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Three 5G - Borderline coverage

yolosnail

ULTIMATE Member
So my contract with Virgin is up this month, and after unsuccessfully negotiating a new contract, I'm off. (They offered me a deal that was tolerable, then refused to honor it, and told me I was lying and the deal they offered never existed. The condescending Scottish woman from retentions sealed the deal!) I would go back to FTTC, but my petty reason for not going back is that the phone line comes into the kitchen.

When I'm sitting in the loft, I get Three 5G, with speeds of anywhere between 450/20 and 600/50, but downstairs I only get 4G, with a pretty reliable 50/30.

However, according to the Three coverage checker, I'm just outside the 5G coverage, being exactly in between 2 5G masts! So, obviously I can't get 5G (or even 4G) broadband through their website.

Now, I know that I can just enter different postcode in the checker and it will let me through to purchase, but do they do any further checks to make sure I'm actually 'eligible'? I'm only planning on going for the 1 month contract, just to test whether it would be viable.

I was also contemplating just buying one of the 5G routers on Amazon and putting a Smarty sim in, but that would require laying out £200+ temporarily just to test it.
 
No, I'm pretty sure they don't as many on here have used the postcode "trick". I am thinking of getting the Zyxel as well to use at another location. Strange thing is I've had the ZTE for 5 months and ordered it using my real postcode as there is a new pole within sight of my window(<100m away in fact). Now it's telling me I can only get 4G when I enter my postcode? Do you think they have a quota for each area to try and keep speeds at an acceptable level as this is what would appear to be happening. For the record my average dl speed has halved from 900+ to 400-450 since May, upload still good at 140mbps.

What was the tolerable deal you were offered by VM before being accused of being a liar, out of interest?
 
No, I'm pretty sure they don't as many on here have used the postcode "trick". I am thinking of getting the Zyxel as well to use at another location. Strange thing is I've had the ZTE for 5 months and ordered it using my real postcode as there is a new pole within sight of my window(<100m away in fact). Now it's telling me I can only get 4G when I enter my postcode? Do you think they have a quota for each area to try and keep speeds at an acceptable level as this is what would appear to be happening. For the record my average dl speed has halved from 900+ to 400-450 since May, upload still good at 140mbps.

What was the tolerable deal you were offered by VM before being accused of being a liar, out of interest?

I'm about 1.5 miles from the nearest mast, and 2.5 miles from the next. I have pretty much a clear line of sight to the further mast, but I have flats opposite which are conveniently one storey taller than the house, to block the view to the closer one. At the other side of the flats I get great 5G signal, but in my back garden I don't even get 4G.

The trouble is, even when I'm in the town centre right next to the mast, I don't think I've had the upload speeds break 80mbps, although that could just be my phone. In fact, at home, I typically get faster uploads over 4G than I do 5G.

I'd imagine given the larger antennae in the dedicated router would make for a better signal, or even installing an external antenna if I needed to.

The deal I was offered was M200 (well, 100 with VOLT) with a 6GB o2 sim for £29 a month. I'm currently paying £28 for M200, so given it was basically what I'm paying now, but with a 6GB sim thrown in, I deemed it tolerable. I probably would have kept it given it's only £5 a month more than FTTC, and just gave the sim to a family member (for a fee of course!)

I phoned retentions to tell them I was leaving, and they said the best they could do would be £34 for M200. I explained to her that I had already been offered a better deal than that, and she promptly told me that I was not offered that deal, and that it was £28 plus the cost of the o2 sim. Given that I was offered the deal through WhatsApp, I had the chat on my phone and read it out to her. At that point she just started going on and on about how terrible the speeds are with BT and TalkTalk, and that my bills with them would shoot up.

I told her that I would just like to cancel my contract, I was put on hold for a good 5 minutes, she came back and started bad mouthing BT and TalkTalk again. After explaining again that I really did want to cancel, she eventually put in my 30 days notice!
 
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They don't do checks unless you contact support, i have had this for nearly 3 months outside of their coverage checker, if you want to test just sign up and return within the 30 days, you won't pay anything
 
Not exactly a good deal, I pay for £36 for 500 but get 1Gig because of O2.
Hence why it was only tolerable, on the basis that it was the same as I was paying.
We've only had Virgin in the area for 2-3 years (although we had them at the old house) and given the fact that I was a broadband only customer, I don't think they were particularly fussed about keeping me! They make their money from their extortionate TV costs.

They don't do checks unless you contact support, i have had this for nearly 3 months outside of their coverage checker, if you want to test just sign up and return within the 30 days, you won't pay anything
I'll give it a go, what's the worst that can happen!
 
If it was me, I'd get a 5G router from Amazon or CEX, run it with a Smarty sim with unlimited data, and stick it in the loft for the best signal. To avoid having to run a mains cable up there you can use a 12v extension cable. If it works then you might consider a Three contract if you want to avoid CGNat addressing.

Pluses, Smarty and Three billing are streets ahead of Virgin. What you pay at the beginning of the contract is what you pay at the end. Three raises its price in April by about 4.5% but I think Smarty keeps the price you pay for a year even though it's a rolling monthly contract.
You get a lot more bang for your buck especially if you can get 5G,

Minuses. In my experience. mobile based internet is not as reliable as Virgin fibre. Like you, I'm in a non-5G pocket with 5G shown with outside reception nearby but I can still get a signal when the router is carefully placed. I can usually get about 300mb/s down 20mb/s up. Sometimes it reaches 500mb/s, sometimes just under 200mb/s. This is because contention is potentially higher - remember it's a mobile service so people are popping in and out of the service area all the time. Mobile towers get maintenance every so often so if you rely on a single mast then you might get variable reliability of service.

It makes good sense to know your service and where the masts are. It sounds like you have a choice of masts so if you get a router, do some testing, not only for optimum speed, but for a potential backup. Last week my favourite mast kept dropping signal but I was able to use cell locking to direct reception away from that mast and still get 5G with lower but still acceptable speeds. It took Three just under a week to fix it.

I switched from Virgin three years ago and have not regretted it. I've had reduced service through maintenance on several occasions but have never lost the service completely because of the inherent redundancy in the mobile system. And if Three became unusable I could swap out the sim and switch to one of the others.
 
If it was me, I'd get a 5G router from Amazon or CEX, run it with a Smarty sim with unlimited data, and stick it in the loft for the best signal. To avoid having to run a mains cable up there you can use a 12v extension cable. If it works then you might consider a Three contract if you want to avoid CGNat addressing.

Pluses, Smarty and Three billing are streets ahead of Virgin. What you pay at the beginning of the contract is what you pay at the end. Three raises its price in April by about 4.5% but I think Smarty keeps the price you pay for a year even though it's a rolling monthly contract.
You get a lot more bang for your buck especially if you can get 5G,

Minuses. In my experience. mobile based internet is not as reliable as Virgin fibre. Like you, I'm in a non-5G pocket with 5G shown with outside reception nearby but I can still get a signal when the router is carefully placed. I can usually get about 300mb/s down 20mb/s up. Sometimes it reaches 500mb/s, sometimes just under 200mb/s. This is because contention is potentially higher - remember it's a mobile service so people are popping in and out of the service area all the time. Mobile towers get maintenance every so often so if you rely on a single mast then you might get variable reliability of service.

It makes good sense to know your service and where the masts are. It sounds like you have a choice of masts so if you get a router, do some testing, not only for optimum speed, but for a potential backup. Last week my favourite mast kept dropping signal but I was able to use cell locking to direct reception away from that mast and still get 5G with lower but still acceptable speeds. It took Three just under a week to fix it.

I switched from Virgin three years ago and have not regretted it. I've had reduced service through maintenance on several occasions but have never lost the service completely because of the inherent redundancy in the mobile system. And if Three became unusable I could swap out the sim and switch to one of the others.
I decided to just go for the £24 1 month plan with Three just to try it out.

I did actually look at CEX as I was buying a GPU from them today (I spent a bit more for the 2 year warranty given all GPUs these days have probably been mined on!). It seems like I can get one for £150-200. I'm already with Smarty for my phone, so another plan would be £18 (I believe).

But even then it seems like it would be better value going for the £24 plan if I average it out over say 18 or 24 months. Assuming I stay that long. Plus it gives me an easy out should Virgin have a smoking hot deal, or finally offer a decent upload!

While I haven't used Three for broadband, I've found their Reliability to be pretty spot on here, in the 4 years I've lived here I think I've had 3 outages. Whereas with Virgin it would go off every night for at least 5 minutes, usually between 1 and 3am, which is when I'm most likely to be using the internet!

Plus, if it were to go down, I have a McDonalds with Free WiFi about 150m from the house, so I can just camp there for a bit to get work done.

What are the actual benefits of going with Three over Smarty? I've never had an issue tethering heavily (100+GB in a day)
 
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When I looked at CEX I read that some of their Huawei 5g CPEs were not fully unlocked and had Three software in places.

On the question of Three v Smarty I understand the main reason Smarty is less expensive is because they have no real help service so it costs them less to run. I'm using Smarty as I am ducking and diving to find the most reliable service so I don't want multi month contracts. I find it works fine.
 
Some posters to this forum suggest there is *possibly* priority given on the network to Three over Smarty. Others say there is no difference. I think the main difference is that Three provides an APN that uses real internet addressing. Smarty does not, using CGNat virtual addressing. The latter can give some problems with remote applications.
Regarding help, I switched from Three to Smarty for my phone and there was initially a problem getting the PAC applied. I used Smarty's online chat to get it done and it was quickly resolved.
 
Some posters to this forum suggest there is *possibly* priority given on the network to Three over Smarty. Others say there is no difference. I think the main difference is that Three provides an APN that uses real internet addressing. Smarty does not, using CGNat virtual addressing. The latter can give some problems with remote applications.
That's the only difference I have found between the 2 eccles.

Not seen any priority differences at all yet.

Using any other network bar three, my Philips Hue hub refuses to connect to the internet because of the CGNat issues.

Using the 3internet apn on three, all is hunky dory in Hue hub land. 😊

Hooray for the 3internet apn.🥳
 
My main pros of using Three:

1) I can use the 3internet APN which dishes out a static, route-able IP address. This is handy for being able to establish incoming connections using a Dynamic DNS service. NAT'ed alternatives cause me problems keeping SSH connections open.

2) Three "contracts" have access to telephone help, which due to my need to perform a GPRS Reset/Network Refresh every time the power goes out is a must! It is like pulling your own teeth however, the same "have you switched it off and on again" questions start to get irritating after few 100 times and at least, after a bit of time, I can get back up and running again.

3) Once your contract is up, you can just continue paying the same price (factor in the 4-5% increase every April) until a deal comes along you like. Many others I have seen seem to jack the price up when your contract comes to an end. I am out of contract now and looking for a better deal, but with the cost of everything going up, my current price is the best I can find ~ £16pm
 
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Got my Zyxel through DPD this morning, they should not be allowed to make deliveries before 9am, I nearly fell down the stairs rushing for the door!

Given that I don't fancy falling down the 6m drop from the loft hatch until I've fully woke up, I just put it on the window sill to set it up for now.

It keeps connecting to connect to 5G, but the connection is poor (as expected), so drops back to 4G+. Even still, I'm getting about 60/15, which is what I got with FTTC.

I might just try balancing it on a few boxes to try and lift it up in the hopes it may latch on before I risk my life with the loft
 
Got my Zyxel through DPD this morning, they should not be allowed to make deliveries before 9am, I nearly fell down the stairs rushing for the door!

Given that I don't fancy falling down the 6m drop from the loft hatch until I've fully woke up, I just put it on the window sill to set it up for now.

It keeps connecting to connect to 5G, but the connection is poor (as expected), so drops back to 4G+. Even still, I'm getting about 60/15, which is what I got with FTTC.

I might just try balancing it on a few boxes to try and lift it up in the hopes it may latch on before I risk my life with the loft
To anyone who wants to get a 5G router from Three and have a store near them just go in they will override the postcode checker 👍🏻
 
To anyone who wants to get a 5G router from Three and have a store near them just go in they will override the postcode checker 👍🏻

The downside of getting it in store is you don't get the 14 day return like you do online.
Although, given you'll probably be trying it out for the month that probably doesn't really matter.

I did think about going in store, but I didn't fancy traveling 10 miles on the bus for them to turn around and say no!
 
4G+ seems to have settled in at 60/15, with ping between 25 and 35ms

When it connects to 5G, with poor signal downstairs, speed jumps to around 100/20 with ping around the same, which is still decent.

Upload speeds seem to be slower than I get with 4G on my phone though, I typically get anywhere from 25-40mbps on Smarty

Edit:

I'm telling porkies! It must just be the Intel WiFi chip in my laptop not liking the Zyxel, I just did a speed test on my phone over WiFi and I'm getting 150/25 over 4G+

I had to double check I wasn't accidentally connected to my Virgin router!
 
There must be something strange up with Windows, I've tried a USB WiFi adapter and I'm still limited to about 60/15! I even tried using ethernet and hit the same limit.

I tried my other laptop, and I'm getting 130/10, and when I try the exact same USB WiFi adapter in my other laptop I also get 130/6. Unfortunately that laptop doesn't have ethernet so I can't give that a try.

So, in one laptop I'm getting under half the download, and on the other laptop I'm getting under half the upload. Yet my phone is getting the full speed!

Anyone got any ideas?
And don't suggest Linux, although I do have a Steam Deck, and it does get the full speed
 
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The downside of getting it in store is you don't get the 14 day return like you do online.
Although, given you'll probably be trying it out for the month that probably doesn't really matter.

I did think about going in store, but I didn't fancy traveling 10 miles on the bus for them to turn around and say no!
please let us know the return process after your 30-day trial on the £24 package...
I am also thinking about giving it a try (currently on VM)
 
please let us know the return process after your 30-day trial on the £24 package...
I am also thinking about giving it a try (currently on VM)
Will do.

Although, when I return it depends if there's going to be a good cashback deal on the 2 year plan.

I don't mind paying the £24 a month, I like the flexibility of it, and it's what I was expecting to pay for FTTC anyway, and less than I was paying for Virgin for essentially the same speeds
 
You must have high ceilings! 6m drop sounds scary:-)
Someone else is having weird upload speed issues like yours when comparing smartphone to laptop albeit with the older ZTE MC801A router. Must just be down to the hardware/wifi card in laptop/pc I'd say.
 
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