5G Broadband dropouts

[MacDavidson]

Hi folks,

So I got Three’s 5G broadband and get great speeds, with great coverage around the house. But at various times each day (for no apparent reason), it just disappears from being available as a wifi device for around 10 minutes, or until reset. The Mac connected by CAT7 cable is unaffected, and all lights remain as they should.

I’ve positioned the router in various places, tried changing the APN from 3internet to three.co.uk, and reset several times. 

Am I doing something wrong? Should I have 2.4 and 5 GHz on at the same time? 2.4 GHz is slower, but I need that for the smart gadgets in the house, but speed is what it’s all about…

Thanks in advance for your time

[parkodrive]

Update on my own issues with the ZTE MC801A:

Last night I spent another 75 minutes on the phone with Three after I never recieed the callback from the complaints teamI was promised the previous day. Initially the tech team tried to get me to run through the troubleshooting (yet again) and after I repeatedly insited there is no known fix as we all know and even Three had admitted (begrudgingly) I was put through to complaints to try and get a replacement Zyxel for the ZTE.

They insisted they are unable to do such a thing due to system limitations and offered to cancel my contract penalty free. I've taken them up on this and gone in store an hour ago to get my hands on a new rolling contract with the Zyxel router. I will post back in a couple days with my experience and if it does indeed resolve the myriad of issues we've all faced on the ZTE units.

[ashleyj]

This is how I resolved my issue with Three. Complain, go through their processes to try and fix the issues. Accept a ZTE replacement, call back to explain the same thing is happening (actually my replacement ZTE was even worse, probably someone elses return), go through their processes again and then accept a cancellation of your contract without a fee. Several seconds later, I went online and ordered the Zyxel, which came next day. Oh, and 3 months free. 

[Mckowski]

Yeah,  I just upgraded from Three's 4g to 5G ZTE model a couple of weeks back. Hit pretty much the same issues. Drops out during the day, so my wife is telling me and on two occasions getting home from work, the signal is down altogether.  No LEDs are on and I have to unplug/re-plug the power lead to get it back. I had no probs with the Huawei 4G model. Only difference is that I haven't bought additional antenna's like I did for the Huawei as the signal strength looks good. Maybe I'll get them anyway from amazon, not sure if its the drop in signal from the antenna mast that would be causing all leds (including power) to go out ?

[CeAr]

Been having this exact issue for a month, just bothered finally googling it. Now I know I've been gaslit by Three customer service. 

I'll ask for a new router. If they refuse, would anyone be interested in a joint complaint to the Ombudsman? If they offer faulty devices and refuse to acknowledge the circumstance, well, I predict quite the fine.

[HairyBald1]

I've been tolerating this problem on the zte router since last year but now it appears the 2.4ghz isn't working either with all my smart home devices (from multiple manufacturers) unable to reconnect. When the 5 and 2.4ghz are split into 2 SSID's the 2.4ghz only briefly appears as a  WIFi option on my phone then either won't connect or disappears.

[WCAT-15]

I've had 5G broadband since April. (5 months). Started with ZTE router but lots of dropouts so I bought a Zyxel router as advised by members of this forum. That was an improvement, but still get dropouts. In fact my Internet Connection Log shows 154 dropouts in 5 months, with total dropout time of over 24 hours. Most dropouts are only a minute or so (before it all comes back online OK). Most dropouts are not even noticed by us.  However, some nights we get a mid-evening 10 minute dropout in the middle of watching streaming movie or something, which starts to push me toward going back to reliable fibre (at double the price........).  I wish THREE would improve the reliability of the broadband.

[stevekn]

Its a well known problem that Three and ZTE are ignoring.

[WCAT-15]

Update: 7 months now, Zyxel Router. 278 dropouts so far, some just for a few seconds; rarely longer than 5 minutes. I touch nothing, and it just comes back when ready. If I stood on our roof I could probably see the local mast on a hill about half a mile away. 

If we assume that most THREE 5G customers do not have these problems, it should be possible for engineers to identify the cause of this annoyance.

[WCAT-15]

Not just ZTE, I get lots of brief dropouts with Zyxel router (but not as many as with ZTE)

[acelove]

Same. Was was fine in Feb, perfect even, 600-700mpbs. March, after the cooling off period, constantly dropping out, speeds gone to 95-300 on a great day, websites just hang, plagued with DNS issues. All of a sudden they're saying there is a mast issue, my apartment is directly facing the mast. Got told to keep checking the website for updates - It's now OCTOBER and not a single update at all. 

Three Technically say there is work ongoing, first they told me too many people were using the mast, then tried to tell me it wasn't congested??!? But they're still happily selling Home Broadband when you put in your postcode! 

I was told it would be escalated, never got a call back. They tried to give me £5 credit, was very insulting. Then offering disconnection for free. Fine, but it's not a resolution, I cancelled my ISP, at cost to me as we could only ever have broadband via the Property Management. It just leaves us in limbo. 

It was absolutely fantastic the first month, but its getting progressively worse DAILY. 

I have the ZTE, changed to three.co.uk yesterday, as my phone doesn't have drop outs when connected to 5G mast, unlike when its connected to the router. Usually get DNS errors, tried to manually change them but doesn't seem to do anything even with Google and Cloudflare as primary and secondary.

I usually notices issues when using my phone, it gets DNS issues, I drop the WIFI and it connects fine and pages load rapidly. I'll be testing the three.co.uk APN this week to see if its better. Although still getting ping spikes every now and then

Three have been useless, they don't listen, they lie, they're not properly trained. I come from telecoms, I know my stuff and I feel like I'm going red in the face explaining DNS issues. 

The router hasnt been updated since March, oddly when the issues started. Not a single update has been made to at least try and fix the issues, no one from Three has contacted me back. I'm due a calll next Thursday, we'll see and i'll report back. 

Don't let them mess with the router settings, twice now they've logged in and made it even worse. It's just beyond frustrating because it's like they don't care, all they care about is cramming the network up way beyond capacity at the expense of everyone else who wants to stay and pay for a decent (when working) connection.