im on slingshot fibre, received cold call from them to change to their 5g network instead for home internet. current contract term ends in November, new 5g term will be same length (end in november) at $60/ month. saving about $30/month.
Has anyone done something similar and can share experience?
slingshot is onwed by 2degrees… if you are on their network, they save on paying chorus and grow their profit margin.
I see what you mean no chorus fee!
ISPs do this for a bigger slice of the pie. They have to pay Chorus for the use of the fibre network, but as cellular networks get cheaper and cheaper, it ends up being more profitable to move people onto wireless networks.
Generally fibre will be faster, more reliable, far lower latency and less subject to congestion than 5G, but for most people just looking to save money on their basic internet connection it's a no brainer. If you need a stable connection, low latency (gaming), or multiple video streams at once then stick with fibre.
One more thing to add to this if going to 5G is that in past I had seen max devices that could be connected to a 5g router was way less around 20/30 only. So if you have more devices make sure you have this covered. Again this was 2-3 yrs back, so not sure if that's changed now. YMMV
i dont really game, only use internet for streaming content and light download (few gigs of linux distros) here and there, the annoying thing i just bought a new router too, which wont be usable with 5g modem(??)
Yeah, it's a bit of a pain but if you're still keen to use the new router you should be able to piggy back it off the 5G router, but it might take some setup depending on how IP subnets are configured by default.
i dont really game, only use internet for streaming content and light download (few gigs of linux distros) here and there, the annoying thing i just bought a new router too, which wont be usable with 5g modem(??)
You should be able to place your own router on the LAN side of the 5G modem, which also means that you can setup your router however you want, and if there is ever an issue, the ISP (SLingshot or whoever), can reset your 5G modem, and it won't matter to you, as it won't affect your kit, only 'theirs'.
You can either bridge across, or just put your own router in the DMZ of the 5G modem, depending on what options that has.
Also means that nobody at the ISP can ever access anything inside your network - not saying they would, but you never know what a rogue employee might do.
Not on 5G, but I was on Contact Wireless 4G connection on trial.
Speed was horrible, I think I topped 21Mbps down but usually in the 10-ish.
It might be better on 5G, but if you do have fiber, I'd say fiber will be better and more reliable.
actually it might be 4g im being offered at $60/month, im not sure i can tell the difference other than the
speed. In my head it was 5g but im probably wrong
https://www.slingshot.co.nz/wireless-broadband-plans
is your 4g internet fast enough to stream netflix / youtube etc?
Yeah, I had a pretty bad experience with Contact 4g too. Went back to fibre (wuth zeronet, on the cheapest plan) which has been great.
I would stick with fiber (even if it means changing down to a 50/10 plan, like the $55 per month sky broadband one).
Better pings, more consistent speed (even if the peak is slower on fiber), more diversified (if the fiber goes down you can use your phone as a backup) etc.
If you are in a chorus area, note that chorus is upgrading the 50/10 plan to 100/20 in June (free at a wholesale level, but retailers might take it as an opportunity to increase price).
I think 100/20 is quite reasonable if you can get it these days. That's what we used to have at some point in the past
Come June, in chorus area's, it is going to become the new base speed (at a wholesale level at least)
If you have fibre stay with fibre.
While they say 5G, chances are that it could drop to 4G LTE or even H+, when 5G ain't available or to congested, or the router can't connect at a higher rate or some other reasons.
I'm using 5G but half the time it drop to H+ which barely can do 1080p streaming if i do use the internet for anything else at the same time.
Ping is like adsl/vdsl in the 200's to American servers 80's to Aus servers, so you'll have to get use to that latency
Is it fast enough to stream YouTube/Netflix 4k?
Did you get a good deals and are you moving back to fibre once contract over?
most channels I watch are 1080p, 4k wouldn't run under H+, under LTE it'd buffer a lot
but this plays without hitches currently @5G on PC connected via Ethernet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz7AR-JNFKg
Sky do fibre for like 55pm for 50mb ,perosnally would always prioritise fibre over 5g.
Why did they recommend chaging?