Three Mobile Internet

[Sarah and Ian]

Hello All

We currently get our internet through a Three Mifi router. We've had it for 2 years now and its been pretty damn good average speeds of 2mb and its been really stable so that I can work from home.

Since the middle of last week it has been pretty dire constantly dropping and speeds struggle to make 100k some days. I have done a factory reset on the mifi etc but its not really improved things. We took it to the coast last Friday and I was getting 5mb and as the weekend wore on became as poor as it had been at home.

Any ideas what I can do to boost performance or is anyone else experiencing the same problems.?

[Paul C]

Obvious question - have you moved recently, or is this in the same place that the performance has recently dropped?

[Sarah and Ian]

Same place. i have tried different windows.

[Phil Ambrose]

Same place. i have tried different windows.

Could your MiFi have become cream crackered, do what I did, ring or e-mail and ask for an upgrade, got mine for free.

 

Phil

 

Oh and I got it cheaper per month as they gave me a loyalty discount.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Phil Ambrose

[nb Innisfree]

Hello All

 

We currently get our internet through a Three Mifi router. We've had it for 2 years now and its been pretty damn good average speeds of 2mb and its been really stable so that I can work from home.

 

Since the middle of last week it has been pretty dire constantly dropping and speeds struggle to make 100k some days. I have done a factory reset on the mifi etc but its not really improved things. We took it to the coast last Friday and I was getting 5mb and as the weekend wore on became as poor as it had been at home.

 

Any ideas what I can do to boost performance or is anyone else experiencing the same problems.?

We have been having similar probs for the past week, though things are speeding up a bit now. We have a contract sim in a wi-fi and a PAYG sim in a mifi, both with three and both have been playing up. Between us we connect with two smartphones, a laptop and a notebook and the problem has been the same on all of them so it's definitely down to Three.

[Psycloud]

Also been experiencing a lot of network issues with 3 over the past week. Anything from <1 mb/s up to 5 mb/s and random nothing at all.

[Guest]

Funny enough Three on my iPhone has been pants since we came to the boat day before yesterday. We are in familiar territory where I have had good service previously.

 

Using my external 3g aerial with my Three dongle seems OK though.

Edited May 9, 2013 by The Dog House

[john6767]

I get very different results on 3 with my iPhone and with the dongle. The dongle get a signal much more of the time than the iPhone does. But once there is a signal usually it is very good.

[Paul C]

Just checked mine (3 mifi): download speed 6.66 Mb/s, upload speed 1.31 Mb/s. The download speed is around 3x what I remember it to be last time I checked it.

 

Maybe your issues are due to a transmitter (mast) going offline, so you need to now use the next nearest one?

[Sarah and Ian]

Could be the issue with a mast being down or upgraded. Its so up and down it nearly got launched out of the Window this morning. This is the first major issue I have had since using three for my internet. I Hope its not a sign of the future.

[Detling]

I use 3 pay as you go and recently have found 'peak time issues' 8:00 am is much faster than 8:00pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00am is rubbish till midnight. I suspect that since Giff Gaff changed their rules a lot of people have migrated to 3 and their servers can't cope with the increased load. Hopefully they are going to upgrade them soon but likely cities first and out in the sticks sometime.

[nb Innisfree]

I use 3 pay as you go and recently have found 'peak time issues' 8:00 am is much faster than 8:00pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00am is rubbish till midnight. I suspect that since Giff Gaff changed their rules a lot of people have migrated to 3 and their servers can't cope with the increased load. Hopefully they are going to upgrade them soon but likely cities first and out in the sticks sometime.

Perhaps nip back to Giffgaff then, users leaving them will have improved their service? Recently I have found Giffgaff sometimes to be quicker on gprs than Three on 3g.

 

I suspect that many will return to Giffgaff after spending a while in the wilderness.

[oarfish]

Giffgaff / O2 use 'optimisation' tricks that rewrite web traffic, often breaking sites in the process (t-mobile used to break canalworld chat for instance). 3 mobile internet is closer to home broadband in not messing with your connection. I wouldn't be able to use giffgaff/t-mobile etc for work purposes without also using a VPN tunnel to stop them pissing about.

Have noticed my router crashing quite a lot on some 3G masts around Oxford, others are fine. Not sure what is going on there. I pretty reliably get 12 Mb or more download speeds from DC-HSDPA+ masts usually.

[Orca]

I have been having big problems with the Orange/T-Mobile wireless broadband for a good few months now. During the day, I have to use the basic GPRS service as even that is quicker than the '3G' or 'HSDPA' service. At night it seems to get better, but not a patch what it used to be a year or so ago.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Orca

[AidanLincs]

I have been using 3 all-you-can-eat since I moved aboard last September. Have had no problems with it apart from occasional drop-outs (usually late evening), until this week when it has been seven varieties of pants.

[dmr]

I don't really understand all the technology behind 3g.

I am sure that as more people get Ipads etc then the network gets overloaded and slows right down, then recovers as more infrastructure is added.

I have noticed that things can get much worse at certain times of the day, especially early evening.

I have also noticed that when we are out in the sticks our 3 disconnects often, I assume this is because we get bumped off when other people connect. However I strongly suspect that the connection is held much better if we do not let it go idle, I reckon it disconnects much much less if I keep listening to Spotify!

 

.Dave

[Guest]

Absolute pants last night at our mooring at Pollington, painfully slow till finally could not connect at all, I have never known Three be so bad.

[Naughty Cal]

We have been having problems at home with my 3 network and the iphone. Fine during the day at home but during the evening so slow I have just not been bothering. Could be a network capacity issue in my opinion as its fine during the day when fewer people are at home.

[Chris Pink]

I don't really understand all the technology behind 3g.

I am sure that as more people get Ipads etc then the network gets overloaded and slows right down, then recovers as more infrastructure is added.

I have noticed that things can get much worse at certain times of the day, especially early evening.

I have also noticed that when we are out in the sticks our 3 disconnects often, I assume this is because we get bumped off when other people connect. However I strongly suspect that the connection is held much better if we do not let it go idle, I reckon it disconnects much much less if I keep listening to Spotify!

 

.Dave

 

This is not far off reality.

 

Three will ration use if a mast is overloaded. So watching iPlayer in the evening, especially at weekends, is often impossible. They will also throttle peer-to-peer downloads, more at some times than others but mid-afternoon to evening especially. I have also noticed throttling if, for instance, iPlayer use goes over an hour.

 

It's not surprising really, everyone wanting something for nothing (as they do) is bound to put a strain on a finite resource.

 

Most mobile connections will disconnect on idle (why on earth not?) usually around 10 minutes though longer at less peak periods.

 

I am a Three fan and think they manage the all-you-can-eat very well indeed. Have any of the other providers taken them on on this?

 

Whether their 4G roll out is managed so well remains to be seen although as people's use is not that variable the fact that data gets "out of the way" faster might make life easier.

[SamKingfisher]

My one plan tethering deal on 3 has been up and down now for a while - various locations. Sometimes it's truly pants, and even text based browsing is very very slow. It isn't a signal problem. I'm paying £34 a month for it so I don't see it as 'something for nowt' - they sold it to me as fast and unlimited. Unlimited means nowt if I can only download text!

 

It's better at work, mile from city center.

[pearley]

I have been having big problems with the Orange/T-Mobile wireless broadband for a good few months now. During the day, I have to use the basic GPRS service as even that is quicker than the '3G' or 'HSDPA' service. At night it seems to get better, but not a patch what it used to be a year or so ago.

Me too. Both in Worcester and here in Gloucester speed is very slow but I had rather gone over my 'fair use' allowance which usually means I'm restricted but even in the mornings when it is unrestricted it is not brilliant. Will wait until we get back to Birmingham in July - a known area - before complaining again.

 

Looked at 3s MiFi today but it has no external antenna socket and it is more expensive than I am paying at present - £10.50 for 3GB.

 

Regards

Pete

[Chris Pink]

My one plan tethering deal on 3 has been up and down now for a while - various locations. Sometimes it's truly pants, and even text based browsing is very very slow. It isn't a signal problem. I'm paying £34 a month for it so I don't see it as 'something for nowt' - they sold it to me as fast and unlimited. Unlimited means nowt if I can only download text!

 

It's better at work, mile from city center.

 

Then you should moan at everyone else who wants it all and wants it now. It's a finite resource for you to expect to use it in an infinite manner simply unrealistic.

 

I don't where people get these attitudes from, 10 years ago you'd have bitten someone's hand off to have the kinds of access we have now, and what do people do? moan. Moan, moan moan. I think it's brilliant, liberating and it's revolutionised my life in a way i used to dream about.

 

As I am fond of repeating "it's not amazing it goes wrong (slow), it's amazing it works at all"

[Guest]

Me too. Both in Worcester and here in Gloucester speed is very slow but I had rather gone over my 'fair use' allowance which usually means I'm restricted but even in the mornings when it is unrestricted it is not brilliant. Will wait until we get back to Birmingham in July - a known area - before complaining again.

 

Looked at 3s MiFi today but it has no external antenna socket and it is more expensive than I am paying at present - £10.50 for 3GB.

 

Regards

Pete

 

I considered mi-fi but also dismissed it because of the lack of an external aerial socket.

 

I got one of these off eBay for a lot less than the RRP and it works brilliantly with my 3 dongle (when three is working of course)

 

Zoom travel router linky

 

I can use my Nexus 7 with it on the boat and we can connect both our iPhones to it wirelessly, this meant I can use the iPhone to surf the net on 3 even when the 3G signal inside the boat is dodgy.

 

It's a great little piece of kit especially if you don't pay full price.

Edited May 15, 2013 by The Dog House

[SamKingfisher]

Over ten years ago I had unlimited free acces via my nokia mobile phone. I asked for the landline number of my isp and connected via serial port. It was quicker than sometimes my smartphone is now on 3!

 

I think the latest "big boned Internet" ads from 3 at the same time I'm unable to even load a daily mash article finally flipped my moan response on.

 

According to t mobile, 3 just buy bandwidth on the t mobile transmitters - well I'd quite like them to buy a bit more!

 

Bit like defending Yorkshire Water cos "there used to be loads more cholera in it - you lot don't know you're born"

[smileypete]

Then you should moan at everyone else who wants it all and wants it now. It's a finite resource for you to expect to use it in an infinite manner simply unrealistic.

 

I don't where people get these attitudes from, 10 years ago you'd have bitten someone's hand off to have the kinds of access we have now, and what do people do? moan. Moan, moan moan. I think it's brilliant, liberating and it's revolutionised my life in a way i used to dream about.

 

As I am fond of repeating "it's not amazing it goes wrong (slow), it's amazing it works at all"

 

3 is surely at fault for selling a plan as completely unlimited whereas it's becoming clear that their infrastructure and technology isn't quite there yet.

 

OK maybe some of the customers expect the moon on a stick, but that's what they've been promised, and they may not know any better.

 

But a lot of them have signed up to long contracts with more sensible expectations, and they're not getting the quality of service they're reasonably entitled to.

 

3 really need to sort something out, maybe they should have introduced stricter terms for new customers when Giffgaff started clamping down.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~