topic Stuck on Band 20 with DL speed between 10-15 Mbits in Network

Stuck on Band 20 with DL speed between 10-15 Mbits

macgoetz — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 15:22:30 GMT

Joined Three in Oct 2020 for reliable 4G internet in our rural area (********). At the time, I was getting around 47 Mbit/s — a huge improvement over BT’s 1.5 Mbit/s via phone line.

However, over the years, download speeds have gradually dropped. I’m now consistently seeing only 10–15 Mbit/s. I initially suspected an issue with my TP-Link TL-MR6400 router, but after thorough testing, it seems the real limitation is due to the connection being locked to Band 20.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to force a switch to Band 1 or Band 3 for better speeds.

Can Three confirm whether the mast serving ******** only supports Band 20?
Or is there anything else I can try to improve my download performance?

P.S. I’ve also installed an external antenna, which made only a marginal difference.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Stuck on Band 20 with DL speed between 10-15 Mbits

PeteG — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 15:29:30 GMT

Hello.

Welcome to Three Community.

The area has 1 main site serving it. It supports all of those bands. Depending on where you are there, you might not get band 1. The system shows that the postcode you gave is right on the outer edge of it's reach. Band 3 should reach you, and as you already know, band 20 reaches you.

I'm unsure why your router is locking to a single band, there could be a setting or something configured that's having that effect. You could try a factory reset of the router if it's not too much trouble, this might allow it to use the other bands again.

It might also be worth trying the hub without the external antennae as I've seen a couple of examples in the past where they don't help as expected. Hopefully it's not too tricky to test it with and without it.

Pete.