Three "5G Home Broadband"

[skyscraper101]

In a word. Crap.

I thought I'd try it out because I just moved flat to a 6th floor apartment with great lines of sight within inner London. I also did my due diligence with the OFCOM postcode checker to ensure I can receive 5G indoors and I put the router right by the window. The deal sounds great £20 a month (with 3 months free), and beats most other broadband prices for the speeds. But the reality was disappointing.

When it worked, it was fine. Superfast speeds up and down. But on numerous occasions especially early evening, it dropped to basically unusable. Like less than 0.5Mbps for hours at a time. No amount of rebooting would solve it. I have now returned the router within the 14 day cooling off period after 7 days, concluding this is not the one and going back to the already installed fiber broadband which works fine.

4G & 5G Home Broadband Deals | Unlimited Home Broadband | Three

Discover our 4G and 5G unlimited home broadband deals. Pay monthly contracts with our unlimited data plan, and connect up to 64 devices – only at Three.

www.three.co.uk

 

[a_chap]

You finally realised that, after all, 5G only exists to spread the Covid virus...

 

[2hats]

I used to use their 4G mobile/home broadband package and phone service. Great when it worked, but I would notice performance tank at certain times of the day/week.

In particular, it flatlined at either end of the school day and often lunchtimes when in proximity to a local college and primary, and at weekends/bank holidays/major events anywhere near a local park. The relevant cells were clearly getting saturated and I suspect Three have a pretty crude bandwidth management mechanism - namely those subscriber units that have been associated with a cell the longest get throttled down to wet string levels of throughput. Whenever I power cycled I would immediately regain performance though this would degrade again during those 'high demand' windows, necessitating further restarts.

When I used it for a few weeks in a couple of low population rural/coastal locations with decent signal it performed flawlessly 24/7.

Interestingly, and perhaps not entirely unsurprisingly, on switching to an MVNO on Three (same hardware, different policies) I saw none of this behaviour in those same urban locations. I don't see the same behaviour on (an MVNO on) EE, though they don't tend to keep up with Three-based throughput and coverage outside those 'peak demand' windows/locations. I now tend to use dual SIMs in devices and jump between MVNOs who offer more (useful) features and flexibility for significantly less money than any of the main carriers (with the money I save over the previous two contracts I might get FTTP, and still be quids in).

 

[skyscraper101]

I used to use their 4G mobile/home broadband package and phone service. Great when it worked, but I would notice performance tank at certain times of the day/week.

In particular, it flatlined at either end of the school day and often lunchtimes when in proximity to a local college and primary, and at weekends/bank holidays/major events anywhere near a local park. The relevant cells were clearly getting saturated and I suspect Three have a pretty crude bandwidth management mechanism - namely those subscriber units that have been associated with a cell the longest get throttled down to wet string levels of throughput. Whenever I power cycled I would immediately regain performance though this would degrade again during those 'high demand' windows, necessitating further restarts.

When I used it for a few weeks in a couple of low population rural/coastal locations with decent signal it performed flawlessly 24/7.

Interestingly, and perhaps not entirely unsurprisingly, on switching to an MVNO on Three (same hardware, different policies) I saw none of this behaviour in those same urban locations. I don't see the same behaviour on (an MVNO on) EE, though they don't tend to keep up with Three-based throughput and coverage outside those 'peak demand' windows/locations. I now tend to use dual SIMs in devices and jump between MVNOs who offer more (useful) features and flexibility for significantly less money than any of the main carriers (with the money I save over the previous two contracts I might get FTTP, and still be quids in).

Interesting. Thanks.

I have previous experience of running a EE Sim in a 4G Huawei B-535 router in a different part of London and for months it worked fine. Absolutely flawless. But then it started doing this weird thing where it would entirely drop out, virtually hourly for a number of minutes. No amount of fiddling or changing settings worked. I never managed to find out what the issue was. Shortly after I moved anyway and there was a FTTP router with Hyperoptic already installed so I haven't used it again.

I was tempted to get it back out and try a VOXI or Smarty SIM in there but I just CBA with the uncertainty anymore, especially in a densely populated place like London. I might revisit it as an option for my Mum who lives in the countryside miles away.

 

[magneze]

Not mobile broadband but I recently switched from 3 to Voxi because of atrocious indoor reception. I complained but was ignored so resolved to leave as soon as contract was up.

Tried EE but similar issue. Then read about how the lower frequency networks of Vodafone and O2 work much better indoors.

Switched to Voxi (Vodafone) and have great reception everywhere. So this seems to support the theory about frequency.

 

[sim667]

I've been considering doing this for a while, but was nervous about exactly the issue you've described.

On another note I've been considering switching from three to smarty for my mobile phone, if anyone has any experience with smarty?

 

[skyscraper101]

I've been considering doing this for a while, but was nervous about exactly the issue you've described.

On another note I've been considering switching from three to smarty for my mobile phone, if anyone has any experience with smarty?

If you're curious, try it out. You have a 14 day cool off period and there's no connection fees or anything so you'll only be charged for the number of days you use it (i.e less than £1 per day) but my experience is that it's great when it works, but temperamental and I'd rather have half the speed promised but reliable service.

SMARTY I had for a week or two about 3 years back and I found them awful for data speeds with numerous dead zones in London. It may be better in a less densely populated area but there's no real way to know without trying it for yourself. I find OFCOM maps (and any other 'coverage checker') to be next to useless at determining real world experience. TBH I'm even getting a bit irritated with EE these days too for the iffy reception I get in inner London. Tempted to try Vodafone or Voxi if it gets any worse.

 

[magneze]

I've been considering doing this for a while, but was nervous about exactly the issue you've described.

On another note I've been considering switching from three to smarty for my mobile phone, if anyone has any experience with smarty?

Haven't used them but they're the same network so won't solve any reception problems if you have them.

 

[DaveCinzano]

those subscriber units that have been associated with a cell the longest get throttled down to wet string levels of throughput

Darn, you beat me to it

 

[nogojones]

I've been considering doing this for a while, but was nervous about exactly the issue you've described.

On another note I've been considering switching from three to smarty for my mobile phone, if anyone has any experience with smarty?

Smarty are pretty good. I've been using them for a few years. Now and then the signal is a bit limited as it's piggybacking off three (so I imagine you'll have the same level of service, just cheaper). I'm paying £6 a month for all the calls, txts and 4g of data, which is more than enough for my needs.

 

[nick]

Been on Three 5G for over a year (cos before that I was on Sky copper at 30Mbps, and my Three phone gets 900 at home, so I know there is good signal)

Generally happy, I get the odd drop out when there is thunder in the area, and the tower has gone down a couple of times, Have to occasionally reboot the router.
And a few months ago there was some protocol argument between Sky and Three which meant that sky stopped working.

Overall positive (certainly for the price) - but as I use it for wfh, would also get fibre if/when they finally enable it on my road. If the broadband goes down, then tethering to my phone is pointless as it is the same network

 

[NoXion]

I used to rely solely on a wireless connection in order to have internet. It was fucking garbage. So glad that I got around to sorting out a landline connection.

No wireless connection will ever be as good as a physical connection. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is selling something.

 

[Gromit]

I used to rely solely on a wireless connection in order to have internet. It was fucking garbage. So glad that I got around to sorting out a landline connection.

No wireless connection will ever be as good as a physical connection. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is selling something.

Get what you pay for and I bet when you say the above I bet you never chose expensive companies.

I had an EE mobile broadband add-on back in the day. I negotiated it free of charge as compensation for them misselling me a product.

The speed on my phone beat crap out of home broadband.

I was with Three for ages. Blindingly good in Hertfordshire, OK in outer London, fucking dreadful in Inner London or any event with more than 2k people in close proximity.

I'm back with EE. Paying a fortune. But i have fast internet again wherever I am. The difference in Central London is huge.

 

[magneze]

I thought I was done with Three but I got a text message claiming that I still owed them money.

Pay online or the app - can't do that because account is closed.

Can't pay on phone because my name is wrong. (It isn't)

Absolute joke trying to navigate that.

Tried going to a shop. All they did was call the same call centre and tell me it sounded like I was getting the runaround.

Eventually someone said that I shouldn't be paying anything right now and will get a final paper bill next week.

Great.

Then a few hours later someone calls apparently from Three and starts asking for all my personal details. Seems legit and not at all incompetent.

Everyone I spoke to was nice, but the system is fucked beyond belief.

I'm not going back to Three anytime soon.

 

[nick]

Despite all my upthread love for Three, .. Over the weekend the local tower decided to go on the fritz.
As all my eggs are in one basket (phone and broadband) - I had no back up so was reduced to shlepping to the office and putting on a suit.
The 3-ring binder user on complaints said "good news, it is scheduled to be working again by 28 June" - he seemed shocked I was not as pleased at this news as was he

If some company wants to actually sell access to the FTTP cables that were laid in our street last summer, I would be interested

 

[spitfire]

I'm between providers and inspired by this thread (I know, really? ) and being skint, of the 3 5G offerings for me 3 was the only one I could use. So I got a monthly account, no money up front, 30 days to cancel and a cute little white box. Plugged it in and after a few minutes updating it has been soooo fast. Anything up to 200megs. I was on around 37 before on plusnet phone line BB.

If it stays up and reliable Hyperoptic can do one as they are being very shit at getting my account up and running.

 

[Nivag]

I've been considering doing this for a while, but was nervous about exactly the issue you've described.

On another note I've been considering switching from three to smarty for my mobile phone, if anyone has any experience with smarty?

I've got a Smarty SIM as a backup due to them being cheaper than adding more data to my O2 SIM and now it as the primary data connection as it's faster majority of the time than O2.

Also have a Smarty SIM in a router and so far it works well, even when multiple people are using it.

 

[skyscraper101]

I'm between providers and inspired by this thread (I know, really? ) and being skint, of the 3 5G offerings for me 3 was the only one I could use. So I got a monthly account, no money up front, 30 days to cancel and a cute little white box. Plugged it in and after a few minutes updating it has been soooo fast. Anything up to 200megs. I was on around 37 before on plusnet phone line BB.

If it stays up and reliable Hyperoptic can do one as they are being very shit at getting my account up and running.

Hyperoptic performed pretty much flawlessly for me over 2 years. Even on their most basic 50mb tier I had no issues with speed or service, I wish they were connected to my new place.

Three on the other hand, had numerous problems within just 7 days. If I could be arsed I may have tried a voxi sim instead but I just wanted reliability in the end so had to go with the only available service going FTTP.

 

[spitfire]

I’m only 3 days in so will see how it goes.

 

[savoloysam]

Despite all my upthread love for Three, .. Over the weekend the local tower decided to go on the fritz.
As all my eggs are in one basket (phone and broadband) - I had no back up so was reduced to shlepping to the office and putting on a suit.
The 3-ring binder user on complaints said "good news, it is scheduled to be working again by 28 June" - he seemed shocked I was not as pleased at this news as was he

If some company wants to actually sell access to the FTTP cables that were laid in our street last summer, I would be interested

Can you get fibre to cabinet? Why is there FTTP there that isn't being sold?

 

[StakerOne]

I used to rely solely on a wireless connection in order to have internet. It was fucking garbage. So glad that I got around to sorting out a landline connection.

No wireless connection will ever be as good as a physical connection. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is selling something.

That's not exactly true. It depends on the area and what the mobile phone networks have managed to roll out in that area.

If it's somewhere like London, because of the sheer population density, then I can see how it can be congested at times if the mobile network isn't keeping it's network infrastucture rollout up with demand.

But where I live (No I'm not going to say where!), it's much more sub-urban / countryside, with decent 5G infrastructure.

For my 20 quid a month, I get just over 500mbits down and 33mbits up.

At the moment, no one comes close to that and I've been on Three for about 3 months now and the service has always been up and running.

There are only 2 other providers that can match the speed. Some new firm for about £30 a month and Virgin for about £50.

Virgin can do faster download and uplaod speed, BUT that would cost £60 per month.

I'm gonna take 500mbits down and 33 up for £20 a month, rather than pay £60 a month for a 1 Gbit down and 100mbit up.

Once the 5G signal for Three improves in area, I should be able to get up to 1 GiB - that is the maximum speed of the network right now.

5G latency is much lower than 4G but it's getting there.

Also, for the 5G providers, it shouldn't be a big deal for them to increase their speed, many 5G hubs can handle much faster speeds ... like 2.0 to 3.5 Gbits, so I'm guessing they just need to upgrade their backhauls and maybe the masts.

Sounds to me like Skyscraper101's problem with 3, is most likely that all of his/her neighbours are maxing out the backhaul from the mast, when they all get back home from work!

 

[nick]

Can you get fibre to cabinet? Why is there FTTP there that isn't being sold?

Yes I can get FTC - but paying more for 5% of the speed smarts. and when I had that, it would also go down sometimes.

No idea what is happening with our FTTC: our neighbourhood WhatsApp seems to think that they laid the conduits without putting in any fibre (I doubt this)

 

[spitfire]

Yes I can get FTC - but paying more for 5% of the speed smarts. and when I had that, it would also go down sometimes.

No idea what is happening with our FTTC: our neighbourhood WhatsApp seems to think that they laid the conduits without putting in any fibre (I doubt this)

Could well be that's the case, civils guys put in the ducting and connection chambers followed by the cabling specialists. I got a leased line into a big gaff in Highgate once and that's how BT did it.