What is your experience with Three 5G home broadband?

somerandomusername

I live in an area that says it has good outdoor and indoor coverage and my home is 350metres from the nearest tower, but none of my windows actually face the tower directly so the signal would have to penetrate a couple of homes before it reaches my router. (about 16 metres thick of building blockage)

Anyway for those who have used / use it, what is your experience? What kind of speeds? Do you regularly drop signal or is it pretty stable?

Ayr_Rage

With any 5G router the experience is going to completely individual depending on signal strength.

Get a 5G mobile, move around your home and see what reception you receive on 5G, if any.

somerandomusername

Ayr_Rage said:

With any 5G router the experience is going to completely individual depending on signal strength.

Get a 5G mobile, move around your home and see what reception you receive on 5G, if any.

I've done this with my mobile which is smarty (same network as three) and was getting 300Mbps give or take. So that's basically the speed I'll get from the router I'm guessing?

QrizB

somerandomusername said:

Ayr_Rage said:

With any 5G router the experience is going to completely individual depending on signal strength.

Get a 5G mobile, move around your home and see what reception you receive on 5G, if any.

I've done this with my mobile which is smarty (same network as three) and was getting 300Mbps give or take. So that's basically the speed I'll get from the router I'm guessing?

All other things being equal, yes.

RedFraggle

I used it twice. In London where the block only had normal broadband and in a house where I was only going to be a few months.
The key is finding the right place to sit it and maybe getting the aerial extension. 
Never had a problem and found it very convenient. It also allowed me to take it to my elderly Mum's who has no broadband so I could work at her house. 
It was expensive versus a proper set up (I think £50 a month, 5 years ago). 

Frozen_up_north

Check Scancom, either directly or via Amazon. Amazon list several 500 GB/month or unlimited. The ones from Three tend to be cheaper than those from EE, cost can be less than the equivalent of £10 per month for unlimited, although you pay in advance, no contract, chuck the SIM in the bin when it stops working.

We have a couple of SIMs on EE to monitor a second home and for general home use, cost worked out at less than £6.30 a month on a 50 GB/month one and around £14 per month for an unlimited one.

It all depends on where you are and whether the "local" site is a true 5G one, or just a 5G radio connected to 4G back haul. In the latter case the speed and latency will be similar to 4G.

Currently I am seeing 100 Mb/s down and 5 Mb/s up, clearly not true 5G... we are about half a mile from the EE site.

QrizB

My location on the Three coverage checker reckons I have "excellent 4G coverage" both indoor and outdoor but in practice I'm only getting between 3 and 5 Mbps download speeds. That's OK for light web browsing and phone apps but I'm not streaming Netflix over it!

https://www.three.co.uk/support/network-and-coverage/coverage

(I don't have a Netflix account, that's just rhetorical.)

somerandomusername

RedFraggle said:

I used it twice. In London where the block only had normal broadband and in a house where I was only going to be a few months.
The key is finding the right place to sit it and maybe getting the aerial extension. 
Never had a problem and found it very convenient. It also allowed me to take it to my elderly Mum's who has no broadband so I could work at her house. 
It was expensive versus a proper set up (I think £50 a month, 5 years ago). 

£50 a month... sweet Jesus. 

I'm seeing Three home broadband deals for £18 (effective) per month over a 24 month contract.

QrizB said:

My location on the Three coverage checker reckons I have "excellent 4G coverage" both indoor and outdoor but in practice I'm only getting between 3 and 5 Mbps download speeds. That's OK for light web browsing and phone apps but I'm not streaming Netflix over it!

https://www.three.co.uk/support/network-and-coverage/coverage

(I don't have a Netflix account, that's just rhetorical.)

Well if it's 4G that might be why, 5G should be considerably faster than that.

QrizB

somerandomusername said:

QrizB said:

My location on the Three coverage checker reckons I have "excellent 4G coverage" both indoor and outdoor but in practice I'm only getting between 3 and 5 Mbps download speeds. That's OK for light web browsing and phone apps but I'm not streaming Netflix over it!

https://www.three.co.uk/support/network-and-coverage/coverage

(I don't have a Netflix account, that's just rhetorical.)

Well if it's 4G that might be why, 5G should be considerably faster than that.

A few miles up the road, 4G gives me ~15Mbps and 5G gives ~110Mbps.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't just trust the Three coverage map; check for yourself using a Three SIM (or one of their MNVOs) before committing.

spud17

Frozen_up_north said:

Check Scancom, either directly or via Amazon. Amazon list several 500 GB/month or unlimited. The ones from Three tend to be cheaper than those from EE, cost can be less than the equivalent of £10 per month for unlimited, although you pay in advance, no contract, chuck the SIM in the bin when it stops working.

We have a couple of SIMs on EE to monitor a second home and for general home use, cost worked out at less than £6.30 a month on a 50 GB/month one and around £14 per month for an unlimited one.

It all depends on where you are and whether the "local" site is a true 5G one, or just a 5G radio connected to 4G back haul. In the latter case the speed and latency will be similar to 4G.

Currently I am seeing 100 Mb/s down and 5 Mb/s up, clearly not true 5G... we are about half a mile from the EE site.

Be aware that EE often limits speed to 100Mbps, depending on your account.