So I recently had no choice but to go with Three as the FTTC offered would give me a maximum estimated speed of 10mbs. Three's mobile broadband gave me an estimate of 60mbs which was a no brainer for me.
Recieved my 4G router and was pleasantly surprised how stable the connection was and the speed was maxing out at around 70mbs, so all in all I was pleased with the results.
The supplied router was a ZTE MF286D, I first started experiencing issues around 2 months in but Three assured me it was due to a mast issue and would be fixed so I waited. The problem did indeed get resolved on the date they gave me but the issue was my speeds and stability were far lower than before, I was having constant drops to 200kbps for hours on end and it was extremely frustrating as it was unusable.
I persevered for a little while but eventually I hit my limit and visited the nearest Three store, I got to chatting to an employee who told me the supplied router was fine and there was no issues with it. He then informed me that all Three SIM cards come 5G ready and he has friends that have had a lot of success with 5G capable routers.
I did my research online and came to the conclusion the MC888 CPE Pro would be a good fit so I went ahead and bought it brand new, unlocked with zero branding. Threw in my SIM card and my speeds and connection were fantastic, now I never expected to get 5G in my area as Three's network coverage said it was unavailable.
I however was getting speeds of 550mbs down and 50mbs up with zero dropouts, no instability and I was thrilled. Now fast forward 2 months and my connection started dropping to 4G which I knew could be a possibility but it was unusable at the same as before 200kbps.
It would usually happen around 8am and last until 11am then back to 5G and business as usual up until a week ago. I had basically unusable Internet as it would no longer connect to 5G but also wouldn't connect to any 4G mast nearby leaving me with 200kbps.
I did some research and I'm quite tech savvy so I went through forums and discussions but didn't bother acting on it as I was leaving and moving house.
Well I'm now in that house where 5G coverage is excellent so I thought it would be perfect, however my router seems to be connecting to extremely far away masts according to Cellmapper and I have 7 under a mile from me with the closest being around 400m.
So I again go on forums and many found great luck in band locking which I know my router supports, what I didn't know however is that for some reason my router CANNOT band lock to the normal bands such as 20, there literally isn't an option and only supports band locking on 4G to 1,3,5,8,35,37,38 and 40.
I have no idea how to go about having my router connect to a closer router, I've put the SIM in my phone and I do indeed get 5G and it connects no problem.
Help would be grateful as I don't really want to go back to FTTC and pay to concurrent Internet bills as opposed to my Three one.
