4G Broadband Unusable

[CiaranC93]

I'm having major drops in my broadband this past week. Normally I get an average of 30mbs throughout the day. But since last week I can only get this in the mornings and in the evening I can only get about 1.5mbs. My upload is always good at around 20 to 30mbs.

I've got an external antenna because without it I could never get over 2mbs. During lockdown I was getting consistent 50 to 60mbs and I'm assuming lots of people would have been using bandwidth back then so why are my speeds way down to 1mbs now? Anyone having similar issues? I have a B525 router

[gijoe50000]

Yea, 1.5Mbps seems to be the norm on the evenings and weekends.

After midnight it generally jumps to 20-40Mbps when people go to bed.

During the day it's somewhere in between, maybe 5-15Mbps. When people are at work and sneaking in a quick visit to YouTube while the boss isn't looking.

It would be great if 3 throttled the speeds to make it fair for everybody, but it probably wouldn't make much difference as the network just seems to be, flat-out, too congested.

[LauraH]

@CiaranC93 @gijoe50000 Good morning 👋 I'd like to look into this for you both. During peak times the number of data users connected does increase and this can lead to speeds dipping. As you've mentioned that you've noticed changes recently I'd like to do some troubleshooting and check out the masts in your areas. Can you let me know your general area, not just the county, so I can see if there have been any other reports lately? Also, have you both had a look at All about: Broadband Coverage ? There are some great tips in there, let me know 👍

[CiaranC93]

Hi, the area I'm in is drumleek South in co. Monaghan. Up until about 2 weeks ago I would have atleast 20mbs at peak times, it would never have went any lower. I checked the speed yesterday morning at 6am and got a speed of 73mbs. Checked when I got home from work at 4pm and it was 10-15mbs and then check again around 9pm and I couldn't get any more than 1.6mbs.

[LauraH]

@CiaranC93 Thanks for getting back to me 👍 I've checked and the 3 masts serving that area are all up and running, there are no alarms being reported there. Tell me, have you gone through the steps in All about: Broadband Coverage ? Resetting your modem or changing to 3G Only for example? How did that go?

[gijoe50000]

Thanks.

I'm in Clonakilty, a mile or two outside the town to the South East, and I think I within range of 2 masts, maybe 3. One in the town, and one in Inchydoney if I remember correctly.

I do seem to get random dropouts as well but only for a few seconds, or maybe up to a minute or two, if that's any help.

I don't move my modem, and I usually have 4-5 bars on it, and the speeds do definitely increase a lot after midnight.

[CiaranC93]

Yeah I tried resetting it and holding in the reset button for 30 seconds. Tried changing to 3g only, made no difference. Tried manually selecting 3 ireland as the operator, made no difference. I was using the live chat and went through a lot of trouble shooting but still no improvement. I just don't understand how a couple of weeks ago the speed was consistently very good with absolutely zero issues and now i can't stream any shows in good quality if my GF is on her phone. Would the recent rollout of 5G be affecting this in any way?

[LauraH]

@CiaranC93 @gijoe50000 Thank you both for getting back to me. If you haven't already, can you answer the below questions for me? Pop me a PM with the answers, your numbers, full names, addresses and dates of birth. That way I'll be able to check the exact masts you're both connecting to and we'll go from there 👍

• Are your friends and neighbours experiencing this too? 

• When did you start noticing this? 
• How many bars of coverage do you see, and what letter is beside them? ie, 3G, 3G+, H, H+, 4G or 4G+ 
• Is your broadband connection worse at particular times of day or week? 
• What type of router are you using and how old is your SIM card? 
• Can you do random speed tests at different times of the day? We recommend Ookla.

[billbond4]

You could alse be getting inference inside your house, do you have an ethernet cable and a laptop/Smart TV

You could try going to fast.com on those devices and see what speed your getting

[Kev0]

I am having identical issues. Since 5g rollout my connection drops to unusable speeds in the evenings. I live right beside a 3 mast and get excellent speeds of up to 160 and sometimes drops to the lowest 50.

In the last couple of weeks it's dropping to 1 or 2. Goes back to a reasonable speed early in the morning or other variable times but there is a clear problem in then last couple of weeks.