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. 

[Andrew799]

Call from three saying fault closed and issue resolved. Data now doesn’t work at all on mobile broadband or on smarty phone. Signal keeps vanishing and showing no service. It returns, but again with no data. Told a new investigation has to be opened which takes another 7 days. Absolutely shocking. 

I go two miles down the road and everything is lightning fast. 

[JonathanB]

Hi @Andrew799,

Sorry for the delay getting back to you.

In terms of the 7 days, that likely means that we have identified a local network issue but have not established an estimated fix date. It doesn't necessarily mean it'll take 7 days to fix but that you'd receive an update after 7 days if we've still not resolved the situation.

I appreciate that this must be really disruptive, so I'll send you a private message to get you in contact with some colleagues that can check if there's any more info we can provide, or any other options we can give to help.

To access your private messages, click on your avatar in the top right of any community page, then "messages".

JonathanB

[Andrew799]

Spoke too soon. Connection totally unusable this evening on smarty 4G/5G and three home broadband. 0.5Mbps down. No pages loading. Won’t even connect to the vpn anymore. Having to use a borrowed mifi from a friend on another network just to write this. 

[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 

[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]

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

[Fox]

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

[Fox]

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