Three put me on 7km away from the 5G mast

Pretty stupid if Three put me 5G away from 7km away from Red Hill Mast to Woodside (pretty daft) as it only getting 3Meg down and 1.7Meg up. The router refused connect to Madeley, Aqueduct, Mount Way, Doseley or Dawley masts. Just kept connected me to Red Hill mast. Crazy. Are Three going to put everyone on the slowest 5G with miles away!

https://i.ibb.co/gwZY41C/Red-Hill-5-G-Mast-7km-away.png

Edited by adslmax (Tue 01-Oct-24 23:17:16)

Maybe because you keep whinging about them they are punishing you?

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Just kept connected me to Red Hill mast.

You need to read up on how cellular radio communications work. You aren't "put on" a certain mast, your phone listens to all the tranmissions it can "hear" and it transmits, and not all masts can hear your end. The ones that can hear you, negotiate with your phone to make a connection to the mast that gets the best quality signal (not necessarily the fastest!).

This is how mobile phones can work when you are moving, even at high speed. (e.g. on motorway).

Assuming the masts are active; they may not yet be integrated into the network so not properly engaging in this process.

You may just have to wait, or at worst, fit an outside antenna on your building.

Closest mast isnt always the best, I have one across the road from me, but it has barely any bands on it, and performs slower than ones at triple the distance.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Closest mast isnt always the best, I have one across the road from me, but it has barely any bands on it, and performs slower than ones at triple the distance.

Thought the closer to the 5G mast get you best performance?

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Thought the closer to the 5G mast get you best performance?

Just more radiation passing through your brain and the rest of your organs and body.

(Maybe).

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Thought the closer to the 5G mast get you best performance?

It might be, but the masts and backhaul connection may not be identical, and you might find the antennas transmit _above_ your position to cover further away areas.

Mobile telecoms is complex.

Hi @pluralist

I noticed in your signature you have "At home Three Mobile, with (Three)ZTE MC888 router giving 5G on a good day."

I too have the same at home. Are you experiencing the DNS on the MC888 failing after around 30 hours or so?

The DNS started failing after 4 to 5 days to begin with. However, after the latest software update it fails after around 30 hours. Also the 1 day scheduled reboot I set to work around the 4 to 5 day DNS issue has stopped working too. So now have to manually reboot. Have you had anything like that?

Software VersionBD_H3GUKMC888V1.0.0B09 and
Hardware VersionMC888HWV1.0.0 here

Many thanks

Sorry I haven't replied earlier.

I haven't noticed any DNS problems. Just occasionally the router just clogs up and latency goes through the roof. Probably something not releasing memory. Rebooting fixes it.

I saw a few weeks ago the MC888 wasn't in the current line-up on the website, but now nothing shows apart from the outdoor hub one. Which rather wrecks the "no installation" claim.

I got a 4g booster for our house as we are in a mobile dead zone. Aerial on the roof and a little booster box in the loft with an internal booster on the landing ceiling.

Went from no being able to make a call to having 60 meg 4g download.

5g versions of the booster are also available.

Just tried pointing the roof antenna at all of the various masts around our house until I found the best one.

No calls / SMS over WiFi?

Gave up with boosters years ago. Had a quasi legal version back in 2009-ish (and hilariously got rapped by eBay when I flogged it some years later as being a dubious good to sell) and then had godawful Vodafone Suresignals from around 2010 (I think) until I dumped them completely just before pandemic.

Got full mobile service wherever I put WiFi. The way to go 👍

We always seemed to have a problem where our iPhone devices would work on Wi-Fi calling for about a minute, and then they would always try to jump to the cell network, which was almost none existent therefore killing the call.

Bizarrely this happened with different iPhone and different routers, never got to the bottom of it but read its a common issue with iPhone.

The only fix was to put your phone in airplane mode with just Wi-Fi on, then obviously it stuck with the Wi-Fi calling. Issue with this is every time i went out I forgot to turn airplane mode off!

In my case the booster works brilliant, which surprised me as it is just Chinese [censored].

Edited by Ripley (Wed 23-Oct-24 08:08:50)

Many thanks @pluralist

For me WiFi Calling has been a very good overall experience, and not really had any issues with many generations of iPhone and used with a variety of mobile carriers, except o2.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

For me WiFi Calling has been a very good overall experience, and not really had any issues with many generations of iPhone and used with a variety of mobile carriers, except o2.

I’d have to agree with this.

Moved into a property in 2015 which was completely flat for mobile signal inside, not even texts came through. Sure Signal was pants. Bought my first iPhone, and started using WiFi calling … never misses a beat.
Eventually the work phones adopted it too, meaning connecting to the ADSL WiFi in an exchange was brilliant for voice and messaging.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

For me WiFi Calling has been a very good overall experience, and not really had any issues with many generations of iPhone and used with a variety of mobile carriers, except o2.

The only time I disable WiFi calling is in hotels ; as I've found the (almost always) congested WiFi can make the voice call unusable.

With dual SIM my iPhone (don't see this on my OnePlus) is also able to use the WiFi calling technology to route voice calls from one network over the other if the first network shows as no service. The screen shows "<network> using Mobile Data".

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

For me WiFi Calling has been a very good overall experience, and not really had any issues with many generations of iPhone and used with a variety of mobile carriers, except o2.

The only time I disable WiFi calling is in hotels ; as I've found the (almost always) congested WiFi can make the voice call unusable.

With dual SIM my iPhone (don't see this on my OnePlus) is also able to use the WiFi calling technology to route voice calls from one network over the other if the first network shows as no service. The screen shows "<network> using Mobile Data".

Yes good call. It very much follows the old computer adage of "garbage in, garbage out"!

If the underlying WiFi is congested and generally terrible, you can't expect WiFi Calling to be great or even half decent.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

For me WiFi Calling has been a very good overall experience, and not really had any issues with many generations of iPhone and used with a variety of mobile carriers, except o2.

I’d have to agree with this.

Moved into a property in 2015 which was completely flat for mobile signal inside, not even texts came through. Sure Signal was pants. Bought my first iPhone, and started using WiFi calling … never misses a beat.
Eventually the work phones adopted it too, meaning connecting to the ADSL WiFi in an exchange was brilliant for voice and messaging.

Suresignals were widely accepted as being horrible. Where do I start. Inherent device overheating, followed by eventual failure. The need to constantly reboot them. If you were unfortunate to have only a CGNAT address from your provider, then it could result in the service having to be re-whitelisted by Vodafone. Typically wasting hours on the phone trying to explain to someone in India that powering the device off and on wont fix the issue. Couldn't technically have more than one Suresignal in your network (you could I had about 4 at one point to spread coverage where I needed it).

Just a horrible, horrible 'solution'. Thanks heavens they eventually killed them off.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Just a horrible, horrible 'solution'. Thanks heavens they eventually killed them off.

An unknown, special type of NAT unfriendly IPsec tunnel, with some very poor hardware, even the Version 3 that looked like a homeplug passthru type device. Only VF sold them retail, other networks provided if you could convince them. I gained an EE one at one point, never got it to work. Friends in the USA had them from AT&T, and they were equally poor.

Thankfully the end of 3G (UMTS/WCDMA) did the end of life on these, plus the re-use of Band 1 spectrum (2100 Mhz).

The hardware was yuck too.

On the V3's folk resorted to drilling holes in the casings, swiss-cheese style, to get some airflow as they ran so hot they eventually cooked themselves and failed. I lost count of how many replacements Vodafone sent me. At one point I must've had half a dozen boxes of them lying around and I had to label them to determine which were good and which were going back to VF.

It was a really bad joke. I left Vodafone completely too after variously being with them for over a decade.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I left Vodafone completely too after variously being with them for over a decade.

We had about 5 in the office as the company made the decision to move all users (spread over 3 networks, probably 15,000 handsets back then) to VF, and yet our building had basically no coverage; and outside it was 2G only. Yet O2, Three, and the newly merged EE/Orange/TMobile had fast 3G everywhere. VF only just missed being fined by Ofcom for not meeting licence terms over 3G. Resting on laurals anyone?

I left Vodafone completely too after variously being with them for over a decade.

Yep, it was the cause of me leaving Vodafone too …. Went to EE, having heard about WiFi calling … and still use their service today.

For some balance, I have been on Vodafone for more than 25 years when my first SIM card was full sized in an Orbitel.

I use them personally and via Daisygroup commercially without issue.
I also used the early Suresignals despite being in central London and have to say they worked really well. We had them in areas with decent AC so temps were not an issue for us.
The setup was a bit of a pain but once the router setup was done, they ran continuously until wifi calling was a thing.

I've just bought an add-on SIM with 100Gb for £10/pm and a ZTE 5001 for the car/van.
5G should be enabled where I live late 2024 or early 2025

Amusingly, if I run my mobile phone with both mobile data and router connection turned on, which is of course quite a normal thing to do, I too can get wifi calling through the router.

Which is a Home Broadband from Three. The router being basically a phone without a microphone or speaker.

Post deleted by adslmax

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Three has finally switched off 3G. Only 4G now but no 5G yet.

What has that to do with my post?

Post deleted by adslmax

In reply to a post by adslmax:

In reply to a post by pluralist:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Three has finally switched off 3G. Only 4G now but no 5G yet.

What has that to do with my post?

Did I reply to u? No!

[panto]
Oh yes you did!
[endpanto]

This forum is visible in both Threaded and Flat mode. You've been here long enough to now that, but may have forgotten. The primary mode is Threaded, though many people use it in Flat (chronological) mode. (As I do).

You replied to me in both modes. Both chronologically and in the sub-thread.

You are right, I did reply to u. Apology. I have changed to reply to my own post.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 08-Nov-24 17:01:31)

Three has finally switched off 3G. Only 4G now but no 5G yet.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

This forum is visible in both Threaded and Flat mode. You've been here long enough to now that, but may have forgotten. The primary mode is Threaded, though many people use it in Flat (chronological) mode. (As I do).

You replied to me in both modes. Both chronologically and in the sub-thread.

[help mode on]
I'm soooooooooooo confused now........ 😂😂😂😂🙈
[help mode off]

Thanks .

?

No problem. It's easy to make mistake lol on the mobile phone to reply post.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 08-Nov-24 17:34:27)

In reply to a post by pluralist:

This forum is visible in both Threaded and Flat mode. You've been here long enough to now that, but may have forgotten. The primary mode is Threaded, though many people use it in Flat (chronological) mode. (As I do).

recently discussed in TTTS the Flat mode is likely more common as more and more people use smaller screens (e.g.7" tablets or 6" phones or smaller). Threading is alien to those whom don't use Reddit. The days of NNTP are long gone.

So why can't O2 get it right?
Because it's a continuous source of irritation for me, and O2 appears to have the best coverage round here (south west Wiltshire).
They in-filled with Tu-Go for a while after they reconfigured the local cells, then turned the Tu-Go service off at short notice and extolled Wi-Fi calling, without explaining it was phone-dependent ~ then when I bought a phone which supported Wi-Fi calling I discovered that texting still wasn't supported.
Invitations to O2 to comment get brief encouragement that it's being looked into ~ then they wither.