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Three mast - 3G but no 4G

timf

Regular Member
I have a Huawei B535-232 4G router with a Smarty SIM. These were working well but some time earlier this month (January 22) the router was unable to provide internet connectivity at my location (GU15 1LG). Internet connectivity was fine when I went on holiday and when I visited a friend’s home; ie: when using different masts. Smarty has replaced the SIM. I had the same issue when I changed the router.
It would appear that the local mast is not working correctly. Further investigation shows that the local Three mast is able to provide 3G, but not 4G connectivity. Smarty says the problem has been reported (I assume to Three). The Three website reports no issues locally,
Any ideas on how to progress this issue?
 
My nearest Three mast is 3G only, its never had 4G so I link to the nearest 4G mast 8km away, so Three do have 3G only masts. So has your nearest mast ever transmitted 4G, if not then has the nearest 4G been upgraded recently. My 4G mast has been upgraded and I lost Band 3 and have to rely on band 20 and band 32, not really an upgrade.
 
Back in December 4G all was working well - until Christmas

The router now reports it's connected to cell-id 12841728
MCC / MNC / Region 234 / 20 / 1654 Bands 1, 3
Cell 0 Cell Identifier 12841728 System Subtype LTE
I think this has come online since Christmas
 
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A few questions... (And reasons why I'm asking)

How do you know that's the cell ID if you cannot connect to the 4G?

Have you always been connected to that cell ID, or could you have been connected to a different one before?
(Based on the eNB ID I believe the site is newly built unilateral 5G enabled site, perhaps turned on in Nov/Dec 2021)

Have you tried the smarty SIM in a modern phone to see what it connects to?
(It's believed that Smarty/Three restrict access to new unilateral sites to only devices that are VoLTE enabled. Smarty have another list of devices that allegedly are the ones able to connect to 5G (though non-listed devices might also work). While I know you won't get 5G with your B535 when they launched 5G publicly (18th Jan) they may have enforced on top of the VoLTE/unilateral restriction, which is now excluding the B535)

How do you know that the site connects to 3G but not 4G?
(The 3G could be coming from a different site. While if you're close enough to the new unilateral site that that one dominates in all frequencies but if you're device is being denied connectivity I would think it should fall back to another nearby 4G site, perhaps this is the issue with the site that they're looking to resolve)
 
My nearest Three mast is 3G only, its never had 4G so I link to the nearest 4G mast 8km away, so Three do have 3G only masts.
This I can say is definitely true, there's a village in Bedfordshire that sees great 4G coverage by EE, acceptable 4G coverage by O2/Vodafone and 3G only coverage by Three so Three certainly has 3G only masts which I would hope with the impending shutdown of 3G that those 3G only masts are upgraded to provide 4G and/or 5G coverage by Three.
 
Three won't be shutting down their 3G for much longer than the other providers - they have no 2G for legacy devices to fall back to.

I'm lead to believe that in 2020 about a quarter of their sites were 3G only - you'd hope some of those have been upgraded by now, however I think the percentage will have dropped more due to new unilateral sites being built
 
My 4G mast has been upgraded and I lost Band 3 and have to rely on band 20 and band 32, not really an upgrade.

That seems to be carrier policy on Three these days for some reason! I noticed that myself which makes routers connect to B20 as primary and sometimes use B3 as SA, but this leaves the connection very slow. I have to manually lock out Band 20 and it connects on Band 3 with good upload and download speeds.

On the Huawei B535 you can do this by using the huaCTRL app and under set band, tick them all bar B20-800MHz.
 
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Back in December 4G all was working well - until Christmas

The router now reports it's connected to cell-id 12841728
MCC / MNC / Region 234 / 20 / 1654 Bands 1, 3
Cell 0 Cell Identifier 12841728 System Subtype LTE
I think this has come online since Christmas

That cell ID is 4G (B3) on this mast :


Note the exact location is not known for this mast yet, but should be in the general area.
 
Three won't be shutting down their 3G for much longer than the other providers - they have no 2G for legacy devices to fall back to.

I'm lead to believe that in 2020 about a quarter of their sites were 3G only - you'd hope some of those have been upgraded by now, however I think the percentage will have dropped more due to new unilateral sites being built
What i have noticed in my area, is that the more rural out of town masts have only had band 20 4G slapped onto them within the last few years, which is only an improvment for coverage and not data speeds.
 
Thanks, everyone, for your advice and help.
The issue that I am having, is that the router(s) connects OK to 4G but does not pass internet data; so my devices (Win 10, iPad etc) report 'no internet'. This problem seems to be on just this eNB ID.
In the 4G situation, the router user interface shows zero data rate from mast to the router. When I changed to 3G only, the UI shows normal data flow and devices can use the internet.

The UI example below is 3G on Three with the Smarty SIM - all OK.
1643704396847.jpeg

The UI example below is 4G on Three - note: no traffic from 3 network to router
Screenshot 4g.jpg


When connected, the router knows the cell-id (12841728). This issue started between 24/12/21 and 16/01/22 (supported by Ookla data) so consistent with Gavin's thoughts about a new 5G site. This location is near to the England Rugby team training site.

Smarty/Three are not handling the fault well IMHO.
 
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That seems to be carrier policy on Three these days for some reason! I noticed that myself which makes routers connect to B20 as primary and sometimes use B3 as SA, but this leaves the connection very slow. I have to manually lock out Band 20 and it connects on Band 3 with good upload and download speeds.
In my case its distance that is the issue, Band 3 is transmitting but at a lower strength, so even with a directional antenna and forcing Band 3 only its just too weak, what was 5 bars is now 3 bars. So I have Band 20 as the primary band and bands 1 and 32 as the secondary, it works as I get band 32 coming online every time I start a download but nowhere near as good as when just after the upgrade I still had band 3 and 32 as 4G+.
 
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Band 3 is transmitting but at a lower strength, so even with a directional antenna and forcing Band 3 only its just too weak, what was 5 bars is now 3 bars.

It's not that the transmission is lower, it is that Band 3, which is approx 1800MHz, just doesn't travel well (especially in built up areas) and you basically need "line of sight". Even a well placed tree in leaf can make the signal unusable, especially when it is wet!! Whereas Band 20 is about 800MHz and travels much further, but it can pass through things like trees, homes etc a lot better than Band 3 or higher can.

But I have found that even when I drive towards the mast (I do signal collection for CellMapper), and carrier policy seems to prefer Band 20 over Band 3, even up close to the mast. Not sure why this is, as Band 3 is faster, lower latency (ping rate) and more stable connection.
 
The issue that I am having, is that the router(s) connects OK to 4G but does not pass internet data; so my devices (Win 10, iPad etc) report 'no internet'.

Have you done basic tests?

Test if the DNS is working : nslookup three.co.uk
Trace Route : tracert 104.69.6.76

Maybe try changing your APN, to 3internet see if your get a public IP address ?
 
It's not that the transmission is lower, it is that Band 3, which is approx 1800MHz, just doesn't travel well (especially in built up areas) and you basically need "line of sight"
The house has not moved, it is still 8km away, I still have clear line of site with no trees, but 5 bars have become 3 on band 3 and it happened 2 weeks after the upgrade overnight, changing to a B818 has made no difference. It can only be transmission strength.
 
Have you done basic tests?

Test if the DNS is working : nslookup three.co.uk
Trace Route : tracert 104.69.6.76

Maybe try changing your APN, to 3internet see if your get a public IP address ?
PING 104.69.6.76 : 64 data bytes (from the router)
Request timed out
Request timed out
Request timed out
Request timed out
--- 104.69.6.76 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss,
round-trip min/avg/max : 0 / 0 / 0 Ms

There is no internet - no tracert, no DNS, ...
I have changed the APN and it makes no difference.
But if I take the router/sim a few miles to a friends house (therefore another Three mast) and it works fine.

Thanks for the help
 
That seems to be carrier policy on Three these days for some reason! I noticed that myself which makes routers connect to B20 as primary and sometimes use B3 as SA, but this leaves the connection very slow. I have to manually lock out Band 20 and it connects on Band 3 with good upload and download speeds.

On the Huawei B535 you can do this by using the huaCTRL app and under set band, tick them all bar B20-800MHz.
I tried dropping B20 - no joy.....
 
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I just checked again.. still no internet via Smarty/Three

I note that the cell-id is 12841799 today -- yesterday it was cell-id 12841728
These are on the same mast eNB-id 50163 according to cellmapper.net
I suspect eNB-id 501563 is on the same water tower as eNB-id 1657 [edit - it's not - it's in a nearby location]
Smarty/Three fault # CRQ3 00000276250
 
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I managed to report the issue to Three today. It was tough reporting to Three without a Three account or Three phone number - but they listened to my problem. Now we wait until the problem is resolved...

The information on www.cellmapper.net is good.. The cell labelled eNB-id 50163 is the one in question. The location is marked has the best signal strength -75 dBm - but I suspect it is on the Black Hill water tower a few hundred metres to the east.
Sometimes it's on band 1, othertimes it's band 3. Did I see a band 20?

I wonder if the eNB-id in the 5xxxx range is Three's indication this is a 5G cell?
 
eNB 5xxxx's are generally Three's mono-Poles-Of-Wonder (5G enabled unilateral sites) and not tower/rooftop sites.
I have not seen a monopole (of wonder) anywhere near this site, nor have I seen a planning application for such. There was a PA for upgrade of the water tower site a few hundred metres to the east.
 
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