Broadband near unusably slow the past several days since "working on improvements" was "fixed"

[Midnight54]

I've had a super frustrating past few days with our broadband, especially whilst being ill currently, resulting in the service being unusable for me for anything other than very light youtubing which is low bitrate and web browsing.  Unable to download large game updates (my main game currently has a 200gb update to do before I can play!), cloud stream gaming, nor any type of better quality bitrate full HD and 4k steaming services, kids are giving me hell as they cant video chat etc, nor my work vpn having a strong enough connection.  Long story short, my speed has dropped from around 600mbps+ to 20mbps (BUT......with an interesting caveat on multi files which may be misleading them to think there are no issues with the service).  Now it supposedly has now been logged with the networks team, but for reasons I'll get into later, I worry they will look at it, and think we get 250+mbps.

The error is not just for my hardware, my neighbors have the exact same issue about 20meters away, as does a family member about 1km away, so multiple routers and other hardware.  I've had this router for 2+ years now without issues for the most part apart from a couple of cell tower faults that at least were acknowledged to be faulty a few month back.

I am about 250-300meters from the connected tower, and the router shows as being 5g connected still.  I've had several runarounds (including where they terminate the chat randomly from not replying within about 20 seconds (maybe the person had finished his shift?) and being told there is no reported faults).  My house address is 1 postcode but it faces a different postcode at the intersection, so ie, I could leave front door, walk 3 steps and I'm in the next postcode

On/around the 1st of October (maybe the day prior as I was ill) the Network status page said "Our systems haven't reported any network problems", while the adjacend postcode was  "We're working on the network in this area at the moment.....etc".  By the end of the day, they both said "Our systems haven't reported any network problems", yet the issue was still there.  Obviously time dragged on then started trying to check for updates and look at issues

Historically when the 5g tower goes down, it would revert to the distant tower on a 4g connection (which is too weak to even load webpages 95% of the time but.....thats a different tale), however the router still reports as being on a 5g connection, with signal strength of -81 to -85dBm

Things done (and also neighbours and relatives have done "some" of the less technical steps that also have the issue too - they connect to the same tower:

1. Rebooted router (many times)
2. Alternative APN of three.co.uk, with/without ipv6
3. Only connecting a single device to the router (obv via ethernet) - both pc/linux and also other devices (by default I use it connected to my personal router so its own wifi etc is disabled)
4. Several browsers (as requested by chat) Opera, Chrome, Brave, Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc
5. Full factory reset of the Three router and then direct tests
6. whatever else obvious that I've forgotten to hand

Obviously some of these steps pointless as I can go to my neighbours house and replicate the exact same issues, its not specific to me, but did all the obvious steps

Speed tests are always generally around 15-20mbps, which tallies up with downloading any file getting around 1.9megabytes/sec.

Multiple different speed test sites, googles own, speedtest.net, speedsmart etc also report the same ballpark speeds (obv with the expected variances)

eg

and downloading actual files from test sites eg

So the reality is, for just about everything, I'm getting a usable speed of 15-20mbps

Now - where it gets a little more interesting, and this makes me concerned that the engineers could look at the total speed being sent out and be "thats not too bad?".  When you go to a site like speedtest.net, it defaults to a multi file/stream test.  This reports higher, for example

So....of course that itself is still also way lower than I would normally receive, but that potential speed is not usable speed to me when trying to stream a movie, or download a file or update, only 20mbps is!! And I hope this isn't going to result in the engineers closing the ticket as no issue when there clearly is, its easily replicated.

The saving grace, I can get by with low bitrate youtube.....but I cant watch any movies etc, which is especially frustrating while off work sick too to pass the time unless I'm willing to watch at SD resolution levels

Has something been deliberately changed to cap single connections?

Frustratingly, the postcodes even a few days on are still saying no issues found on the network status checker, when there is clearly a fault, and I know I'm not the only one to log it (sadly been unable to log it in the 3rd location yet for the relatives account as the account owner is currently out of town)

[Midnight54]

yup just dropping, unbelievable, yet no network issues according to their network teams(!)

Think enough may be enough now and time for me to make arrangements, it could likely be another week before someone even physically looks at the issue to go "it's ok" and close ticket again without telling anyone

[Midnight54]

@JonathanB @PeteG 

@Griz 

I have uploaded a video taken just now to demonstrate the issue, aswell as the poor speed, (I should have increased the quality but oh well it can be made out still)

https://youtu.be/GUn-1jUi7Sw

First speedtest is a "Multi" speed test, it gets 80.99Mbps, upload as ever mostly unaffected
2nd speed test ran at 1minute in, choosing Single this time, gives me 10.39Mbps down

I then run a single file to download (I prob should've found a website that wouldn't have given me the warnings per file - but quickest example I found), you can see it transfers at speed of approx 1 megabyte/sec for the single file, as expected based on the single stream speed test

I then quickly add multiple files, you can see each one gets around the 10Mbps transfer speed per stream/file, which from a very basic speed test, could make someone believe there was no issues when there is.  So as a result, basic services, such as Netflix, Amazon and so on obviously transfer their videos as a single stream

Not to mention how close I am to the mast (250m).  You can see from the router page itself it shows as 5g connected

[JonathanB]

Hi @Midnight54,

I'm sorry these issues have been persisting for so long now. There's some work being carried out in your area at the moment, which will hopefully address this, can you let me know if you see any improvements this evening or tomorrow morning?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Midnight54]

@JonathanB is this some kind of joke?

[JonathanB]

Hi @Midnight54,

I'm sorry to hear that the work carried out doesn't seem to have helped, I've asked our Service Desk to open another Incident report based on all the info you've shared here, and referring back to the work yesterday, and the work carried out on the 30th September that seems to have coincided with the issue starting.

In terms of the chat team's responses, I do appreciate your frustration. Their diagnostics are obviously not picking up on the issue, and the mast performance isn't triggering any alarms, so it must be a really unusual issue. I hope you'll give us a bit more time to look into this.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Midnight54]

Thank you Jonathan.  Here is hoping(!)

I've mentioned already that I'm currently off work for a few weeks sick, but work closely with our own networks team (non mobile network related) as a systems engineer, so I do get how sometimes its not always easy to pinpoint a fault, but incredibly frustrated if it was closed with no contact, though with @Griz 's own posted thread on here (tagged so he is aware of this thread) where turns out he is maybe only a few streets away, and I know several other houses, some who have not yet logged it in the hope it would be resolved despite me saying the more that log it the more it may be taken seriously. One neighbour has already left as a result.  Because I'm off work sick is a double edged sword, frustrating that I can't watch any movies for the past few weeks to help pass the time, but I'm equally worried that by the time I return to work if the work VPN and laptop with updates etc that will need to catch up on etc will be able to cope and that I can work, which will cause another world of issues for me.  To be honest, had I not been bidridden for most of the days recent I'd have probably moved to another provider myself by now, but will need to prepare the room for any physical installation work for fibre options

[JonathanB]

Hi @Midnight54,

Whilst we're trying to get this escalated, I'd encourage your neighbours to get in touch here, I appreciate they may not have time to go on a call or chat, but if they register here, and simply add a reply to say they're in the same area, and experiencing the same issues, this can only help highlight the problem.

I'm working to escalate this regardless, but more examples will definitely help in that regard.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Midnight54]

Thanks, yes, i've been trying to encourage them and hopefully more will come forward, though the support lines and chats blaming on wifi and how many devices and factory resets are very frustrating to get past, I know a couple have, on one account is in her partners name and she didnt know how to get the sim from the router, her partner has just returned home this weekend, so hopefully will be added to the list for the area.  Immediate neighbours have now left and awaiting their install with alternative on Tuesday (I think they got an immediate disconnect - I couldn't do that, I'll have to have something in place before I terminated if push comes to shove) but reluctantly my hand may be forced this weekend as getting grief from the kids and partner too, but trying to hold out til monday

[Griz]

I went through the online chat yesterday and was reluctantly passed through to complaints who promised to call me today. They haven’t. I’ve had grain installed. Too late. But I need that phone call to get a cancellation. 

[Midnight54]

No change at all the next day