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Strange Issue with Huawei B535 Router on Three Network

MrHammonds

Member
Morning,

I've had a good look through the forum posts and I can't find anything that specifically refers to the issue I'm getting with my router.

I get 4g through Three network the the B535 router. Initially, for a couple of weeks it was great, really fast, reliable connections, fantastic... But now I'm getting a really frustrating issue.

Let me clarify by saying that the speeds aren't the issue, I'm getting anywhere between 30-80mb depending on time of day, also the 4g signal quality to the router is spot on.

The issue I'm getting is really buggy and intermittent quality, even when the device (mobile phone etc) connected to the router has full signal. The only way I can describe it is... If I were to run a speed test, it would (eventually) connect to the speed test then show rapid speeds but in reality I can hardly load a webpage... Or it simply won't load anything at all.

An example of this would be on my pc, I can download a large file (eventually) but it sometimes takes 2,3 or more attempts to actually connect to the download server (sometimes it'll just hang)... Or when trying to log in to Zwift (cycling) on PC, it can take 10 attempts to actually connect, but it's fine once it opens a connection to the server.

Any ideas? I've tried editting router set up in so many ways I've lost track, separate bands, combined them, rebooted, restarted, turned off firewall... Edited authorisations etc etc etc.

Cheers

Olly
 
I agree. Log into your router and go into network settings on the main page then Ethernet settings, then switch it over to "Set DNS server manually". I use 80.80.80.80 and 80.80.81.81 which seem to be working much better.
 
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I agree. Log into your router and go into network settings on the main page then Ethernet settings, then switch it over to "Set DNS server manually". I use 80.80.80.80 and 80.80.81.81 which seem to be working much better.

Thanks for this.

So what exactly is happening? Like I said, just seems to hang a lot, but downloading stuff (once it actually connects) is fine. When I say hang, I mean it might take 4/5 attempts at refreshing page or something until it loads.

What am I actually doing my changing the settings, just curious 👍🏻 cheers
 
Its just changing the domain name server from your ISP's one to an external source. (so it basically translates web addresses into ip addresses for you instead of three's DNS server, which in my experience is pretty shonky.)
 
Just to add to this. I've found that if I'm maxing out my connection on Three and try and surf its utterly impossible and more frequently doesn't even attempt to go to websites regardless of DNS that I'm using. Its very reminiscent of the old 56k modem days when this happens and I'm not sure it ever should in 2020.
 
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Just to add to this. I've found that if I'm maxing out my connection on Three and try and surf its utterly impossible and more frequently doesn't even attempt to go to websites regardless of DNS that I'm using. Its very reminiscent of the old 56k modem days when this happens and I'm not sure it ever should in 2020.
Yeh I've done the suggested above and it hasn't really made a difference unfortunately, still very hit and miss trying to load anything... Not been impressed with the service at all really
 
just as a matter of interest, try downloading winscribe VPN and then give it a go. If this resolves the issue its Three's traffic management being over zealous.
 
I would recommend trying a vpn. I tried to get things working with three for a few months but continually had this issue appearing intermittently. Basically it appeared to drop some 'new connections' - ie going to a website etc. Established connections were ok. If you use a vpn imagine all your connections are managed within one big connection -- so the problem is likely to go away (if you can connect to the vpn).

Personally a)covid means the location I had three at doesn't need access right now b) when it does I'm going with voxi (vodafone) instead which worked great in the B535

I basically think three's network is broken.
 
I do wonder if they're pulling Huawei hardware out of their network..... If not right now, probably in the near future.
 
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I do wonder if they're pulling Huawei hardware out of their network..... If not right now, probably in the near future.
I would hazard a guess at no, they probably won't.

The reason they're being used in the first place is because their network equipment works extremely well and is priced very competitively. Providers are having to choose between the risk of Huawei (whether the risk is there or now) and comparatively poor performing alternatives from the likes of Ericsson etc.
 
I rather hope they don't .... I remember my first VDSL model with BT was Huawei and it was the most solid device I used.

Ditto with others I've tried - frustration with firmware updates and not the best UI, but from a consumer side I get the impression their modem hardware/processing is top notch, along with their network kit.
 
This retry thing seems to be fairly commonly reported on 3 on this forum. Certainly it is something I have been regularly experiencing.

Here's what I've tried so far (I'm on a b535):

1. Using HuaCtrl (when I had an android phone) to lock it to B20 (my nearest mast support 3 and 20, but I can't get a strong enough signal off it. My strongest signal comes from a B20 only cell.
2. Adding rabbit ears antennae. This made a big difference. I tried a Poynting omni as well, but that made things worse, no matter where I put it.
3. Moved the router into the loft. Spent ages positioning it whilst looking at signal strength indicators. I have a decent 4g signal. I'm 100% confident this is not signal related.
4. Changed APNs. No difference
5. Changed DNS to google (and changed the DNS ips I serve out via DHCP). No difference.
6. Setup a pi running openvpn and routing all my traffic through that. Problem goes away. Bandwidth falls through the floor (which is to be expected).
 
2. Adding rabbit ears antennae. This made a big difference. I tried a Poynting omni as well, but that made things worse, no matter where I put it.
Can you give me a link to the rabbit ears you bought? I'd like to try them and see what difference it makes to one of mine.
 
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Just to let you know, in my experience the rabbit ears on the B535 made the signal received worse overall than the internal antenna.
 
Just to let you know, in my experience the rabbit ears on the B535 made the signal received worse overall than the internal antenna.
Did you try the official Huawei ones? I've tried some others before but never the ones designed for the device specifically. I've also tried one of those external square antennas which had the same effect of it actually getting worse.
 
What seller was yours from on that listing? I can see a few on Amazon with dubious reviews so I’m not sure if they’ll end up being the actual Huawei ones or not.

That's the link from my amazon order history.

They definitely made a big difference to both my bandwidth and my RSRP/SNR/RSRQ values according to HuaCtrl.
 
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