBN were busy fukcing up our internet (thanks Malcolm and Tony).

    • dcep on 24/09/2019 - 09:55

      Is "Fon Wifi" = neighbor Telstra AIR ?

      and "Telstra AIR" = Phone box Telstra AIR ?

      Thanks

      • tanksinatra on 24/09/2019 - 09:57

        No. Both SSID's are broadcasted from the same station.

  • tanksinatra on 24/09/2019 - 08:02

    How does 4G network's speed and reliability compare to ADSL2+?

    It's horrible. 4G speeds initially rocket to 50mbit/s before plummeting to a sustained 1.5mbit/s, especially in the evening when you want to watch netflix. My ADSL will sustain 12mbit/s. They really don't compare.

    Any adverse impact of using mobile phone as router? Dedicated 4G modem better?

    Mobile phones do a horrible job routing network traffic and their wifi signal coverage is pretty terrible compared to a proper modem.

  • Kangal on 24/09/2019 - 08:09

    The speeds of 4G+ are higher than the speeds of ADSL2+ in-practice, but you need to figure out if you have good reception in your home/router.
    On top of this, latency is an issue with 3G/4G/4GX.

    In general, NBN-100 beats 4GX (barely), so get that instead if its an option.
    Otherwise, you have to weigh your options. The 5G hasn't been Standardised yet, but that's coming soon. So the tower upgrades will come a year after that, and proper tuning/maintenance/connectivity a year after. So optimistically we're talking the year 2022 for 5G. Remember when we were getting proper rollout of 4G back in late-2014, even though testing began back in early-2012. But when it comes, it looks like it will solve the latency issue and the speeds of 5G will eclipse NBN-100 by a decent margin, and do it at a lower price.

    So you're stuck with sub-par connectivity until you move, or until a couple years.
    You might get 5G connectivity, or the politicians might decide their greed is enough, and drop the cost of Unlimited NBN-100 to half or lower to remain relevant.

  • No Username on 24/09/2019 - 10:08

    Depends on where you live. For example, my friend is able to get up 200mbps download and 150mbps upload whereas I'm getting 50-80mbps in my suburb using 4G. Tested with Samsung S9+.

  • nikoris on 24/09/2019 - 17:52
    +1

    lol

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