Just moved house, and there is no fibre yet installed. Requested a fibre install back in September via our ISP at the time (Skinny) and unfortunately they have to place it through Enable who has a monopoly here in Christchurch for Fibre infrastructure, and they tend to drag their feet. Install was due on the 26/10/22 and nothing happened, and minimal communication, been told that it's now due to start on the 27th of this month "maybe". I guess it doesn't help that i am up a shared access, but still. Considering the ROW plan was dated back to April...

"Here, have a temp DSL connection on us" said Skinny. Cool, sounds good, better than chewing through data so i plug the supplied smart modem in - no go.

Ended up getting the chorus tech out 2 times, no luck. No connection to the cabinet on the street, and no one can find where the cables or the shared terminal is. After some back and forth with skinnys terrible helpdesk via Email and chat, being told that i need to reboot the Smart modem or add a DSL filter i am at my wits end and order their 4G broadband on no contract, as this fibre fiasco is likely to last much longer than my patience will. 

No wires, no problems, right? Wrong. 

The boxy 4G router arrives, and i plug it in and it spends the next half hour attempting to connect. After a few reboots it managed to get a connection, but the best it can get is anywhere from 4-15 down and an upload twice as fast, if not 3x??

I had my phone tethered to my desktop on a data binge, via PdaNet to hide usage, for the previous week, backfeeding my entire network through windows internet sharing, and it was so much faster. (25-35 down at peak times) And it was sitting in the exact spot the 4G router is now.

It's not like i am in bad coverage area, is this just expected behaviour for 4g broadband?

Also steam downloads will be lucky to get over 400 Kb/s now, whereas when my phone was tethered it hit a max of 6.8 MB/s (54ish Mbps), although this may be it switching to 5G briefly.

Why so slow? Can't wait for fibre...