3 4g router Painfully slow :(

Just got my 4g router to try and replace my already painfully slow broadband, Was told I had excellent coverage and should get anywhere from 20 - 60mbps and a minimum of 15 which I would be well happy with as my broadband maxes it at 7 and on average is around 4mbps, however plugged in connected wireless and wired and got even worse speeds than my broadband, going to call 3 tomorrow, anything I should say? just want some decent internet that's not snails pace on netflix at 480p im getting 0.5mbps wired in with the cable that comes in the box

heres a link to a screenshot I took, wireless and wired with the router, not sure why wireless is so much faster on the upload, but wired its only just faster than wireless feel like I got kinda ripped off by the people at 3 I spoke to, Ill wait a few more days to see if anything changes but luckily I bought online so can send it back if needs be, anything I can do to try improve it?

https://imgur.com/a/VfifDXt

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Jun-19 20:06:16)

Could this work with the three huawei b311 router?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C1DGFPS/ref=a...

saw a vid on it and improved his speed/connection a lot but no idea if it will work with this router? Im a complete amature when it comes too this sorry for all the noob questions, also I did this ghetto video for a friend, tried to do a speed test but it wouldn't even connect lol said latency issue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GnejueSISY

You could try with an external antenna attached and where the device is placed

the hub only have one connector for an an antenna but all the good ones seem too need two connections

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Jun-19 20:46:50)

Which 4G router is it? I assume a Three one, but the 311 or the other one? If it's the 311, what colour is the signal light? Green or blue?

Thanks for replying, its the Huawei HomeFi b311, just bought these together, worse comes to worse I can return them, also the 3 sim should work with it I think, even 15mbps will be 4x faster than what I have now

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C1DGFPS/ref=p...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071CYR18L/ref=p...

and the signal light is blue

I'm confused. You link to the B525, not the B311 that is in the current Three HomeFi deals as far as I can see. (I think they used to offer the 525 for a bit more). Did you buy the router off Amazon?

What SIM have you got? The Three HomeFi router comes with a SIM, but it isn't the same setup as the unlimited phone SIM. It is a 100GB data SIM that then gets a free add-on to unlimited data after a couple of days. The £20 phone SIM is unlimited everything immediately

I don't expect there is any problem with a guaranteed new B525, but I wonder if there is something wrong with the one you have if that's what it is and you didn't get it from Three.

I would expect the phone SIM to work in any 4G/LTE router but don't know for sure that it does.

Have you checked the router settings? Are you connecting using 4g or 3g? Have you tried putting the device in every random spot in the house to see if it improves signal. Do you have a recent unlocked smartphone that you can test the sim with to see what speeds you get on that, to rule out that router.

He means he has the B311, but he has just bought the B525.

Three Ireland supplied the B525 with the mobile broadband packages, not Three UK - I don't think they ever did.

Signal light being blue signifies it is connected to a 3G network (UMTS). Cyan signifies LTE. From your video I can see it's 4G LTE, however.

From what I could see in the video, the stats were:
RSRQ: -12 dB
RSRP: -114 dBm
RSSI: -83 dBm
SNR: 1 dB

The connection is poor overall. I would suggest attempting to relocate the device near to a window, at least for now for the sake of testing - if cable length permits for both LAN and router power supply. You may need to put a bit of effort into finding a good spot which may not even be in the same room, and sometimes just a few centimeters can make a difference - but don't let this you discourage you! Having the device inside the house, far away from windows will stifle a good connection since walls are a good obstacle.

I would really suggest downloading and using LTEWatch since this can feed you live stats regarding connection signal connection an quality - this may help you find a good spot. It will also let you manually set the LTE frequency band, which is not possible through the UI on the B311 if I recall correctly. Please note: sometimes the application stops updating, or at least I think it did on the B311 - a simple close and reopen of the program will suffice.

If you still have slow speeds and issues after relocating to an area with better signal strength and quality, then it may be because:
- You are connected to Band 20 (800 MHz, which is used for VoLTE on Three);
- Your area is subject to congestion.

In LTEWatch, you can force the frequency band to Band 3 (1800 MHz) - it may be worth giving this a try once you've moved it.

Something important to note with the Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 is that the cable is pretty long (5m), and so any gains made will be lost through cable loss. If you are buying this antenna, you really have to be prepared to mount it externally otherwise it probably won't give an improvement because of the loss. In reality, if you don't want to go external, you'd probably be better off buying HAUNT-BL315 (or HUANT-W315, if you want white) antennas. Though, the B525 you've ordered has decent internal antennas anyway.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I'm confused. You link to the B525, not the B311 that is in the current Three HomeFi deals as far as I can see. (I think they used to offer the 525 for a bit more). Did you buy the router off Amazon?

What SIM have you got? The Three HomeFi router comes with a SIM, but it isn't the same setup as the unlimited phone SIM. It is a 100GB data SIM that then gets a free add-on to unlimited data after a couple of days. The £20 phone SIM is unlimited everything immediately

I don't expect there is any problem with a guaranteed new B525, but I wonder if there is something wrong with the one you have if that's what it is and you didn't get it from Three.

I would expect the phone SIM to work in any 4G/LTE router but don't know for sure that it does.

Hi I have the uk 3 unlimited plan, it comes with the b311 router not the b525, reading reviews people said the b311 was terrible and got a lot better speeds with the b525 because the antenna is better? which is why im giving it a shot and yea got this one off amazon uk

In reply to a post by j0el:

He means he has the B311, but he has just bought the B525.

Three Ireland supplied the B525 with the mobile broadband packages, not Three UK - I don't think they ever did.

Yea this is correct

Post deleted by skiersteve

In reply to a post by j0el:

Signal light being blue signifies it is connected to a 3G network (UMTS). Cyan signifies LTE. From your video I can see it's 4G LTE, however.

From what I could see in the video, the stats were:
RSRQ: -12 dB
RSRP: -114 dBm
RSSI: -83 dBm
SNR: 1 dB

The connection is poor overall. I would suggest attempting to relocate the device near to a window, at least for now for the sake of testing - if cable length permits for both LAN and router power supply. You may need to put a bit of effort into finding a good spot which may not even be in the same room, and sometimes just a few centimeters can make a difference - but don't let this you discourage you! Having the device inside the house, far away from windows will stifle a good connection since walls are a good obstacle.

I would really suggest downloading and using LTEWatch since this can feed you live stats regarding connection signal connection an quality - this may help you find a good spot. It will also let you manually set the LTE frequency band, which is not possible through the UI on the B311 if I recall correctly. Please note: sometimes the application stops updating, or at least I think it did on the B311 - a simple close and reopen of the program will suffice.

If you still have slow speeds and issues after relocating to an area with better signal strength and quality, then it may be because:
- You are connected to Band 20 (800 MHz, which is used for VoLTE on Three);
- Your area is subject to congestion.

In LTEWatch, you can force the frequency band to Band 3 (1800 MHz) - it may be worth giving this a try once you've moved it.

Something important to note with the Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 is that the cable is pretty long (5m), and so any gains made will be lost through cable loss. If you are buying this antenna, you really have to be prepared to mount it externally otherwise it probably won't give an improvement because of the loss. In reality, if you don't want to go external, you'd probably be better off buying HAUNT-BL315 (or HUANT-W315, if you want white) antennas. Though, the B525 you've ordered has decent internal antennas anyway.

Ill definitely try changing the frequency, watched some videos on that with some people getting vastly different speeds, I live in a bungalow so going to just stick it outside close to the roof, shouldn't be too hard with some cable ties, and yea on the router settings it does show 4g but only 2 bars I did have it literally right next to the window and still go poor, Ill try again tonight, I have a 15m cat7 cable from my old house if the router is on the other side of the house will using a long cable kill the speeds from the router to my pc? also can you use a cat7 cable on a cat 6 hub? sorry for so many noob questions, thanks for everyones help, really appreciate it

In reply to a post by woodmass14:

Have you checked the router settings? Are you connecting using 4g or 3g? Have you tried putting the device in every random spot in the house to see if it improves signal. Do you have a recent unlocked smartphone that you can test the sim with to see what speeds you get on that, to rule out that router.

on pc on the Hawaii admin bit it says 4g but only two bars, cant currently check with a phone, going to try again tonight but I did try every window in my place, unfortunately cant go too high as I live in a bungalow, also when it comes to masts does each network provider use there own one? for example theres a orange mast that shows as pretty close to me but I cant even find a three one, checking using this

https://www.mastdata.com/37/37_map_mobile_mast.aspx?...

In reply to a post by skiersteve:

... reading reviews people said the b311 was terrible and got a lot better speeds with the b525 because the antenna is better? which is why im giving it a shot ...

The B311 is not that bad. If you're getting horrible speeds now, the B525 alone is unlikely to improve the situation - at least in reference to its value's worth. The B525 is certainly better but it's no magic bullet, that's for sure. I've used both, and the former is not terrible for what it is - but the limitations become clear once you have more devices, especially over wireless since 2.4 GHz is going to be the limiting factor to some degree.

In reply to a post by skiersteve:

Ill definitely try changing the frequency, watched some videos on that with some people getting vastly different speeds, I live in a bungalow so going to just stick it outside close to the roof, shouldn't be too hard with some cable ties, and yea on the router settings it does show 4g but only 2 bars I did have it literally right next to the window and still go poor, Ill try again tonight, I have a 15m cat7 cable from my old house if the router is on the other side of the house will using a long cable kill the speeds from the router to my pc? also can you use a cat7 cable on a cat 6 hub? sorry for so many noob questions, thanks for everyones help, really appreciate it

15m is not an exceptionally long distance, so it won't kill speeds unless it is faulty. And yes, the cable will work.

In reply to a post by skiersteve:

on pc on the Hawaii admin bit it says 4g but only two bars, cant currently check with a phone, going to try again tonight but I did try every window in my place, unfortunately cant go too high as I live in a bungalow, also when it comes to masts does each network provider use there own one? for example theres a orange mast that shows as pretty close to me but I cant even find a three one, checking using this

https://www.mastdata.com/37/37_map_mobile_mast.aspx?...

Multiple networks can share the same mast. In this case, Three is also provided from there it seems.

Have you tried using 3g only by changing it in the settings? It might increase your speeds in the meantime till you figure out a fix.

Cellmapper

There are a lot of 3 masts around that area, or maybe that website isn't very accurate. Could possibly be congestion.

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Jun-19 12:07:58)

In reply to a post by skiersteve:

In reply to a post by j0el:

Signal light being blue signifies it is connected to a 3G network (UMTS). Cyan signifies LTE. From your video I can see it's 4G LTE, however.

From what I could see in the video, the stats were:
RSRQ: -12 dB
RSRP: -114 dBm
RSSI: -83 dBm
SNR: 1 dB

The connection is poor overall. I would suggest attempting to relocate the device near to a window, at least for now for the sake of testing - if cable length permits for both LAN and router power supply. You may need to put a bit of effort into finding a good spot which may not even be in the same room, and sometimes just a few centimeters can make a difference - but don't let this you discourage you! Having the device inside the house, far away from windows will stifle a good connection since walls are a good obstacle.

I would really suggest downloading and using LTEWatch since this can feed you live stats regarding connection signal connection an quality - this may help you find a good spot. It will also let you manually set the LTE frequency band, which is not possible through the UI on the B311 if I recall correctly. Please note: sometimes the application stops updating, or at least I think it did on the B311 - a simple close and reopen of the program will suffice.

If you still have slow speeds and issues after relocating to an area with better signal strength and quality, then it may be because:
- You are connected to Band 20 (800 MHz, which is used for VoLTE on Three);
- Your area is subject to congestion.

In LTEWatch, you can force the frequency band to Band 3 (1800 MHz) - it may be worth giving this a try once you've moved it.

Something important to note with the Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 is that the cable is pretty long (5m), and so any gains made will be lost through cable loss. If you are buying this antenna, you really have to be prepared to mount it externally otherwise it probably won't give an improvement because of the loss. In reality, if you don't want to go external, you'd probably be better off buying HAUNT-BL315 (or HUANT-W315, if you want white) antennas. Though, the B525 you've ordered has decent internal antennas anyway.

Ill definitely try changing the frequency, watched some videos on that with some people getting vastly different speeds, I live in a bungalow so going to just stick it outside close to the roof, shouldn't be too hard with some cable ties, and yea on the router settings it does show 4g but only 2 bars I did have it literally right next to the window and still go poor, Ill try again tonight, I have a 15m cat7 cable from my old house if the router is on the other side of the house will using a long cable kill the speeds from the router to my pc? also can you use a cat7 cable on a cat 6 hub? sorry for so many noob questions, thanks for everyones help, really appreciate it

15m network cables won't cause any problems as CAT5e and above are capable of 1gbps for 100m

However, if you use an external aerial then the length of the cable (and quality) make a huge difference and shorter is better here.

The comment about antenna cables is really key here. You could have a 10m antenna cable and on these frequencies they'd be useless as you'd lose most of the signal in the wire. What you might be better off doing is putting the actual device as high up in the roof space as possible and using short or built in antennas.

If you dont have power in that location look into PoE kits where you can send Power Over the Ethernet cable.

Some kits come with a splitter to provide 12v for your 4G router.
You'd need a POE injector to send power along the cable but you could have this in the loft with the router and give it power really easily: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MY5TCG2

ill try everything with and without the antenna, also Im only in a bungalow but Ill try put it high as I can, Ive moved the hub around everywhere and outside I get worse speed than indoors lol, my steam download tonight was peak 6.2mbps and average was around 2.5mbps amazon messed up delivery so have to wait another day for hub and antenna although im not holding out much hope, is there any other way aside from 4g and broadband I could get internet? I dont want anything insane, like 15-20mbs Id be so happy with since even that is 10x faster than what im getting now through 4g and broadband

You could try what woodmass14 suggested and see what 3G does for you. The 3G spectrum may be slightly better if there are less devices on it. You should be able to force 3G somewhere under "Dial-Up" if I recall correctly.

In reply to a post by j0el:

You could try what woodmass14 suggested and see what 3G does for you. The 3G spectrum may be slightly better if there are less devices on it. You should be able to force 3G somewhere under "Dial-Up" if I recall correctly.

It is actually what Three are telling all customers. It made my 311 faster for the very brief time I had it.

I am in the process of moving to using a 3 sim in a Huawei router. It came with external antennas which consistently get better signal and better speeds. Not a huge surprise.

What is a huge surprise is where it works best. I initally tried it in an upstairs window, facing out across a wide valley, where I know several base stations are in view. Rather disappointing speeds. I tried it in various different places, all upstairs near windows, facing in all four directions. Mostly disappointing.

So I took it downstairs to near where the old router was, where the switch is and near the UPS power. I put it on a shelf well away from the rather small window that faces a farmhouse not 100 metres away. No clear line of sight of anything. Inside walls of millstone grit, more than a metre thick.

The plan was to switch back to the wired connection, but I didn't have time to swap the cables over, so I left it running for a while.

The signal level is not great, but the signal quality is good. And the speeds are far better. More than twice as fast as it was in a "good" position.

Not entirely consistent. It varies from around 20Mb/sec to 48Mb/sec download, 6Mb/sec to 32Mb/sec up. But good enough: I reckon that anything over 20 down is fine for my needs.

Moral of the story? Try everywhere, not just where you think signal will be good.

I have recently acquired Three Homefi and I did several things to improve my speeds. Admittedly I was starting from an already impressive baseline with the supplied router (40 mbps down, 15 Mbps up, a vast improvement from our old now deceased landline 2.5mbps down 0.5mbps up). These were great speeds and I was more than happy with them but felt there was more available and wanted to future proof things a bit. First I checked https://www.cellmapper.net/map to see if the Cellular mast we have direct line of sight of on the hill overlooking the field behind our house did in fact have Three Cells (It did). I think it is uesful to know where your nearest Three Cell tower is as this may help figure out best placement for your router or external antenna. Second I purchased an external driectional antenna, an omni directional one may be better depending on your circumstances (depends if you have direct line of sight), but because we had direct line of sight to the cell tower I went directional. Third I purchased a rather expensive Netgear M1100 4G router (I got mine second hand on Ebay for half the retail price, still expensive though). With all of these upgrades I am now getting up to 120mbps down 40mbps up, obviously these are maximum speeds but my average speeds would be 100mbps down 30mbps up so I am extatic. If I look at the speed improvement I got from the baseline it was almost exactly 50% due to the better router and 50% due to the external antenna. I was a bit surprised the antenna made such a difference as I had a fulll strength signal before I attached it to the router, but I guess it improves signal quality not just strength. Of course this is all highly location dependent and things I did may not be helpful in your circumstances, I am lucky to be in a situation where I have direct line of sight to a Three Cell tower and because it is a semi-rural area with low population density the Tower is not likely to become congested. If your tower serves a large population you may find you speeds are restricted by congestion at certain times of the day.

ufb200,

Could you tell me the name of the directional antenna please? I've been on the lookout for one.

Thanks