Using Three SIM-only for home broadband?

I'm considering moving to Three (4G) for my home broadband as TalkTalk/Openreach are failing to provide a stable and decent connection (14Mb down, 0.8Mb up). I've ran a couple speed tests on the Three network with my phone, and they range from 50Mb to 70Mb down — a speed I'd be very happy with.

Is there any reason why I couldn't use their SIM only plans as home broadband, providing my own 4G modem and using their 3internet APN (to avoid CGNAT)? It's quite a bit cheaper than through their home broadband package, and a frugal [censored] like me couldn't avoid the chance to save a bit of cash if possible.

I've looked through their terms and couldn't find any reason why this wouldn't work or be allowed, but I just wanna make sure or know if anyone's had any similar experiences. Cheers!

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Sat 17-Jul-21 19:06:39)

No reason why not at all.

I ran for a while simply using my (non-Three) phone with their unlimited SIM, and tethering my laptop and iPad to it. Ofcom told them off a few years ago for saying what purposes the phone SIM could be used for, and also for suggesting to customers that 1TB per month was a download limit.

Re the latter constraint, they do now instead say that consistently exceeding 1TB pm could lead to suspicion of business use, which is not allowed on the normal SOHO tariffs. I've a feeling I'm uploading a lot more than that as I'm running an outside security camera to the cloud via the old B311 router bought from them for the purpose.

I'm not sure providing your own 4G modem would be cost-effective unless you already have it. See this page. The hub comes with the SIM card included and the £23 covers the unlimited usage. (No phone service). I see they are throwing in a cheap 32" TV as well .

PS: Maybe I should see about a free upgrade of the B311 considering I've had it over two years!

Edited by pluralist (Sat 17-Jul-21 22:21:54)

Hey mate, thanks so much for the info. Looks like this is what I'll be doing then - so long, TalkTalk!

I assume you mean 'limits' of 1TB rather than 1GB? Otherwise I may get in a bit of trouble haha 😂 I'm sure I wouldn't get anywhere near on a frequent basis, but either way I should technically be in the right as I'm still not using it commercially.

I'm considering just buying a preowned Huawei B535 off ebay, ends up saving about 50 quid plus some more from a cashback scheme, and I get to keep the modem (apparently with Three you just rent it). Three's unlimited SIM-only deal can be had for £16/mo if you follow the right promo links. I considered using Smarty (same cost with only 30 day contracts), but apparently you're forced to use CGNAT with them which I'd rather avoid.

Yep! 1TB, which is why my 3GB is not a problem ROFL!

Bear in mind that 4G router hardware, chips and antennae, are never up to the standard of the current phones. Phones are basically mass market with benefits of scale, and 4G routers quite small beer.

See the different speeds in my sig.

I'm honestly not expecting much, if it can beat or even match my 15Mb/s "fibre" I'll be happy considering the price alone.

But I'll keep that in mind, seems strange that they wouldn't use the same hardware. My phone only cost £100, so if a router/modem that retails at a higher price can't match the performance I'd be kinda shocked. From what I've read, the B535 is supposed to be a decent mid-range one, and I think it's the same one Three actually hands out with their mobile broadband.

Do you find 4G connections to be relatively stable? I know it'll differ between carrier, location and device, but just as a general rule would you say its been sufficient? I've honestly rarely used mobile data on my phone, so I've got very little experience — in fact, I use Three's free 200MB/month PAYG SIM and I've never even used the whole data allowance haha.

It was a Black Friday thing just before Christmas 2018 IIRC. I was on AAISP for FTTC and BT for landline. Low end EE mobile contract.

I hardly ever used the landline and the combo was costing me £69 pm.

Short version of what took place over about three months. Three unlimited SIM everything £20, ditched the AAISP and monitored the ups and downs of Three over Christmas and New Year, when kids would be at home and getting new phones and games consoles etc., and gave a month's notice on the landline in early January.

Never looked back! Then months later got the security camera uploading to the Cloud, which meant I needed the router which was £22pm as when I went out my internet connection (my phone) of course went with me.

Looking at the current Three deals just now made my think it's time to do a bit of negotiating, as the annual small price rises have taken me well above the phone SIM price and that newer posher and almost certainly faster modem deal at £23 looks good.

The lower quality of 4G routers is often talked about on this forum, if you look back for threads active in the last 12 months or so.

Also sending you a PM in a minute.

Edited by pluralist (Sun 18-Jul-21 01:18:29)

Heh, hopefully this won't need to be a permanent solution. I'd much prefer a lower latency and even faster speeds in the future, but if it's stable it'll be perfectly fine for the time being. Likely going to be moving house soon too (ideally somewhere there's more acceptable broadband), so having a portable internet solution that isn't tied to the address should help ease the process of moving.

I've read various experiences online and most people seem to report negative experiences with Three and 4G broadband, saying its slow speeds and intermittent. I suppose it really matters on the location at the end of the day. Luckily I don't think my local Three mast serves many properties, mostly just farmland and empty fields, so there hopefully shouldn't be much congestion or interference.

I'll probably get a suitable router off ebay, buy a cheap data pack just to test the speed and connection over a month, then if all works well, cancel my TalkTalk and transition over to an unlimited data SIM. Ideally I'd wanna test it during heavy rain or fog, but judging by todays weather I think I picked a bad time. My only concern is being stuck with an intermittent or non-functional connection during poor weather conditions, hopefully they don't affect it too much.


I really do appreciate all the information you've given me though mate, you've totally sold me on it. If you consider buying or renewing a Three package look on Topcashback or Quidco first, seems they offer around £70 in withdrawable cash after buying through their promo. Not sure if it's available for existing customers but you could always try (or sign up under an alias).

Eh its not seeming that great so far - just tethered my 200MB SIM to my PC to test it out first, and while the speeds are great it seems to frequently freeze up. Multiplayer gaming seems to be impossible, stuttering every 10 seconds, and for some reason the latency is always over 100ms. I'll admit I didn't expect much (especially for gaming), but the stability seems far worse than experiences from other people that I've read. And if what you're saying about 4G routers holds true, I'm to expect even worse than that!

I'd try different placements but I've already eaten through my SIMs remaining data. I'll have to buy one of their one-off data packs and try it out next week, possibly with an actual 4G router.

Edit: I'll say it could be the WiFi connection. I know something in the house/neighbourhood interferes with the wifi every now and again, perhaps either that was the issue or it's interfering with the 4G signal too.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Sun 18-Jul-21 15:33:00)

AH - gaming isn't something I do.

I use a 3 (phone) SIM for broadband, never had a problem and regularly get 75 Down, 45 Up on speedtests. I already had a Huawei B525, so put that in my loft and get a full box of signal. It shows I used 2.98 TB in the last Month

Ha that's insane, I guess that means the 1TB soft cap pluralist mentioned is no longer in place.

Can I ask, do you know what ping/latency you get through the connection? I'm not really sure what to expect and it'll be a good week or two until I can get around to trying it for myself.

Loft is a good idea, I hadn't thought of that. Should be easy enough to run an ethernet cable up there from my room. Do you use the internal antennas or an external one?

I've only measured the latency on my phone using the opensignal speed tester. On a full fibre connection it gives 25ms on my 3 connection just now it gave 47.

I use the internal antennae, I believe I'm in range of 2 different towers.

Awesome, thanks so much mate. Just tried my phone signal from the loft and the RSRP (signal strength) went from -105 dBm in my bedroom (poor) to -80 dBm (excellent). Hopefully that'll solve the intermittent connection issue I had!

In reply to a post by lincsat:

I use a 3 (phone) SIM for broadband, never had a problem and regularly get 75 Down, 45 Up on speedtests. I already had a Huawei B525, so put that in my loft and get a full box of signal. It shows I used 2.98 TB in the last Month

Is that in addition / backup to your FTTP connection or did you move?

Different location Mate

I've never seen anyone report that the soft cap has ever been applied.

There were certainly several people regularly here clocking up 2TB+ a month even early on in the "business use" soft cap.

Post deleted by seb

Edited by deleted (Tue 20-Jul-21 16:36:03)

Cheers for the ref link. I wasn't planning on using Smarty due to their enforced CGNAT (which Three doesn't do, assuming you use the right APN) though I may use it as a test SIM for a month or two before I cancel my fixed-line plan and commit to a 4G solution.

Have you ever found the connection to be slow or unstable? Like in fog, rain or other poor conditions?

Referral links are not permitted on the forums.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Like in fog, rain or other poor conditions?

Cellular comms being "across" the land to the nearest cell-site, and using under 4 GHz spectrum is unlikely to be impacted by fog/rain in the way that Satellite comms (over 20 GHz) and much further distance is frequently interrupted.

Three is licensed to use 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2600 MHz, and a large band in the 3600 to 3800 Mhz range. Which technology they transmit is their choice. EE is very similar, but has a lot more capacity in the 1800 range. O2 and Vodafone additionally have some 900 MHz.

Ah right, just wanted to make sure I'm not gonna be left without internet during our typical British weather haha. Seems my nearest Three tower uses the 1800 MHz band and only 600M away, hopefully it should all work out fine.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Ah right, just wanted to make sure I'm not gonna be left without internet during our typical British weather haha. Seems my nearest Three tower uses the 1800 MHz band and only 600M away, hopefully it should all work out fine.

If you have an android phone with cellmapper you can get accurate data, however 1800 MHz (Band 3) is the traditional base layer for Three's 4G deployment, only 15MHz and that is all I have in this town. Some areas also gain 5MHz of 800 MHz (Band 20) which helps if there is a large rural area to cover for voice calls, pretty useless for data. Three sometimes reduce the capacity of their 3G transmissions and enable for 4G using 2100 MHz (Band 1). The other frequencies are generally for 5G, but there are reports that Three are using some 700 MHz spectrum for 4G as well. (Band 28). This is early days for 700 which was only licensed a couple of months ago.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Have you ever found the connection to be slow or unstable? Like in fog, rain or other poor conditions?

I don't. I made sure to test 3Mobile coverage in my area with a SIM before I committed. I get 4-5 bars so no issues ever with bad conditions. Tower is about 300m away and a panel is pointing right at me.

If you're in a marginal signal area, then you might run into trouble perhaps.

Enjoy the referral. It's basically free - no sure how they make money on it, I guess they hope people stay. I did in the end so it worked.

Edited by deleted (Wed 21-Jul-21 13:19:41)

Three also have 1400mhz for downstream at 1900 cell sites (although not sure how many sites they have in total to be able to put that figure into context).

Well, results are finally in. 55 down, 20 up, 4 times faster than what I was getting with TalkTalk. Ping isn't great but its certainly usable, although annoyingly some websites and apps lose connection every few minutes - I assume this is CGNAT related, as I'm using a Smarty SIM temporarily, but it'll hopefully go away when I switch to Three.

I would definitely suggest native Three, not their bargain basement. But have you seen this current offer?

4G router plus a 32" TV?

Yeah I've seen that, but I'm only going to be using it for 12 months or so (at least, I hope). Plus I have a router/modem already, so I'd only go with their standard SIM (which turns out only being £12/mo with their cashback offers).

Speaking of the router though, as luck would have it it's just given up on me, failing to detect the SIM 😭 Hopefully its just a dodgy contact, or I can swap it for another... why can't things ever work right the first time.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Well, results are finally in. 55 down, 20 up, 4 times faster than what I was getting with TalkTalk. Ping isn't great but its certainly usable, although annoyingly some websites and apps lose connection every few minutes - I assume this is CGNAT related, as I'm using a Smarty SIM temporarily, but it'll hopefully go away when I switch to Three.

The same as what I get.

On Smarty the IP can change constantly. If this causes problems and you use a PC/Mac mostly then I found a quick and free solution was to simply install Cloudflare WARP on my PC. It'll setup a VPN tunnel to say their London DC and you get a constant IP as a result.

https://1.1.1.1/

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Aug-21 09:35:28)

Yeah I've found that to be the case, but it only seems to affect certain Twitch streams and SFTP sessions and I've been using a VPN with those. Somewhat annoying, but I'm not gonna complain when I've got about 10 months of free Smarty unlimited! 😂

Hopefully I don't get kicked off for excessive use either... Only been using it as my broadband for around 10 days, already used over 500GB.

Hey mate, been looking into this some more as I'm having problems with a small selection of sites and services. As you noted, a VPN completely fixes it for me (thanks for the link btw, wasn't aware of Cloudflare's).

Would you mind helping me out a small bit? If you're using SMARTY 4G with a desktop PC, could you try this website (without a VPN, keep the settings at the top to their defaults) and see if it constantly changes IP every second for you, and if you get frequent timeout errors? You only have to keep the page open for a minute or so, I'd really appreciate it mate.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Thu 12-Aug-21 20:15:42)

I'm using a Three PAYG SIM in my iPad (using the three.co.uk APN), so I tried your site.

In the last 3 minutes I've seen 4 different IP addresses, and it is now changing about every 15 to 20 seconds. The IPs are obviously reused as they are sometimes repeating. Either Three has a network fault, or they have a serious lack of IPv4 addresses compared to EE or Vodafone.

I'm also trying it on my phone with EE contract and my work phone on Vodafone.

On Three in 8 minutes I have about 28 changes of IP.

On EE in 4 minutes still showing the same IP.
On Vodafone in 4 minutes still showing the same IP.

Now changed the iPad to use the 3internet APN (I understand SMARTY doesn't let you change the APN).

After 5 minutes showing the same IP.

Conclusion - the APN intended for phones "three.co.uk" which is also used by all SMARTY customers has a fast change of IP address, unlike the competitor networks EE and Vodafone.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 12-Aug-21 20:51:33)

Thanks so much for trying that out! It's very interesting to see how it differs between provider, Three seem to be very aggressive on reallocating IPs — even more so in my experience, mine seems to change every 2 seconds (to be fair I'm using SMARTY, ran by Three but much cheaper).

I assume you didn't get any timeout errors while testing? They'd show up as lines of red text.

Not really relevant, but I'm not sure whether they assign IPs to certain regions or re-use the same ones over the whole country. From my tests the 92.40.190.0/24 IP range seems to be used for SMARTY, and 92.40.191.0/24 for Three.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Thu 12-Aug-21 20:58:57)

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

I assume you didn't get any timeout errors while testing? They'd show up as lines of red text.

No I didn't see any timeouts when testing, but caused one turning WiFi on and Off on the iPad.

I found the "3internet" APN gave 4 Mbps speeds, whereas the "three.co.uk" APN gives 18 Mbps speeds. The reason I use a PAYG is because this is rubbish where I live, as my work Vodafone gets between 28 and 45 Mbps, and my EE on the same mast as Three, gives 150 Mbps.

Huh that's peculiar that the APN would affect speeds... could that be down to just coincidence/network instability, or did you actually see a noticeable difference between the two? Looks like I'll just stick with a fluctuating IP if that's the case 😂

As for the EE vs Three speeds, really odd... I wonder if that's down to Three being heavily overloaded or just EE offering LTE-A with more frequencies? I've noticed my speeds seem to drop as low as 15Mb/s from 8PM to 1AM, but go back to 50Mb/s outside those hours (and up to 80Mb/s at 3AM).

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Huh that's peculiar that the APN would affect speeds... could that be down to just coincidence/network instability, or did you actually see a noticeable difference between the two? Looks like I'll just stick with a fluctuating IP if that's the case 😂

I was surprised at the speeds, perhaps my PAYG SIM is throttled for the 3internet APN which was intended for mobile broadband. (If that IS the case I should let Ofcom know!).

As for the EE vs Three speeds, really odd... I wonder if that's down to Three being heavily overloaded or just EE offering LTE-A with more frequencies? I've noticed my speeds seem to drop as low as 15Mb/s from 8PM to 1AM, but go back to 50Mb/s outside those hours (and up to 80Mb/s at 3AM).

Three has done no upgrades here. They only have a single 15 MHz channel on Band 3 (1800 MHz) but probably a lot of users. The fastest I've seen once was 70 Mbps.

Whereas EE has upgraded the LTE in this neighbourhood in the last 8 years from one 10 Mhz wide channel on Band 3, upto last Christmas when it was 2 channels each 20 MHz wide on Band 3, and then last month added two more channels (20 & 15 MHz wide) on Band 7 (2600 MHz). So my phone is able to carrier aggregate the 4 channels for high speed. This is normally a setup you see for crowded shopping centres.

Three however have spent a few million adding their random 5G monopoles into two parts of town, one covers the bypass quite well, and the other Morrisons supermarket. Not many actual customers, but speeds in range of those are good on 4G and 5G.

Nobody understands what Three are up to.

Yeah I've only got a 15 MHz Band 3 channel too, though the individual cell area only covers a small set of around 100 houses (according to Cellmapper).

EE seem to be miles ahead on upgrades, one.network shows they're doing some upgrades to a nearby mast — possibly 5G, given that Openreach installed some fibre cables to it the other week. Just a shame they're a lot more expensive and don't offer a truly unlimited plan, otherwise I'd switch (I'm only 12 days into using SMARTY and I'm already at 520GB).

Still, considering I've got around 10 free months of SMARTY from referrals, I can't really complain at the low price of nothing 😂

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Just a shame they're a lot more expensive and don't offer a truly unlimited plan, otherwise I'd switch (I'm only 12 days into using SMARTY and I'm already at 520GB).

Ha, that’s more than my monthly usage on my fixed line broadband

Still, considering I've got around 10 free months of SMARTY from referrals, I can't really complain at the low price of nothing 😂

Yes, that is very impressive!

Yeah well it pretty much is my equivalent to fixed line broadband now, that's to be expected haha! Much faster too, we were only getting 14Mb/s through Openreach's "fibre", so switching to 4G was a no-brainer. I'd expect next months usage to be much lower though, I've been downloading a bunch of games and apps that I was holding off from doing when stuck with a slow connection.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Would you mind helping me out a small bit? If you're using SMARTY 4G with a desktop PC, could you try this website (without a VPN, keep the settings at the top to their defaults) and see if it constantly changes IP every second for you, and if you get frequent timeout errors? You only have to keep the page open for a minute or so, I'd really appreciate it mate.

Sorry for the delay. Ran it for a minute or so and got at least 5 different IPs. No timeouts or anything though.

I'm envious of your referral collection skills.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Aug-21 17:30:21)

Ah cheers mate! Seems the IP allocation on everyone else's Three SIMs aren't as bad as they are for me (I get one almost every second), but I managed to sort the timeout issues I was having. I have noticed a few problems with AWS CloudFront services temporarily becoming unavailable though, they'll occasionally become unreachable for some strange reason - I'll be keeping an eye on that.

The referrals were pretty much all friends and family who were getting a better deal, only needed to convert 4 for the whole 10 months (including the joining promo using the ref you gave me).

Try forcing your modem to 3G for a while to see if it's an issue with 4G.

I pretty much have WARP connected on my PC all the time and my latency is about 50ms and packet los 0.11% - so it's excllent.

Agh just had a look at my local planning applications database and noticed Three/EE applied to upgrade my current mast with one of their 5G monopoles earlier this year... a good 80% of houses from the neighbouring estate objected, so it was denied. I wouldn't have expected them to have even considered upgrading my area at such an early stage. Still, they've put an appeal in so fingers crossed.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Agh just had a look at my local planning applications database and noticed Three/EE applied to upgrade my current mast with one of their 5G monopoles earlier this year...

If that was to add a monopole next to the existing, then I can see why people objected. Why not just upgrade the existing mast.

Hope something sensible happens and you get Three 5G - I'm not holding out hope here, expect EE will install 5G by this time next year, but Three are so random!

Truthfully I'm probably not gonna bother with 5G - the routers are insanely expensive at the minute. But the plans showed they were gonna add multiple 4G bands with the new mast, so a better speed than the current 40Mb/s would be great.

Yeah not sure why they planned on keep the existing one. I assume that offers 2G/3G and the new models don't? To add to that there's also an old-style single band 3G mast on the same road, so there'd be a total of 3 within a short distance. I can sorta sympathise with the local residents a little, though the new mast site was out of the way in a grass bank at the side of the road and there aren't any houses directly facing them.

Not sure if its the same everywhere else but Three and EE seem to be running a joint rollout here, the monopoles in my city seem to be shared by both providers (under the entity 'MBNL').

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Not sure if its the same everywhere else but Three and EE seem to be running a joint rollout here, the monopoles in my city seem to be shared by both providers (under the entity 'MBNL').

MBNL came about in the early 2000s when it was T-Mobile and Three, as a way for Three to get access to T-mobile's masts & poles. Today EE and Three share a lot of equipment for 3G, but they run their own 2G (EE only) 4G and 5G, but should be sharing the metal masts, and have two sets of transmitter hardware (boxes on the ground).

MBNL as a company will be paid by EE & Three separately to maintain their equipment on the shared pole. In some cases the mast is owned by a third party (e.g. Cellnex whom bought a lot from Arqiva)

Kinda makes me wonder why all mobile operators didn't just join together and operate from the same set of masts. Surely that'd work out much cheaper and be more efficient for them? Only thing I can think of is trying to maintain competitive coverage over each other, but these days they pretty much all cover the same 98% of the UK.

They are now encouraged to share masts by the Government, and you have O2 & Vodafone working together using CTIL / Cornerstone, and EE & Three working together with MBNL. However each operator also has their own unique (unilateral) masts and monopoles, Things are better than when we had 5 separate networks, and I remember motorways with 5 monopoles in a row!

You won’t get all the networks using the same locations as since the 1990s the Government has licensed them individually and they compete on coverage as well as price.

If there was a single infrastructure operator (similar to Openreach in fixed line) then there would be no incentive to innovate in coverage, and more likely the UK coverage would be worse.

Using the term "reallocating IPs" for this is not quite right.

When we talk about allocating IPs, we're generally talking about having exclusive use of that IP address for some period of time. So for example if you're using the right APN on Three you can have a IP allocated that will be "yours" for some time.

But when not using an APN like that, we're dealing with carrier grade NAT. You won't be the only person "allocated" the IP address that you see you traffic going via. There will be other people's data also exiting the carrier's network using that IP.

Except in niche cases, having an IP address that changes quickly is not generally a problem nowadays. There used to be lots of services that would be tripped up by subsequent TCP connections coming from a different IP address, but this doesn't tend to happen now.

I used to use a load balanced setup, where there was a 50% chance of each TCP connection using a different IP. The only service that I used that this caused a problem with was Santander's online banking and thankfully even that issue got fixed when the upgraded their systems a couple of years ago.

I have been using Three for my home broadband for the past 2 years with an unlimited sim inside an unlocked Huawei B525s-23a and Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0001 antenna.

Forced the B525 to bands 3&20. APN set to 3internet.

I get an normal IP and no CGNAT. Play warzone without too many issues, ping is normally between 60-80ms.

Download speeds are 80-110Mb/upload is always 30Mb.

Only issues I have had is when the local mast went down for a couple weeks.

I did try an Huawei B818 but no improvement in speed. Cant complain as I'm only paying £15pm

£15pm seems to be the lowest retention offer so far. I was offered it after rejecting £18.

As I fancied a "free" TV to give away I went for a new contract with the (latest from Three) ZTE router, at £23pm. Compared to the default £22.72 I was on. The TV is yet to arrive, as it only comes after the first regular payment.

Huh, so I decided to try out the EE network to see if it'd be any better. Interestingly, EE was actually quite a bit slower than Three (35Mb/s vs 55Mb/s), though had a much quicker latency (when pinging bbc.co.uk at least), with Three at 62ms and EE only 28ms.

According to cellmapper, EE offer LTE-A from the mast, though weirdly there's only a single band transmitted from the tower — I thought the idea of LTEA was to aggregate multiple different bands together, so I'm not sure why that would be enabled or how it'd work? The cell also apparently has a bandwidth of 20MHz whereas Three only serves 15MHz, both using band 3 (I would've assumed carriers would use separate bands?).

Really not what I expected though, I wonder what that's all about. The SIM wasn't actually EE but a cheap (free, even!) reseller using their network — I can only assume they have some sort of prioritisation or rate limiting in place causing these unexpected results.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

According to cellmapper, EE offer LTE-A from the mast, though weirdly there's only a single band transmitted from the tower — I thought the idea of LTEA was to aggregate multiple different bands together, so I'm not sure why that would be enabled or how it'd work? The cell also apparently has a bandwidth of 20MHz whereas Three only serves 15MHz, both using band 3 (I would've assumed carriers would use separate bands?).

What tool did you use to determine what you were receiving? Could be a limitation of that tool/phone/modem.

It is very likely that EE is transmitting two signals on the same band, they have sufficient spectrum to do this. LTE limits a single signal to a maximum of 20 MHz wide.

My local mast transmits for EE two 20MHz wide signal on band 3 (1800 mhz), they are listed by the EARFCN reference number, so I have 1617 and 1815.

However for Three my local mast only transmits one 15Mhz wide signal on band 3 (1800) which has the EARFCN 1392

Cellmapper will show this if you scroll down once you click on the cell number (eNB).

---
EARFCN stands for E-UTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number.In LTE, the carrier frequency in the uplink and downlink is designated by EARFCN, which ranges between 0-65535.

* EARFCN uniquely identify the LTE band and carrier frequency.
* For example Band-1 and Band-4 can have same Rx frequency 2110-2170 MHz, but their EARFCN are different.
* EARFCN is independent of channel bandwidth.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 25-Aug-21 13:35:04)

Just used my phone and speedtest (I also tested Three speeds from my phone's SIM, so the modem is the same for both tests).

I didn't realise carrier aggregation would be possible for the same band - I should probably look into 4G and radio communication a bit more, it's quite interesting and I'm clearly lacking knowledge!

Are you talking about the individual 'cells' listed on cellmapper? Yeah the mast emits 3 cells of band 3 @ 20MHz, though it appears they're directional and pointed 120 degrees from each other, so in reality you'd only be able to receive one at a time.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Are you talking about the individual 'cells' listed on cellmapper? Yeah the mast emits 3 cells of band 3 @ 20MHz, though it appears they're directional and pointed 120 degrees from each other, so in reality you'd only be able to receive one at a time.

Not what I was referring to, as yes these three cells (often referred to as sectors) are how the physical mast transmits in the three directions. However each radio transmitting (per network) can transmit a lot of different things. Many networks don't have sufficient spectrum (licensed by ofcom) to use any more than 1 transmission per band, but EE in the UK does.

If you scroll down this page you will see each of the freqency bands, and the amount each operator has in the various colours. When you get to Band 3 you can see that EE has two blocks, and Three has one block and Vodafone and O2 have tiny blocks each.
https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-sp...

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Yeah the mast emits 3 cells of band 3 @ 20MHz, though it appears they're directional and pointed 120 degrees from each other, so in reality you'd only be able to receive one at a time.

That eNB is 11083 and you can see the data set is ancient and incomplete. You need someone with an Android phone running cellmapper to go near that mast and drive around it in a circle to pick up all the transmissions.

It looks as if the three sectors have 1617 the main EE 20Mhz and then in 2019 a second transmission was detected on 1667 but only on one of the sectors, which is unexpected especially in a residential area.

Hence why I think more updated data is needed for that mast.

I assume Three's mast data will be up to date, I mapped it with cellmapper just the other month (though it's possible my phone's modem is lacking in features, it's a cheap device). Now I've got an EE SIM I'll try doing the same when I next go out there.

What makes you think the data is incomplete or outdated? It seems the other 2 EE sectors have been 'seen' in the last few months, so I would've thought they'd be up to date from the listed date?

It is quite possible that EE are restricting the speeds of the 3rd party SIM provider - they certainly used to run 2 different speeds even for their own customers (you had to pay more for the higher speeds).

Wow, seems they do! Who'd have thought a mobile provider would still be doing that in 2021? That does make sense though, it's a completely free SIM (which is actually a reseller of a reseller of EE). I suppose that's a good way to prevent their networks from being overly congested, whereas Three just offer the maximum speeds possible for a super low price.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Wow, seems they do!

Not unusual for resellers or MVNOs. EE's own PAYG used to be speed limited to 30 Mbit/sec, but I see this has been lifted in early 2020.

I reckon Smarty (Three) and GiffGaff (O2) are both slugged one way or another. That's why I always recommend mainstream paper-shop SIMs or free from the mainstream provider for comparative testing. In the post in Three's case, and possibly others.

I was more surprised that a primary network provider (EE) was limiting the speeds of their standard plans, I can understand cheaper networks doing it, or with the case of Vodafone limiting the speed of their cheaper unlimited plans.

With my short and unscientific tests, Three and SMARTY offer the exact same speeds — it's possible SMARTY traffic may have a lower network priority, but there doesn't seem to be much contention over here, so I likely wouldn't see a difference between the two. One thing I did notice was when SMARTY's adult content filter was enabled, the speeds slowed down significantly from 55+ Mb/s to rarely ever passing 35 Mb/s. Could be coincidental as I didn't do any intricate or long-term testing, it was just an observation.

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

I was more surprised that a primary network provider (EE) was limiting the speeds of their standard plans, I can understand cheaper networks doing it, or with the case of Vodafone limiting the speed of their cheaper unlimited plans.

EE used to on handset contract & SIM only contract they had a "60 Mbps" or "unlimited" and their PAYG services were limited to 30 Mbps. But these went about 2 years ago.

However third parties reselling capacity on the EE network can offer any service level they wish. EE supports quite a few MVNOs, including Plusnet and others. (BT mobile may also be one).

Three used to throttle people on the "One Plan" the original unlimited, so we know they have capability to.

Here's another weird one, just tried comparing Three's 3G vs 4G. Sure, speeds are quite a bit slower (25mb/5mb vs 70mb/30mb) but the latency seems to be substantially better... I thought 4G was supposed to offer a much greater improvement in latency over 3G?

3G: Minimum = 30ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 30ms
4G: Minimum = 41ms, Maximum = 60ms, Average = 51ms

I can only assume higher network contention, but the speeds I'm receiving don't seem to back that up (getting 65 down via 4G right now).

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Here's another weird one, just tried comparing Three's 3G vs 4G. Sure, speeds are quite a bit slower (25mb/5mb vs 70mb/30mb) but the latency seems to be substantially better... I thought 4G was supposed to offer a much greater improvement in latency over 3G?

4G can offer improved latency, and you might have seen that 8 years ago when 4G launched. Now of course 99% of users will be on 4G, and load has increased. Once 3G is turned off the radio capacity can be moved to the 4G signal.

I can only assume higher network contention, but the speeds I'm receiving don't seem to back that up (getting 65 down via 4G right now).

Always more users on 4G than 3G. You can't tell contention as the number of people in the coverage area will change randomly (human beings with phones move), unlike fixed line broadband systems.

Yeah you're probably right, I just assumed that because the 4G speed is fairly stable at its max attainable rate during the middle of a weekday, there'd be very little volatility and much lower usage. I suppose compared to 3G, it's still going to have a lot more devices connected to it.

3G seems to be very susceptible to terrible latency as soon as there's any network traffic though. As soon as I browse a webpage or download a file, it shoots up into the hundreds whereas 4G doesn't seem so bad (presumably just because there's more available bandwidth).

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

Yeah you're probably right, I just assumed that because the 4G speed is fairly stable at its max attainable rate during the middle of a weekday, there'd be very little volatility and much lower usage. I suppose compared to 3G, it's still going to have a lot more devices connected to it.

Depends on the capacity deployed by the network (and what they are licensed to deploy) and the users using it at the time.

4G is the technology LTE (Long Term Evolution) and this is a packet switched technology.

3G seems to be very susceptible to terrible latency as soon as there's any network traffic though. As soon as I browse a webpage or download a file, it shoots up into the hundreds whereas 4G doesn't seem so bad (presumably just because there's more available bandwidth).

3G (UMTS) and 2G (GSM) are circuit switched technologies.

Think of circuit switched as a traditional phone call on a land line. When you make that connection nobody else can use the line until you finish.

Packet switched is where every user splits their conversation into packets, and sends them at the network, and the network gets them to the end where they are reassembled into order.

This is one of the major differences and why 4G keeps working but speeds drop in heavy load conditions, whereas 3G and earlier "saturate" with too many users.

This was frequently seen before 4G launched in the main London railway stations, lots of people with phones showing full signal but not able to get a 'session' on the mast. The "circuits" were all in use.


Your performance queries are interesting, but not really comparable except in speed. The networks have been for the last few years gradually reducing capacity on 3G as the radio spectrum capacity is capable of connecting more users at the same time on 4G. Most networks are planning for the shutdown of 3G in the next 2 to 5 years. (maybe sooner!)