Three mast sharing question

hi guys,

Some of you may know Ive had an ongoing issue with three about speed related issues in my home postcode,

Long story short my speeds went from 12meg to 1-2meg had the issue passed onto 2nd line team cant find an issue now I am led to belive the closest mast is a shared mast between Three and EE/T-mobile and out of coincedence my mate has a tmobile phone and did a speed test at the same time as me and we both got identical pings give or take a few ms... we also got the same speed up and down,

Now this leads me to belive this is why three cannot find a fault because it could be T mobiles mast?

They share the mast but will not share the cellular equipment. Three will have their own sectors on the mast using their own frequency allocation. They might however share power supply / UPS and backhaul fibre leased line/microwave point-to-point.

Have you used a lot of data on Three? Are speeds better if you test at 3:00 in the morning when there is likely to be no one else using the available bandwidth?

I wouldn't say I used alot but my girlfriends brother stays next to me and he gets the same speeds and he doesn't use anywhere near as much data as me.. It's roughly the same at 3am

Well there are only a few reasons that the speed would drop.

1) There is a fault with the mast.
2) There is a fault/capacity issue with the backhaul.
3) The bandwidth is being used up by other users, simple contention.
4) Three have changed something, i.e. channel width and or Tx power that now means the speed is lower for your location.

Either way you have no chance in hell getting Three to admit what the issue is or that there is even an issue.

There used to be a option to report a fault through the coverage checker, but I can't see this any more.

To be honest with 3G it is pot luck. It is all too easy for a mast to become over loaded (contended) as Three have no control over how many customers might sign up for their service in the coverage area of any one mast. Speeds are often rubbish in towns and cities as the masts are overloaded. Where I live I'm lucky to get a 3G signal even though Three claim indoor coverage. And in locations with full signal it only manages 0-5~0.7Mbps. My usual blame for this is the student population... Out of town on a rural mast I have seen speedtests for 26~30Mbps on DC-HSPA.

thanks for the reply..

Yea it used to be really good just wondering why its the same with tmobile/ee on the same mast

What is the post code or long & lat of the mast you think you connect to?

G15 7rj

Im not sure how to get the geo location code but using http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/

and with the postcode the one to the right on kinfaus dr

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Oct-13 19:19:43)

I guess the street view is out of date coz I can only see a mast that must be T-Mobile's as there is not one tall enough to be Three's if site finder is correct Three claim their mast is 34.35 Metres tall.

It is also only a Macrocell and therefore intended to provide in-fill coverage.

Edit

Sorry I'm confusing macro and micro.

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Oct-13 19:32:31)

No that's the updated one so I guess it's misinformation and thats not my mast at all.. I did wonder to myself because that mast is not 33 meters. So back to square one again

So you have a good signal, right? The mast must be somewhere near to you.

Perhaps you connect to the one on this block of flats:- https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=G15+7rj&hl=en&ll=55...

Name of Operator 3
Operator Site Ref. G0475
Station Type Macrocell
Height of Antenna 58 Metres
Frequency Range 2100 MHz
Transmitter Power 25.85 dBW
Maximum licensed power 35 dBW
Type of Transmission UMTS

Forget the 34 metre one, I can't find something tall enough close to it's location so must be completely wrong or was never built??