topic Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work in Network

4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

Heisenberg912 — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 10:58:29 GMT

As the title says really. I find very often my phone shows as connected to 4G but when you try to use anything on the Internet (browsers, apps, speed tests etc) they just don't work.

I first noticed this at my work where coverage seems to come in and out. But just recently I went on holiday to north Wales and the issue was ubiquitous, I just found the coverage to be extremely unreliable. I've also been travelling around the lake district in the last week (around where I live) as I've been off work and again the same issue. Much more often than not my phone says it has 4G but you try it and it doesn't work.

This is very frustrating as I'm paying for mobile data but like I say most of the time it doesn't work.

When I first noticed the issue at work I ordered a new SIM card to rule that out. And I've done all sorts of reboots, aeroplane mode off and on, delete settings etc.

But like I say this is all over the country. I also have to travel around the Northwest a bit for work and i checked it a lot when driving from the lake district to Wales, similar story. Indeed in my home town it will cut in and out as I move through town. One street it works fine, a few streets over nothing.

Why does my phone say it has 4G when it doesn't? Is there anything I can do? I just want reliable 4G. I've been with Three for a long time now but the coverage seems to be much worse for me than it has ever been. Ironically the only place I find it works always is at home, where I don't need it thanks to WiFi....

Can anyone help?!

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

PeteG — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 18:38:53 GMT

Hello there.

Data issues can be super frustrating. It seems like you've also tried a good few things to try and work round the problem.

When issues are as wide spread as you've described, I'd normally be checking out the SIM and the Phone. Since you've tried the replacement SIM already, the phone would be the next thing on the list. If you have another phone, or can borrow a phone for a short while to test, you can see if the issues subside when using the other device.

Pete.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

Heisenberg912 — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 14:50:22 GMT

Pete, thanks for the reply.

As it happens my wife also uses Three and a work colleague too. So I have other viewpoints to compare to.

Usually, but not always, when I have the issue my wife and work colleague will also suffer with it. But this is not always the case. Interestingly my coverage at work until the last few weeks has been extremely poor, but has improved so has gone from working maybe 1 in 5 occasions to 4 in 5. But over the same period I've noticed other coverage being very poor.

But what I fundamentally don't understand is how/why our phones report they have coverage and show the symbols, but it just doesn't actually work in practice. Is that not fraudulent? It's all well and good claiming you have 99% UK population coverage (whatever that means) but in reality I am finding more and more of the places I visit that coverage does not work or is intermittent and so unreliable.

Ultimately, how can I progress this? How can I get an accurate view of when I will/won't have 4G and if the coverage falls well short of what I believe it should what are my consumer rights if you can not fix the issue?

Thanks

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

JonathanB — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 13:47:12 GMT

Hi @Heisenberg912,

I can appreciate it's really frustrating to see you've got a strong signal, but are experiencing slow speeds, or experiencing time outs on browsers or other apps.

The signal strength does play a part in data speeds, but it's not the only factor. This could be indicative of congestion, where a high number of users, or large amount of requests to the network are impacting the speed of connections, regardless of the strength of the actual coverage.

We can only discuss the situation in a general sense on the Community as this is a public forum, and we aren't able to examine your individual account from here, but I'd suggest getting in touch with customer services. They can run checks against your connection and specific areas where you've been impacted, and help check into your options if you feel the quality of service provided hasn't been adequate.

Just one more potential thing to try. You've mentioned a little about deleting settings, so apologies if you've already covered this, but it's worth deleting cached data for your apps and browser, and potentially resetting your Network settings in case temporary Internet data is slowing your connection down too.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

Heisenberg912 — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 07:45:54 GMT

Thanks Jonathan

I'll get in touch with customer services and see what they can recommend/do.

Thanks

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

SLC1021 — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 11:12:49 GMT

I am also having this issue. Data completely cuts out when I leave the house, but only happens in the last 5-6 days of my billing cycle and the first 2 days of my new cycle. But I’ve never run out of data so cannot be that!

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

DavidBM — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 07:57:34 GMT

I have the same issue. 4G or 5G even with full signal often doesn't seem to work for any apps/ browsing etc. Thinking of swapping network as tried other providers sims and no issue. Had the shop check settings and apparently all ok but still not working. Been an issue now for the last few years, to the point that all my colleagues make a joke about 3's fake 4/5G network!

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

Lm15 — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 05:46:50 GMT

I am also having the same issue and I have travelled various areas of the country recently and it doesn't work. I am also not the only member of the family having problems. It's very frustrating as I originally transferred to 3 for the coverage they provided. Where I work it used to work so well I could use as a hotspot. Thee is no way this would work now. The data coverage is awful now.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

hussein — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 17:54:40 GMT

funny enough me and my wife have 3 contract and 4 G not working in my house but when we go outside our area working fine , i have been in the harrow in the hill shop and the guy said it should work when i give you new sim card which he did and when i come home again same story never work, i have to look for new provider

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

MichaelP — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 13:50:11 GMT

Hello @hussein,

That's a real shame to hear you're having some signal problems indoors.

We'd recommend trying to reset your network settings, as this can sometimes refresh your network and help to restore it.

I'm also going to PM you to request some more info on this.

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

Thanks,
Michael

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

AlexiaXufre — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 09:36:29 GMT

I have exactly the same issue. When we are out I have to use my fiances hot spot and he also has three same as me. He says he never has issues but I never have data out of the house and it’s very inconvenient if I’m alone.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

Joanitta — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 08:13:20 GMT

From few months we hardly have 5g on my street despite having a great signal before and antenna just round the corner 😡😡😡

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

REDNED — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 15:09:42 GMT

I have exactly the same problem with G4, and the issues are accelerating. I am now unable in some locations to even make telephone calls. If you try and use Three’s support service you enter some kind of purgatory that seems specifically designed to prepare one for a descent to hell. Looking more and more like I shall be forced to upgrade and go to G5.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

JadeF — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:45:11 GMT

Hey @REDNED

Welcome to the Three Community page.

How long have you had this issue? We did have an outage yesterday effecting some of our customers.

Please see below.

Following an issue affecting voice calls yesterday, services have almost returned to normal overnight. Our monitoring has picked up an issue with calls connected via WiFI which we are investigating urgently.

Today, we also expect to see an additional impact on our service due to Storm Éowyn in some areas. We have already deployed extra engineering resources and planning for these areas, so we can bring sites that are impacted back online as soon as it is safe to do so. A normal volume of 999 calls were connected yesterday and our monitoring confirms the service is working fully this morning.  

We continue to investigate the small number of reports that we received about 999 call failures. We apologise sincerely for the inconvenience caused by the issues on our voice network.

Thanks, Jade

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

REDNED — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:53:07 GMT

Hi Jade,

I have had this issue for some months. It has become progressively worse in that time. For example, I used to be able to access 4G services from anywhere inside my home, I can now no longer access 4G services from any location in my home. I am unable to use 4G in much of the BS15 area of Bristol and even parts of BS1. This is nothing to do with the storms and temporary outage you mention in your reply.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

JonathanB — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:23:24 GMT

Hi @REDNED,

Thanks for clarifying the situation, when we have a more generalised outage ongoing it makes it more difficult to investigate more specific issues, but that issue has now been resolved.

Have you been able to check our Network Status Checker to see if the problem areas coincide with any known issues we're working on? Have you been in touch with customer services about this issue, if so were they able to identify any faults, issues, or other advice?

When you say you can't access 4G, is there no signal showing at the time in areas where you had signal in the past, or do you mean that you're seeing a 4G signal but are unable to successfully make a call, or use your mobile data? ?Just to clarify, at home, and the general postcode areas you've mentioned there's issues, but you've been able to use your service from other locations as normal during this time?

If you can let me know a bit more in relation to the questions above, I'll do my best to direct you to some more help.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

Ormchancer — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 09:13:34 GMT

I won’t be using three again, the 4g/5g signal seems to bare no resemblance to the actual coverage, it’s awful everywhere, I travel a lot for work, it only works well when I’m abroad on other networks.

Whats the point of a mobile phone if it only works well when I’m at home!!!

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

PeteG — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 16:33:55 GMT

Hello.

It sounds like a frustrating issue to be having. I'm not sure what would be causing you to have issues everywhere you go, but it seems unlikely that it would be an issue related to the network side of things since everyone would be experiencing that same issue.

I'd recommend using the reset option in your phone to complete a reset of the network settings to see if that helps things. It might also be worth trying a different phone to test and see if that works any better.

Pete.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

ShaunV — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 21:56:14 GMT

I have this issue all the time with Three. If I have 5G things are fine. If its 4G… forget it. No internet. This seems to be the case across the country, at any time of day and night. It’s infuriating and I will not be renewing my Three contract.

Re: 4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

PeteG — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 08:37:50 GMT

Hello, Shaun.

That doesn't sound like a network issue, but perhaps a SIM or device issue. Our 4G coverage is present in all areas where our 5G is present, and 4G generally has the furthest range and ability to penetrate walls. In most cases this means you should be able to get connected on 4G.

Since you're having the issue on 4G in all locations across the country, all of the time, which would mean you're having issues in areas where other people are using 4G just fine, it just leaves the device and SIM as the possible cause for the issue.

You can try requesting a replacement SIM, or switch to eSIM, as that's the easiest thing to test. You can also try a different device if you have access to one, but if not, you might want to contact the manufacturer for advice.

Pete.