rwmorris
Casual Member
Hi all.
I originally posted about the conundrum I had here, last year.
I really appreciated the advice I received, got some really helpful messages. So I'm back again, humbly, to ask for a little more advice.
My parents took out the no contract Three home 4G broadband service. It was amazing, for the first year. They consistently got 140mbps, faster than their old Virgin Media package, they could stream UHD. They decided at that point to sign a two year contract last June as Three had on a ridiculous offer at like £18p/m for two years. Everything was fine.
They very occasionally had drop outs but really, it was nothing too major.
About six weeks ago, it all went to pot. They can barely do anything on it. I've driven to see them to investigate this, and they can literally sometimes get 560kbps as a download and uploads are non-existent. The thing is, this is totally random, sometimes it can be fine, but often it's just a snail's pace now.
Cue a back and forth between me and Three on live chat, to be told that I should just "put it onto 3G because the 4G network is really congested". Well, frankly, there's a part of me that thinks if you're paying for 4G, you should get 4G speeds. It does ease it a bit, but they're still limited to around 8-9mbps. It isn't consistent, either.
I notice that the Three website, when you type in their postcode, now has any Home Broadband product as "we're coming to your area very soon", and the coverage map for 4G has gone from a dark pink to a light pink, implying only good coverage outdoors. At either end of their street it's dark pink, but something seems to have been knocked out in their area and the mast clearly isn't behaving properly. 5G is at the end of their road, but again, they can't sign up to that.
I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and what they'd recommend. I know they are supposed to be rolling out 5G, so is it worth sticking with it for the time being, and hoping the congestion eases? Or is it worth ringing them up and harassing until they agree to release my parents from the contract?
I see VOXI has an insanely good sale on at the moment, £20 for 150GB and unlimited video streaming from lots of providers, this would easily cover their allowances (they're heavy iPlayer users, but the unlimited streaming on Netflix would balance this out), and it appears as long as you get the APN settings right in the router, Vodafone don't seem to care about their VOXI SIMs being used in this way. I know their coverage is good there, as they're both on VOXI as it is. Vodafone's signal checker for their area suggests a minimum of 7mbps, up to 50mbps. Even the minimum would be welcome following recent developments.
I'm also told that Three 4G routers are unlocked (they have a B535), so I assume there's no issue with this idea, if we can get Three to release them from the contract.
Any advice gratefully received, once again. Thanks in advance.
I originally posted about the conundrum I had here, last year.
I really appreciated the advice I received, got some really helpful messages. So I'm back again, humbly, to ask for a little more advice.
My parents took out the no contract Three home 4G broadband service. It was amazing, for the first year. They consistently got 140mbps, faster than their old Virgin Media package, they could stream UHD. They decided at that point to sign a two year contract last June as Three had on a ridiculous offer at like £18p/m for two years. Everything was fine.
They very occasionally had drop outs but really, it was nothing too major.
About six weeks ago, it all went to pot. They can barely do anything on it. I've driven to see them to investigate this, and they can literally sometimes get 560kbps as a download and uploads are non-existent. The thing is, this is totally random, sometimes it can be fine, but often it's just a snail's pace now.
Cue a back and forth between me and Three on live chat, to be told that I should just "put it onto 3G because the 4G network is really congested". Well, frankly, there's a part of me that thinks if you're paying for 4G, you should get 4G speeds. It does ease it a bit, but they're still limited to around 8-9mbps. It isn't consistent, either.
I notice that the Three website, when you type in their postcode, now has any Home Broadband product as "we're coming to your area very soon", and the coverage map for 4G has gone from a dark pink to a light pink, implying only good coverage outdoors. At either end of their street it's dark pink, but something seems to have been knocked out in their area and the mast clearly isn't behaving properly. 5G is at the end of their road, but again, they can't sign up to that.
I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and what they'd recommend. I know they are supposed to be rolling out 5G, so is it worth sticking with it for the time being, and hoping the congestion eases? Or is it worth ringing them up and harassing until they agree to release my parents from the contract?
I see VOXI has an insanely good sale on at the moment, £20 for 150GB and unlimited video streaming from lots of providers, this would easily cover their allowances (they're heavy iPlayer users, but the unlimited streaming on Netflix would balance this out), and it appears as long as you get the APN settings right in the router, Vodafone don't seem to care about their VOXI SIMs being used in this way. I know their coverage is good there, as they're both on VOXI as it is. Vodafone's signal checker for their area suggests a minimum of 7mbps, up to 50mbps. Even the minimum would be welcome following recent developments.
I'm also told that Three 4G routers are unlocked (they have a B535), so I assume there's no issue with this idea, if we can get Three to release them from the contract.
Any advice gratefully received, once again. Thanks in advance.