Using a monthly sim only plan for household wifi

So i need to run our tv, laptop and other devices for one month without broadband due to wanting to leave my current provider due to their renewal price being much more than they offer new customers

So if i leave for one month i then can sign up as a new customer (ive been through the whole process with them and even retentions wont give me the new customer price so they suggested i leave for one month)

So i was thinking of getting a rolling monthly sim card that has 100gb of data for £17 a month which has unrestricted tethering and no speed caps and put it in an spare phone and then tether everything to that for one month until i can sign back up

Sounds all good? anything ive not thought of or any issues?

anything ive not thought of or any issues?

Have you got kids?

The fall-out from shite internet could be massive!

Should work fine TBH !  Anyone streaming TV, as it will gobble GB’s

Sounds sensible. The only issue you may have is WiFi coverage from a phone acting as a hotspot. But if you can live with that, sounds good.

We have done this for months using a £15 ID mobile unlimited data SIM card and a router which cost £60 off amazon. It is faster than when we had internet through the phone line.

There are only 2 of us so no children, but it’s fast enough to stream 2 4k videos at once, or to game online whilst facetiming etc.
We also both work from home and have no issues on teams at the same time (though arguably that isn’t our problem, it’s our employers if they wish us to WFH)

but make sure you have good signal on the three network first (it’s who ID use)

100gb might not be enoug for a family, TBH, but 5g (or even 4g) internet should be fine

I did it at the start of the year for a couple of months whilst full fibre was being sorted out.

I went with Smarty who had the cheapest Unlimited plan at the time, and borrowed a TPLink router from a friend.

It worked well most of the time, although I don’t get 5G where I live.

You’ll probably be fine, but a) don’t run it off a phone – get a router with a SIM card slot, b) get a SIM card from a provider that you are 100% sure has sufficiently good service in your exact location to give you what you need (don’t judge on just download speed – also look at latency and upload).

Make sure it’s a data SIM, not a regular phone Sim card if you are going the router route, and the provider covers your area for data.

I tried a 4/5g phone Sim in a 4g router, and the internet was dire. Apparently (I forget who told me) phone and data SIMs use “different” parts of the bandwidth, and some providers don’t have the bandwidth for a data only connection in some areas, even though their phone coverage is fast.

Cheers for the replies

Im not gonna pay out for a router for just to be used for one month, the spare phone will do the job

We get 5G in the house with the network we want to use so all good there

The boy will just have to deal with reduced internet if it comes to it, he’s only 7 so not using the internet much, i can get an unlimited data plan for £20 with no speed cap and tethering is fine so will prob go for that one

Why stay with someone who makes you go through this? Just switch suppliers.

I went on 4G for a while when we were between homes and it was crap. When it worked it was fine but it didn’t have anything near the reliability of a dedicated line. The main frustration was trying to explain to the kids why they couldn’t finish watching their TV hsow and there wasn’t anything I could do to fix it.

Based on that experience, in your shoes I’d just go to another service provider. Any company suggesting I quit for a month then come back is throwing up some red flags about their basic competence.

I’d take a wild guess the OP is with Virgin Media. I’ve got 200+meg VM. Every other alternative is about 4mbps. I always haggle but don’t get it near new customer levels. I can see the OP’s point tbf.

I’d take a wild guess the OP is with Virgin Media. I’ve got 200+meg VM. Every other alternative is about 4mbps. I always haggle but don’t get it near new customer levels. I can see the OP’s point tbf.

That was my immediate guess too.

I am similarly trying to escape from my lovely 200mbps with horrendous monthly cost but having speed/bandwidth anxiety being some distance from the big box of OpenReach gubbins so we have issues with speed/attenuation.

Can your partner just sign up as a new customer for the date you’ll be leaving them. Different name, bank account etc.

This is of interest to me, so I’d need a data SIM and am I correct in that I can put the SIM straight into a router? Sounds perfect for my WiFi needs.

Any cheap data SIM & router recommendations?

I’ve seen this in Argos for £70, any good?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8624969

I’ve never had an issues putting a ‘normal’ unlimited phone SIM into a router – we have a static caravan, it’s the only way we can get data into it.  We ended up with the 4g version of this one and it’s been working fine for over a year.

Zyxel 4G LTE-A Indoor WiFi Router | Share Dual-Band WiFi to 64 devices | Supports VoIP/VoLTE | Unlocked

The office that my better half rents has really poor wifi so I got her one of these a couple of months ago:

TP-Link Cat6 Gigabit 4G Router with Sim Slot Unlocked, 1200Mbps TP Link 4G Router with sim slot Unlocked, 4G Mobile Router with Nano Sim 5Ghz Dual Band, MU-MIMO technology

Both from Mr Bezos, alternatives are available.

Also just been fine and works.  They’re both 4g rather than 5g.  In my experience it all hinges on phone signal where you are – we started with Vodafone at the caravan after testing it with my work phone, ended up with loads of buffering.  Swapped onto Spusu (piggiebacks on EE) and it was much better, much stronger signal where we are.  As mentioned above streaming telly eats loadsa data so you might be surprised how much you can use, unlimited data plans are the best way.

IdMobile is 18£ for unlimited and Smarty is £20 for unlimited data.

But if you get someone to refer a friend you on Smarty you will get a £10 gift voucher back too which would halve the cost. (and they would also get a £10 voucher). Try and find a friend already on smarty or use one of ours
eg

http://referme.to/2gocGix

My sister uses a sim as her only internet at home as the wired broadband was slow. It’s faster and more reliable than Mum’s BT next door.

Set this up as a temporary measure using a tp link 4g+router

That was about eight years ago, still going fine

I’m struggling to find out my data usage with Now broadband, can’t find it on my Now account or by logging in to the routers IP address to see if I need unlimited sim.

I’d take a wild guess the OP is with Virgin Media.

Yes im with Virgin Media, been with them for 17 years, happy with everything apart from the price

Can your partner just sign up as a new customer for the date you’ll be leaving them. Different name, bank account etc.

That dosent work with Virgin Media, as its the same address and we have the same surname you have to leave for 30 days then sign up as a new customer, otherwise you could just sign up as a new customer each year to get the best deals

I ended up with a Vodaphone 100gig sim for £13 a month – works fine, similar speeds to copper wire broadband.

How about 500gb per month for a year for £39?

Edit: forgot about only needing it for a month by the time I’d reached the end of the thread 😀

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-500GB-Data-SIM-Preloaded-Pink/dp/B0DG8QQ6DX/ref=sr_1_15?adgrpid=60103817504&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.RA6cYNTV9bSVl3k4FcLnIZDB12yHI1ULosEgw9yyN0nI0-YoV2j62KnurffyxihT3rJ7gEt7iXf7Dro7zuOxpR_Li9KTInP91cMViYqIWG41-OfHNVBJEJuPGcU-j8Z6M6eUs-yM52MKmkWg2piJSA6TcIbaGAVTtSKbc4-11akCc9hMpzImReNXZk6u95vTLQWNBg6frIkxmMJ5qUEirM_DMVLa9-n46uI0sC2QUoI.ZPrQnzAc9pFvvdcGNiY-q4ySRDWjnJy0__vmGV1qwkk&dib_tag=se&hvadid=578426095915&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1007242&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4190211105774754510&hvtargid=kwd-301257329242&hydadcr=5059_2287826&keywords=preloaded+sim+card&qid=1728475341&sr=8-15

otherwise you could just sign up as a new customer each year to get the best deals

I thought that the loyalty penalty was outlawed ages ago?

For what it’s worth, virgin always always ALWAYS match the new customer price for me, but then I can get full fibre from BT to my house if I wanted to so I guess they know they’ve got you over a barrel.

that all being said, I’d get a partner, kid or the dog to sign up as a new customer rather than messing around with mobiles for a month

Forgot to update this

So we cancelled contract with VM which had 30 days left to run, within 2 days retentions called us and offered to drop the price for Broadband only to £30, we refused and hung up, 2 hours later they called back and offered us the new user price of £27 a month for their 256gb download which we took so there was no need to use an old phone and a data only sim card as a router for one month