Family Home & Mobile Internet provider [2025 edition]

Life Hacking
1

Hi fellow mustachians

I’d like to find a good setup for internet connectivity:

  • smartphone, data CH flat
  • laptop, data CH flat (hotspotting via smartphoe would work as a fallback)
  • data for at home (router, we have some more WLAN devices that dont connect to mobile networks)
  • optionally smartphone & laptop of the partner

the best I currently have is an abo for CHF 25/mo plus a glass fiber abo in Zurich for CHF 50/mo, which is shared

=> Cost: ~CHF 40/mo, for one mobile device and a fixed line at home

I remember there were some hacks with sim-routers etc

what cool setup do you have?

2 Likes
2

I have Wingo, all unlimited in CH for 20/mo and Salt fiber for 50/m

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3

Wingo has an offer for 25.-/month (Fair Flat) right now. Everything unlimited in Switzerland and 2GB/month in the EU (every additional GB costs 5.-).

4

We have Sunrise TV and 10 Gbit (well most of my hardware anyway only supports 1 Gbit max.) fiber internet for CHF 42/month. This was an awesome deal at Qoqa for a lifelong subscription that someone posted here on the forum. The speed is really great and I get the full 1 Gbit.

For mobile I have digitec connect for CHF 20/month everything included in CH and a bit outside CH.

5

Does it really support up to 10Gbits from a client or just as a total?

6

I don’t know to be honest. There is a 10 Gbit/s port on the Sunrise router, so I think it should work, but can’t confirm.

7

2023-2024 Update Request: I « need » to get internet for my new apartment…i could actually probably live with hot spotting my phone (since I never use all my data and my plan carries forward anything unused), but when my kids are with me we like to play online.

Based on the extremely low coverage for fibre optic in Neuchatel, I’m limited to main offers….for my new address: Sunrise/UPC is claiming download 1Gb/s and upload 100mB/s and Swisscom claims download 100mB/s and upload 32mB/s for similar prices…

so based on previous posts from 2022, Sunrise/UPC seems the better of the two assuming that their « estimate speed » is not 10x less than estimated

Any other comments/advice I may be missing?

Thanks in advance…

8

Did you also take a look at Wingo ? I know they use the Swisscom backbone but it cost nothing to take a look :slight_smile: .

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Not yet, saw it mentioned higher up but forgot to looking into it so thanks for the idea, I’ll have a look. I don’t know Wingo at all, reliable and no service/after sales complaints?

Edit: so Wingo is aligned to Swisscom on all levels…I’ll call both to see what I can negociate live.

10

I am thinking to switch from SALT Home to SUNRISE . Motivation is to move to one combo deal from current two different providers. Preference is sunrise as I already have the mobile connection.

But it seems SALT connection is 4X faster (10 GB vs 2.5 Gb/sec) vs sunrise. I am wondering if 10 Gbit/sec is something that anyone actually needs? Or I am just creating a mental block for no real reason.

Normal usage

  • Netflix / streaming apps/ YouTube on TV
  • Laptop
  • Mobiles
  • no gaming
  • No crypto mining
11

Are your devices connected with wifi or wired? If wifi, I doubt you’d max out a 2.5Gb/s connection.

(Also what matters is not the max speed, but the actual peering (with google/netflix/etc.) and salt is known for not having a very good one anyway :slight_smile:

12

Except TV everything is connected to WiFi

But isn’t 2.5 Gbit/sec total bandwidth for all the connections simultaneously?

Are you saying in reality such bandwidth is never really consumed unless I stream media on 4-5 devices simultaneously (which of course I don’t do)

13

Yes, that’s much much more than what you likely need (esp. if no games so don’t regularly download large files).

E.g. see netflix highest defintion: Internet connection speed recommendations | Netflix Help Center this requires 15 Mbps (so 2 orders of magnitude less¸you could have over 100 simultaneous 4k streams, if your provider had perfect peering with netflix).

edit: but even for downloading large file, it’s a difference between 30s and a few minutes to wait for the game to download :slight_smile:

1 Like
14

I had Salt a while back, and never came even close to the 10Gbit (directly with LAN connected to the router).
Now I have ~0.3 Gbit and don’t feel much of a difference.

So yes, unless you share network with 20+ 4k streaming household members, the 2.5 Gbit is enough. Also given that these are hypothetical max values that you likely never reach anyway…

15

Thanks @almi @nabalzbhf for feedback

16

It’s like with cars. Nobody needs a sports car, but it’s nice to have one. I say: 100 Mbit/s is enough for 90% and 500 Mbits/s is enough for 99%. In the end, everyone is just connected to some shitty WLAN and doing some low-level multimedia streams that hardly use any bandwidth.

4 Likes
17

Salt does Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP), you share your 10 GB with your neighbour. Some other providers do Point-to-Point (P2P), you have your own line to the next Point of Presence (PoP).

Init7 has a blog post on this topic:

3 Likes
18

So… I still have SALT 10 GB (white box FIBER) connection (in living room) and I am trying to understand what is the best way to improve internet speed & reliability in other rooms. I have few questions

  • SALT has discontinued WIFI extenders which are supposed to be used with SALT FIBER WHITE. They only cell the Wifi6 mesh box but it is compatible with SaltFiber X6 box which I do not have. Can I used 3rd party wifi mesh ?
  • Should I switch subscriptions if other providers have better routers to support this situation?
19

I mean, any device would work (Example), because a WiFi extender literally connects/receives the signal from the router and re-broadcasts it again to extend the range.

20

Thanks
Just for my understanding is repeater working in same way as mesh?