Anybody having ongoing network connectivity issues in the South West?

[BarnabyBridges]

I live in the TR20 area in Cornwall and use a 4G broadband hub for my internet, for over a month now my internet connection has been abysmal - either it's agonisingly slow, loading pages at a snail's pace, barely able to stream anything, or just constantly cutting out. At first I thought it might be a weather related issue, as where I live we get quite a lot of fog, but even on days of bright blue skies it's been just as bad. The router is set up in area of my home where it receives full signal according to the hub (5 bars) and previously it's worked fine without any problems.

I work from home 2 days a week, and rely on the internet to do my job, so this has become extremely frustrating, and I'm getting pretty sick of paying for a service that doesn't work. Every time I check the network status page it just says 'We're working on fixing an issue in this area at the moment. We're sorry for any disruption this may be causing', but this has been going on for ages now, with no information or update about what the issue is, and every time I try to speak to a person I'm told there's no operators available.

Even just some information on what's going on and when it's likely to be fixed would be appreciated.

[MZone]

Call 333 option 4 option 3 and option 3 to discuss your issue with tech support. They can sometimes provide more info than what’s on the service status page. 

[CornwallJo]

Hi Barnaby, Im in TR9 and have been experiencing exactly the same.. Absolutely shocking.. I work from home full time doing  a number of self employed customer services roles. I lost work last week because of how slow the internet was.. I spent almost an hour on the phone to a chap called Tapas first thing this morning as it was slow I was unable to log in to my CRM.. (download was under 1 Mbps and the upload .89 too).. The guy was polite and sympathetic but said there is a local mast issue, a team is working on it and it 'should' be resolved within 7 days.. phone back in a week if it hadnt improved..  Not what I wanted to hear.. 

Did you hear anything back from anyone about your predicament? Many thanks, Jo 

[BarnabyBridges]

Hi Jo.

I managed to get through to an operator last week and ended up doing a router reset, which seemed to help temporarily - it stopped frequently disconnecting at least, but speeds still haven't been great. Then this afternoon I had an absolute nightmare working from home - things were okay this morning, but once it got to around midday, I was constantly losing connection. I phoned up again and the operator did some diagnostics, and seemed to come to the conclusion that the local mast was receiving higher than normal traffic... He said that Three were phasing out 3G and working to improve their masts/connectivity around the country or something, but he said that this would probably be an ongoing issue for the time being... Which isn't really any help. By the sounds of it, the higher than normal traffic is most likely down to holiday-makers, this being Cornwall, but I didn't have this problem last summer, so I'm not sure what's changed. Probably going to have to look into other ISPs if this issue persists. Sorry I couldn't really be much help!

[CornwallJo]

Hi Barnaby,

Thank you for your reply. We had almost identical experiences yesterday. I have lost a day and a half work so far this week , along with the work last week I mentioned, not to forget the difficulties dealing with online banking etc with the constant loss of connection and unworkable speeds. I am investigating ISP's elsewhere now as I simply can not afford to keep losing work like this, and hearing no promise of conclusive resolution. The 3 staff are very polite but their excuses are sounding like 'fob offs' in truth. Furthermore we are in high season in Cornwall and this 'congestion' issue - which the chap yesterday condeded is a '3 problem' and is not going to improve for long while. I spoke with neighbours yesterday who confirmed this appears to be  a 3 problem. Nobody around my village is experiencing anything like the .49 download speeds I am expected to work with.. Good luck with everything Barnaby!  Jo

[Geordie_Steve]

Hi, I have the exact same connection and work issues.. and I don't live in a tourist hit area, I face, its quite the opposite. Being skeptical, it sounds although Three has a ready made excuse of blaming it on masts... not good when potentiallylosing business.. 

[Geordie_Steve]

I have all the same issues and what makes it worse, is that I'm based in the centre of Newbury and not out in the beautiful rural areas of Cornwall. 

I too rely on broadband for work and it does not portray my company in a good light, when MS Teams is blurred, keeps freezing etc.. To try and solve this I purchased a Wi-Fi booster, but that is too local and doesn't really help. Three's service is no where near as good as BT/EEs (no, I do not work for either!)

I read Three's replies to your post and none of these apply to me.. I have followed Thrre's recommendations regarding router positioning etc.. andnothing workings. I even reboot the router, which seems to help, but only short term.. Now thinking about trying t set up an EERO mesh network (.. spending money i should not have to!), but have guarantee that would work...

So yes, if I could, I would move to another provider.

[Zoxbythesea]

Hi there. I am having the exact same issues. Boardmasters weekend was impossible. But, im still getting awful signal, if I get it at all. I too work from home much of the time and have been unable to work because of this. Three have told me that they are in the process of maintenance and upgrading ready for 3G being switched off, but this is no use to those of us in Cornwall, who are clearly not able to get 21st century internet access. I've thought about moving to EE, but seems a risk given the doubling in cost. It's driving me mad on a daily bases, but what is worse, there is no timescale to this. It's about time Three improved it, or reduced our monthly costs in the interim. Happy to stick it out if there is light at the end of the tunnel.