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

[WCAT-15]

Please do keep us updated. My Zyxel originally gave 400 to 500 Mbs, but over the months has dropped down to average 100 Mbs, with dropouts. It is hard to blame the equipment so my guess is the local 5G tower is getting overloaded.  So it will be interesting to hear your experience.

[jonesthesteam]

Well for me this all started with a saga with my original 5G router which was rectified when I finally negotiated getting a replacement Zyxel NR5103.

It seems firmware updates have been the nemesis of Three routers for quite some time and the result of those updates seem to be a bit of a lottery at times and I think that was the same for me also.

I probably need to get back in touch with Three as I have recently been experiencing regular drop outs and my speeds have dropped significantly.

From an all time high of 907Mbps to recently an unstable service and getting under 100Mbps. The only reason I haven't contacted Three is a combination of laziness and the fact that even 50Mbps is significantly faster than I was getting with my old fixed line broadband.

However I would say my blood ran cold when I heard about the planned merger between Three and Vodafone as if you've never had the misfortune of being a Vodafone customer... hold onto your hat and grab a bottle of strong stuff because their 99% of their customer service and technical support is absolutely appallingly.

I know people criticise Three customer service but I had so many issues with Vodafone 5G broadband and they were without doubt the worse company I have ever had to deal with so I personally am hoping Three are actually in charge come the merger.

I am also planning as a test to move my SIM into my spare Huawei CPE Pro 2 which in the past has improved my 5G performance greatly and rules out the Three hardware.

If that does fix things I will definitely be getting back onto Three to find out what's could be going on.

[WCAT-15]

PLEASE do keep us updated. This very useful to know.

[Aidy85]

Ive had 3 broadband for 2 weeks - Issue with NR5103EV2, suddenly dropping, all lights stay on but only happening for me once or twice per day - If the hub is left on it eventually corrects itself but the speed when the hub is back up on my phone goes max to around 100mbps until I restart my phone then the issue is resolved.  Other than that speed is great.

[WCAT-15]

In summary:
Many people have no problem with the ZTE MC801
Some change to the Zyxel NR5103 and say it is a big improvement over ZTE MC801
Latest Posts!!!   some change to ZTE MC888 and say it is the best.
But some have problems with ZTE MC888, change to Zyxel MR5103 and
     say this is better.

Conclusion.....   I can't see definitive pattern.   More user feedback needed.

[stevekn]

Is it just that both modems are dropping due to the 5G being over subscribed?

A restart (via the app) or turning 5G off and one via my browser immediately re-connects the signal.

It several minutes/hours left to its own re-set.

[Smudger114]

Hi WCAT-15

I am having the same problem here with the ZTE MC888 only a lot more frequent than most are reporting and speed tests show between 0mb to 7/8 mb at best. Reset does sort the issue but o ly for it to go down again sometimes within minutes.

I got mine around late February and was great up until last week now it's drops 2/3 per hour between 11am and 12pm

[DrGreenGiant]

Yesterday I got the ZTE MC888 (HWV1.0.0).  Firmware is B02.

The speed is very variable, I am running a test every 30mins with the occasional manual test.  Averaging around 225Mbps, peaking at well over 500 and dropping several times an hour to less than 10.  Last night between 3-5am it was consistently below 100, a persistent long term drop to about 30% of the average.

Latency/ping is averaging 50-60ms.  Upload also drops frequently.

I've had one moment where everything completely died but the ZTE appeared to show everything working fine.  A power reset fixed the issue.

Early days for me still but so far I am not impressed by the huge variability and seemingly unexplained dropouts. I'd be worried that the dropouts are caused by traffic, which would lead me to a capacity issue (guessing.)  Unless this settles and becomes more reliable then this isn't suitable for working at home (on video calls) or streaming because of the intermittent drops, hangs and latency.  Online multiplayer gaming I haven't dared try but I would guess it's a write-off.

Fyi, my router is in bridge mode, wifi is off.  Cat6 to a good router in gigabit ethernet mode.  Speed tests done on a wired gigabit connection to a server, so wifi is completely out of the loop. I am content the issue is the 5G network.  If I switch back to my VM modem (which isn't cancelled yet!) on coax cable there are no issues like this.

Graphs linked below, I have put the red line where the install happened.  I was on 120Mbps VM coax before.

Download graph: https://prnt.sc/ruT56opHmUWu

Upload graph: https://prnt.sc/rkgmpndA970W

Latency graph: https://prnt.sc/KkYKZhiAGUo2

[WCAT-15]

Over the past few months I have bought (privately) each of the routers that THREE supply currently.  ZTE MC810, Zyxel NR5103, ZTE MC888.  I am about half a mile from 5G mast and get very good signal strength. (MC888 claims 10db better strength than others).  Connected to router by ethernet (not WiFi).
Not much difference between routers.  I have an internet monitor that tests every minute and records latency.
All can give 450Mb/s on a good day. All have regular frequent (1 or 2 per day) dropouts lasting (usually) just a few seconds, and then everything works again.  Most of the dropouts are at night and don't bother me.
Download speed is much lower at peak times, but usually not below 20 or 30 Mb/s at worst (OK for streaming, etc).

Conclusion, the routers are not the problem. The 5G mast is likely overloaded or similar.  Nothing has changed in the past 6 months in terms of speed or dropouts.
I stay with THREE 5G because it is mostly good, and I can live with the problems -- hoping they will improve things in future.

[Max1]

There appears to be TWO Zyxel models. I currently have the (NR5103ev2) and it is lousy. I get frequent dropped connections despite all lights staying on. There is also another Zyxel hub (NR5103e) which I do not have. Can people confirm which of the two Zyxel hubs they have? Based on my experience the NR5103ev2 model is just as useless as the ZTE hub.