Streaming in the UK

[RobinE]

With the nights drawing in thoughts are returning to getting some decent tv entertainment.
I know there are many posts on here, but most focus on what works best in Europe. Our European touring days are past us now, hence this post.
I know its old tech, but we do have Freesat that works perfectly as very rarely get right under trees, but it is only real time TV. which is somewhat limiting these days. Also seems BBC maybe planning to stop supporting Freesat?
Also have a 4g/5g router with a Three unlimited data sim which provides basic Internet for browsing etc. but very rarely enough bandwidth to stream Netflix etc or catch up. (via Firestick) Works fine on my drive, but not out in the areas we tend to visit. Also have EE on our phones and coverage does not seem any better, although not benefitting from the mifi aerial and signal booster.
Can't justify Starlink, maybe when / if costs come down, as we average one week in four away.. Our home citilink fibre only costs £30 per month.
Any other solutions I am not aware of? Maybe using the satellite dish although it only has one LNB.
Wouldn't want to to pay much more than the £20 a month that the Three sim costs.

 

[ChrisL]

If you already have an EE sim in your phone you should get a discount on a second sim for your router, pop into an EE shop and see what they can do, I have an EE unlimited fast as is available sim in my router and am currently getting 100 Mbs down in St. Leonards Dorset, I can also share up to 100Gb's of data a month with my phone.

 

[Dazzola]

Be aware that the 3 network is piggy backed onto the ee network, so if you struggle to get the ee signal anywhere 3 won't work either.
For occasions when my ee is poor I have a payg Vodafone sim in my tablet, then set that as my WiFi hotspot and connect everything to that.

 

[chesterfield hooligan]

We are in Mequineza northern Spain using a IDmobile sim tethered to a phone, don't forget like a lot of providers some are limited to 2mbps you have to check with your supplier it may say unlimited but it's the speed they supply on your contract check before taking contracts out.

 

[starquake]

Be aware that the 3 network is piggy backed onto the ee network, so if you struggle to get the ee signal anywhere 3 won't work either.
For occasions when my ee is poor I have a payg Vodafone sim in my tablet, then set that as my WiFi hotspot and connect everything to that.

Not quite piggy backed, they share cell tower infrastructure, so in general you are correct -> however there are sites that are exclusive to EE and same with Three, and coverage can still be VERY differently configured with beams pointing to serve different locations from same towers. Thus you can get very different performance between them and sometimes signal on Three where you don't on EE and vice versa.

(Three have some signal on 800mhz, which like 900mhz when GSM launched is far further reaching than 1800mhz which Three and EE use for their "bulk" 4g services. EE also have some 800mhz, but use it "less" in general so you can have a tower with coverage via Three 800mhz, but not on EE at all). Theres also different frequency allocations at higher levels too, and they all point in different directions (some cell towers are not omnidirectional but are directional beams).

Best example of this that I run into with the family is south of Bridlington, where you can get EE service at near home speeds (80-150Mbit consistently Sun-Thurs), but Three is ... sub 20Mbit same times, as their high capacity beams aim at the towns NOT at the coast between brid and hornsea. However when all the caravan parks are "full" in summer weekends (there are a lot of touring and static parks in that area), EE is over congested, and a directional beam at the Three antenna still gives 20-30Mbit, as peoples phones can't reach that far, so peak summer season weekends Three is better than EE. If they were the same I wouldn't have 2 sims on the 2 networks to cope with the above situation.
Voda/O2 give nil signal in same area, so useless.

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[Neil S]

Be aware that the 3 network is piggy backed onto the ee network, so if you struggle to get the ee signal anywhere 3 won't work either.
For occasions when my ee is poor I have a payg Vodafone sim in my tablet, then set that as my WiFi hotspot and connect everything to that.

I think your incorrect 3 does not use EE Masts it has its own network in the U.K.

 

[Folkranger]

EE has best coverage followed by Vodafone as close second. EE lags behind.
I have a Talkmobile (Vodafone) phone sim-only giving 70gb/month for £9.95. We watch this on a 12" tablet, with the phone as a mobile hot spot.

If we did a lot more in the UK my wife would get a similar deal using an EE carrier so that between us we had better coverage than either one.

 

[Hollidaysjohn]

Generally we found Smarty (Three) pretty hopeless especially in North Norfolk. Have since swapped to 1penny mobile (piggybacked onto EE). It streamed perfectly on a recent return visit to same sites in Norfolk where Three failed to connect. And on a long trip from Cambridgeshire to the Outer Hebridies, it was rocksteady the entire journey. Look at thier boost prices, if anything less then Three.

 

[h8ten]

I bought Broken Link Removed as I was unsure as to how much data I would use when away, £50, 120Gb for up to 12 months. When I was away last year my mobile, Vodafone, had a poor signal in the Outer Hebrides but my EE MiFi still worked, fortunately, I was able to make and receive calls via WiFi on my phone.

 

[Victor And Margaret]

We've had a 3 router for just over a year now. It started out great for the first 6-7 months - 60Mb at home with no dropout or contention issues at busy times. When away in the van we were getting between 10Mb and 115Mb depending on location. Over the next 6 months speeds began to drop slightly and over the last 3-4 weeks it's become virtually unusable. We're now getting around 3Mb when it's working well and 0.5Mb at busy times with frequent drop outs. I've tried a new router and relocating the router but nothing seems to make a difference. 3 say the service is running with no issues. Bizarrely, our phones are on Smarty which uses 3 and they get 50Mb most of the time when at home. Any suggestions?

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[ChrisL]

We've had a 3 router for just over a year now. It started out great for the first 6-7 months - 60Mb at home with no dropout or contention issues at busy times. When away in the van we were getting between 10Mb and 115Mb depending on location. Over the next 6 months speeds began to drop slightly and over the last 3-4 weeks it's become virtually unusable. We're now getting around 3Mb when it's working well and 0.5Mb at busy times with frequent drop outs. I've tried a new router and relocating the router but nothing seems to make a difference. 3 say the service is running with no issues. Bizarrely, our phones are on Smarty which uses 3 and they get 50Mb most of the time when at home. Any suggestions?

Maybe it's an issue with the sim card, have you tried it in a different device?

 

[starquake]

We've had a 3 router for just over a year now. It started out great for the first 6-7 months - 60Mb at home with no dropout or contention issues at busy times. When away in the van we were getting between 10Mb and 115Mb depending on location. Over the next 6 months speeds began to drop slightly and over the last 3-4 weeks it's become virtually unusable. We're now getting around 3Mb when it's working well and 0.5Mb at busy times with frequent drop outs. I've tried a new router and relocating the router but nothing seems to make a difference. 3 say the service is running with no issues. Bizarrely, our phones are on Smarty which uses 3 and they get 50Mb most of the time when at home. Any suggestions?

Make sure your router is using the correct apn for a three contract. Three.co.uk as apn all in lowercase with no username or password. My ZTE after a firmware update ended up using the smarty settings on a three contract sim and it performed far worse given it was a three business sim than the smarty settings as in 3 Mbit versus 50. On the zte you have to disconnect it before you can mess with the apn settings. You should also try an apn of 3internet . This one is slower and usually legacy but has resulted in better performance for us on one cell mast in particular we visit near Cromer. Also if you are not using an external antenna you won’t be getting the best performance in the motorhome.

 

[Victor And Margaret]

Maybe it's an issue with the sim card, have you tried it in a different device?

Yes, we bought a new router at the weekend. It's weird, I've just done a speed test and we're currently getting 32Mb down and 28mb up which is better than we've had for a while. Last night on the router it was 1.2Mb down but 42Mb down using Smarty data on my phone. At the moment Smarty and 3 are pretty much equal.

 

[Manic]

Yes, we bought a new router at the weekend. It's weird, I've just done a speed test and we're currently getting 32Mb down and 28mb up which is better than we've had for a while. Last night on the router it was 1.2Mb down but 42Mb down using Smarty data on my phone. At the moment Smarty and 3 are pretty much equal.

What router have got now?

 

[Victor And Margaret]

What router have got now?

TP-Link Archer MR500.

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[Victor And Margaret]

Make sure your router is using the correct apn for a three contract. Three.co.uk as apn all in lowercase with no username or password. My ZTE after a firmware update ended up using the smarty settings on a three contract sim and it performed far worse given it was a three business sim than the smarty settings as in 3 Mbit versus 50. On the zte you have to disconnect it before you can mess with the apn settings. You should also try an apn of 3internet . This one is slower and usually legacy but has resulted in better performance for us on one cell mast in particular we visit near Cromer. Also if you are not using an external antenna you won’t be getting the best performance in the motorhome.

Cheers, I'll have a look at that.

 

[PxJ]

Have you tried this streaming outfit,
X-streame hosting & media solutions.
look them up on Facebook

 

[Jonno1103]

I think your incorrect 3 does not use EE Masts it has its own network in the U.K.

Ok, I'm going back 15/20 years but the likes of Orange & Hutchinson didn't have masts as such, they had small antenna on the top of blocks of flats etc. Only Vodafone, BT & One2One/T Mobile had their own MTX transmission sites.

 

[Victor And Margaret]

Make sure your router is using the correct apn for a three contract. Three.co.uk as apn all in lowercase with no username or password. My ZTE after a firmware update ended up using the smarty settings on a three contract sim and it performed far worse given it was a three business sim than the smarty settings as in 3 Mbit versus 50. On the zte you have to disconnect it before you can mess with the apn settings. You should also try an apn of 3internet . This one is slower and usually legacy but has resulted in better performance for us on one cell mast in particular we visit near Cromer. Also if you are not using an external antenna you won’t be getting the best performance in the motorhome.

Cheers!! The apn was 3internet. Once changed to three.co.uk we're back up to 62Mb down and 48Mb up. Hopefully it'll be pretty constant. In the motorhome we have the router in the plastic battery box under the bunk (now empty due to 280Ah Fogstar being too big), 95% of the time it worked great until we had this recent issue.

 

[Smokaijo]

With the nights drawing in thoughts are returning to getting some decent tv entertainment.
I know there are many posts on here, but most focus on what works best in Europe. Our European touring days are past us now, hence this post.
I know its old tech, but we do have Freesat that works perfectly as very rarely get right under trees, but it is only real time TV. which is somewhat limiting these days. Also seems BBC maybe planning to stop supporting Freesat?
Also have a 4g/5g router with a Three unlimited data sim which provides basic Internet for browsing etc. but very rarely enough bandwidth to stream Netflix etc or catch up. (via Firestick) Works fine on my drive, but not out in the areas we tend to visit. Also have EE on our phones and coverage does not seem any better, although not benefitting from the mifi aerial and signal booster.
Can't justify Starlink, maybe when / if costs come down, as we average one week in four away.. Our home citilink fibre only costs £30 per month.
Any other solutions I am not aware of? Maybe using the satellite dish although it only has one LNB.
Wouldn't want to to pay much more than the £20 a month that the Three sim costs.

We like our Smarty sim and use Motorhome Wi-Fi - so far it has got signal in most places we got to and we have Netflix and Amazon Prime to choose from.

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[starquake]

We like our Smarty sim and use Motorhome Wi-Fi - so far it has got signal in most places we got to and we have Netflix and Amazon Prime to choose from.

Smarty is good just bear in mind it’s rather expensive compared with a three data contract direct as you paying for the convenience of not needing to pay monthly in a long contract and they also gets a slightly lower peak throughput than an actual three contract ( I tested both and smarty was roughly speaking half the throughput on a busy cell). There was not much difference if the cell wasn’t busy, but three definitely prioritise their direct customers when busy and it’s demonstratable by swapping the sim and apn and speed testing.

We have 2 sims all unlimited for 10 quid a month for both inc vat for 24 months on three via their business deals as part of a 2 handset and 2 data sim package that is 30 quid a month total. Several providers offer unlimited three data sims on 12 mo contracts for 10 a month so roughly speaking half the price of smarty.

Just trying to save you some money as if you like smarty direct three will will be cheaper with same coverage ( except if roaming in eu ) ( as a native contract is half the price of smarty ). Either ring direct or speak with three via scancom or another reseller if you don’t have a limited company. 3 business if you have a Ltd company is near unbeatable on price for unlimited data sims. A friend with a few hundred sims for his business is paying around half what I am per sim..

 

[Manic]

Smarty is good just bear in mind it’s rather expensive compared with a three data contract direct as you paying for the convenience of not needing to pay monthly in a long contract and they also gets a slightly lower peak throughput than an actual three contract ( I tested both and smarty was roughly speaking half the throughput on a busy cell). There was not much difference if the cell wasn’t busy, but three definitely prioritise their direct customers when busy and it’s demonstratable by swapping the sim and apn and speed testing.

We have 2 sims all unlimited for 10 quid a month for both inc vat for 24 months on three via their business deals as part of a 2 handset and 2 data sim package that is 30 quid a month total. Several providers offer unlimited three data sims on 12 mo contracts for 10 a month so roughly speaking half the price of smarty.

Just trying to save you some money as if you like smarty direct three will will be cheaper with same coverage ( except if roaming in eu ) ( as a native contract is half the price of smarty ). Either ring direct or speak with three via scancom or another reseller if you don’t have a limited company. 3 business if you have a Ltd company is near unbeatable on price for unlimited data sims. A friend with a few hundred sims for his business is paying around half what I am per sim..

Just have to be aware of the Roaming charges that Three charge per day, ok if you don’t intend to goes touring
Smarty don’t charge but still has same 12gb limit.

 

[Steve Wilson]

Take a look at sky mobile, it piggy backs on the O2 network and any unused data at the end of the month is saved for use at a later date. If may find that you can build up a good reserve during low Moho usage months.

 

[starquake]

Just have to be aware of the Roaming charges that Three charge per day, ok if you don’t intend to goes touring
Smarty don’t charge but still has same 12gb limit.

Agree, but 12Gb. LOL, thats why I buy local sims -> not worth using a UK sim abroad in my book given the high amount we use. Last weekend at Yarmouth we didn't particuarly watch much TV, just 2 games of football on Nowtv, and the usage on my unlimited sim said we used 50Gb as of yesterday!

NowTV when you have a firestick and very good connecivity (Yarmouth CAMC site has better than my home wifi on Three) uses a TON of data. I do need to work out how to limit NowTV like I have on Netflix!

 

[starquake]

Cheers!! The apn was 3internet. Once changed to three.co.uk we're back up to 62Mb down and 48Mb up. Hopefully it'll be pretty constant. In the motorhome we have the router in the plastic battery box under the bunk (now empty due to 280Ah Fogstar being too big), 95% of the time it worked great until we had this recent issue.

That one CAN be quicker sometimes as mentioned in some cell sites in times of high congestion. It tehnically uses a different path in Threes network to the three.co.uk -> but is rather more performance limited at peak times if there are a lot of users using 3internet on your cell at same time, as it seems to have a lower priority (there are threads about it on some other forums). We switched the family static van in Brid from using 3internet to three.co.uk for similar reasons to you saw, the performance nosedived about 3-4 months ago and peak throughput was about 1/3 of the three.co.uk one. But we keep 3internet as a backup APN for use on all our devices as it's easy enough to switch once you know what you doing. I'd note only three seem to have this silly multiple APN performance issue as the EE sims we have don't need any apn messing, just the standard EE APN.

I've never checked using the three.co.uk apn on a smarty sim, I suspect it won't work, but using smarty apn on the three contracts results in horrid performance, and the ZTE/Huawei firmware rather annoyingly seem to default to that on my devices.

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[HKF]

Although we live in France, we travel back to the UK frequently. When we do, like right now, we use a Superdrug unlimited SIM, on Three, which costs us £20pm. We almost always stay out in the sticks and have never found a problem with streaming. We use a TPLink 4G LTE router.

 

[ChrisL]

That one CAN be quicker sometimes as mentioned in some cell sites in times of high congestion. It tehnically uses a different path in Threes network to the three.co.uk -> but is rather more performance limited at peak times if there are a lot of users using 3internet on your cell at same time, as it seems to have a lower priority (there are threads about it on some other forums). We switched the family static van in Brid from using 3internet to three.co.uk for similar reasons to you saw, the performance nosedived about 3-4 months ago and peak throughput was about 1/3 of the three.co.uk one. But we keep 3internet as a backup APN for use on all our devices as it's easy enough to switch once you know what you doing. I'd note only three seem to have this silly multiple APN performance issue as the EE sims we have don't need any apn messing, just the standard EE APN.

I've never checked using the three.co.uk apn on a smarty sim, I suspect it won't work, but using smarty apn on the three contracts results in horrid performance, and the ZTE/Huawei firmware rather annoyingly seem to default to that on my devices.

I experienced a similar issue using a ZTE M286D router with a Tesco sim, it defaulted to an O2 apn which worked but was slow, changing it to the proper Tesco one improved performance significantly.

 

[goin roamin]

With the nights drawing in thoughts are returning to getting some decent tv entertainment.
I know there are many posts on here, but most focus on what works best in Europe. Our European touring days are past us now, hence this post.
I know its old tech, but we do have Freesat that works perfectly as very rarely get right under trees, but it is only real time TV. which is somewhat limiting these days. Also seems BBC maybe planning to stop supporting Freesat?
Also have a 4g/5g router with a Three unlimited data sim which provides basic Internet for browsing etc. but very rarely enough bandwidth to stream Netflix etc or catch up. (via Firestick) Works fine on my drive, but not out in the areas we tend to visit. Also have EE on our phones and coverage does not seem any better, although not benefitting from the mifi aerial and signal booster.
Can't justify Starlink, maybe when / if costs come down, as we average one week in four away.. Our home citilink fibre only costs £30 per month.
Any other solutions I am not aware of? Maybe using the satellite dish although it only has one LNB.
Wouldn't want to to pay much more than the £20 a month that the Three sim costs.

if youve got a satt dish I bought a secondhand SKY + box off ebay for £45 and then bought a sky card for it for £25 one off payment it picks up bbc1 bbc2 itv c4 c5 and records them.