ZTE MC888a - variable performance

MC888aUser — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 14:49:24 GMT

I am transferring from TalkTalk using a DrayTek router to Three using a ZTE MC888a router. I received the MC888a router 2 weeks ago. Most of the time the Three performance is very good with download speeds better than 50Mbps. The MC888a position detection is normally "Perfect" but occasionally falls to "Good". Streaming to my TV is normally perfect but on one evening the picture froze with the TV is constantly buffering. When I attempted to perform broadband speed tests my PC reported that the site was unreachable. My PC could access other web sites but they were very slow. After an hour or so the performance returned to normal. I suspected a Three network congestion problem.

I have noticed that the wi-fi performance of the MC888a router is inferior to my old DrayTek router. Performing wi-fi ping tests of 1000 pings to the DrayTek router give typical results of 1ms minimum, 95ms maximum & 3ms average. The slow pings are randomly distributed. Wi-fi ping tests of 1000 pings to the MC888a router give typical results of 1ms minimum, 452ms maximum & 12ms average. The slow pings typically occur in blocks of 4.

Ping tests during the day to BBC's web site (bbc.co.uk) show similar performance differences. TalkTalk using the Draytek router gives typical ping results of 5ms minimum, 106ms maximum & 8ms average whereas Three using the MC888a router gives typical results of 17ms minimum, 477ms maximum & 45ms average.

Are these results normal? Was the TV streaming problem likely due to a problem with the MC888a router or congestion within the Three network? How can I diagnose the problem more accurately if the TV streaming problem recurs?

topic ZTE MC888a - variable performance in Broadband

ZTE MC888a - variable performance