Need Help: No 5G Connectivity with Three Home Broadband

[sin18r5x]

Hi everyone,

I recently subscribed to Three Home 5G Broadband, but I'm not getting the promised 5G connectivity. Despite spending an hour on the phone with support and receiving a new SIM card, the issue remains unresolved. When I contacted support again, they claimed they were upgrading the 5G in my area, but I'm skeptical since my Three network-compatible phone receives 5G just fine. I have a direct line of sight to a phone mast located approximately 300 yards away. Any advice or similar experiences from fellow users would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[drafter88]

Hi @sin18r5x I think I'm having the same issue as yours, and beating the bush for the last 1 week now. 

From day one I said it was the bad router, seems nobody listens at three support.  you had the red signal bar light too? instead of green, what were the signal strengths mind me if I ask. 

Thank you for your post 

[JonathanB]

Hey @drafter88,

Do you have any other device you can test the router SIM in, or do you, or anyone at home, have a Three phone, so that you can check if the issue is more likely to be the router or the network?

We've also got a Network Status Checker that may help determine if there's a network issue we're working on.

Let me know on the above and I'll see if I can direct you to any more help.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[drafter88]

Thanks for the reply. I got a new SIM as suggested by the support Team and the issue is still there. 
No matter how I asked them not to resolve the case until I tried the new SIM they closed the ticket. No offence I have been working with IT support/DevOps/SRE for 11 years now :). this is very bad support, to be honest. 

I'll raise another ticket and give it another 24 hours to see if not cancelling is my only option. 

Thanks for your kind help 

[sin18r5x · Accepted solution]

Update on this.

I lost my patience with support. One guy asked me to download an android app so that I can change the settings on the router. I told them to send me another router or I cancel my contract.

The new router arrived today, connected to 5g with

DOWNLOAD Mbps
666.69
UPLOAD Mbps
150.27 

Moral of the story. If you have this problem don't waste your time with Three support, they are worse than useless. There is clearly a bad batch of routers going around that Three are resending to unsuspecting customers, hoping that people who don't know any better will just accept the low speeds. 
Make them send you a new router. Especially if it looks like the router was a used item, like mine was.

[Mwthreeukuser]

I signed up to three Monday. I can get a half decent 4G but no 5G. Been on with support a couple of times.
After spending a lot of time on this I can see the router connects on B3, B20 then n78 appears for a few seconds and disappears again. 

the lights on the Zyxel 5103E reflect this. The internet is solid Green, goes blue for a few seconds then drops back.

had a new SIM (this was never going to be the problem, just going through the motions). Need to try and get back on to support. Fairly sure this is the router, but I don’t have access to another one to prove it.

If I can’t sort, will just go back to a slower ADSL.

[Anvil_Iron]

The only other way to test the router is to take it to a friend or relative or even work place that may have Three 5G broadband. Use the network checker first to give you an idea.

[sin18r5x]

I'm online with "support" now. They are insisting that the reason I'm not getting a 5g signal is because there is an outage affecting the whole area, but it only effects broadband, somehow phones can still get 5g.

Does that sound plausible? Is it possible that a 5g signal could be sent out from a mast but only phones could receive it?

[Spud]

APN? My router defaults to "3internet" but I can set the router to "three.co.uk".

[sin18r5x]

Makes no difference, LTE only.