Slow speeds unless using VPN

RPHarrison — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 01:26:07 GMT

This is more of a last resort post as I’ve been speaking to the Three tech team online on and off for weeks with no help.

Since 11/12/25 I’ve been experiencing incredibly low speeds. Approximately 30mbps vs 200-300mbps.

This was due to an issue with my local mast which has now been fixed 3 months later!

However, I noticed approx 3 weeks after the problem started that my speeds were much better when using a VPN, almost at the speeds I used to have before they noted an issue with the local mast. Three didn’t want anything to do with this or acknowledge the thought of throttling, making out I was either lying or the 5x increase in speed was down to it helping latency issues…

Moving in to current day, as of 16/03/26 the mast is fixed but my issue with only having fast speeds with a VPN remains. I now get 50mbps without a VPN and mid 300mbps with a VPN. They’ve said as the mast is no longer a problem they will “look into it” but also admitted they weren’t sure what the problem was or how they could fix it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Since the fixing of the mast I have only turned the hub off and on again, not reset it. Three said they’d changed some settings and to turn off and on again but that didn’t help.

Please see pictures attached

If any further info is needed please let me know

Re: Slow speeds unless using VPN

RPHarrison — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:08:03 GMT

Further data if it helps understand the problem.

390mbps when on VPN in London.

No VPN

40.3 down, 52.7 up - Cardiff Server (local server automatically connected to)

41.5 down, 49.7 up - Manchester Server

40.9 down, 57.7 up - London server

42.7 down, 51.5 up - Dublin server

all tests shot up to approx 70 then stopped and dropped back down to 40’s.

topic Slow speeds unless using VPN in Broadband

Slow speeds unless using VPN

Re: Slow speeds unless using VPN