ZTE MC888 with Scancom Three SIM in Wirral

[GeminiGuy]

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum and this is my first post here. I’ve been using mobile internet/broadband for years, and in more recent years have used Three most of the time as they seem the cheapest overall and have a higher fair use cap. I previously had a ZTE MC801 earlier last year, which I bought second hand and put a Smarty SIM in it, but it was very erratic and would randomly drop 5G internet so I sold it on and got rid of the Smarty SIM and just stuck to using my iPhone with EE as a hotspot for around 6 months.

Just before Christmas, I seen Scancom selling 2 years of unlimited internet on a Three SIM paid up front for £150 so I jumped at the chance, bought it, then bought a brand new and sealed ZTE MC888 with no Three branding on it for £200. Everything ran great, fast speeds of up to 700Mbps on most days, until about 2 weeks ago. Since then, it will only connect to 5G for a short spell of a few minutes if I am lucky, with a full 5G signal, then it will drop to 4G LTE after that, still with a full signal, then all of a sudden, the network signal will drop to two bars on 4G and I’m lucky to get 10Mbps, which means my 4K streams on YouTube and Netflix on my Apple TV are now buffering most of the time.

It seems to me that it’s connecting to mobile phone masts further away than the ones nearby after a few minutes, which is what’s affecting the speed. Of note, we have a ZTE MD286D at work, which is just a few miles from my house, and that’s also on Three, and that’s also been erratic lately and now has a constantly flashing 3G/4G light on it, which has previously been solidly lit for the last two years and has worked flawlessly up until this point. Does anyone know if there’s long term work going on in the Bromborough/Wirral area on Three’s network?

The reason I ask here is because my SIM card is from Scancom, so ringing Three direct will be useless, and they’ll just pass me to Scancom, who won’t have a clue of any network issues that Three may be having. If anyone in the Wirral area could let me know if you have been having issues too, I’d appreciate it. 

It seems like a reoccurring theme with Three, in that it can work great in your area for months on end perfectly, then all of a sudden, you can end up with weeks or even months of the service being really bad. 

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[GeminiGuy]

Just to add, this morning I turned off the WiFi to my Airthings monitor that was connected to my MC888 and it seems to be staying on 5G data at the moment. I am 15 minutes in, and so far it’s stayed strong, just like it was up until a few weeks ago. I wonder if the almost always constant data the air monitor is sending, even though it’s small, is triggering some sort of automatic traffic management that Three uses? I’ll certainly keep my eyes peeled on this issue. By the way, to add to my main post, I have fully reset the router a few times in the last week or so to see if that solved the issue, and it didn’t. Also, Three’s network status checker did show some issues in my area for a few days, but it now says all is working well in Bromborough.

[JonathanB]

Hey @GeminiGuy,

From what I'm understanding Scancom are a dealer rather than an actual service provider, so network support would come from us rather than them. If you have a Business plan with Three, you can get in touch here.

Alternatively, I can't give account related support, but if you PM me the full postcode where the router is being used, (please don't include this info on a public reply) I can certainly have a look into if there's any network issues relevant.

You can privately message me from my profile page here: @JonathanB 

Thanks,
Jonathan

[GeminiGuy]

Thanks for your help. I seem to have figured a way of making my MC888 lock on to 5G, by changing the 4G band to band 20, which means it’s not hunting around for different band 1 and 3 masts and constantly switching from 4G to 5G. From what I understand, 5G in the UK needs to also use 4G in the background to initiate connection to the 5G part of the network meaning you can’t select 5G only option in the router menu and expect it to work. Previously, 4G and 3G technologies were not dependent on a previous generation mobile network to work, but 5G is, but mine seems happy now remaining locked to the slow, but long range band 20 4G mast, and is now remaining connected to a nearby 5G mast, so I am happy again for now. Still, I’d love to know what Three has been doing to the network in the last few weeks in the Bromborough area, as it just doesn’t perform as well as it did before. There’s a new fairly large industrial building project going on near ASDA on the Croft Retail Park, so that could have something to do with it.