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Three home broadband speeds dropped sub 25mbps

waroffice

Casual Member
Morning everyone,

I've been using 4G broadband for a while to power my home wifi network, this is for phones, and TVs to use for Netflix etc and working from home for me and the wife. I've got a Mikrotik LHGLTE6 on my wall and I have line of sight with a cell tower, it only shows as Band 3 on cellmapper.

about 12 months ago the speed dropped from 70+mb to just about 25 on a good day. I've been down the support route at Three and they initially said it was my contract but after getting a new contract it didn't improve (they refunded this and let me keep the new router)

if I were to move my dish around a bit and find a different cell to line up with could I see improvements?

This is the signal strength on the Mikrotik and a Speed test

Code:
speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Three...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by No One Internet (London) [286.59 km]: 43.875 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 22.81 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed......................................................................................................
Upload: 32.15 Mbit/s
 

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Last edited:
Which modem are you using?
MikroTik have recently admitted the original R11e-LTE modems are a bit rubbish and offering upgrades:
r11el_fg621_ea
r11el_ec200a_eu

My LHG LTE6 has a Quectel EM12-G fitted and works well with all the recent upgrades Three have done in the local area.
 
Which modem are you using?
MikroTik have recently admitted the original R11e-LTE modems are a bit rubbish and offering upgrades:
r11el_fg621_ea
r11el_ec200a_eu

My LHG LTE6 has a Quectel EM12-G fitted and works well with all the recent upgrades Three have done in the local area.
Do you know which modems are shipped with the ltap minis? The already updated ones or the "rubbish" ones?
 
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Morning everyone,

I've been using 4G broadband for a while to power my home wifi network, this is for phones, and TVs to use for Netflix etc and working from home for me and the wife. I've got a Mikrotik LHGLTE6 on my wall and I have line of sight with a cell tower, it only shows as Band 3 on cellmapper.

about 12 months ago the speed dropped from 70+mb to just about 25 on a good day. I've been down the support route at Three and they initially said it was my contract but after getting a new contract it didn't improve (they refunded this and let me keep the new router)

if I were to move my dish around a bit and find a different cell to line up with could I see improvements?

This is the signal strength on the Mikrotik and a Speed test

Code:
speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Three...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by No One Internet (London) [286.59 km]: 43.875 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 22.81 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed......................................................................................................
Upload: 32.15 Mbit/s
When you check the connected Cell ID, is it the mast with line of sight?

Can you restart the router in various locations around the property to try to get a SINR (signal to interference and noise ratio) better than poor?
 
Last edited:
Do you know which modems are shipped with the ltap minis? The already updated ones or the "rubbish" ones?
ltap minis do not come with modems

The ltap mini lte kit comes with a R11e-LTE

Price difference is around £40 new:


R11e-LTE6 still sells for around £90 new:

R11e-LTE is around £90 as well:

Both are being discontinued though

Firmware update details here:
 
When you check the connected Cell ID, is it the mast with line of sight?

Can you restart the router in various locations around the property to try to get a SINR (signal to interference and noise ratio) better than poor?

The router is mounted to the wall outside, it is a dish and is lined up with the tower, the Cell IDs do match yes. I dont think upgrading the modem is a viable option, it only has a 100mb Ethernet port on the router
 
The router is mounted to the wall outside, it is a dish and is lined up with the tower, the Cell IDs do match yes. I dont think upgrading the modem is a viable option, it only has a 100mb Ethernet port on the router
My feeling is that something is wrong if you have a dish pointed directly at a tower, with essentially no obstruction, and see bad SINR.

Having said this, it's unlikely to be the root cause if you previously had good performance and recently have seen a drop.

Does this bad performance remain in the early morning (e.g. 7am) or late evening (e.g. 2359)? The best test is probably at some unsociable hour of about 4am and this tests whether congestion explains the current poor performance (e.g. perhaps a nearby mast is under maintenance and many people are sharing your mast who previously were not).
 
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