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

[CiaranC93]

I would consistently get a decent 20-30mbs no matter what time of the day and then off peak times it'd be up in the the 60s and 70s.
Not sure if its related to 5G but it seems to coincide with the rollout of it. I'm only a few km for 3 masts and my external antenna has a direct view of it

[LauraH]

@Kev0 Hi there 👋 Will you also send me a PM with your details and the answers to the questions mentioned further up the thread? That way I'll be able to check your account and the mast that you're connecting to too 👌

[Kev0]

Just an update for anyone else having these issues. Three are happy with speeds of 2 or 3 mbps. They think this is sufficient. Here is the text I got from the 'admin' team.

From Three: We have reviewed your case and found that you're receiving an acceptable service as per the specifications.

After weeks of private messaging Laura on this community and also speaking to a nice man on the phone (can't remember his name). He said he would forward my case to the I.T/admin team. I never spoke to anyone from this team. I just received that text.

Just though I would share that update for anyone else that is going to bother to see if they can have the problem resolved. It would appear that three are happy to listen to your problem for weeks and have you jump through hoops for them, but, if you do they will still do nothing to resolve it. Guess I better get used to these awesome 2-3 mbps (used to be 100+ all the time).

Thanks three 👍

[gijoe50000]

Yea, same situation here. I was told to order a new sim, and switch it out, but of course it made no difference.

I always get between 40-70Mbps after midnight when everybody goes to bed,

10-20Mbps during the day,

5-10Mbps after 6:00PM

and 1-2Mbps from 7-midnight. 

From 9:30-11:00PM is generally the worst, probably mammys and daddys watching Netflix whilst the kids are in bed on YouTube or something. It can drop to 100-300Kbps then. Or just flat-out zero.

It's like clockwork.

3 Usually go through the usual rigmarole of checking a bunch of stuff, even when it's clearly a congestion issue most of the time.

I can't see them putting too much effort into the 4G infrastructure now though, with 5G just around the corner, but hopefully as people move to 5G over the next few months, the 4G network will clear up a bit.

[Kev0]

In my situation it's not even a congestion issue. I live in a very rural area with no new housing within miles, etc. It's only happening in the last month and hadn't happened for years. Something has been changed in the last month and three either don't know what or don't want to admit what it is. Changing sims, I mean, come on.... 🙄

[gijoe50000]

Yea, I did think that changing the SIM was a bit of a stretch alright, at least in my case anyway.

It might be worth giving this thread a read: https://community.three.ie/t5/Broadband/4G-signal-from-Arranmore-mast/td-p/767279

.. the guy HyperViz0r98  was having issues with some upgrade they did to the masts in his area, and eventually got it sorted. He seems to know what he's talking about in regards to signal strengths, etc, and it might even be worth sending him a PM if your issue sounds similar.

It sounds like he enjoys tracking down these kinds of problems.