Sponsored Links

Issues with Three speeds, customer service won't help.

ObviousGhost

Casual Member
Came back home from an afternoon out and speeds had dropped from the usual 500mbps - 600mbps all the way down to 3mbps. Connection has been great for the last month, with only a few issues here or there. As the status checker claims there is no issue in my area I figured I'd better check with Three, knowing the issue was likely on their end but it might at least get them to check the mast. 2 and a half hours later, after speaking to two people and performing countless troubleshooting checks, they tell me that they've found the problem and it's that I'm in an area without 5G coverage. They basically copy and pasted some bs response at that point of "nothing we can do about it". Upon finding this out they basically just fobbed us off.

To clarify we aren't out of range, the mast is 0.4 miles from us with nearly perfect line of sight and despite being online for around a year, Three have still not updated their coverage checker. And Three were more than happy to take our money when we got a new 5G contract a couple of months ago.

I presume the issue is fully on their end and will be sorted in a couple of days, but on the off chance it's on my end is there anything else I should try? So far I have rebooted, reset and reseated the sim on my ZTE MC888, Tried changing APN settings from 3internet to Three.co.uk as well as swapping to my old router H112-370 CPE PRO (w/ external antenna) with had no luck. Phones are on Smarty and getting the same slow speeds. Also tried setting it to 4G only and yet speeds didn't improve. Both devices on wifi and wired have slow speeds.

As of now the a speed test is showing 3mbps down/ 19mbps up w/80ms ping (600mbps down/ 70mbps up w/ 39ms ping is usual for us), 5G Connected Band: N78/ 5G Signal Strength: -95dBm/ 5G SINR: 19.5 dB
 
I would check if I am connected to the mast closest to me.
Your CPEs can probably give you the necessary information like Cell Id, then hopefully cellmapper.net will show the location of the mast.
 
I would check if I am connected to the mast closest to me.
Your CPEs can probably give you the necessary information like Cell Id, then hopefully cellmapper.net will show the location of the mast.
Thanks I'll try that tomorrow as I've put the ZTE back on now. The ZTE shows the 4G cell id but not the 5G one for some reason, not sure if that means I'm not getting a 5G signal, although it shows a decent signal strength for 5G so I think I am getting a proper 5G connection.
 
Sponsored Links
Came back home from an afternoon out and speeds had dropped from the usual 500mbps - 600mbps all the way down to 3mbps. Connection has been great for the last month, with only a few issues here or there. As the status checker claims there is no issue in my area I figured I'd better check with Three, knowing the issue was likely on their end but it might at least get them to check the mast. 2 and a half hours later, after speaking to two people and performing countless troubleshooting checks, they tell me that they've found the problem and it's that I'm in an area without 5G coverage. They basically copy and pasted some bs response at that point of "nothing we can do about it". Upon finding this out they basically just fobbed us off.

To clarify we aren't out of range, the mast is 0.4 miles from us with nearly perfect line of sight and despite being online for around a year, Three have still not updated their coverage checker. And Three were more than happy to take our money when we got a new 5G contract a couple of months ago.

I presume the issue is fully on their end and will be sorted in a couple of days, but on the off chance it's on my end is there anything else I should try? So far I have rebooted, reset and reseated the sim on my ZTE MC888, Tried changing APN settings from 3internet to Three.co.uk as well as swapping to my old router H112-370 CPE PRO (w/ external antenna) with had no luck. Phones are on Smarty and getting the same slow speeds. Also tried setting it to 4G only and yet speeds didn't improve. Both devices on wifi and wired have slow speeds.

As of now the a speed test is showing 3mbps down/ 19mbps up w/80ms ping (600mbps down/ 70mbps up w/ 39ms ping is usual for us), 5G Connected Band: N78/ 5G Signal Strength: -95dBm/ 5G SINR: 19.5 dB
Funnily enough I am close to a large Three N78 macro site and my speeds are sub 5Mbps, pings are around 70-90ms and the jitter is insane.

The Three status checker says work in the area has caused more load on my local site.

This has literally started today.
 
Funnily enough I am close to a large Three N78 macro site and my speeds are sub 5Mbps, pings are around 70-90ms and the jitter is insane.

The Three status checker says work in the area has caused more load on my local site.

This has literally started today.
I wonder if it's the same sort of thing and that the reason my status checker shows there are no issues is because they have yet to update their coverage checker. Was more than a little annoyed with customer service though who didn't seem to understand that like six hours ago we were on 600mbps and in that time the mast didn't up and move.
 
I've just had the exact same thing happen, OL3 area - speeds suddenly took a nose-dive and are capping out at a flat 20mbps (unless I do a mikrotik BTest over a wire guard tunnel, which for some reason gets my usual 320ish mbps) - support of absolutely no use.

Not sure what is going on, I've switched APNs, locked to every different available PCI from my local tower (only the one around here for three sadly, rural life...), and it's still giving me nothing!

Using a Zyxel NR7101.

Popped out and got another three SIM, same thing on my phone, seems the local tower is goosed... But maybe not, and it's a wider issue, unless you're in the same area?
 
I've just had the exact same thing happen, OL3 area - speeds suddenly took a nose-dive and are capping out at a flat 20mbps (unless I do a mikrotik BTest over a wire guard tunnel, which for some reason gets my usual 320ish mbps) - support of absolutely no use.

Not sure what is going on, I've switched APNs, locked to every different available PCI from my local tower (only the one around here for three sadly, rural life...), and it's still giving me nothing!

Using a Zyxel NR7101.

Popped out and got another three SIM, same thing on my phone, seems the local tower is goosed... But maybe not, and it's a wider issue, unless you're in the same area?
Something is going on as a mast a couple of miles away is also showing the same status message and has produced a 1.5Gbps result this evening.

All voice calls are being carried over 3G.

I am thinking backhaul or bandwidth related changes as Vodafone is also painfully slow tonight on the same mast as Three’s N78.
 
Sponsored Links
Drove down and parked up next to the mast as it's by the road and got a whopping 2mbps, there is definitely an issue with it. Whether it's off or just down I don't know.
 
I had a similar issue last Sunday with Three 5G, I could only stream to one device or it would buffer, it was the same with my Three 5g phone, luckily it was back working ok Monday.
 
I’m up at around 100-120Mbps but the jitter is still awful.
 
Sponsored Links
Mine is slowly picking up too - looks like a new 5G ENDC capable PCI appeared (Band 1), so I suspect the required work for that might have been the root of my issue.
 
Nearly a week later and speeds still haven't gone all the way back to the usual speeds. Getting around 110mbps, so it's not exactly the end of the world but still not at the 600mbps we've had for months.

The lack of transparency from Three is what annoys me the most. Clearly something is going on on their end and yet they have no interest in keeping their customers in the loop. Really wish there wasn't such a monopoly in the mobile broadband space, would switch in a heartbeat if there was an affordable unlimited alternative.
 
Nearly a week later and speeds still haven't gone all the way back to the usual speeds. Getting around 110mbps, so it's not exactly the end of the world but still not at the 600mbps we've had for months.

The lack of transparency from Three is what annoys me the most. Clearly something is going on on their end and yet they have no interest in keeping their customers in the loop. Really wish there wasn't such a monopoly in the mobile broadband space, would switch in a heartbeat if there was an affordable unlimited alternative.
Same issues and similar timing here (Edinburgh South near the bypass). Was 700 mbs now I can't get over 50-100 mbs. There was text on the service status indicating engineering work in the area, but that is not the case anymore. I am hoping it might be related to the 3G switch off (if it hasn't already happened) and that might open more 5G bandwidth eventually. If not, I shall be cancelling Three in July when my contract expires (or before that if I complain to customer support enough and get free cancellation).
 
I’ve tested on quite a few local three sites in London and even though the speed is good all of them had ping spikes and packet loss of 10-30%.

By contrast in every location tested, EE had 0% packet loss.

Three seem to have a serious problem with routing / packet loss.
 
I’ve tested on quite a few local three sites in London and even though the speed is good all of them had ping spikes and packet loss of 10-30%.

By contrast in every location tested, EE had 0% packet loss.

Three seem to have a serious problem with routing / packet loss.
I have also noticed a lot of packet loss, but that started before speeds being capped off at 100 Mbps. I tried lowering MTU size, which did seem to help a bit. However, even when I tried the lowest setting possible on my ZTE router, I was still getting occasional ERR_CONNECTION closed errors in browsers, or banking apps failing to approve transactions etc.
 
Sponsored Links
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6026)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules