topic Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband? in Broadband

Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Nick_A — Tue, 23 May 2023 19:32:31 GMT

I was about to sign up for three home broadband until I came across the Trustpilot broadband reviews site.

It's alarming to see that just in the first 10-20 reviews alone .... the comments from most users include the words "Terrible" "Avoid" and "Rubbish". Some of these reviews were written just a few days ago. The overall user rating for the service is just a very sad 1.7 out of 5. I couldn't read more than about 15 or so of those on the first page because it was too depressing. And there are 80 or more further pages!

I am concerned that, just as some of the reviewers have experienced, that I will get through the 30 day trial period satisfactorily but then find, as some have done...... that after 5 weeks or so the service goes down the toilet. And then I'm stuck with paying off a two year contract for a bad service.

I don't think that is an unreasonable concern is it?

Is there any evidence of similarly large numbers of users who have positive rather than negative experiences?

I thank you in advance of any advice and information received.

Nick

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Geluk — Tue, 23 May 2023 20:36:00 GMT

I've used 3 then idMobile's 4G service for 4 years now; l live in a rural location and have been well impressed. I get around 25mbps d/load which was 12 times my ADSL!

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Avondale — Wed, 24 May 2023 18:38:02 GMT

I set my 86 year old father up with a Three 4G data SIM inside a Samsung Galaxy tablet. He does not have Broadband so that is his only access to the internet.

Both his tablet and my smartphone get really fast Three internet access in his home ; and my 'phone also gets really good speeds in my home. But three points for you to note please :-

1. I have never had the need to contact Customer Services with a problem, but comments on this forum suggest that they are sometimes difficult to achieve resolution with.

2. e-mails are occasionally received from Three advising of system maintenance and upgrades, but this work seems sometimes to go on for quite a few days. Hence, I wouldn't like to rely on Three as my only source of Broadband if access is critical (say working from home).

3. the coverage checker map needs to be your reference point as that will tell you what you can expect from Three and is effectively your benchmark if you ever need to complain.

I should say that my home Broadband is down at the moment, so I am writing this note on a laptop using my Three SIM in my 'phone as a hotspot. Three is brilliant when you are out and about or need an inexpensive SIM to access the internet as a backup.

Do you intend using Three at home, and if so, have you considered Three 5G Broadband ? If you have ruled it out, I would be interested to know why !

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Nick_A — Wed, 24 May 2023 21:11:26 GMT

Geluk

Thank you for your kind reply about my concerns with Three. I'd not heard about idMobile, so I have just looked them up - and they seem to offer some really good deals! I only wish they offered a router to insert their SIM into - i.e. so I could get broadband on my PC rather than my phone. (It makes me wonder if I can get hold of a router with a SIM slot, and whether that would even work?. Hmmm.) Anyway, thanks again.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Nick_A — Wed, 24 May 2023 22:52:35 GMT

Avondale

Thank you for your your time and kind response to my concerns about Three.

In answer to your questions about 5G etc........ I come from the time when it took the entire morning and ALL afternoon just to download a small 50Mb driver update file for my modem - that was of course on dial-up copper wire (in the prehistoric days before broadband). And even in more recent times - for the last 10+ years I've had no more than a max of 10-12 mbps ..... which is pathetic I know - but it's perfectly adequate for browsing, and downloading anything under 1gb. So the answer to your question is that 4G should, I am told, be up to six times that speed ... and that's a massive performance increase in itself. So goodness knows why I would need the speed of light offered by 5G. Mind you, I remember many years ago scornfully asking a friend why he had just bought the first ever '1 gigabyte hard drive' ..... when today of course I am the hypocrite running several multi-terabyte drives. (But anyway, 5G coverage is apparently a bit iffy here, and also it's more costly.)

I must admit I'm a little confused by your last paragraph... Here's the picture I get ...... what is wrong with it ?

You use home broadband by having a Three SIM inside a Three router. You remove the SIM and place it in your phone. You use the phone as the gateway - instead of the router. So what's the difference? You were using broadband via a signal from your router to the Three masts. You are now using the signal from your phone to the Three masts. But you say your "home broadband is down." How?

Unless you have a router with a copper or fibre connection and not an actual Three router, then I don't understand how your broadband can be down. (?) Or alternatively, perhaps you mean you have signal trouble with the HOME-based router-to-mast signals - but signals are OK when you are out elsewhere with a laptop and your mobile.

And if and when signals are OK on the phone... then ..... (other than not having the benefits of multiple person and multiple device access, and access to firewall configurations etc.) surely a router isn't actually a critical requirement?? - since presumably you can use the phone as the gateway/hotspot and connect to it via WiFi from a regular home-based PC ?

I bet that as soon as I press "Send" on this message I'll realize the simple answer and regret it.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

ffxmadman — Fri, 26 May 2023 19:48:57 GMT

I am using three 4G broadband and I can confirm, my speed is on average 10mbps 😐, it does goes off from time to time. I have no other choice as there is no option for fast home fibre network in my area

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Nick_A — Sat, 27 May 2023 21:31:05 GMT

ffxmadman

Thank you kindly for your reply.

Sorry to hear your predicament. That's terrible. Your speed of 10mbps on 4G is only about the same as mine on an ancient copper telephone wire! But at least I never have experienced any loss of service in 10 years or more. It's curious that when speaking directly to Three personnel in their retail outlet - they tell me I should get up to 70mbps if I switch to their 4G offer. So that probably means "more like 10 - 12mbps" then!

I think I'll go back and ask them what they have to say about the large amount of negative reviews online.

Thanks again.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Avondale — Sun, 28 May 2023 08:47:12 GMT

Nick

Please read my post again. I did not say that I have Three home Broadband. My Broadband is from another provider but my backup is the Three SIM in my 5G Samsung 'phone.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Avondale — Sun, 28 May 2023 08:55:20 GMT

Nick

Please bear in mind that if you purchase Three home Broadband, whether 4G or 5G, you have a thirty-day "cooling off" period, so if it doesn't work out for you, you can return the kit and not end up out of pocket. One of the moderators will probably elaborate on the T&Cs but it might be an avenue for you to consider.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

unhappy_paul — Mon, 29 May 2023 19:52:02 GMT

I live not far from a Three 5G mast (about 100 metres away). Service on 5G is terrible, very slow download speeds and frequent disconnects. Service on 4G/LTE is very good.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Nick_A — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 22:26:28 GMT

Paul

Thank you very much for you response - very kind of you. Sorry to hear of your 5G experiences. But since I'm only looking for 4G I'm naturally very curious to know exactly how you established the location of the mast..... Maybe you got that from customers services? That's unlikely I would have thought - bearing in mind the poor repuattion they seem to have. Does it have some identification on the mast itself maybe? I would have thought they would prefer to keep this kind of information secret for security purposes. Please let me know how you knew about yours ..... I'd love to find out how far I am from the nearset mast. Thanks again.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Avondale — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 08:22:13 GMT

I use Cellmapper but there are other similar websites. You'll find it easily via Google.

If you need more technical help or assistance in interpreting what Cellmapper tells you, please post on the forum of ISP Review. I know quite a bit about this sort of thing, but there are guys on there who have immense knowledge. That includes how to get more out of the kit that you already have.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Spud — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 14:41:42 GMT

We have had a 4G ZTE MF286D since May '22 and it has been excellent. Usually 100Mbps download, might drop to 40 at busy times. We trialed it for free six months before we were out of contract with Shell Broadband.

We are on the east edge of 3,000 population village and about 1Km from the mast, almost line of sight but for a few trees. I think most people connect to a nearer mast on the west side.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Nick_A — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 00:32:09 GMT

Thanks for your response Spud.

Wow! You are getting even more than than the Three retail outlet have quoted as the absolute maximum. (i.e. 70mbps)

I'm hoping the "ZTE MF286D" that you mentioned is the model of the router - if so, I will look up the specs. Thanks again.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Techlec — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 22:31:41 GMT

I have been using three's 4g/5g broadband for just over 4 year (living on a farm with a rubbish 6.5mb sky connection, and no chance for fibre or cable). At first I had the huawei AI cube and picked up around 70mb/30mb download and upload respectively. probably had the connection go down once a year for a day (for maintenance). The 4G probably peaked at around 120mb.

Just as i was going to upgrade i realised I had 5G in the area, from a mast 400m away (picked up on my iphone 12) it took a number of calls to convince Three of this and send me a 5G router (huawei CPE Pro) and I sit around 200mb/15mb download and upload respectively, again downtime was probably about 1 day a year. There was a period of about 3 months that I could not update the TV listings for my Plex/HDhomerun media system, but switching to 4G only and updating the guide worked until the issue was resolved.

I have upgraded again to the Zyxel NR5103E and now get (over the last week)... 840mb/40mb (this does fluctuate through the day as others utilise the mast, but i still hit above 200mb).

I am an IT lecturer and have spent this week in online conferences from 9-5 with minimal hiccups.
This is though subject to the quality you might have with your own connection (i have had relatives connect at only 5mb - but they did confirm that the signal was bad in their area.

good luck

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

roberto_puch — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 11:35:05 GMT

My experience was bad. They sell me broadband services. However the tower was busy and there was no enough bandwidth to have video calls. Since I work from home, this is a necessary tool for me. I contacted three and they told me that the towers were very busy. I asked them to cancel the service. They refuse to cancel. I was in the first months of a new contract. They say that because it was "working" they could only offer me half price. I accepted this because it was cheaper than the full price. I needed to have another broadband provider so I can work. Later they started to charge me full price. I call them and they told me that now the service was better, however, it was too late for me, I had another service already. So, I have to pay the full contract. Daylight robbery!! I have moved all my numbers to another provider.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

Spud — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:38:16 GMT

When it's good it's good ... and often excellent like this lunchtime - I measured on Google maps and we're actually 1.9Km from the mast so I can't expect much more from 4G. Currently connecting with a secondhand Three Sercomm 4G router from eBay that is doing Carrier Aggregation on upload which sometimes gives 30Mbps upload (MF286D hardware can do this but current Three firmware doesn't implement it as far as I am aware and gives 6-10Mbps upload, 15 at best where I am).

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

JosephK — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:24:16 GMT

Late response, hopefully of use to anyone finding this in future.

Technically worked for us, but we couldn't get 4G+, only 4G, which was too slow for us due to local geography, so we returned the device in the cooling off period.

That was 4 months ago and we're still being billed despite many attempts to get the account closed. A complaint was raised and accepted, but we still are being billed. I can't recommend this service. The internal process for customer support seems completely broken. I've wasted hours of time on this - feels like it could go on for ever.

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

JosephK — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 17:00:17 GMT

Thought I'd update this, just to "add colour"...

I've since made another complaint (no response on that) and had a nice chat session with someone who assured me my account would be cancelled, again.

In the 10 days since, I've had one SMS threatening me with an "impact" on my credit file, and another with the amount "owing" by me increased...

Re: Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband?

JonathanB — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 14:58:21 GMT

Hi @JosephK,

I'm really sorry to hear that you've still been receiving these messages after requesting to cancel the account. I'll send you a PM to get you in touch with some colleagues who will take ownership of your complaint and make sure this is sorted out.

To view your private messages on the community, click on your avatar image in the top right of any community page, then "Messages".

Thanks,
Jonathan