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I'd suggest splitting out your components with the best tool for the job rather than getting an all-in-one device - it gives you far more flexibility in terms of capabilities and placement than an AIO.
I was (and am, until Tuesday, when FTTP is installed, woo!) in the same situation for two years.
My setup consisted of dual WAN with a slow-but-unlimited WAN (~2.5mbit ADSL) and a fast-but-capped WAN (EE).
I used a Draytek 2925 with routing policies to control which devices used which WAN - everything that was interactive and a few streaming devices used the fast lane, other stuff used the slow lane - it was easy to flip them around as needed as well depending on how much data remained for the month. This was particularly important when the largest package you could get was 100GB, though as EE updated their tariffs I eventually ended up on 300GB (and there's a 500GB now) so just moved more and move devices over to 4G. Your Billion is in the same sort of SOHO space as the Draytek though, so it may already do this.
You'll want something with DPI as well, or at least port mirroring so you can run it on a separate box. You don't want to find one day that a big chunk has disappeared from your data allowance and have no idea where it went.
For the 4G gateway I used (and will continue to use, as a backup WAN) a Huawei B525 - it's an all-in-one device, however I simply disabled everything and DMZ'd it to the Draytek. The B525 is located in the loft, on a shelf right up in the peak of the roof, directed towards two EE masts (around 90deg apart). I also have a directional external antenna installed by EE and an omni-directional antenna installed by a local fitter - I no longer use either of them as with the right placement the speed and reliability off the B525 is far better.
Placement is absolutely critical though. The difference between just the right spot and 50cm and a few degrees off is the difference between a reliable 100-140Mbit and wildly variable speeds down to 15Mbit.
Whichever network you go for may provide their own bit of kit for you to use... don't. I've used two different EE provided routers and the best I ever saw from them was 15Mb and 40Mb.
As has been suggested, It's worth finding out what your average usage has been for the last few months, but don't use that as a direct guide for a 4G data tariff - you're going to use more with a faster connection, especially if you're streaming. The difference between broken SD/720p and up to 4K is clearly going to be a big one. |
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2-12-2019 05:01:01
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