Our 5G Broadband Trial - A Thrill Ride... With a Bumpy Landing!

I’ve always considered myself an early adopter - if there’s a new gadget, app, or service, I’m usually the first to dive in headfirst.

So, when I heard about 5G business broadband from Three Business, my inner geek was doing cartwheels.

Finally, a way to supercharge our office with lightning-fast internet - what could go wrong?... Well, as it turns out, a few things.

Let me take you on the rollercoaster ride that was my two-week fling with 5G.

Love at first sight (of the transmitter)

Virtually everything we do in our business is online. One of the main reasons we tried 5G is that we have a direct line of sight to the transmitter, so we felt confident.

The equipment set-up kept that confidence going - Instructions were minimal and it really was just plug-and-play.

This was a breath of fresh air as someone whose last wrestling match with a router almost ended in tears.

We connected quickly and soon had our Wi-Fi mesh connected through the 5G router.

I was like, "Bring on the future!"

The speed - hold on to your hats!

The speeds were, frankly, ridiculous!

Imagine the exhilaration of downloading large files at speeds up to 550MB - it was like trading in my old BMX for a McLaren Racing F1 car.

Uploads were equally impressive, and for a while, I thought I’d found the holy grail of home-based business internet.

The hiccups - not all that glitters...

As they say, what goes up must come down. And down it came.

First, let’s talk about stability - or rather, the lack of it.

For a business that thrives on a constant connection to the cloud, my relationship with Microsoft 365 and OneDrive turned into a turbulent affair.

One minute, I’m happily working on our files, and the next, it’s like the connection is taking a coffee break without me.

Files would hang in the ether, taunting me, while I desperately clicked "retry" like it was the "close doors" button on a lift.

Then, there were the online creative tools. Working in digital marketing, these are our bread and butter. But with 5G, it was as if the universe decided to test my patience.

Our image libraries stopped remembering who I was, our video editors stopped showing me their list of available effects as if I'd upset them and our design tools would behave like a moody teenager.

Downloading was fine - rapid in fact, but switching to anything that then required a different type of online request seemed to grind everything to a halt.

And Teams calls?

Let’s just say they were the Jekyll and Hyde of my experience.

Everything would be fine until I dared to share my screen - that's when the connection would decide to take a nap.

There I was, mid-presentation, and boom - signal lost (cue rapid attempts to reconnect and of course the apologies to the others on the call).

The decision? Back to the Fibre

So, after two weeks of living the 5G roller coaster, we waved the white flag.

It wasn’t an easy decision - those speeds were addictive. But in the end, stability won out.

I packed up the 5G gear, sent it back, and welcomed my old friend, land-based fibre, with open arms.

It may not be as fast, but it's that friend that always answers your WhatsApps, is always on time and is... well... dependable.

No more dropouts, no more failed file uploads, and no more sweating over whether my next Teams call would turn into a game of charades.

Final Thoughts - Is 5G Business Broadband right for you?

Don’t get me wrong, 5G broadband isn’t a total flop. If your business isn’t as cloud-reliant as ours, or if you don’t live in perpetual fear of connection dropouts during critical meetings, it could be a game-changer.

The speeds are genuinely fantastic, and setup is a breeze.

But if you’re like me - juggling multiple online tools, cloud storage, and video calls, then stability is king... And for now, that means sticking with the good old reliable fibre.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, no, my head didn’t fry from the 5G radiation - so that's another positive!)

Will I try 5G again in the future? Maybe.

But for now, I’ll leave the thrill-seeking to my internet speed tests and keep my business grounded in stability.

What about you - have you thought about 5G for your broadband? Let me know!