Broadband..

I have had a mix of old DSL gear, a 4G Mi-Fi, and a 4G package on my primary smartphone, for quite a while now, all of it from Telenor, and been reasonably happy with download speeds obtainable from these, BUT Upload speed on the DSL connection, used to provide wi-fi throughout my house, was abysmal. Max. 600kbs and generally no more than half of that.

So, I came across what appeared to be a super deal from Telenor's competitor, Netcom. 4G Broadband 100GB/month super speeds... I ordered the package and it arrived on Friday 5th September (?). I was really looking forward to seeing upload/download speeds better than my 4G mi-fi, but after a spot of bother setting the Huawei B593 up, I was super disappointed to measure speeds that were little better than those from the DSL equipment. (7.5Mbps/0.6Mbps)

I called Telenor on Saturday morning, spoke to a very helpful guy there, and decided to return the Netcom package asap! ..by the New Year I'll be able to get 50Mbps/12Mbps speeds here in Nærsnes :)

My current router, a ZyXEL, was connected in Bridge mode to an Apple Airport Extreme, which spoke to a pair of Airport Express devices coupled to an Onkyo receiver and a Pioneer Blu-ray player. Bridge mode prevented Telenor from talking with the device to check upgrade possibilities, SO (long story, I know) on Sunday I reverted it back to normal mode and for the first time used the ZyXEL to provide wi-fi in the house. Now my Telenor status page showed it was possible to increase download speeds to 12Mbps, and even squeeze uploads to 0.8Mbps. It only cost pennies more, and used the same ZyXEL router.

So, for the next couple of months I'll be content with 12Mbps knowing there are better days ahead :)