The parcel from NB arrived yesterday. Just a smallish 20x10x10cm white box plus power cable and short ethernet cable. Very simple setup instructions: insert SIM and power on. I could see no trace of a SIM card, so assumed it must be preinserted – which was not the case because all it gave on power up was wifi and no WAN connection. Spent ages trying to find it amongst the bits, and was about to call NB when I checked thoroughly through the discard packing I was about to bin, and the card dropped out…
SIM in, power on, and check connectivity. I’d placed the box downstairs where the Origin router is, and speeds on all devices were disappointingly low – no more than through the landline. Tried it upstairs in my “office”, and we were in business (see this post’s image)! Getting the sort of speeds that I get from my mobile if I use it for 5G data, which is exactly what I was hoping for. (I suppose it helps being close to a 5G mast…) Moved all devices (PC, mobile, tablet, printer, TV, SKY box) over to the new router and all was good.
The only issue I’ve had is that my PC wifi dongle is still crap and didn’t connect without a lot of retries on boot this morning. A bit annoying. But then it clicked: the router is now very close to the PC, so I can just use bloody ethernet instead of wifi and disable the dongle! Distance to router is too far for the supplied cable to keep things tidy, so I’ll have to dig out my (very) old 15m cable. Trouble is, I can’t find it! Mel must have hidden it somewhere…
Now all that remains is to sort out the date problem with Origin before I can cancel them…