three 4G home broadband, any good?? 22 October 2022 at 1:38PM in Broadband & internet access 9 replies 309 views

frugal90

we are currently copper back to the exchange, max 5mbps on a good day.

The signal checker says I have an excellent three 4G signal, so could their home broadband work for us, catchup tv etc?

thanks 

westy22

Mine works great most of the time. I get a pretty reliable 20mbps which is fine for streaming HD, Netflix etc.

I’ve had it for about 2 years with no real issues.

cymruchris

Three signal checker said the location where we wanted internet had excellent 5g coverage. We took the contract - installed it, and initially it looked promising in terms of the speeds showing on the regular speed checker websites. However, in use, it was useless. It kept falling over, dropping out, cutting off for hours at a time (It was taken on a business contract for business use). I spent a great deal of time on the phone to them over a period of a month while they tested this, looked at that, made some excuse or other, followed by more excuses, bigger excuses and daft excuses until in the end they finally agreed to take the plastic mound of a router back and cancel the contract. It then took them nearly two months to send a return envelope (and you can't send it back without a return envelope). The poorest service I've received from any company for well over a decade. Hope that helps in your decision. 

(And just to add - Vodafone said 'Good' not 'Excellent' signal - and we tried them instead, and it's been a perfect connection ever since)

molerat

The only way to find out is to get a free sim and give it a test.

We took a cheap Lebara sim based on the Vodafone map "good indoors and out" signal, in reality totally useless.  At my house the only reliable speed is with EE.

Heinzbean

i have the 5g home broadband 850Mbps download.

depends on area. Have tested  1442Mbps at local park on 3-broadband.(using phone). People dont read the instructions

mine works full speed up in the loft and on a windowsill in the back bedroom..put outside on the windowsill and it gets an even stronger signal  if i bring it to the wrong location it slows down.

Also i ditched the Bt landline and run a VOIP  system for my landline through this 5g modem ...so its a money saver for me.

frugal90

Heinzbean said:

i have the 5g home broadband 850Mbps download.

depends on area. Have tested  1442Mbps at local park on 3-broadband.(using phone). People dont read the instructions

mine works full speed up in the loft and on a windowsill in the back bedroom..put outside on the windowsill and it gets an even stronger signal  if i bring it to the wrong location it slows down.

Also i ditched the Bt landline and run a VOIP  system for my landline through this 5g modem ...so its a money saver for me.

could you explain more about the voip system you run??

cymruchris

Heinzbean said:

i have the 5g home broadband 850Mbps download.

depends on area. Have tested  1442Mbps at local park on 3-broadband.(using phone). People dont read the instructions

mine works full speed up in the loft and on a windowsill in the back bedroom..put outside on the windowsill and it gets an even stronger signal  if i bring it to the wrong location it slows down.

Also i ditched the Bt landline and run a VOIP  system for my landline through this 5g modem ...so it’s a money saver for me.

Good point - I didn’t mention that in my response - we had the router placed at the highest point up in the loft - and also tried an external 5g aerial to try and get a more reliable connection - but it didn’t work for us. The router three supplies has two connections for an aerial - on our first unit when we pushed the two connections into place - one became detached from the internal circuit board. Three Customer service admitted this was a common fault and replaced the unit. The build quality is poor. 

In the wrong place the signal can be terrible - so if you’re going for it - either make sure you can access a loft or have a high point in the property with a good view of outside - preferably towards the nearest three mast.

We also set up a voip phone system using a pair of yealink handsets - which would die when the three connection went down (another reason for cancelling) - which again since changing provider have been running 100 percent. As a system, voip is worth a look. 

flashg67

I have slow rural broadband and use Lebara (vodafone) 4g for my home broadband, streaming, wfh etc. I'd ignore the coverage checkers and try your own sim from each provider - if your phone gets decent 4g/5g then a router should, but router placement can be crucial. 

Millyonare

Yes, unreliability of signal is the biggest risk for mobile broadband. Placing the 4G or 5G router / Mi-Fi / phone hotspot in exactly the right spot is mission-critical. For example, we can get 30Mbps 4G tethering by a downstairs windowsill... but move the hotspot (literally) 10ft indoors and speed plunges to 1Mbps 2G and it becomes completely unusable. Back to the 1990s.

UK mobile networks today are mong the worst in the industrialized world. Gotta be so careful where that 4G / 5G router is placed.

cymruchris

Also to add that on a very poor weather day with torrential rain, the signal that was bad got worse.