Replacing BT broadband with Three's 4g/5g Hubs.

[HHGTTG]

I have suddenly become aware of such permanent alternative devices for getting fast broadband in the home rather than have the disruption of FTTC or FTTP. However the monthly payments for these are £20/month after the first 6 months. Also what would happen to my BT landline phone which I like to keep together with free minutes bundles.

What are your views on this and would anyone ever consider having a SIM based hub to provide their home internet? The main reason why I don't want Fibre is that we're both old and our time in our current house is hopefully soon to change for something more suited to our ages. 

I currently have  ADSL Broadband and have had this for at least 10 years and on the whole it has been pretty reliable and living just over 1/2 mile from the exchange get 17Mbps which is ample for my needs.

[rbz5416]

If what you have now does the job, why are you looking to change? Are you being required to recontract?

I would imagine that if you retain the landline you will end up spending more overall.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@HHGTTG 

I find ADSL broadband of about 10mbs more than enough for my needs, and its also very reliable, unlike mobile broadband which can be very inconsistent. I have a portable 4G unit which is a backup for home, and when travelling. It has 12Gb on it, which lasts a year. This uses a Three mobile SIM.

Re-contracting would involve a move to FTTC, and Digital Voice.

[HHGTTG]

Hi Keith.
I too bought a ZTE WIFI hotspot device in case of power cuts this Winter. I had an old unused Three 3G SIM which as 3GB of data on it and I can use this quite successfully with my tablets and laptop if and when necessary.
No, I was putting the idea of a permanent Three hub out there to see what the response was. I agree it would cost me more to keep a landline phone alone together wih one of those hubs.

[HHGTTG]

I am also worried about the longevity of my Home Hub 3 and whether I am entitled to a suitable replacement for it should it expire. Of course I could always buy its equivalent (whatever that is) from Amazon or ebay.

[Keith_Beddoe]

The problem is that if you cease your ADSL connection, you may lose your landline number, as it will be a change of contract, and new landline provisions in many exchanges have to use BT Digital Voice, because of the closure of the PSTN network. Not sure how this is going to be implemented.

I expect that eventually DV will have to be carried over the ADSL connection, for existing ADSL customers.

I would be inclined to leave things as they are.

[Keith_Beddoe · Accepted solution]

I use a TP Link W9970 on my ADSL connection.

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/service-provider/dsl-router/td-w9970/

About £30-40 and is very reliable, so no need to worry about the HH3 replacement.

[rbz5416]

The HH3 is quite long in the tooth but as long as it's working, I don't see any pressing need to replace it on an ADSL service. In any case, if it fails BT would replace it.

[HHGTTG]

Oh just one thing. I see that in this TP link set up it asks which ISP your using and then username and password. I'm not sure to which ones they're alluding to.

[Keith_Beddoe]

Select BT ADSL

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