We cancelled our BT broadband service at the start of lockdown and now want to start a new contract with EE. Seems there's been a problem with Openreach and instead of starting our new broadband last week we won't get it until the 17th July at the earliest. Of course we have guests booked in for a week from the 10th who are expecting wifi.
Before I call them I'm trying to work out our options. EE can provide a mobile wifi box with a sim that provides up to 25gb then it goes onto Pay As You Go. This sounds as though it could be expensive but I have no idea what this is likely to cost. They reckon the 25gb might last anything from a few hours to a couple of days. Does anyone have any experience in this area? What sort of solution should we be looking at, bearing in mind this should be just for a couple of weeks?
Another complication is that we're off site - we're going up this weekend for a couple of nights for maintenance, but after that we won't be there to install or test anything to make sure it works.
As if things weren't stressful enough at the moment
How to provide temporary wifi?
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How to provide temporary wifi?
Jo
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
Some years ago we provided WiFi via a payg sim. We had a contract for 25gb a month. It was ok at first, but then people have more smart equipment with them and the worst thing is they are used to everything like Facebook on automatic updates, so guests staying in the first week of the month were ok, but the supply started running out mid month.
We then payed for extra capacity on a month by month basis till we got a permanent connection in.
Ours only sleeps 4, and often we just have 2 staying. It’s the teenagers who are the highest users. How you get on may depend on how many you sleep.
Saying that, I personally would go for it. Just bite the bullet and pay for it. We could well be in a situation where we aren’t allowed to take any bookings at all this year, and whatever the temp WiFi costs, it won’t be what you take in bookings.
We then payed for extra capacity on a month by month basis till we got a permanent connection in.
Ours only sleeps 4, and often we just have 2 staying. It’s the teenagers who are the highest users. How you get on may depend on how many you sleep.
Saying that, I personally would go for it. Just bite the bullet and pay for it. We could well be in a situation where we aren’t allowed to take any bookings at all this year, and whatever the temp WiFi costs, it won’t be what you take in bookings.
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Thanks - I've found an unlimited data sim from Vodafone at £33 for a month. Just looking for a mobile router to go with it. I guess we need to see it as an investment - if we have broadband issues in the future we'll have a backup ready to go.
Jo
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
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Too late now because your sorted but you can request an urgent connection. Wracking my brains trying to remember what it's called.... It's a fast track something or other. It used to cost £185 to get connected within 24hrs.
Draytek do routers that you can fit mobile sims into and use as part of an ADSL or VDSL service or just the sim.
Draytek do routers that you can fit mobile sims into and use as part of an ADSL or VDSL service or just the sim.
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Thanks. In the end we got a TP-link portable wi-fi box for £72 from Amazon and a PAYG sim card from Tesco Mobile - they had an offer on so the first month was cheaper and since we only needed it for a couple of weeks that was fine.
Jo
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth
Joint owner of Baker's Cottage in Chester & Chandler's Cottage in Sidmouth