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4g Three speeds

digit101

Member
Hi, I have been testing out a b525-23a with smarty and seem to get 17-24mb down 20-32mbit up.

Is this the most can be expected from a band 3 mast? I guess it must be since upload speed is surprisingly high? I was hoping for faster download speed.

This is using an xpol a002v2 external antenna. The sinr does fluctuate quite a bit though.

Is voxi likely to be the same speed? The masts around here seem to be band 20 10mhz

Also is a b818 router likely to get higher download speed on a band 3 mast?

Thanks
 
Different router (TP-Link MR600), but on band 3 I get 70-90Mb/s down and 30Mb/s up. I'm about 2km from the mast with direct line of sight (except for one tree). The MR600 is quite long in the tooth now, so I would have thought a more modern router might do a bit better. I use the antennas attached to the router, but I'm fortunate to be able to position it where it has a good view of the mast.

So, to answer your question, band 3 seems to be capable of much higher speeds than you are seeing - but of course it depends on your signal, how busy the mast is etc. Experimenting with the antenna position and checking connections might pay off, though. SNR here is 18.4dB as I type this.
 
Yes, that sounds about right @digit101 , the download speed is not too bad, others have it much worse.
What results do you get without the antenna?

I don't think it's worth getting the b818 in your situation. If you can share some post code or partial address we could have a look on cellmapper at what's available.
 
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Hi, I have been testing out a b525-23a with smarty and seem to get 17-24mb down 20-32mbit up.

Is this the most can be expected from a band 3 mast? I guess it must be since upload speed is surprisingly high? I was hoping for faster download speed.

This is using an xpol a002v2 external antenna. The sinr does fluctuate quite a bit though.

Is voxi likely to be the same speed? The masts around here seem to be band 20 10mhz

Also is a b818 router likely to get higher download speed on a band 3 mast?

Thanks
Its a lottery digit101, there are so many variables with LTE you simply can't guarantee any speed at all. Take your pick from local topography, trees, buildings, no. of customers on your mast, mast backhaul, distance from mast, router cat number, weather conditions.......the list goes on.

Three had major mast contention at my location, so for me at least a super-mega antenna or top quality router wouldn't have made any difference at all. I tried all the carriers and to be completely honest they were all pretty much the same speed wise.

In my almost 2 years having 4G as our main home broadband I found the entire experience draining and frustrating to say the least. I've never had any hardware in my whole life I've had to disconnect and reconnect so often, and I feel that'd be the same regardless which provider I was with.

As a home broadband solution 4g isn't really viable IMHO, especially if you're wanting to use any gaming consoles, do streaming or downloading any sizeable files, even zooming during lockdown was problematic. If it could deliver the same quality of reliable connection as fibre or cable it might be, but the level of investment or commitment by carriers to do this (even with 5G) just isn't there.
 
The B525-23a model is not the best choice for use with Three/Smarty - it is unable to aggregate Three's two most widely deployed 4G bands (B3 and B1). However, if you are certain that your local mast is Band 3 only, then you're not actually losing anything here.

As mentioned above, Band 3 alone is capable of higher download speeds than you are getting, however it feels like the current load/contention on your mast is reducing your 'allocation' of that capacity down to the speeds you are seeing. The best way to 'prove' this is to perform some speed tests in the early hours of the morning, when I'd expect you'll see higher download speeds.

As for your question if Voxi would be any faster - you'd really have to test it yourself - the Vodafone network in your local area may be less, or more, loaded than Three's and there is no way of us telling.
 
To see if your issue is contention, ie the mast is over subscribed, run a speedtest at 2am. If its a lot better then there is not a lot you can do to improve the speed.
 
Sounds very like my connection with 3/smarty and I have a very similar setup to you - b535 and out door bluespot antenna.
B3 and B1 bands sometimes aggregated with two masts locally sometimes will hit 50-60mb but thats on a good day or very early hours of morning. Relatively consistent 25-30mb upload mind you but download anywhere between 25mb at the top end and sub 5 when poor.
 
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As already mentioned Three can be VERY variable but it looks like I do better than most. I've recently got the B818-263 and very early in the morning or late at light it has reached download speeds of up to 160mb/s and uploads over 40mb/s with carrier aggregation of bands 1 and 3. Not all masts carry both bands so it's pot luck where you live.
Through most of the day during weekdays my download speeds are around 90-120mb/s, slower at weekends.
But after the little horrors leave school and get on their phones it plummets, and around 4:30 pm I regularly get a choppy 20-35mb/s down. I just ran a test as of 7pm and it was 51mb/s down, 27mb/s up.

I have optimised placement by using a Poynting 4g omnidirectional antenna mounted on a window and get an excellent signal, meaning the variable speeds are entirely down to congestion.
BT and its derivatives only do FTTC in my location at a miserly 35mb/s and while I can get Virgin Media I loath their shady billing practices. Since I don't play online games, pings of 30-50ms are irrelevant and I can download and stream as much as I want so it suits me fine.
 
I will do a speedtest test early morning and see if the speed jumps, I have a feeling it will.

sinr does fluctuate 2-8db, not sure what effect it will have? There are few tall trees in the mast direction.
Signal strength rsrp is 87db

4G is beneficial to me as on fttc I get very poor upload 1.5mbit so no good for zoom or data backups
 
It might be worth mentioning that Three's long term reliability has not been as good as my fixed line Virgin Media connection was. Over nearly two years I have had four instances of the nearest tower being shut down during working hours for several days for maintenance/upgrades. During those instances it would go down about 9:30am and back up again just before 4pm. I was fortunate enough to have other masts nearby from which I could pick up a usable 3g signal and setting the router to 3g enabled me to get a slower connection of about 6mb/s down and 2mb/s up.
With 5g rolling out across the country I wouldn't be surprised to encounter this again one or two more times in the next year or so.
Therefore if your connection is critical for work you might consider having a backup sim with one of the other mobile companies that operate from a different mast.
 
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