4G often claims to be on but doesnt work

[Heisenberg912]

As the title says really. I find very often my phone shows as connected to 4G but when you try to use anything on the Internet (browsers, apps, speed tests etc) they just don't work. 

I first noticed this at my work where coverage seems to come in and out. But just recently I went on holiday to north Wales and the issue was ubiquitous, I just found the coverage to be extremely unreliable. I've also been travelling around the lake district in the last week (around where I live) as I've been off work and again the same issue. Much more often than not my phone says it has 4G but you try it and it doesn't work. 

This is very frustrating as I'm paying for mobile data but like I say most of the time it doesn't work.

When I first noticed the issue at work I ordered a new SIM card to rule that out. And I've done all sorts of reboots, aeroplane mode off and on, delete settings etc.

But like I say this is all over the country. I also have to travel around the Northwest a bit for work and i checked it a lot when driving from the lake district to Wales, similar story. Indeed in my home town it will cut in and out as I move through town. One street it works fine, a few streets over nothing.

Why does my phone say it has 4G when it doesn't? Is there anything I can do? I just want reliable 4G. I've been with Three for a long time now but the coverage seems to be much worse for me than it has ever been. Ironically the only place I find it works always is at home, where I don't need it thanks to WiFi....

Can anyone help?!

[PeteG]

Hello there. 

Data issues can be super frustrating. It seems like you've also tried a good few things to try and work round the problem. 

When issues are as wide spread as you've described, I'd normally be checking out the SIM and the Phone. Since you've tried the replacement SIM already, the phone would be the next thing on the list. If you have another phone, or can borrow a phone for a short while to test, you can see if the issues subside when using the other device. 

Pete. 

[Heisenberg912]

Pete, thanks for the reply.

As it happens my wife also uses Three and a work colleague too. So I have other viewpoints to compare to.

Usually, but not always, when I have the issue my wife and work colleague will also suffer with it. But this is not always the case. Interestingly my coverage at work until the last few weeks has been extremely poor, but has improved so has gone from working maybe 1 in 5 occasions to 4 in 5. But over the same period I've noticed other coverage being very poor.

But what I fundamentally don't understand is how/why our phones report they have coverage and show the symbols, but it just doesn't actually work in practice. Is that not fraudulent? It's all well and good claiming you have 99% UK population coverage (whatever that means) but in reality I am finding more and more of the places I visit that coverage does not work or is intermittent and so unreliable.

Ultimately, how can I progress this? How can I get an accurate view of when I will/won't have 4G and if the coverage falls well short of what I believe it should what are my consumer rights if you can not fix the issue?

Thanks

[JonathanB · Accepted solution]

Hi @Heisenberg912,

I can appreciate it's really frustrating to see you've got a strong signal, but are experiencing slow speeds, or experiencing time outs on browsers or other apps.

The signal strength does play a part in data speeds, but it's not the only factor. This could be indicative of congestion, where a high number of users, or large amount of requests to the network are impacting the speed of connections, regardless of the strength of the actual coverage.

We can only discuss the situation in a general sense on the Community as this is a public forum, and we aren't able to examine your individual account from here, but I'd suggest getting in touch with customer services. They can run checks against your connection and specific areas where you've been impacted, and help check into your options if you feel the quality of service provided hasn't been adequate.

Just one more potential thing to try. You've mentioned a little about deleting settings, so apologies if you've already covered this, but it's worth deleting cached data for your apps and browser, and potentially resetting your Network settings in case temporary Internet data is slowing your connection down too.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Heisenberg912]

Thanks Jonathan

I'll get in touch with customer services and see what they can recommend/do.

Thanks

[SLC1021]

I am also having this issue. Data completely cuts out when I leave the house, but only happens in the last 5-6 days of my billing cycle and the first 2 days of my new cycle. But I’ve never run out of data so cannot be that! 

[DavidBM]

I have the same issue. 4G or 5G even with full signal often doesn't seem to work for any apps/ browsing etc. Thinking of swapping network as tried other providers sims and no issue. Had the shop check settings and apparently all ok but still not working. Been an issue now for the last few years, to the point that all my colleagues make a joke about 3's fake 4/5G network!