Three broadband is unreliable. Options to improve or replace?

treslukas

I moved into a new place in January and as I worked from home, wanted to get set up with internet as soon as possible. I saw that Three were offering contracts with a wireless internet hub device made by Huawei (Huawei AI Cube, model B900-230). I spoke with a Three representative and explained that I would need this for work and so I would need a connection fast and reliable enough for video conferencing. I was reassured that the quality of the connection would easily handle this. Over February, the connection was good enough although I occasionally ran into buffering issues with Netflix. The problems began in March and have gotten worse over April. At first the connection would be slow for hours at a time but otherwise fine - but now it can be consistently bad for whole days. At its worst, a page load for Google's home page takes 45 seconds, which makes this practically unusable, and of course makes it impossible to work (and learn and socialise) from home which under present circumstances is a major problem.

I am not working at present but don't want this to be a stumbling block.

I have tried contacting Three customer support but that is effectively non-existent at present (as their website says, their Contact Centre is operating a very limited service). I have got through via the chat service within the Three app. It is a bit of a pain, when I explained the situation, they suggested resetting the hub device. This actually did appear to help but it has not consistently helped when the connection grinds to a halt. I had a class last week and it was just impossible to participate. I tried resetting the hub device, my laptop, trying the Zoom web app rather than the desktop app and every other variation I could think of but to no avail. I may try the Three chat service again but do not have great expectations. At least it is a 12 month contract, not 24 months.

I can see other people have had similar issues: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6133903/three-broadband-issues#latest

I would be pretty much willing to try anything to get a reliable internet connection. I live alone so aside from work it has a pretty large impact on social connectedness and quality of life (for who knows how long). There is an ethernet socket so in normal times I would get a conventional modem installed but don't think that will be possible right now.

Cisco001

you could try Voxi and sign up £10 and stick it into your existing 4G router.
There are people saying it is unmeter at the moment.

treslukas

That's interesting - ta. 
Even if it is metered, 8GB will probably go pretty far if I just use it for video calls and browsing (not streaming) when I need to. As long as there is some way to keep track of usage.

redux

Investigate use of an external aerial with the router

This might apply to any network. But you could also check where the nearest network transmitter sites are.

mnbvcxz

You could try looking at the mobile internet forums on thinkbroadband and ispreview who have a smattering of people trying to improve their three routers performance.

If you have a bad signal try and get a better one, put it in a different window/position etc or possibly and external antenna.

If you have a good signal but a slow speed try using it at odd times, if you are ever awake at 3am see if it is faster. If it is then it is congestion at peak times.

You could try using a vpn, some like windscribe give some free gb of usage. If it is faster then there is some soft of throttling going on, either intentionally or by error.

You can try using a different apn setting, I think three has two.

You can see if its possible to manually chose the frequency it connects on. Once may be much better.

Or as many people say three may just be overloaded and poor at the moment. If other you have smart phones on different networks see how fast they connect to the internet to give you an idea of whether other networks might be better in you area.

Best of luck.

baldelectrician

The Huwaei B535 router allows an external antenna
http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Devices/Huawei/B535?memory=0&colour=White
External antennas #1

External antennas #2

These may help as the antenna can be on a higher window- it will take a bit of trial and error

mnbvcxz

Thats a point, you cube probably does not support an external antenna so maybe just fiddle around with placement, and look at the signal info to see if its already good.

Highland76

OP,  unless you live too far from the cabinet or exchange to get decent speeds, fixed line broadband would be your best bet. Pop your address here to see what speeds your home is capable of. If there was a previous working line at your address, then Openreach might be able to activate it remotely without an Enginner visit.