4G Rural Broadband Woes!

[DrShakamoto]

I have had a Three 4G Broadband contract for over 6 months now and in that time I have probably been happy with the service for about 6-8 weeks.

I accept that I do live in a bit of a rural blackspot and as such have an externally mounted directional antenna atop a 6 foot pole on the top of my property (having read numerous guides as to where to mount the antenna in relation to the router etc)

The router is a Huawei B525-333 LTE+ which I purchased prior to taking the Three contract although I believe it is a similar specification to the one Three would have supplied anyway.

The issue I am having is wild inconsistency and stability of performance, which has been an issue for all but about 6-8 weeks of my experience with this package.

Following another re-orientatation of my antenna earlier on today, I was immediately wowed by a record 47.5mbps at 17:33pm which held pretty consistently for about an hour before it started to noticably drop, to the point that now I am at what is a fairly usual 2.49mbps by 20.33pm

I actually don't know what to do anymore in order to keep some sort of consistency of performance.

Family members down the road have the same contract but with a different router and antenna setup and they get a fairly consistent 20mbps which, while slower than what I have achieved at its best, holds more consistently for them.  Other properties in the area have switched to Starlink and are getting ludicrous speeds but at the obvious cost.

I'm not bothered about blistering speeds, just something in the 20mbps range which stays there would be absolutely fine for me, but these wild swings in performance are actually starting to grate on me now, which is why I've come here to see if anyone has any ideas or guidance they can offer me.

Any and all assistance is appreciated and thanks for your time! 

[ffxmadman]

I'm on the Sercomm LTE router and it barely get 10mbps. 🙂 Really no hope with this Three network

[Nick_A]

Its been 4 weeks since you posted so I don' know whether you will alerted to my post today.

The concerns you have expressed are exactly the reson why I joined this forum but have not signed up as yet (But have posted here under the title "Is there anyone with long-term experience of Three 4G home broadband? " )

Just like yourself, 20mbps would be a perfectly adequate speed for me - but your current 2-3mbps is even worse than my 9-12 mbpson copper wire! You have a lot more experience with Three than I do (I'm currently only a 'calls and texts' customer - but my experience with their customer service has been pretty awful nevertheless.) Anyway. lacking your broadband experience with Three specifically, I feel reluctant to make any suggestions, especially since the following seem so obvious that you must surely have already considered them ......    But here goes .... 

Since it's members of you actual family who are getting reasonable speeds - can you not borrow their router and test to see what results you get? (Although I realize the antenna extension may possibly be different/unsuitable.)

Also I am curious that you signed up for the service but presumably either were not given, or do not use the provided router . Maybe yours is a different deal they offered six months ago  which is no longer available?

Your unfortunate experience is exactly what I dread ...... signing up for two long years but only getting a decent service for the first few weeks of the trial period!  I hope to hear from you.

[ro55cco]

I too struggle with inconsistent speeds with the 4G network.  I have a similar setup to you, a poynting omni directional antenna outside the house connected to an MF286D router (Three supplied), mast is 1 mile away and direct line of sight to the antenna.  I have monitored our speeds multiple times daily and can say 100% that the cloud cover and rain have a huge effect.  On a sunny day we get 40-50 Mbps, cloudy day 15-20 Mbps, and with heavy rain sometimes as bad as 1-2 Mbps.