Hacker News Reader

Comment by gtkspert | Hacker News Reader

Where do you get your cheap 4G/LTE?

Best I can find is prohibitively expensive, especially if I wan't to stream 4K content...

I use amaysim’s 50GB data pack, at $65 for 28 days, and on the Optus network. In the country town of Stawell (a few thousand people), I get roughly 23/12Mbps. I’m moving to Navarre soon (about a hundred people), and get about 45/15Mbps there.

For me, living by myself and working from home most days, it’s substantially better than ADSL2+, as it’s faster, more reliable, doesn’t lock me into any contract, allows me to use my internet supply from other places as well, all for the same price as ADSL2+ (which is admittedly generally $10–20 per month dearer in the country for a given service level, and at this price point would include 100GB instead of my 50GB, but I simply don’t need that).

This arrangement works well for me.

Hey Chris, I just moved from Ararat. I never would have expected to see another regional western Victorian on HN!

For reference, Stawell has a population of 6,000 while Ararat is about 8,000. The towns are approx 30 minutes drive distance away. The world is smaller than I thought.

In Ararat it’s almost better to go with 4G. While you get decent caps (1000G/m for AUD$90) the problem is that the internet drops out every time it rains.

I can’t imagine running a business that requires internet access in regional Australia, good on you for finding a way!

I grew up in Melbourne, but preferred the idea of living in the country, so I made it so. (I’m employed by FastMail and head into the office every couple of weeks or so; I told them of my plan to move into the country before they hired me.) When I was first planning it, I had been considering NBN essential, but shortly before actually moving here it occurred to me that regular 4G was actually quite suitable—better than ADSL2+, a test rapidly revealed. My experience with about five months of depending on 4G in Stawell is that apart from a period of about five days where the supply was dodgy (mostly usable, but no more), the Internet supply is at least as reliable than I ever got from ADSL2+ in two locations in Melbourne—where running a ping all day typically has zero packet loss. And ADSL2+’s reliability was never superb.

Your 1TB/$90 and rain dropout refers to ADSL2+, does it not? I haven’t noticed any problems with rain and haven’t seen any caps anywhere near that high on 4G.

Well, now I’m buying in Navarre, which isn’t covered by NBN at this stage (hence it wasn’t in my initial dragnet) but does have an Optus 4G tower, and thus great internet supply.

You're right, I was using ADSL2+ and we were connected to a pillar where we were the only ones using it (50 pair). We reported a fault but rather than fix the problem properly they just hooked us up to another pair. The justification was "well you'll have NBN soon".

Gee, I can't wait...

It's not exactly 'cheap', but if you need 100-140Gb a month there are data only sims for $70 monthly from Optus and resellers. They guarantee minimum 12Mbps supposedly. In metro areas with the latest LTE modems people are pulling 200Mbps down.

If you need lots of data though, the cost becomes less viable.

Optus’s 100GB (if paid monthly)/140GB (if paid annually) plan: http://www.optus.com.au/shop/broadband/mobile-broadband/data...

When I was investigating this stuff six months ago, I believe these plans were somewhat different (and indeed the Critical Information Summaries for them seem to have dates of May and July), with only the first month being cheaper or having as much data or something. (That the month-to-month one still uses the wording “$70 for the first month” on the marketing page makes me uneasy, but I don’t think there’s a catch, I think it’s merely outdated wording.)

I shall consider switching from amaysim to Optus.

Vivid Wireless offer unlimited 4G data capped at 12 Mbps for $90 a month. Its on the Optus network so your experience will depend on what the coverage is like where you live.

From the critical information summary (https://static.vividwireless.com.au/online/Wireless-Broadban...):

> Whilst the Vividwireless service uses the Optus 4G Plus network, it is designed to be used in the home and its data speeds are different to mobile and mobile broadband speeds on the Optus 4G Plus network. In metropolitan areas where you connect to 2300 MHz coverage at your nominated address, download and upload speeds of up to 12/1Mbps are available.

And the cheaper 200GB plan CIS (https://static.vividwireless.com.au/online/Wireless-Broadban...) adds,

> Otherwise in other compatible coverage areas, download and upload speeds of up to 5/1Mbps are available.

So, 12/1 or 5/1 rather than 23/12 or 45/15 as I tend to get out in the country on the same network.

Yes, hiding this information in there is misleading, because people aren’t generally aware of what the different frequency bands and relevant 4G technologies (TDD/FDD) mean and think that “4G” is just one thing.

> Its on the Optus network

Actually it's a completely separate network to Optus' 4G network. Optus bought them several years ago.

It's also highly throttled and utterly shite for most users. I was one.

Useful to know. I was considering moving over to them to save money on my ADSL2+ connection. My area has fantastic 4G speeds without any congestion issues as its semi rural and I was expecting them to be quite good.

Have been with vivid for about 12 months, was supposed to be a temporary arrangement while I waited for my building's strata to fix the internal wiring between my apartment and the MDF in the basement. All of the NBN horror stories and the strata's malignant incompetence mean I'm still using it and it's pretty solid in my experience.

I'm in central Sydney and normally average around 10mbps down

I used OVO for a while -- IIRC it was $60/mo for 50GB. No speed limits, Optus network.

I used this for work and the kids shared the 4MBps DSL.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com