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B900, Three and the mysterious case of the missing megabits

coldcuppatea

Casual Member
Good afternoon,

I have signed up to this forum as a last ditch attempt to try and figure out what I need to do in order to improve my 4G home broadband speeds. I would hugely appreciate it if anyone here is able to take the time to read through this post and give me the benefit of your experience.

For the last 15 months I have been on Three's unlimited 4G home broadband service using their supplied Huawei AI Cube, aka B900-232. During this time I have been unimpressed with the download speeds that I have been getting, which have generally been around 10-15mbps. During sign up to the service I took the Cat 6 LTE B900 router as I was told by Three that I would get faster speeds than the cheaper alternative Cat 4 that they were also offering.

The 4G mast that I connect to is situated in the next door property to my house, exactly 28 metres away from the router with a direct line of sight, hence my disappointment at the speeds that I have been getting.

My wife is on a Three contract and is able to get speeds of around 30mbps on her iPhone X. I assumed that Three were just applying some sort of throttling to the home broadband account, but the other day I tried switching the SIM cards around and found that the home broadband one gave 30mbps on her iPhone and her SIM dropped back to 15mbps in the B900.

I then tried both SIM cards in my iPhone 11 Pro and got between 40 and 50mbps with both cards.

This got me thinking that maybe it was something to do with the "Cat" specification of the modems in the different devices. I tried the SIM cards in an old LTE iPad Air 2, which I believe is a Cat 4, and only achieved 10mbps. However, when browsing these forums I see that people further away from their nearest mast than I am are getting much higher speeds on the B900.

I've scoured the internet for a higher "Cat" modem at a halfway reasonable price, but most seem to be Cat 6 and the only Cat 16 one that seems to come up is the Netgear MR1100, which at £300 is more than I want to spend, but would certainly buy it if I could be sure that it would give me significantly faster speeds.

I now have LTE H-Monitor running, so I can supply any information that is available in that if it would help troubleshoot my issue.

Thanks for reading if you got this far, and I really hope someone in the know can shed some light on this for me.

Regards,

Rhys
 
Posting your stats and what band you are on and what band the tower provides is a good start.

But it seems a lot of people are having issues with three lately due to increased demand.
 
Are you sure the model number is B900-232? Nothing really comes up on Google for that. There does seem to be lots for B900-230 so from here I'm going to assume that is your device.

I'm afraid Three lied to you saying the B900 would be faster than the B311.

The CAT level is a simplistic number which generalises the 'level' of technology that a device supports. The higher the number the 'better' it should be. However that's very dependant on the provider in terms of what frequency bands a provider uses, aggregations that are available and what levels of MIMO and QAM are deployed on their network combined with what the individual device supports.
For home use, where the device doesn't move, knowing how your local mast is configured is key as to what the theoretical bandwidths you could expect (theoretical because in practice other users, interference and potentially backhaul connections are just some variables that would impact that theoretical speed).

Three use 4 different bands for their 4G network. Their primary is Band 3 while Band 1 has recently started to be used for 4G as it is moved over from 3G. Band 20 is mainly used for deeper building penetration. Band 32 is only available is a handful of places.
If you're looking for a device to use on Three then looking for one that is capable of aggregating at least B3+1 would be a good bet. Unfortunately while the B900 is a CAT6 device it cannot aggregate B3+1, it can only aggregate B20+32.

As you have found with your iPad, you're getting the same speeds with a CAT4 device (a CAT4 cannot aggregate any bands) as you are with your B900, suggesting that both are connected to a single 4G band (probably B3).

The iPhone X can aggregate B3+1, which is likely why you're seeing a higher speed with that. And as for the 11 Pro that could be even faster for a number of reasons, maybe aggregating B3+1+32, or perhaps using 256QAM, or just a better antenna design/newer modem.
 
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Are you sure the model number is B900-232? Nothing really comes up on Google for that. There does seem to be lots for B900-230 so from here I'm going to assume that is your device.

I'm afraid Three lied to you saying the B900 would be faster than the B311.

Yes, you're quite right - it's the B900-230. And I am the least surprised person in the world that Three lied to me!


If you're looking for a device to use on Three then looking for one that is capable of aggregating at least B3+1 would be a good bet. Unfortunately while the B900 is a CAT6 device it cannot aggregate B3+1, it can only aggregate B20+32.

As you have found with your iPad, you're getting the same speeds with a CAT4 device (a CAT4 cannot aggregate any bands) as you are with your B900, suggesting that both are connected to a single 4G band (probably B3).

The iPhone X can aggregate B3+1, which is likely why you're seeing a higher speed with that. And as for the 11 Pro that could be even faster for a number of reasons, maybe aggregating B3+1+32, or perhaps using 256QAM, or just a better antenna design/newer modem.

This is extremely helpful, thanks. I have been through all the available bands this evening and I can see I'm getting similar speeds on both band 1 and band 3, which total somewhere close to what I was getting with my wife's iPhone X.

Band 20 connects but is extremely slow, with <1mbps down and around 6mbps up.

Band 32 shows up in LTE H-Monitor, but doesn't seem to connect. When I try the network shows as 0 MHhz Band 20 and the connection switches to 3G, so no idea what that's all about.

Are you (or anyone else for that matter!) able to either tell me how I can identify which CA any given modem supports, or alternatively recommend a modem that CAN aggregate bands 1 and 3?

Thanks again for the helpful reply,

Regards,
Rhys
 
Yes, you're quite right - it's the B900-230. And I am the least surprised person in the world that Three lied to me!




This is extremely helpful, thanks. I have been through all the available bands this evening and I can see I'm getting similar speeds on both band 1 and band 3, which total somewhere close to what I was getting with my wife's iPhone X.

Band 20 connects but is extremely slow, with <1mbps down and around 6mbps up.

Band 32 shows up in LTE H-Monitor, but doesn't seem to connect. When I try the network shows as 0 MHhz Band 20 and the connection switches to 3G, so no idea what that's all about.

Are you (or anyone else for that matter!) able to either tell me how I can identify which CA any given modem supports, or alternatively recommend a modem that CAN aggregate bands 1 and 3?

Thanks again for the helpful reply,

Regards,
Rhys
When I said they lied, I guess technically they didn't. The B900 is a faster device than the B311, providing it and the network it is intended to be used with use frequencies that can be aggregated. But with Three that isn't the case until recently with B32 being deployed in some places.

B20 will always be slow. Three don't own a small slice of the band and it easily gets saturated especially as it travels far and penetrates buildings well - covering a larger population than their other bands.
I tend to ignore this in terms of home internet use.

B32 is a supplementary downlink (SDL) band and must always be aggregated with another band that can provide uplink connectivity - from what I've seen usually this is achieved on router devices by using B20, as with your B900.
It also isn't deployed in many places so it's a low chance your mast has it.

Trawling through technical specifications is usually the only way to determine what combinations of carrier aggregations a device can do. Some 3rd party websites or reviews sometimes go I to the detail, such as this one where it lists the aggregations for your B900:
As I mentioned above, I ignore B20 for home use, so while this lists the B900 being able to aggregate B3+20 or B1+20, usually this isn't worth hunting for (as you found it gives <1mbps)

Common routers in use that do B3+1 include Huawei B525 and B535. Tp-link MR600. Mikrotik Chateau LTE12. There are a number of posts on here for all of these. Obviously they all come with their own advantages and disadvantages too.
 
Common routers in use that do B3+1 include Huawei B525 and B535. Tp-link MR600. Mikrotik Chateau LTE12. There are a number of posts on here for all of these. Obviously they all come with their own advantages and disadvantages too.

Thanks again for that. I have ordered a B535 - let's see if that does the job!
 
Thanks again for that. I have ordered a B535 - let's see if that does the job!
It’s very unlikely the router is going to resolve anything as even with a Cat+ to what you have now you’re not achieving speeds that your current Cat whatever device is capable of realistically.
Give it a try but I’d hate you to be wasting money on routers which don’t change much.
 
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Cold cuppa, there is nothing mysterious about missing megabits when you get 4g home broadband from Three. Its just how the grass grows. Its networks oversubscribed and shonky at best. Now they're going to have to rip out Huawei kit, it can only get far far worse.

If you really want mysterious hocus pocus start messing with extra antenna. (don't bother! just don't!)
 
It’s very unlikely the router is going to resolve anything as even with a Cat+ to what you have now you’re not achieving speeds that your current Cat whatever device is capable of realistically.
Give it a try but I’d hate you to be wasting money on routers which don’t change much.

Appreciate the comments, but as I mentioned in my original post, the same sim card gives massively different results depending on which device I put it in. I know Three are rubbish but unfortunately beggars can't be choosers so I need to make the most of it.

And anyway I've ordered from Amazon so if it doesn't do the business it will be returned immediately :)

Cheers
 
If you really want mysterious hocus pocus start messing with extra antenna. (don't bother! just don't!)

Antenna are not on my list given where the mast is situated (see pic!)
 

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Short of high volume of users on your mast, there is absolutely no reason why you should be getting such slow speeds on Three then.

I just can't fathom how utterly appalling their network is becoming. Likewise their customer service also gets worse as time goes on. I do think eventually three will reach a point where it will be down to OFCOM to tell them they have enough customers already and need to upgrade or limit them.
 
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Likewise their customer service also gets worse as time goes on..

This is why I haven't bothered complaining to them. I signed up to the service for £25/mo (this was 15 months ago) but I was charged £35/mo. When I called them they told me it was up to me to prove it was £25/mo. Told them to look on their own website and they refused and said I must have signed up when it cost more. Same story when I escalated the call to a manager. In the end I had to hang up and call cancellations team who then agreed to charge me the correct price.

Life is too short to be dealing with idiots like that and I know if I phone and say it's too slow they'll fob me off.
 
Common routers in use that do B3+1 include Huawei B525 and B535. Tp-link MR600. Mikrotik Chateau LTE12. There are a number of posts on here for all of these. Obviously they all come with their own advantages and disadvantages too.

Happy to report that the B535 has done the trick and I've been getting over 30mb download speeds (even sneaked as high as 40mb a couple of times!). Only fly in the ointment is that LTE H-Monitor doesn't seem to work with it which is a pain as it doesn't always seem to aggregate the fastest bands.
 
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Three are an unmitigated disaster. I've had the 'service' since it was Relish. I'm in central-east London by Tower Bridge. Regularly under 2MB. Latency topped at around 900 recently. On the rare occasions their customer service people are available, they tend to suggest trees are a problem.

On the plus side you get a nostalgic opportunity to sample the internet experience of 1998. Anyone got a 56k modem they want to lend a guy?
 

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Its absolutely ridiculous that Three can sell a service as shocking as its currently getting. Its high time OFCOM started looking at available bandwidth at threes masts to see first hand how oversubscribed they are or selling Three some more spectrum.

Both however would mean some actual investment on three's part though! So I'm not holding my breath!

I guess tourists would be your issue, but can't imagine London is a sprawling city like it once was currently, so its obviously another example of three's shonky network.

I'm currently getting 15mb/s (rural Nottinghamshire 3pm Friday)
(Compared to 120mb/s 20hrs a day Sept/Oct 2019)
 
I have the Huawei AI Cube since July last year. I get download speeds up to 70Mb/s. Are you on the latest firmware?

I had to put in a mesh as well as the range of the router wifi is really bad.
 
I appreciate that Three service is rubbish in many areas, however it is worth mentioning that here in deep rural Devon I'm getting very different, I'm on B20 at 4 miles from the mast, download is typically 24 Mbps and 7 Mbps up, they had some issues over the summer here but currently it's reliable and stable 24/7, all for £18 a month unlimited - really can't complain.
 
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