Horrendous peak time speeds on 5G home broadband

[Andrew799]

I’ve been a home broadband customer since April and have had a reliable connection since then (excluding the firmware issue a few months back) until recently. Normally I can expect 700 down and 100 up at any point in the day, however recently evening peak time performance has dropped to 20 down and about 50 up. I’m using the ZTE modem with excellent signal. The router is locking onto the same cell that it always has. The frustrating part is I now use this as my main broadband for the house and watching streaming services is practically impossible due to these peak time speed drops. Also I am in contract so have no option to leave. 

Rebooting the router makes no difference and I am also experiencing similar speeds on my iPhone using a SMARTY sim. 

Interestingly I have also noticed weaker signal on the iPhone in recent weeks on both 4G and 5G when indoors. 

I tried reporting this to SMARTY who’s only solution is to order a new SIM card or leave them - they aren’t interested in reporting a possible mast issue to three. 

[sc1999]

Firstly have you checked 3's network status checker, not always accurate, or called customer service? If it is only peak time you may be suffering from contention ratios which may be caused by part of the system failing or too many people trying to log on to the mast. I think that the mobile networks have been too successful in flogging home broadband that they are struggling to install enough bandwidth fast enough to cope, this is why I left EE.

[Andrew799]

Thanks for the reply. No issues reported on the checker. It’s very odd that this drop is sudden. I would assume if it’s congestion then it would have been gradual. I’m lucky enough to live very near a mast that mainly serves a motorway (not much in terms of downloads happening there) and the residential area serves is quite small. I will try report it to customer services, but the last time I did that (it was during the botched firmware update) it was very laborious process with a significant amount of unnecessary troubleshooting. 

just done another test. 15 down 90 up. Early this morning it was 800 down. 

if it is contention I will be very annoyed with myself for getting into a two year deal and ending up with a fraction of the speed I could achieve when I was in my cooling off period. 

[Fox]

Have similar yo yo speeds and 5-6 drop outs per hour, but luckily on month tariff so can leave next month .

[Andrew799]

Typically a few months after I signed up CF and VM installed full fibre on the telegraph poles. At the time 5G was my only option above very poor FTTC 

[Fox]

 My speeds are slow all the time and vary minute to minute .

[Andrew799]

So it appears this isn’t just a peak time problem anymore. 8 down on home broadband router and iPhone at all times of the day. Service checker still not reporting any issues. Will attempt to report to customer services and see if I get anywhere 

[JonathanB]

Hi @Andrew799,

I'm sorry to hear that you've been experiencing these drops to your speeds recently. It sounds like this will be an undiagnosed network issue based on it affecting the Three/Smarty connections and both your broadband and phone. 

Let us know how you get on with the customer services team, and we'll check if there's more we can do to support with this based on their advice.

Thanks,
JonathanB

[Andrew799]

@JonathanB The connection is now even worse with less than 2Mbps down but still about 50 up. Writing this reply has been a challenge as web pages are taking forever to load on either mobile or home broadband. I logged a fault yesterday and it has been passed for investigation - but this can take up to 7 days apparently and I have no alternative connection. The first and second line teams say I should have excellent indoor coverage, which I do, it’s just the throughput is atrocious. Surely this can’t be due to contention with the performance drop. Ring so sudden. I rely on the connection for work and I’m currently not receiving the service I’m paying for. 

[Andrew799]

@JonathanB further update. Still having speed issues today but not quite as drastic as yesterday. However on both home broadband and smarty 5g I established that whilst the download speeds were as low was 1Mbps as some stages, if I connfcredit to my VPN provider I was able to achieve upwards of 300Mbps. Which indicates that the issue lies somewhere within threes network rather than the mast being over subscribed. This is a temporary work around but there are devices that don’t support VPN that I need to use