I was under the impression it's still fairly rare but perhaps not.

I've only seen it once personally on Vodafone peaking around 250mbps in Gosport. I generally see 5-10mbps on Vodafone though. Eugh.

In reply to a post by Benjanyan:

I was under the impression it's still fairly rare but perhaps not.

I've only seen it once personally on Vodafone peaking around 250mbps in Gosport. I generally see 5-10mbps on Vodafone though. Eugh.

You're probably in an O2 controlled area that hasn't yet been unwound.

You can access band 1 or band 3 with the B525. What you can’t have is carrier aggregation (4G+) of these two bands as it doesn’t support the combination. You can tick the boxes in software programs, but it won’t work.

Edited by gary333 (Thu 18-Jun-20 19:45:58)

Hi Gary
Thanks for that.... And what a bummer.
I have had 4G+ on the router with Smarty/3, but very rarely.
See here..
4G+ on B525

What do you suggest to get a more stable 4G+ connection with Three using band 1,3 and 20? Maybe a Huawei B535?

Edited by deleted (Thu 18-Jun-20 22:07:52)

In reply to a post by JackpotUK:

Hi Gary
Thanks for that.... And what a bummer.
I have had 4G+ on the router with Smarty/3, but very rarely.
See here..
4G+ on B525

What do you suggest to get a more stable 4G+ connection with Three using band 1,3 and 20? Maybe a Huawei B535?

I used to get 4G+ on Smarty most of the time until they “upgraded” the mast. I got 4G+ via aggregation of band 3 & 20. Once the mast was upgraded it would no longer allow CA over band 3 & 20. However it did gain band 1.

At this point I got rid of my B525 as both band 1 and band 3 only gave c.10mbps each. Prior to the upgrade I was getting 25-30mbps from band 3 & 20.

The B525 would prefer to connect to band 1 and would usually go to that first even though band 3 has more capacity. I’d like to think it was the mast pushing from band 3 to band 1, but could just be the B525 taking the tiny difference in RSRP causing it. However, occasionally it would swap from band 1 to band 3 so who knows.

Luckily I moved house and got a FTTC & Virgin Media connection.

Three replaced the B525 with the B535 as this supports bands 1 & 3 CA.

In reply to a post by gary333:

At this point I got rid of my B525 as both band 1 and band 3 only gave c.10mbps each. Prior to the upgrade I was getting 25-30mbps from band 3 & 20.

That is a lot of luck given the limited capacity. On Three Band 20 is always 5 Mhz. Depending on your area Band 1 can be either 10 Mhz, or 15 Mhz. Band 3 is always 15 Mhz. Other allocations apply for the other physical networks. (For those unsure Smarty is Three at this level).

Edited by jchamier (Fri 19-Jun-20 07:43:38)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by gary333:

At this point I got rid of my B525 as both band 1 and band 3 only gave c.10mbps each. Prior to the upgrade I was getting 25-30mbps from band 3 & 20.

That is a lot of luck given the limited capacity. On Three Band 20 is always 5 Mhz. Depending on your area Band 1 can be either 10 Mhz, or 15 Mhz. Band 3 is always 15 Mhz. Other allocations apply for the other physical networks. (For those unsure Smarty is Three at this level).

Not sure I understand. What is lucky lol?

From my point of view it was the opposite. As they upgraded to new kit it was clear that the changes they had made were inferior to the old setup for my location. The speed reduced as soon as the cell site was switched back on (on band 3) and never recovered. The upgrade also prevented band 20 being used for CA so double whammy leaving me with 10mb on a good day. Previously late at night I could get 55mb. After the upgrade best speed on band 1 or 3 was <30. I dumped the service as soon as both Three and Smarty claimed the signal was poor in the area and that was reason. Ignoring that I was telling them I had “5 bars” or c. 88-91 RSRP and signal of 11+.

In reply to a post by gary333:

Not sure I understand. What is lucky lol?

The speeds you received were lucky. Most would get dramatically less. About 5 Mbps is the average on Band 20 on its own.

From my point of view it was the opposite. As they upgraded to new kit it was clear that the changes they had made were inferior to the old setup for my location. The speed reduced as soon as the cell site was switched back on (on band 3) and never recovered. The upgrade also prevented band 20 being used for CA so double whammy leaving me with 10mb on a good day. Previously late at night I could get 55mb. After the upgrade best speed on band 1 or 3 was <30. I dumped the service as soon as both Three and Smarty claimed the signal was poor in the area and that was reason. Ignoring that I was telling them I had “5 bars” or c. 88-91 RSRP and signal of 11+.

Likely they put new antenna panels on the mast, and it changed the coverage pattern. Less for you might have meant that more people served by the mast got connectivity.

It appears that on Three and EE where B20 is used it is not often CA'd with another band. The mast is in control, and can deny this to your device. The guess from other forums is that both networks want to use B20 to get phone calls indoors where other frequencies don't reach. Data only devices (such as your router) are easily identified by the mast and if the mast knows you are also connecting to another band, can deny band 20. Updated software / equipment may be better at doing this than the earlier.

On Three you really need a modem / router that can do CA on all of Band 1, Band 3, and Band 32. Unfortunately the Huawei routers are quite rubbish for this as many have stated. I suspect Three have a lot more users with handsets than routers / modems. In the end its a business decision by Three.

Edited by jchamier (Fri 19-Jun-20 09:48:44)

Ah, I think you've misunderstood my wording (or I wasn't very clear at explaining). Band 3 & 20 combined would give me a combined average of 25-30mbps. This was in the main made up from band 20 providing c.7-11mbps of the total.

After the network upgrade, that combo was no longer available.

Coverage pattern could have changed, however the new equipment improved RSRP from c. 100-102 down to -88-91ish. Signal quality also saw similar improvements. So I don't think it was the spread that was reduced. However, it could well be the spread was increased an now the mast was covering a larger more dense area of people.

However all said and done I think the equipment for whatever reason just wasn't giving as good a speed as the older equipment. Even in the middle of the night (2-4am) speeds were still shocking on either band.

In reply to a post by gary333:

Ah, I think you've misunderstood my wording (or I wasn't very clear at explaining). Band 3 & 20 combined would give me a combined average of 25-30mbps. This was in the main made up from band 20 providing c.7-11mbps of the total.

After the network upgrade, that combo was no longer available.

I gotcha, and I was trying to explain one (business) reason why Three might have changed that possibility.

Coverage pattern could have changed, however the new equipment improved RSRP from c. 100-102 down to -88-91ish. Signal quality also saw similar improvements. So I don't think it was the spread that was reduced. However, it could well be the spread was increased an now the mast was covering a larger more dense area of people.

Agreed, and this could have easily increased phone load on Band 20, so either the software, or Three network management removed your ability to CA between B3 and B20.

However all said and done I think the equipment for whatever reason just wasn't giving as good a speed as the older equipment. Even in the middle of the night (2-4am) speeds were still shocking on either band.

I read that as increased coverage means more customers = less speed, but crucially more revenue for Three to pay for these multi-million pound upgrades.

At a guess when you received 55 Mbps, the coverage was 1000 people, but when things changed, the coverage reached 2000 people. Hence the capacity was used by more. In high load areas (e.g. my parents town), Three have added Band 1 and Band 32, alongside Band 3 and Band 20.

However as you've noticed, the home routers are pretty low spec, and don't support all the changes in frequency. Mobile handsets from Samsung, Hauwei, Motorola, Apple are all much better at using what is deployed. This is a common complaint.

Cellular internet is a gamble over performance - its mostly about getting any working internet unless you are extremely rural where the number of people is unlikely to change.

Unlike Openreach or Virgin Media's networks - mobile networks change often.