Mobile data help

[wildy78]

Can anyone point me in the right direction.  I purchased an unlimited data sim to use in our modem at our remote offices where wired broadband is basically unavailable.  Signal was apparently good so without further thinking I signed up for a sim only deal.  Over the past 4 months signal has got worse and worse and im now thinking that I should have signed up to a different deal with O2 for business or one with a modem or dongle.  I have tried to contact O2 but always get the same response that the technical team aren't available.  I need to get this sorted ASAP as my business is starting to suffer  (never really had these consistent problems with EE or virgin mobile).  What can I do, what would you do to resolve this.  I have tried a 4G booster and it has improved slightly but put 3 people on laptops together in the office and we all basically lose our internet and resort to mobile hotspots on phones.

[madasaf1sh]

@wildy78 

Signing up for a different deal with o2 would make no difference...  A booster will only help with Signal Strength and not speed. 

What router / modem do you have and what are the laptops doing, as soon as one person downloads a large file, it will slow down everyone else. 

Where is the current router located as this can cause issues. 

I will add Virgin Mobile was EE, then Voda but is now o2 as well. 

[wildy78]

Hi

thanks for taking the time to reply.  Our router is an inhand IR302.  Laptops (of which there are 3 MacBook Air and 3 iPhone 12) are accessing our shared IOS drive, using our finance system, incoming and outgoing emails, just general office stuff but no CAD or graphics work so data isn't massive.

The current router is attached to a timber stud partition in the middle of a single small office at head height.

Yes I brought the o2 sim with a great deal with my home VOLT package, it replaced a Virgin mobile data sim so im confused as to why we have such a difference in the speed.

[Enlli]

VIrgin's move to O2 has only been recent so there is a chance that your old SIM was still using Vodafone.

What does https://status.o2.co.uk/ give you?

There is a good chance that there is  congestion because of lack of bandwidth in your area. That would give apparently good signal strength but slow/unusable data.

[wildy78]

Ok thanks Enlli.  I have checked the o2 status.  There are no faults and our area shows good indoor and outdoor coverage.

[madasaf1sh]

@wildy78 

Having built many offices from an IT perspective, before the ISP has installed network connectivity, I would suggest if possible putting the IR302 closer to the exterior wall, or in a window, as to help improve the connection (I learnt this the hard way a long time ago ) 

It might also be worth speaking to o2 Business as they can offer some solutions that will help, also it might be worth looking at a Data Multi Network sim from the likes of Anywheresim (look at the business offerings).