Network Signal

[Rooster]

I have been a loyal customer of Three Network for over 20 years and have always been satisfied with their mobile data and signal. However, in the past year, I have been experiencing difficulties using my phone unless I am connected to Wi-Fi. I have noticed a significant decrease in signal strength in major cities such as Manchester City Centre, Central London, Birmingham, Nottingham, and Leicester. Even in areas where I used to have strong signal, I now only have one bar (using a Samsung S22 Ultra).

I am wondering if this is a common issue for other customers as well? Is there anything I can do to improve my signal? Is this a problem with all networks?

Thank you for your assistance.

[VL66]

Same. I’ve been a 3 customer for a similar length of time, but every call I receive the caller says the line is bad and they can’t hear me.

Funny thing is though that it doesn’t seem to make any difference whether I’m out and just using the mobile network or whether I’m at home connecting to my home wifi.

[JonathanB]

Hi @VL66,

That's really odd that the issue is happening with your voice calls over the mobile network, and with Wi-Fi calling. It may also be worth resetting your network settings too then. (This does forget saved Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices)

If possible, another good test to narrow down the cause is whether you have similar issues with your SIM in a different phone. If I'm following correctly the problem is with the other person hearing you, so you can hear the other person with no issues? This could also be a hardware problem with the mic for instance.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Maxine]

Hey VL66,

Welcome to the Three Community!

We're sad to hear you're having these signal issues. This is a strange one, and something our Customer Support Team can certainly look into for you. They'll be able to check anything with your area and if there's any issues with the device itself.

Maxine

[jr0]

fair enough... I thought you could only read posts if you were a member; and because the "new member" status is assigned to people that just joined I assumed @Rooster was a new member at the time of his/her/its post, a bit like you @VL66 . And I only speculated about being a bot because it is not uncommon to see posts without follow up (the case of rooster and many other posts where people simply enjoy dissing or having a good rant - which they are allowed, but sometimes people forget to check wether the signal/coverage is suitable before they buy in).

to your problem @VL66 , did you follow the advice given above? how is your coverage and status of the network in the post codes where you are/visit? is just voice calls that you have problems with? have you tried your sim in a different handset but same areas? when you are in and connected to your home wifi does you phone show that you are on wifi calling?
or are you just having a good old moan about Three 🙂

[VL66]

Having been a customer for 25+ years, I think I would have realised before now if the area I live in was poorly covered; 4G is “excellent” over the area but 5G is super-patchy. And it’s only relatively recently (a matter of months) since the call quality has noticeably degraded.

To be fair, calls from my husband are OK most of the time, but he is also on 3 (I wasn’t including those, so really I should have said “nearly every call”), it’s other people - they are from business users, a mixture of landline and wfh mobile users. I don’t use my phone for much that requires the mobile network, so calls/texts are infrequent (and hence noticeable when they are poorer quality). When I’m at home the wifi symbol is displayed, but I don’t know if that means it’s using the wifi for calls; in the settings, it says “wifi calling” is off, but “wifi assist” is on. I don’t know what the difference is. Despite having Gig1 VM broadband with 5 users and lots of devices, 2 of whom work full-time from home, some users do have to use a Meshnet to ensure stable connection for parts of the house (1960s-built). Sometimes we have wifi dropouts, but I don’t know if there’s any correlation between that and my call quality. I don’t have time when receiving calls to check mobile and wifi network statuses. 

I don’t have the luxury of another handset, but I don’t think it’s my phone/hardware.

I was unaware that the 3G was being switched off; I would expect 3 to notify customers with a direct mailing and I certainly don’t recall receiving any correspondence from 3 that this was happening. 

On the subject of not posting follow ups by OPs, I didn’t realise that the forum automatically sends notifications of replies as the notifications were categorised by my email provider as spam which doesn’t come through on my day-to-day email reading device. I only check all folders a couple of times a month from a different device just to keep things tidy - a lot of people I know never even look at their spam folders, so posters probably don’t even realise that anyone replied. I only discovered by accident, so thanks for taking the trouble to respond. 

[PeteG]

Hello there. 

With Wifi calling turned off, you phone will not use Wifi to connect calls or texts, even if there's no mobile network connection. If it's turned on, some calls and texts may use Wifi if the mobile network connection is seen to be poor. You can force calls to go over Wifi by turning airplane mode on, then turning Wifi on (with Wifi calling enabled of course), you could use this as a way of testing to see if your issues are indeed mobile network related or not. 

I think Wifi Assist might be referring to the iOS feature that switches between mobile network and Wifi automatically when it detects if the network you're using is having an issues. I believe other phones also offer a similar feature but might not have the same name for it. I don't believe it would affect calling. 

For the 3G switch off, there was quite a few different ways the information was shared with users and the general public. Information was posted on the Three website. Social Media was updated with information about it. News outlets also covered the topic as well. Emails were also sent out to any contract users on the network who were using a device that was not 4G capable.

Pete.

[VL66]

That’s helpful, thanks. I get so few calls that it will be a while before I know if that fixes it though. I’ll keep an eye on it.

Re the 3G switch off, I don’t use social media, and I don’t follow the news (too much negativity), and I never visit the 3 website. I guess as my phone isn’t 3G-only it’s not supposedly affecting me. Fair enough.

[jr0]

@Rooster20 years and new member on the forum... (or is a bot post?)

network coverage really depends on too many factors to be reduced to such a simple terms (as strong/weak signal).

The old recomendations...
check Three's coverage and status page for the postcodes you mentioned.
Maybe try your sim on a different phone (if it happens to have better coverage could that is your handset not supporting some of the band/freq used by 3)

I rely a lot on wifi calling when at home

good luck

[VL66]

Not everyone feels the need to join forums as soon as they become a customer; I read forum posts if I have a problem - I only join if I can’t find a solution and/or want to post (which rarely happens). In over 20 years, I’ve never once needed to post anything on here, till now, and only now because I am frustrated with 3’s deteriorating service.