Smarty £18 Unlimited Data

I have joined smarty (3) from plusnet (ee) and was shocked overall - rubbish speed, very poor high ping, kept disconnected from internet. [censored] from Smarty as they offer 4G unlimited data for cheapest £18 a month. AVOID IT at all cost!

Plusnet (ee) 2 / 3 bars signal 4G (12GB data, unlimited texts, unlimited calls, 30 days) @ £10

download speed 62Mbps
upload speed 26Mbps
ping 23ms

Smarty (3) 1 / 2 bars signal 4G (unlimited data, unlimited texts, unlimited calls, 30 days) @ £18

download speed 2Mbps
upload speed 4Mbps
ping 59ms

Very disappointed with smarty as I am going to port same number back to plusnet next few days.

Did you miss this thread which identifies the slow speeds problem with Smarty and offers at least one way to resolve the issue?

Quite a few people have already posted about poor performance of Smarty on here. Pay such a low price and it is going to be rubbish. Even 3 at a bit higher price have had performance issues on the unlimited data products.

Not only your and GonePostal's comments, but EE is overall almost certainly the best in the UK. Whether PN is quite as good I have no idea.

You could have tested first with a £1 spend on a Smarty SIM plus adding some data for £5-£10. Try before buy! Don't like it, take it out and bin it. Put the Plusnet one back in.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Not only your and GonePostal's comments, but EE is overall almost certainly the best in the UK. Whether PN is quite as good I have no idea.

It will depend on the load on your local mast, which varies in areas. EE has the largest capacity, but they don't deploy it all everywhere (for cost reasons). So worth experimenting.

Uaing a second tier, virtual network (MVNO) and expecting high speeds is bad judgement, they are second tier to be CHEAP.

The real networks are: Vodafone, O2, EE and Three.

The virtual operators are here -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom...

I did say "overall". Not always or everywhere .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You could have tested first with a £1 spend on a Smarty SIM plus adding some data for £5-£10. Try before buy! Don't like it, take it out and bin it. Put the Plusnet one back in.

Yes never thought of that! Plusnet (ee) are the best coverage in my area always getting 62Meg down and 26Meg up but Plusnet will never offer unlimited because of ee

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Yes never thought of that! Plusnet (ee) are the best coverage in my area always getting 62Meg down and 26Meg up but Plusnet will never offer unlimited because of ee

Only Vodafone’s mobile data is unlimited. All the others (EE, O2, Three) has a FUP. I think EE’s is the lowest at 600GB per month. O2 around 650GB and Three is higher.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 28-Oct-20 13:30:11)

In reply to a post by ian72:

Quite a few people have already posted about poor performance of Smarty on here. Pay such a low price and it is going to be rubbish. Even 3 at a bit higher price have had performance issues on the unlimited data products.

I know EE got 60GB on 4G/5G but way too expensive at £30 a month for pay as you go with no contract! or Unlimited Data on 4G/5G at £37 a month for 2 years contract but I heard someone saying EE does have data usage 1TB per month. Not sure if their speed are good as PN or much the same but maybe ee are fastest speed in network for streaming NOWTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Only Vodafone’s mobile data is unlimited. All the others (EE, O2, Three) has a FUP.

Does Smarty unlimited have FUP? Thought they say there are NONE! But I understand why they are very poor speed high ping I seen highest are 72ms last night and went down to 0.96Mbps.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Does Smarty unlimited have FUP? Thought they say there are NONE!

I have not checked as I have no need; but Three does, and since Three own Smarty, I would be surprised.

But I understand why they are very poor speed high ping I seen highest are 72ms last night and went down to 0.96Mbps.

Mobile is variable based on load. You might find there are a lot of Three and Smarty customers in your area last night.

Fixed line broadband will always win over mobile, even with 5G arrives.

Smarty has ruined my own number port over as it still show unknown number mess it up. As my other plusnet sim card still got my own number on it but the network no longer work as it was successful transfer to smarty. I text word PAC to 65075 on my smarty but say fail sent. Fuming now. Can't get my own number port back to Plusnet sim

Edited by adslmax (Wed 28-Oct-20 14:17:19)

Ports take upto midnight on the date of port. They don't happen instantly.

The performance of a mobile network is highly dependant on the location and number of users.

I get 40-75mbps solid with my Smarty connection where I use it the most. Overall though, if I go on the road I notice that 3 coverage is vastly inferior to that of O2.

Always pays to use a 1 quid SIM card before porting. Try before you port/buy.

VOXI is a Vodafone reseller that has unlimited for 35 per month, no contract. Perhaps try them out with a 5 quid SIM before porting etc.

If you only use or need 12GB a month then you could go with any provider really for next to nothing. Might as well stick with EE. If you need 100GB+ then the choices become a lot less.

Edited by deleted (Thu 29-Oct-20 11:04:05)

I use about 27-42GB a month on mobile data but my smarty seem ok today pick up 33-56Meg down and 28-31Meg up. The last two days been awful slow.

In reply to a post by Anonymous1337:

Perhaps try them out with a 5 quid SIM before porting etc.

Thanks I try that

FWIW, I have the three unlimited data for £18 Monthly and use the Huawei B525. usually get around 75/35 but at peak times, download can drop to around 50 Mbit. It's been pretty solid for the 3 Months that I've used it. You can get the prepaid data SIMs for three, so worth a try then see what "Black Friday" offers appear.

That pretty faster than FTTC where did you buy Huawei B525 from do u need to do some few settings on LTE Modem?

Bought it on ebay. I did load the firmware to allow modem mode but it then updated itself with their latest firmware so I just set a static IP/DMZ to my main router but if you use it as a router, there isn't anything you really need to configure outside of the usual port forwarding etc.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I use about 27-42GB a month on mobile data but my smarty seem ok today pick up 33-56Meg down and 28-31Meg up. The last two days been awful slow.

To go from 0.3mbps to 33mbps seems odd. You might be at a cell-edge or something, if you're going to use this for your home broadband, see if there's a better part of the house to stick your tethered phone to coherce it onto the right cell tower. Try the phone outside.

Use this site as well: https://www.cellmapper.net/map

Finally, I notice if I lock my device to 3G I still get a solid 20mbps anyway, which is good enough for me. There are a lot less 3G devices around these days so that band can be more stable (i.e. free).

Edited by deleted (Thu 29-Oct-20 19:15:05)

Only it happen overnight 33-56Meg rest of peak times are very slow. I am going to try voxi for free sim and try it for £10 as I can't seem find cheaper £5?

In reply to a post by Anonymous1337:

Use this site as well: https://www.cellmapper.net/map

What does green and red spot circle in this map mean?

Mine is 0.5miles away from Smarty mast below:

eNB ID 5266 - LTE

MCC / MNC / Region 234 / 20 / 2053
Bands 1, 3, 20
First Seen Sat, 28 Jan 2017
Last Seen Thu, 9 Jul 2020

I check EE (as Plusnet use EE) as mine mast was almost a mile away

MCC / MNC / Region 234 / 30 / 11041
Bands 3, 7
First Seen Wed, 17 Aug 2016
Last Seen Sat, 11 Jul 2020
Approximate Address
Halesfield 2, Halesfield, Madeley, Telford and Wrekin, England, TF7 4QQ, United Kingdom

Edited by adslmax (Thu 29-Oct-20 19:26:23)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

What does green and red spot circle in this map mean

The circles are locations of the cell sites. (Each site or "mast" in the UK typically has 3 cells, in a triangle formation, usually easy to see if old style mast, but harder on buildings or street works poles.)

Red is calculated position. Green is confirmed position by an enthusiast whom has updated it after visually checking. (or checking against Street View or similar).

The USA use the term "tower" which also will typically have 3 cell sites. In the US they have a lot of VERY tall towers, so it is quite an apt name. In the UK we often hid our masts in woods in rural areas. Now planning law has been updated so they can be taller, as the trees absorb a lot of the signal.

Your Three mast appears to be in the woods south of the A4160. Your EE mast (eNB 13237) appears to be on the top of the shopping centre.

If you click on the circle, (green ones are better) you can see the coverage pattern, if your home is inside one of those polygons then you are likely getting signal from that mast.

More people with Three or Smarty SIMs need to have Cellmapper on their Android devices and drive around updating the map in your area.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 29-Oct-20 19:49:06)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Only it happen overnight 33-56Meg rest of peak times are very slow. I am going to try voxi for free sim and try it for £10 as I can't seem find cheaper £5?

Ok, well it's most likely congestion then. Three must be popular in the area. They seem to have a cluster of towers around Madeley however.

As for VOXI, yeah your right it's 10 quid I think for the minimum recharge.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Smarty has ruined my own number port over as it still show unknown number mess it up. As my other plusnet sim card still got my own number on it but the network no longer work as it was successful transfer to smarty. I text word PAC to 65075 on my smarty but say fail sent. Fuming now. Can't get my own number port back to Plusnet sim

You have made several posts since this one, and talking about trying other SIMs.

Changing your new SIM out and putting a new one in while waiting for a port to complete is almost certain to completely screw things up!

Smarty has finally transfer my own number but was very late indeed. two days not one day. Anyway I have managed to port number back to Plusnet and the number should go back to plusnet sim (on new sim card) tomorrow as my smarty will go off.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 29-Oct-20 23:59:33)

Here is smarty mobile speed test - pretty terrible for tether from mobile to pc

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16040221927...

Edited by adslmax (Fri 30-Oct-20 02:23:32)

Both of those on Smarty?

Post deleted by adslmax

Edited by adslmax (Fri 30-Oct-20 02:07:31)

It doesn't help when you edit to replace the speedtest.net one, rather than adding the new one as new. Particularly as the two were from different servers.

What is the latest now on tbb?

I try to walk around outside to find where is best back or front garden

This is latest for back garden: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16040242997...

Edited by adslmax (Fri 30-Oct-20 02:19:56)

Front garden https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16040240453...

Seem back garden are best at 34-47Meg down and 16Meg up while front garden are 21-27Meg down and 11-13Meg up. But weirdo when I use mobile tether via pc I getting download speed of 6-9Meg and upload of 1Meg indoor.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

But weirdo when I use mobile tether via pc I getting download speed of 6-9Meg and upload of 1Meg indoor.

If you're tethering via WiFi indoors it could just be conflicting with other WiFi networks.

If you can, try USB tethering.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

If you're tethering via WiFi indoors it could just be conflicting with other WiFi networks.

If you can, try USB tethering.

via USB tethering:

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0d5e104d-4a47-...

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16040504234...

via outside today in back garden via 4G - good speed https://www.speedcheck.org/result/423590931/

Edited by adslmax (Fri 30-Oct-20 09:45:32)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

via USB tethering:

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0d5e104d-4a47-...

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16040504234...

via outside today in back garden via 4G - good speed https://www.speedcheck.org/result/423590931/

All those look good, no?

Try them again at 2PM and 7PM when people are hitting the internet the most. Sounds like your WiFi in the house has interference, or it's a metal structure which is screwing the signal, or the signal drops enough bars to connect to a lower freq. LTE band which has a capacity issue.

Edited by deleted (Fri 30-Oct-20 11:49:04)

The tests you quoted show there is no significant problem with the LTE signal, as the first is indoors with a USB connection.

It is the phone wifi hotspot that is providing the slow speed to the computer. Presumably just the phone that isn't powerful/modern enough.

Anyone know if 5G is coming to Smarty any time soon?

5G not coming out until end of 2021 or early 2022. Anyway smarty is now offer £15 unlimited plan for next 12 months.

This morning my smarty was recorded download of 75Meg and upload of 32Meg with ping of 44ms on my phone. https://www.speedcheck.org/result/430376908/