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Lamma Forums • View topic - 3G and 4G LTE on Lamma
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:11 pm 
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{L_ATTACHMENT}:
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Quite happy with the Internet speed on my home office PC today.

No additional hardware or software or setup required at all. Not an extra dollar spent.
Simply using the 4G Wifi Hotspot of my smartphone via my home office PC.
Simply connect your laptop/PC/Mac/whatever to the phone's Wifi Hotspot, a standard feature in most newer smartphones.

$250/month for my regular 4G plan with Three. 5GB/month which is usually more than I need.
(It's mostly used for Spotify streaming in high quality while hiking, tens of millions of songs (similar to Apple Music) for $48/month)

But this method is NOT recommended for large up/downloads (like TV or movies which can be 1GB+ for one file) because of the Fair Usage Policy of all mobile plans. The 3G/4G service providers' policies vary, from cutting you off totally after using up your limit to slowing you down to a crawl (128kb/s) to letting you continue at full speed for a while during low-usage times of the day. Extra GBs are available but usually prohibitively expensive.

Up/downloading large files, I simply use PCCW's standard broadband. It might take all night at 3Mb/s, but it's reliable, no extra cost and no data limits.

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 12:44 pm 
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My monthly quota of 5GB mobile data (hotspot to my desktop PC) is almost used up, just in time for the next monthly cycle to begin...
No extra cost, hardware or software needed. I love it. Try it!

(In the meantime, my old, unlimited PCCW broadband line is downloading huge files at a stable 3Mb/s on an old backup PC.)

{L_IMAGE}

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:23 pm 
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Yes good tip - what I don't understand is how tethering to my phone often gives much faster speeds than using the pocket wifi from the same provider!
Also, this doesn't work so well if there's too of you, both YouTube addicts, tethering. That 5 gigs gets used pretty quick


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 11:14 am 
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Used up my 5GB, working on my 1GB bonus data now.
Avoiding additional data, as it would be $90/GB extra to my $250 monthly plan.
Downloading at these speeds, my monthly allowance of 6GB would be used up in a mere 40 minutes.

Keeping my slow, but sufficient and unlimited 3Mb/s broadband plan at $218/month.
But love surfing at 20+Mb/s

Any better options, I'd like to hear about them!!
Even the most knowledgeable people on Lamma don't seem to have found a stable, reliable, low-cost Internet solution yet, only very short-term, temporary, special-setup, expensive solutions that stop working for various reasons after a few weeks. I've talked to many local experts over the years, but haven't seen a better, not-short-term solution for the needs of regular homes or simple home office Internet.

Waiting for faster broadband from PCCW, maybe at the end of this year??

{L_IMAGE}

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 13, 2015 4:05 pm 
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Just a late comment on Hotspots - I pay an extra HK$128 per month to SmarTone for "unlimited" down/upload data transfer, using my iPhone as a Hotspot. Each month when I go past the 5GB they send me a message saying "you can continue to use data service without speed throttling or data capping, but access to network resources will be given lower priority and data service experience may be affected." Hmmm.... I don't notice any great loss of speed, but it is very volatile: jumping around from highs to lows. It's still a lot faster than pccw's adsl, though, and I both up- and down-load large files, so it makes a great difference to me.
One thing I would like to do, but can't, is to plug my iPhone into my (Apple) Airport Express so that the Hotspot can be used as a source for the wifi that's spread around the flat. There is a USB port on the Airport Express, but plugging the iPhone into that just doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have any ideas?


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:03 pm 
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The USB port on your Airport Express is for attaching external storage or a printer only.

If you want to share your connection over USB you need a USB modem and a router that can interface with it and to add put SIM card into that.


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 10:46 am 
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Checking my broadband speeds this morning in my home office:

{L_IMAGE}

Unacceptable! Time to switch my my smartphone hotspot, phone on a window, trying to find the best 4G spot in our flat:

{L_IMAGE}

That's better, almost OK for now! Radio streaming and web browsing is fine on 4G, while downloading stuff over sloooow PCCW Broadband on another PC.

4G won't be practical for large downloads or TV/movie streaming as the Fair Usage Policy is still enforced by all mobile service providers ($90 for each additional GB on Three!), even Smartone now, I hear?

Waiting for faster broadband on Lamma, maybe vDSL or something similar early next year? There are lots of rumours, even some from usually reliable sources...

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 1:21 pm 
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Great idea?
I'll try this with Lamma-Por tonight...


Attachments:
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:13 am 
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I'm getting spoilt by these usual 4G speeds (mobile phone Wifi Hotspot) on my home office PC.

{L_IMAGE}

Even inside Cyberport yesterday I could only get LESS than these speeds.
If it just wouldn't run out at 6GB/month Fair Usage, and then they want to charge you $90 for each additional GB. Never!

Meeting a PCCW senior engineer later this month to discuss the future of Broadband on Lamma.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:29 am 
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:55 am 
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Yes, you're right. That's why I'm NOT up/downloading large files this way, exhausting my monthly 6GB.
I'm doing larger up/downloads overnight on standard 3Mb/s broadband ONLY.

But for regular web browsing, web publishing (Lamma-zine), Facebook, forum, emails and messaging, this 4G connection will be fine for much of the month...

Not an ideal solution by far, but the best I've seen so far myself, without any additional hardware, software, setup or any extra cost.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:35 pm 
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Yeah, we have a choice of "Slower than 98% of Hong Kong" all day, or "Slower than 56% of Hong Kong", for one hour a month.

Free markets.
Bringing us high quality telecoms and affordable housing.
Where are the commies when we need them?


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:53 am 
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It's not a one solution fits all, my combination works pretty well and it has no extra costs or setup at all involved.
Surfing at a cozy 15Mb/s while typing this, reserving my large up/downloads for overnight broadband...

Meeting with senior PCCW next week, we'll see their replies as the local PCCW guys don't seem to know the management's future plans for Lamma. We'll see...
AVERAGE broadband speeds on Lantau, according to their own survey:

One more SCMP story about broadband on the Outlying Islands, deadline this morning. Some Lammaites have been chasing me all afternoon and evening for comments to the SCMP... I gave the reporter the links to this forum, various discussions and Facebook's "Faster Broadband For Lamma" discussion group.

We'll see... don't hold your breath for anything to happen anytime soon... it's been the same - and getting worse - since we moved here 14 years ago.

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 6:00 pm 
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Best result on broadband I've seen so far in years on Lamma, almost 4Mb/s download speed, insytead of the usual maximum 3Mb/s!
Still a maximum of 0.5Mb/s upload speed...

These would be the absolute maximum PCCW broadband speeds that anybody anytime on Lamma can ever get, correct?

{L_IMAGE}

Another SCMP story coming out very soon, with a little input from yours truly...

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 3:18 am 
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 7:46 am 
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I was describing HGC's dark, mysterious fibre to the reporter, let's see if it'll show up in the article today or tomorrow.
I'd guess not as the story has a much wider scope than Lamma.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:22 am 
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The simplest and quickest solution to Lamma's broadband problems would be for most of us, with reasonable-speed 3G/4G signal in their homes, to ditch broadband and use only 3G/4G modems or mobile phone Wifi hot spots, if just the data caps would be removed, unlimited like on broadband or at least a much higher data cap for areas of extremely slow connectivity, like some Outlying Islands, especially Lamma.
This would be an instant solution at no hardware/software/installation costs for most of us. A purely regulatory issue, not a technical problem at all.

Another SCMP story should appear today, according to their reporter who interviewed me on email and phone.

In the meantime, typing this post in my home office, these are speeds you might get on your home PC/Mac/laptop/tablet/etc. via simple mobile phone Wifi Hotspot:

{L_IMAGE}

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 Post subject: Re:
PostPosted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 3:16 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 2:03 am 
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:53 am 
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Sino Store is the official, registered name of the re-opened Tai Peng shop.
Nancy Lee and her husband are running it now and I just did a photo shoot in therr, seeing their official company chop.
No new sign or name card yet, that's why there's a bit of confusion.

My 3 is working fine in there, but the best way is to check your or a friend's mobile (speedtest) inside your new flat at different times of day, ideally. Speeds can vary from 0 to fast even inside the same Lamma building with the same phone.

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