Sponsored Links

Three 5G Broadband - No 5G!

Hi,

I live in Bath and receive fantastic 5G speeds on my mobile device which is with 3. As such, when I spotted their £20 p/m unlimited 5G broadband deal I was very excited!

However, I received the router today and cannot get it to connect to 5G! It's connected to 4G with a strong signal and I'm getting speeds of around 50mbps, but I can see on the router page that the 5G bars are empty.

I've tried setting the band to 5G in the router settings but this just lead to having no connection at all, and I've tried switching the APN between 3internet and three.co.uk but this has had no effect (other than three.co.uk increased the 4G speeds somewhat). I've also tried moving the router around to every part of the house, but no luck.

I know there's 5G available because my phone that's with 3 is currently receiving it without any issues in every part of the house, so I can't understand why the router isn't picking it up.

Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!

Cheers,
Ryan
 
Sponsored Links
Hi,

I live in Bath and receive fantastic 5G speeds on my mobile device which is with 3. As such, when I spotted their £20 p/m unlimited 5G broadband deal I was very excited!

However, I received the router today and cannot get it to connect to 5G! It's connected to 4G with a strong signal and I'm getting speeds of around 50mbps, but I can see on the router page that the 5G bars are empty.

I've tried setting the band to 5G in the router settings but this just lead to having no connection at all, and I've tried switching the APN between 3internet and three.co.uk but this has had no effect (other than three.co.uk increased the 4G speeds somewhat). I've also tried moving the router around to every part of the house, but no luck.

I know there's 5G available because my phone that's with 3 is currently receiving it without any issues in every part of the house, so I can't understand why the router isn't picking it up.

Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!

Cheers,
Ryan
Sanity check. What do you see when you swap the SIMs between the devices? Does the problem follow the SIM or the device.
 
Thanks for your responses!

I contacted Three yesterday to request a replacement in case this was the issue but they advised that there's currently a connectivity issue in my area that they're working to resolve. I asked why the 5G on my phone would still work if this was the case, and they advised they use 'different lines'. I can see that they are doing some work to the masts in the area according to the website at the moment so perhaps it's genuine, but not convinced as to why it would only affect the router and not my phone?

I've tried putting the SIM from the router into my phone and 5G worked without any issues. In contrast, I put the SIM I use for my phone into the router and it still didn't get 5G, so the issue is definitely not related to the SIM.
 
Sponsored Links
Personally, I would give their technical debugging process a chance unless it's critical to confirm before a window to return closes.

If the router fails to work in an area where it should be known-good, that would be good evidence of a fault. While faulty routers absolutely present in the wild, it doesn't seem the above evidence is conclusive yet.

It's probably only useful to do further debugging once the maintenance finishes.

I would be tempted to try the router in another postcode where they sell the product and claim it functions.
 
Personally, I would give their technical debugging process a chance unless it's critical to confirm before a window to return closes.

If the router fails to work in an area where it should be known-good, that would be good evidence of a fault. While faulty routers absolutely present in the wild, it doesn't seem the above evidence is conclusive yet.

It's probably only useful to do further debugging once the maintenance finishes.

I would be tempted to try the router in another postcode where they sell the product and claim it functions.
If only the hardware was not stack it high, sell it cheap.

Over on the 59 page nr5103e thread, several users have been through around two to three Zyxels that have developed no 5G faults.
 
Sponsored Links
If only the hardware was not stack it high, sell it cheap.

Over on the 59 page nr5103e thread, several users have been through around two to three Zyxels that have developed no 5G faults.
I'm putting this in my folder for reasons why never to buy devices from a service provider.

Regardless, I think proper debugging steps should always be taken and if the service provider suggests a reason why something will not work, however how outlandish, I would wait for that reason to pass before drawing a conclusion.

I would probably be the first person to accuse a service provider of having supplied a faulty device and have them prove otherwise, I just don't buy devices from service providers due to lack of control and lack of choice.
 
@h4x0rm1k3 how did you convince three to swap your Zyxel?
I didn't, I brought mine from Cex so was an easy swap in the end. Mobile companies won't trust me with any pay monthly plans that include devices as I was a bit of a tw@ when I was younger so best I can get is the PAYG type pay monthly sims and provide my own device to pop the sim in to, works out cheaper in the long run really anyway!
 
Hi,

I live in Bath and receive fantastic 5G speeds on my mobile device which is with 3. As such, when I spotted their £20 p/m unlimited 5G broadband deal I was very excited!

However, I received the router today and cannot get it to connect to 5G! It's connected to 4G with a strong signal and I'm getting speeds of around 50mbps, but I can see on the router page that the 5G bars are empty.

I've tried setting the band to 5G in the router settings but this just lead to having no connection at all, and I've tried switching the APN between 3internet and three.co.uk but this has had no effect (other than three.co.uk increased the 4G speeds somewhat). I've also tried moving the router around to every part of the house, but no luck.

I know there's 5G available because my phone that's with 3 is currently receiving it without any issues in every part of the house, so I can't understand why the router isn't picking it up.

Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!

Cheers,
Ryan
Some of the Zyxel routers have serious issues trying to connect to 5G where other devices will connect to it easily, your only option is to try and prove that to Three and ask them for an exchange, especially if it's a new contract as you've got a cooling off period anyway so you could always just cancel the contract if they refuse to help as long as you're within the cooling off period. If they do exchange and it still happens then your best bet would be to ask them for an exchange for a ZTE MC801A as they get 5G signals a little better and definitely more reliable but you will lose some of the extra features like 4X4 MIMO & the 4 external antenna ports for example.
What you can try and do in the meantime is to lock the bands to the ones in use for 4 & 5G and then move the Zyxel to different areas of the house (even hang it out the window purely just to test if you can pick up 5G) and trying to fine tune the position as 5G can be very sensitive in that even a few degrees of movement can be the difference from 50Mbps to 500Mbps+ in some cases. If that doesn't work at all then definitely speak to Three and if needs be tell them to cancel the plan, go to Cex & pickup a MC801A for £130 and then get 1 of those pay monthly/rolling contract plans with unlimited internet which can usually be had around the £15-20 mark and go that route instead as you'll probably be better off that way.
 
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