We've been having persistent problems with our fiber to the cabinet VDSL connection over the past few months. 

It's the worst kind of fault, intermittent and prone to happen when we're on a call or trying to download software. 

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We've changed the router, even had engineers out to check the connection. Our ISP has changed our wholesale provider (as much as they can), the cabling provider has changed the cable we're using and the port in the fiber cabinet, but nothing seems to work. 

SEE:Internet slow? Here are the possible reasons why and how to fix them

All the various diagnostics seem to point to one thing: the aluminium cabling under the street put in sometime in the 1960s or 70s is reaching end of life. What worked just well in the ADSL days when a 20Mbps connection was fast is not working for VDSL's 50-80Mbps. Micro-cracks in the aluminium cause resonances that translate to changes in signal and the connection fails. 

There's really only one fix: putting fresh copper (not cost-saving aluminium) down for the entire street. But re-trunking like that is expensive and requires lots of planning and coordination. With the line still suitable for voice, and as the UK fiber-to-the-premises program is planned to cover our postcode sometime between 2022 and 2024, that's not going to happen at any point in the foreseeable future. 

So what to do? Reliable internet is a must-have for freelance journalists, especially in these Zoom-heavy times. 

Luckily, we do have an option: our area of London has a good 5G signal from at least one provider and our existing Draytek Vigor router has built-in WAN failover features. So why not add a wireless connection to automatically takeover during outages?

Once we'd made the decision, we had to find a router, preferably one that wasn't tied to a mobile operator. 

We ended up settling on the recently launched TCL LinkHub HH500E (sold as Alcatel in some parts of the world), built around a Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 chipset. It's an attractive device, with two ethernet LAN ports and 2.4 and 5GHz WiFi. It could be placed near the VDSL router, using a short piece of ethernet to connect the two devices and take advantage of Draytek's failover WAN support. 

I had to use a slower speed SIM for setup, as the only one I had spare was for a network that doesn't offer 5G here yet. However, I've got one on order, a device SIM from EE with unlimited data for under