Phone problems, again

[Tracy D'arth]

3's standard fob off is that there is local mast work, usually a lie.  I caught them out once by standing next to the mast they were supposed to be working on and phoning them. When they said they were working I told them there was no one there, stunned silence. 

Left 3 and went to Lebara on Vodaphone, cheaper, better.

[David Mack]

They texted me saying that work was taking place so presumably something that could cause disruption was planned.

In your case the work might have been delayed. Or maybe they were doing a software upgrade on the mast which could be deployed remotely, but required taking it out of service for a while.

[Dr Bob]

I have an unlimited data sim with '3' and a 500Mb data sim with EE. 99% of the time we have the EE sim in. Nuff said.

[IanM]

19 hours ago, matty40s said:

I was in a MacDs (🤢) yesterday in the middle of Luton, and couldnt get my internet to work until I turned wifi off.

 

McDonalds WIFI is probably one of the worst for this.  It requires registering for and if that hasn't happened or there was an issue with authentication then no internet for you even though it will still show as being connected.

 

In fact the above does raise a point which I keep having to make to people.  The WIFI signal strength symbol on a device is just that, it is showing the strength of the WIFI signal.  The access point could be merrily going about its business without actually being connected to the internet for whatever reason.  With modern devices prioritising internet over WIFI rather than cellular in the first instance then your device will merrily keep trying to use the WIFI for internet even though the access point may not be broadcasting it or allowing access to the outside world. Turning WIFI off then forces the device to use cellular data.

 

WIFI is not the internet, it is just a way of connecting to the thing which is connected to the internet.  If the thing which is connected to the internet can't or doesn't want you to connect then you won't get access to the internet.

Edited December 15, 2022 by IanM

[Chewbacka]

2 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

3's standard fob off is that there is local mast work, usually a lie.  I caught them out once by standing next to the mast they were supposed to be working on and phoning them. When they said they were working I told them there was no one there, stunned silence. 

Left 3 and went to Lebara on Vodaphone, cheaper, better.

They probably were lying, but ‘mast work’ would include firmware/software updates that are done remotely but would still take the mast off-line whilst they did it.  If it’s anything like my very old windows laptop, a big update can make it unusable for well over an hour whilst it does it’s stuff, maybe a mast is the same???

[Tracy D'arth]

9 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

They probably were lying, but ‘mast work’ would include firmware/software updates that are done remotely but would still take the mast off-line whilst they did it.  If it’s anything like my very old windows laptop, a big update can make it unusable for well over an hour whilst it does it’s stuff, maybe a mast is the same???

It was still on line as I was phoning from it!

The complaint was frequent loss of signal or so poor as to be unusable on the net. Smarty gave me the same excuse a few weeks before and they are on the 3 network.

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

3's standard fob off is that there is local mast work, usually a lie.  I caught them out once by standing next to the mast they were supposed to be working on and phoning them. When they said they were working I told them there was no one there, stunned silence. 

Left 3 and went to Lebara on Vodaphone, cheaper, better.

I use Smarty which runs on 3 for internet on the boat and Lebara for my phone, £5 a month and runs on Vodafone

[rusty69]

I left T-mobile and went with Orange. I left Orange and went with Giffgaff. I left Giffgaff and went with Vodafone. I left Vodafone and went with O2. I left O2 and went with EE. I left EE and went with Lebara. I left Lebara and went with Voxi.

 

Next stop Plusnet.

I've never had any phone problems.

Edited December 15, 2022 by rusty69

[rusty69]

2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

I have an unlimited data sim with '3' and a 500Mb data sim with EE. 99% of the time we have the EE sim in. Nuff said.

What do you do the other 1%?

[Dr Bob]

29 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

What do you do the other 1%?

Usually beans on toast.

[Dr Bob]

36 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I left T-mobile and went with Orange. I left Orange and went with Giffgaff. I left Giffgaff and went with Vodafone. I left Vodafone and went with O2. I left O2 and went with EE. I left EE and went with Lebara. I left Lebara and went with Voxi.

 

Maybe try a couple of baked bean cans and a bit of string?

[rusty69]

2 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Maybe try a couple of baked bean cans and a bit of string?

I tried that. But with heinz sight wish I never bothered.

Edited December 15, 2022 by rusty69

[Dr Bob]

2 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I tried that. But with heinz sight wish I never bothered.

Its about the only thing that works in Braunston, where we are.

[rusty69]

4 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Its about the only thing that works in Braunston, where we are.

I guess you are in a pickle if you are moored at Branston.

[Dr Bob]

6 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I guess you are in a pickle if you are moored at Branston.

Frozen pickle today

[rusty69]

Just now, Dr Bob said:

Frozen pickle today

How goes it Dr Bob. Long time no see. Done any boating this year?

[Dr Bob]

8 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

How goes it Dr Bob. Long time no see. Done any boating this year?

Hi Rusty

 

yea, we had 3 months out drifting round in early summer. Did the 4 counties ring in 9 weeks.

 

How are you doing? You're looking a bit rustier? Lost the dog?

Edited December 15, 2022 by Dr Bob

[rusty69]

4 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Hi Rusty

 

yea, we had 3 months out drifting round in early summer. Did the 4 counties ring in 9 weeks.

 

How are you doing? You're looking a bit rustier? Lost the dog?

Three months eh. Fantastic. I thought the 4 counties ring was sposed to be a challenge to do in 4 weeks.

 

I can't afford the diesel to go boating anymore, so spent the summer swimming the canal at Tring summit.

 

Someone stole my dog.

Edited December 15, 2022 by rusty69

[Dr Bob]

2 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Three months eh. Fantastic. I thought the 4 counties ring was sposed to be a challenge to do in 4 weeks.

We kept stopping near pubs and found it difficult to untie the ropes the following morning.

2 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

 

I can't afford the diesel to go boating anymore, so spent the summer swimming the canal at Tring summit.

 

Someone stole my dog.

I'm  thinking of getting a horse to tow ours.

 

Tring sounds a bit too west for you!

[rusty69]

2 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

We kept stopping near pubs and found it difficult to untie the ropes the following morning.

I'm  thinking of getting a horse to tow ours.

 

Tring sounds a bit too west for you!

 

I think a horse might be a very sensible idea. Think of all that uncut grass at the locks. I would't take it to any pubs though.

 

Tring is a bit far, but i'm a fantastic swimmer.

[Alway Swilby]

Three is rubbish. I've had no end of problems with their network being very congested with too many "Unlimited" users. On the boat I have a router with a EE sim card in it and it's rare to have problems. Here at Alvecote Marina for instance just now at 16:45 I am getting 20 megs. At the house I have a similar set-up with a router and I used to have a EE sim in that too which also worked fine. But ID Mobile (who use Three) offered me a cheaper deal so I swapped the house system to them. Now I get very slow speeds (often 500k or less) when you would expect the network to be busy. There's a definite drop off at around 3:30pm when the school kids get home and start gaming. The slowness continues all evening with people watching telly etc. But if I do a speed test at 4 in the morning I get about 30 meg. ID Mobile deny this is happening. As soon as the contract ends I'm going to do something different. Grain have offered me full fibre to the premises with guaranteed 100meg download and upload for £18 per month, only £2 more than I am paying ID Mobile.

[Dr Bob]

4 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

 On the boat I have a router with a EE sim card in it and it's rare to have problems.

 

Yep, fully agree.

[Sea Dog]

54 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I tried that. But with heinz sight wish I never bothered.

There's your problem: Heinz bean tins are low power. For long range Comms you need HP.

[MtB]

On 14/12/2022 at 12:57, LadyG said:

I have a tablet which is also with Three. So I assumed if I got internet, which is pretty much 99% of the time, I should also get three mobile via my android phone.

 

Assumed. 

 

There's ya problem. Right there.

 

 

[roland elsdon]

Had the plusnet man trying to troubleshoot the  dead internet at the ex hovel. 4 th visit.

 

He was trying to ring base. Zilch . Asked him what network ee ‘the best!’
Ah i said out the door 600 metres up the 20% slope and pray. Or use my tesco mobile.

He said ‘no its ok wifi callings enabled ill use that’

Tense silence before Dr S said 

’and the reason you are here today is?’