How stable and reliable is VF 4G wireless BB for home use?

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › How stable and reliable is VF 4G wireless BB for home use?

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#273222 10-Aug-2020 21:25

We are moving and the new house has no wired internet available.

One option is VF 4G wireless at $82 for 600GB. Another is the local wireless BB company, slower and more expensive but not sharing their towers/bandwidth with mobile phones.

I was wondering if anyone had a view as to how reliable the 4G would be in this sort of setup? The VF rep said 40Mbps down and 20 up. Local system is 25 down and 10 up.

The VF offer is faster and cheaper but I have no way to gauge its reliability and stability compared to a dedicated connection with line of site.

Any thoughts?

1 | 2 | 3

11428 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2538312 10-Aug-2020 21:45

It's the standard 4G network so as reliable as that

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2538322 10-Aug-2020 22:13

Yes but of course not moving from tower to tower etc so presumably that makes some difference?

nztim

3819 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#2538324 10-Aug-2020 22:23

4G Wireless broadband all depends how many mobile phones in your area are connected to the tower at that point in time but when quiet you should get speeds comparable to VDSL

The big thing with 4G is latency which is circa 40ms on a good day

What area are you in where there is no copper/fibre ?

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

K8Toledo

1014 posts

Uber Geek

#2538328 10-Aug-2020 23:02

Also depends on the location of celltower in relation to your premises.....

Why no wired connection?

alasta

6706 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#2538367 11-Aug-2020 08:38

I used it in my previous home in Island Bay, Wellington for two and a half years because the copper connection had become unreliable and no fibre was available at the time.

My experience was entirely positive, but it's worth noting that my needs are very basic. I don't know how well it would work if you had multiple people in the household regularly streaming multimedia.

My only complaint was that the wifi on the supplied Huawei router had a tendancy to jam up, so I ended up having to connect up an Airport router to get around that problem.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

Uber Geek

#2538389 11-Aug-2020 09:57

My father has VF 4G internet because copper in his area is so slow outside of school hours, that internet banking times out. Good enough for one Netflix stream at SD setting.

Mike

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2538441 11-Aug-2020 10:21

I honestly do not know why there is no copper etc.

The house is 5 years old in a small subdivision about 7km from Carterton. When I rang VF (who we have our VDSL with at the moment) they said "there's no service available at that address except 4G".

I checked the Chorus map and there is no service shown on that at all.

I can only assume that there was no copper in the road at the entrance of the subdivision which they could connect to. That road is a public road up to the subdivision gate then becomes a private gravel road serving a farm.

Whizz offers local internet on LOS (their tower is actually at the top of the hill the house is on) at 25 down and 10 up but presumably unaffected to such an extent by other users passing through with mobile phones etc. Their service is $129/month and VF is $82. I am just trying to weigh up whether the on paper speed advantage of 4G plus the lower cost per month will be offset by latency, cell tower capacity and so forth.

We will be running (max load - ie not daily or usually at the same time in some cases)

2 iMacs
TV
Fridge
Alarm monitoring
CCTV monitoring
3 mobile devices

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

ghettomaster

387 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2538506 11-Aug-2020 11:07

On paper is the problem. Without an address it’s hard to tell your proximity to a Vodafone tower but even then the only way to definitively answer your question is real world testing.

Is there a minimum term with these services? If not you could get Voda and switch over if it doesn’t work out, or get both and do some testing if you’re keen. Another thing to remember is that Voda are sometimes doing unlimited 4g rural plans now so that may be a factor worth considering.

nztim

3819 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#2538527 11-Aug-2020 11:52

Geektastic:

I honestly do not know why there is no copper etc.

The house is 5 years old in a small subdivision about 7km from Carterton. When I rang VF (who we have our VDSL with at the moment) they said "there's no service available at that address except 4G".

I checked the Chorus map and there is no service shown on that at all.

I can only assume that there was no copper in the road at the entrance of the subdivision which they could connect to. That road is a public road up to the subdivision gate then becomes a private gravel road serving a farm.

Whizz offers local internet on LOS (their tower is actually at the top of the hill the house is on) at 25 down and 10 up but presumably unaffected to such an extent by other users passing through with mobile phones etc. Their service is $129/month and VF is $82. I am just trying to weigh up whether the on paper speed advantage of 4G plus the lower cost per month will be offset by latency, cell tower capacity and so forth.

We will be running (max load - ie not daily or usually at the same time in some cases)

2 iMacs
TV
Fridge
Alarm monitoring
CCTV monitoring
3 mobile devices

what does broadbandmap.nz say?

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2538540 11-Aug-2020 12:12

It says this:

nztim

3819 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

TEAMnetwork

Subscriber

#2538551 11-Aug-2020 12:49

Looks like 4G or WISP

If it was me, I would support your local WISP

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2538618 11-Aug-2020 14:37

I’m inclined to although on the figures I’ve been wired it’s slower and more expensive.

They said that download is 25Mbps which is half what we get now on copper.

antonknee

1133 posts

Uber Geek

#2538655 11-Aug-2020 16:06

Do Vodafone still do the network guarantee thing where you can cancel within 30 days and get a refund/out of your term at no cost?

If it was me I'd go VF 4G because it's quite a bit cheaper and likely to work perfectly well.

backfiah

219 posts

Master Geek

#2538657 11-Aug-2020 16:09

I've had nothing but great experiences with 4G home BB once I bought antennas for it. Can get near 100Mb/s down with nearly direct line-of-sight to the tower. You should check line of sight using gis.geek.nz

hsvhel

1237 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2538660 11-Aug-2020 16:13

Having just been through this exercise for my parents, we went with Farmside.

Added the external aerial due to the house being cement and in a gully to where the tower is, expect in a more straight forward situation it would be better again.

Have to say 2 weeks in and its stable around 20-23Mbps down 12-14Mbps up, plenty for their scope of requirements. The copper was knackered and their previous ADSL service was 2-4Mbps down and close to nothing up, VDSL was not available.

Support calls are answered by people who know the equipment and escalations are very easy if required.

Referral Link Quic

Free Setup use R502152EQH6OK on check out

1 | 2 | 3