Plex/PC Streaming with Vodafone 4g Broadband?

fatgit

Newbie
So, I cancelled VM (contract ends in 2 weeks) and ordered microwave broadband (guaranteed 40/10 for £16pm) and was told we were in an excellent location for it.
Long story short, they turned up today, fixed the dish to the chimney, wired it all up and got 3Mbit, but it can be upgraded in 2023 - so I made them take it all down and off they trundled with it.

So, Im left with finding a new provider as I don't really want to stay with VM unless I can help it, and Fibre here is around 22/2.5 and I need a decent upload for Plex and remote game streaming from my desktop as I spend about 130 nights a year away from home.

This got me thinking, I know Voda have a decent signal here, with 4g speeds of around 50/19, and with cashback, I can get an Unlimited Max SIM for about £23 a month effective.

So, does anyone have any experience of accessing Plex servers, Parsec or Splashtop through a Voda 4g connection (I know it's CGNAT)? Will they work, or will I need a VPN with static IP?

To be honest, Plex is the main requirement as Im also getting either a VBox or HDHomerun for Freeview recording, the rest of the use at home is browsing, email, Netflix etc, with some gaming thrown in, plus the obligatory Zoom calls.

Really appreciate any real life experiences.
 
I don't think you can get a static IP with standard mobile BB , and you would need that for remote access.
Mobile speeds can be very erratic, I get anything from 4 - over 60 at different times and days.
 
I know I can use a VPN with a static IP, it's just whether I'd need one to access Plex etc, or if these would work without it (I don't need a static IP for those, but just not sure if the servers will be accessible over CGNAT without one).

You are right of course about the variability - I should do some regular speed tests before making my mind up.

I can always stay with VM and see if I can get a better deal, but I've had quite a few problems with them so it's not ideal.
 
I know I can use a VPN with a static IP, it's just whether I'd need one to access Plex etc, or if these would work without it (I don't need a static IP for those, but just not sure if the servers will be accessible over CGNAT without one).

You are right of course about the variability - I should do some regular speed tests before making my mind up.

I can always stay with VM and see if I can get a better deal, but I've had quite a few problems with them so it's not ideal.
You said you need remote access to your desktop when you are away from home,
You will need a static IP for that
Standard mobile BB won't offer that.
 
I borrowed a friend's Vodafone SIM and tested.
Speeds were 92-112Mbit down and 20-39Mbit up

Plex, Splashtop and Parsec access all worked too, so it looks like I just need to test speeds at various times of the day to see how stable it is (I'll grab a PAYG SIM to test with)
 
I borrowed a friend's Vodafone SIM and tested.
Speeds were 92-112Mbit down and 20-39Mbit up

Plex, Splashtop and Parsec access all worked too, so it looks like I just need to test speeds at various times of the day to see how stable it is (I'll grab a PAYG SIM to test with)
Ye , you really need a 24/7 test to give you any sort of idea,
I'm not sure how you can do that on windoze,
I found a script somewhere online that allowed me to run it on Ubuntu ,
for a few days at least,
I got impatient waiting for the results, lol
 
If not having a static IP address is an issue for you, why not use a DDNS service.
It's not so much static IP as CGNAT

I've still got some testing to do, but so far everything is working fine, even.with CGNAT, so I've ordered a Tenda 4G09 router and Vida Unlimited Max SIM the only thing I havent tested is nzbs being pushed to nzbget
 
So, an update.
I went for the Voda Sim and a Tenda 4g09 router and ported my landline to Number People (£2.50pm for one VoIP user and voicemail).

90% of the time I am getting 128Mbit/38Mbit, on the odd occasion it has dropped to around 40/9 but even that is perfectly acceptable.

Plex, RDP, Splashtop, Parsec all work fine and Ive started using RSS Feed pulls in NZBGET rather than push from the indexer.

Really happy with everything, I just need to get a WiFi extended to improve WiFi in the loft, and I am having to use a VPN for the SIP connection, but that's not an issue.
 
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