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

[Clachtoll]

I am akso having the same issue. And have been for months, as @TC64 says, the problem is they are intermittent so by the time (if you can be bothered) you've called support it might be fixed or as in my experience they dodge the issue and claim its every other device / link in the chain / Router placement except their download connectivity. My old sky router / contract had much lower broadband speeds, but actually worked all the time and covered a 3 floored house. This ZTE has very limited signal distribution. Great speed if you're in the same room but pointless if you're 2 floors up.
I need it on the ground floor as it has to have a wired connection to Sky Q box. Still not perfect but effectively doesn't work wirelessly to Sky Q, and again, both companies blame the other with you left stuck for services you pay for and can't use and spend valuable time trying to fix.
There's few things more irritating and I won't be continuing with Three unless it miraculously changes.,,,
 

[JonathanB]

Hi @MacDavidson, @Dazzar, @TC64,

Thanks for getting in touch about these issues. We're not aware of an issue with the last firmware update for the MC801a but we're keen to look into this further. I'll private message you each to request some more info to support this investigation.

JonathanB

[Grum]

Hi, 

having exactly the same issue. been on to support for over an hour and their answer was do you want to cancel your contract, they were shocked when I said no I want it to work but no idea what to do

[WhimsyWidget]

Hi Jonathan,

I signed up for a 5g broadband contract in November, and I'm having the same problem everyone is describing here. It drops out at least once a day and has been since it's been active. Can see no underlying issue, sign has been checked for my area and is fine. Could I be contacted regarding this issue?

Many thanks.

[28900br]

Same issue here since Three upgraded the ZTE firmware to B12. Unexplainable drop outs and much slower speeds, and I have a strong 5G signal. I've already tried all the steps. Reset the router multiple times and swapped out the SIM card.

Another issue, is that Three deactivated the external antenna ports in the B12 firmware. This contradicts their manual guide point 6.

I'm on a monthly contract. So might just have to cancel unfortunately.

 

 

[JonathanB]

Hi @28900br,

Thanks for letting us know you're also running into this issue. I've sent a private message to your community account so that we can get this checked out further behind the scenes.

I'll add this question about the external antenna too when I pass on the info.

JonathanB

[Walkertron]

Exact same issue here since Three upgraded the ZTE firmware to B12. Unexplainable drop outs which are massively effecting ability to WFH and dropping out mid call. I too have a strong 5G signal. I've already tried all the steps. Reset the router multiple times and swapped out the SIM card with my 3 5g mobile. Still happens.

Considering cancelling my contract as it is unworkable for me.

[SteppyB]

I seem to be having similar issues but with a different hub.

I have been using 3 5G broadband since March this year and had a couple of instances of a similar problem to this for the first few weeks but then they resolved themselves without any firmware changes.

I have the Sercomm LTE2122GR and recently it'll just pretty much lose connection. It doesn't actually lose it, but becomes so slow that even trying to search for something on Google gives a timeout page.

Unfortunately I can't try swapping the SIM cards between my phone and hub because they straight up don't work at all if I do - I tried this in my original troubleshooting in March/April. However I can confidently say that using my phone's 5G connection with it directly next to where I have the hub I'll continue to get the great speeds I'd expect.

Restarting the hub either by power cycling or through the app will fix the problem until it occurs again later at a random point. Yesterday evening it was consistently happening every 20 minutes or so but today it's only happened once in 3 hours.

If there's a firmware update for this hub then I have no idea how to install it, or if it installed itself automatically (which I have issues with it that is the case precisely because of scenarios like this.)

[JonathanB]

Hi @SteppyB,

I'm sorry to hear that you're also having intermittent connection issues on your Sercomm router. I can't recall seeing other posts on the community describing this issue with that particular device but I'll do my best to help.

It doesn't sound like this will be a network issue if it's specifically the router and you're not having this issue with a Three phone at the same location. Usually swapping SIMs between the devices should work so that's really odd to hear.

It may be a faulty router or SIM card, have you already spoken to customer services and the technical team? If so, have they tried replacing either of these?

Thanks,
JonathanB

[techsavvy]

Hi,
Same problem here with the ZTE modem.
At least once and sometimes twice a day I get a network dropout.
The connection and speed I get on 5G is excellent, but these dropouts are really very frustrating.
I can understand how it must be for Walkertron above WFH.
I even set the modem to reboot every day at 4:30, but this hasn't solved the problem.
I now have a laptop permanently connected to the router purely for diagnostics.
Even when the network is down, it doesn't show any errors on the diagnostics.
It normally takes a reboot to start working again - and it works almost immediately, suggesting it isn't actually a true outage - at least so far it doesn't appear to be.
Whilst I am happy with the strong signal on 5G, I've actually had more disconnections in my first month of use than the previous 12 years on Virgin.
Someone needs to figure this out.
If anyone at Three needs a test subject, I'd be happy to help.
Incidentally, my router is running in bridge mode and I have the wireless disabled on the router, since I have a mesh wireless setup from my TP-Link router.
Just in case anyone jumps to conclusions, this has worked with my old Virgin router in bridge mode for at least the last 2 years.
Let's hope the Three engineers can sort this, because as Wlakertron said - it's unusable as a work connection