Three UK - 4G Home Broadband - any users here?

[thetapeworm]

Lemming Train said:

Are you using an outdoor antenna? I initially considered going with Three but so many complaints about poor indoor signal (due to using a different band that doesn't penetrate well through buildings?). Their service seems to be really flaky, wildly fluctuating from one day to the next without you changing anything at your end. I know to some degree that's just inherent with mobile internet, contention on the mast etc, but it shouldn't fluctuate to those extents. I expect that Three have got you by the balls in the T&Cs with no get-out unless you pay . Do you have any friends or relatives who could make use of your Three sim and pay you each month and you try EE or a different network?

My EE set-up seems to like the horrible weather! It's absolutely bouncing down here and some low clouds are causing patchy fog between here and the mast but my speeds keep going up, despite having virtually no signal to make voice calls on my phone

Just the standard AICube here - no provision to add an additional antenna but it reports a full signal and has been placed in the optimal location based on the app.

I fully expected limitations, even some downtime in poor weather etc - what I didn't anticipate was absolutely woeful reliability and speeds when the network is supposedly operating correctly.

I have an O2 phone and an EE phone, both absolutely flawless for signal and reliability, in fact I'm tethered to one of them currently due to a lack of Three connectivity.

Like you say I have zero chance of leaving early but I'm not going to just let this go, I'll keep trying to get some semblance of service from them.

boxst said:

It comes and goes and I'm sure you will be up and running again in a few hours or tomorrow.

The problem with the mobile network is that so many things can go wrong. Most of the time they don't, but as you've experienced every so often the mast it down or the back-end connectivity fails etc... I'm still happy as it works 95% of the time and that is generally good enough. Of course, that 5% is just when I have an important meeting over the internet...

The problem is I'm reliant on it for work, this is my primary Internet connection, it was purchased because Virgin was unreliable and left me for hours / days with no connection. My only other alternative was a 2MB copper connection and having had issues with this in the past I was keen to avoid a return to it.

4G seemed like the answer to all my problems and if it worked 95% of the time it may well be, it just doesn't.

[thetapeworm]

Lemming Train said:

Have you tried your Three sim in your other devices? It might be your Cube thingy.

Yeah, same issue - it's the network.

A tracert out of the house goes nowhere when it's down, when it's not it resolves via threembb,co,uk as you'd expect.

It seems to have come back up for now but has been off all day and support have been as hopeless as ever.

[thetapeworm]

And now this morning... at least its not just me, a major outage across the network.

4G mode:


3G:


The Three website:


Awesome.

Edited by thetapeworm on Thursday 17th October 08:07

[thetapeworm]

Another one of those days for me...



AICube shows:



And on 3G:



And for comparison 4G on EE:



It's been dire all week but not this bad.

[thetapeworm]

I'm still fighting with Three over my poor speeds, yesterday they suggested a replacement SIM might help, I couldn't see how but dutifully headed to the nearest Three store in a shopping centre packed with maniacs and collected one. It hasn't helped.

They say they'll send me another AI Cube to try. It wint help.

I still have full signal strength, pretty much line of sight to the mast etc - their service status page for my postcode still says they have an issue. It's said this for months.

Discussions so far seem to suggest and repairs to 3G and 4G stuff is mothballed while they focus on 5G.

In the meantime we'll carry on watch YouTube at 144p and only having one device connected at once

[thetapeworm]

ashleyman said:

Had the same problem with my Three mobile phone. Eventually I had enough and moved to a different provider.

I suspect that's where I'm heading, tempted by the BT FTTP that's been rolled out locally, just annoying I'll still be paying for the Three contract at the same time.

[thetapeworm]

Lemming Train said:

You may have already mentioned it but I'm not reading back through 20 pages to check - can you not put the sim in your phone and use it for free voice calls and texts to get some use from it, then get a sim from another provider for your home internet?

Oh yeah, it won't go unused, they'll be 24/7 unlimited downloads at 10Kbps no matter what

[thetapeworm]

3 days away from home, returned to a red "no Internet" light on the AICube - logged in and nothing on 3G or 4G. Rebooted, nothing. SIM out and in again, reboot. Nothing.

Online chat with Three, first one refused to help as they couldn't see my details. Second one magically could and put me through to 2nd line support after calling me.

Went through the motions of rebooting, checking SIM code (I got a new one just before Christmas to "fix" my speed issues), rebooting again. No joy.

Solution: I need a Three mobile to test the SIM in - I'm unlikely to do that. They can send me a new AICube on an exchange basis in 3 days or I can can go to a Three shop and try to exchange it there.

30 minutes later and it's suddenly working again, it's even twice as fast as normal.

[thetapeworm]

techguyone said:

Have you considered swapping to someone else?

I've been on EE for some time as a phone provider and their CS has always been just fine as an example.

I think now that the home broadband options have improved I'll be ending my 4G Internet expirement and moving to BT FTTP but it's still something I'd gladly recommend to others as it clearly does the job for many. I'd urge them to avoid Three and the AICube though. EE 4G has continued to be excellent for me here on my phone so I might try an EE SIM in the router just to compare.

[thetapeworm]

They've finally broken me, conventional broadband ordered and due to be installed in a couple of weeks.

Today at lunchtime the 4G kept dropping down to 40 kbps and then disconnecting (my VPN dropped and reconnected about 40 times within an hour) - eventually it settled back at its usual 1Mbps with huge latency. WiFi, as always, not working despite me being next to the router.

They've also enabled all of the content filters again, because I can't use My3 I'd have to ask someone in India to turn them off again... If its like it was back in June I'll have to do this at least 3 separate times before it works. I won't bother.

So now it's back to trying to negotiate an early contract release via a mediation service 🤣

[thetapeworm]

IanA2 said:

Pity it's not working for you. I guess it must be location. I've been using them for around eighteen months now and have never had any problems. Without and external antenae and with a B618, I regulary get good speeds. Getting 41Mps at this moment (with a medium strength signal). Now on a two year contract which averages out at £17.50 a month with phone.

I'm just one of the unlucky ones, theoretically my location is close to ideal - I have near line of sight to the mast that's about 1.5km away, my signal strength is good, the device (B900) reports it's perfectly placed and in the past 40Mbps has been achieved. There's just something wrong with the network itself judging by what others are saying on social media I'm not the only one with these symptoms.

I suspect their focus on 5G is having some effect on things and their service status page still says they know there's an issue here months after it first said this but no end of web chats and online interactions with 1st and 2nd line (or "network support" on the phone) seems to help as their system says there isn't an issue which then shifts their focus to my kit despite it all being OK and reset, reconfigured and checked out many times.

I'll happily accept what I'm seeing isn't the norm and would still encourage people to look at 4G as a solution, I'm just not sure what the best way to do it would be if it's all great in month 1 and then things go dramatically south (like 40Mbps to 10bps) once the cooling period has ended.

I'm far from knowledgable in this area but as far as I can see my RSRP and RSRQ values are "good" but could maybe be better, especially the RSRP.




Yet...

Edited by thetapeworm on Thursday 16th January 09:58

[thetapeworm]

And now 4G has gone completely and I've had to switch to 3G

[thetapeworm]

I've been pretty underwhelmed by my B900 AICube, especially WiFi performance from a range point of view, it's very hit and miss.

[thetapeworm]

I wouldn't rely on results from one provider to give an accurate idea of Three performance.

I'm not sure how it works but is the mast ID for the physical location of the kit of the actual kit itself as several stick their bits up on the same things don't they?

I'm fairly sure my EE phone and Three router connect to the same chimney in town but there's lots of kit bolted on to it.

[thetapeworm]

That's pretty much what happened to me but just after the cooling off period. I've now had the issue for about 5 months, at best I get 4Mbps, that's rare though, it's usually under 1Mbps.

My theory is that they're screwing something up as they install their 5G kit.

I leave Three next week having done formal complaints and negotiated an early end to the contract. I have to pay £32 to cover the cost of the hardware.

Edited by thetapeworm on Thursday 23 January 22:13

[thetapeworm]

Lemming Train said:

^ Another reason (as if there were not enough already) to avoid Three like the plague! Hook you in til you're through the cancellation period and then turn your speed down to nothing!

It's quite shocking how many people report this on Twitter, Facebook etc

[thetapeworm]

NoComment said:

Is this Threes cancellation period?

I moved house in October and I'm literally 100 yards from the three mast, consistently get 40-50mb download on my phone but my AI Cube struggles to get over 5mb most days. I'm onto my 2nd Cube now and 2nd SIM and its not improved.

I was hoping to cancel as the girl in the store told me i would get speeds better than my phone due to the antenna in the Cube but this isn't the case whatsoever.

Be interested to know if i can cancel as i was told in store purchases cant be cancelled.

Thanks

NoComment.

Mine was a store purchase, contract started last June and following a lengthy period of trying to fix things (new SIM, router resets, escalations to "network team" and then trying an EE SIM in the AICube and finding it worked to ~80Mbps when the Three one was 1Mbps) they agreed to let me cancel.

Early cancellation fee is £85, minus a 60% reduction due to the issues I've had and it came out to £32.60 to escape, I get to keep the AICube so that'll go to CEX for £25 cash or £30 in credit as I've found every aspect of it to be a disappointment, contrary to every other Huawei product I've owned.

You just need make sure you have previous web chats in the bag and actually ask them to raise a formal complaint rather than just try to fix things at your end when the issue so obviously lies at theirs.

http://www.three.co.uk/support/how-to-complain

Ombudsman Services can help if they fail to respond to your complaint in 8 weeks but I suspect a web complaint will be enough to get the ball rolling.

It's flying today!

Edited by thetapeworm on Friday 24th January 11:38

[thetapeworm]

NoComment said:

Sorry, dont follow, was it not with Three originally then?

Three on the brain, I meant EE.

[thetapeworm]

rfsteel said:

Have had a 3 unlimited 4G SIM and AI Cube since the end of June 2019, in November I started to notice dire speed issues, even though the AI Cube was reporting full signal, as reported above by others.

After a couple of weeks I bit the bullet and replaced the AI Cube with a Netgear LB2120 LTE modem and MIMO antenna, and even though the LB2120 is reporting 2 bars of signal strength, I now get 3.8 - 4 MBs download speeds again, also not struggling on the volume of data being consumed each month;


My 4G is running on WAN2 on my ER5120 router;

FTP download speed;





Make me wonder is the speed issues being reported are due to using huawei hardware ?

I'm no expert but that RSRP isn't a great figure is it?


Another friend of mine has recently reported a sudden degradation in his service from Three across various locations where it was once OK. No changes his side.

There's something going on at Three.

Edited by thetapeworm on Sunday 26th January 20:14

[thetapeworm]

Supposedly they're all unlocked, give it a whirl