In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by gary333:

I’ve seen recently tethering being noticeably quicker than using the phone. Unknown reason why this would happen and suggests Three could be prioritising certain traffic based on the device and it’s network indicators rather than just the APN as the networks can detect tethering traffic as being different to BAU phone traffic.

That's odd, usually the reverse caused by WiFi congestion between the phone and the computer. Some phones support USB 3 tethering to rule this out. A VPN would show if Three was prioritising traffic. They shouldn't be as I gather they gave assurances to Ofcom they would not.

However if you are on a Smarty or other virtual operator using the 3 infrastructure, they do not have to be the same as 3.

I agree it's certainly odd behaviour. It could potentially be a network issue where I am as it seems to be flicking back to 3G at multiple intervals in the day, even though I get 2-3 bars 4G if I turn celluar off and on. The above comments were based on tests performed back to back with 3 bars of 4G. I'm seeing it now with 6mbps on phone, 22mpbs on PC tethering to Kcom in Hull (a server I find reliable for speedtest.net).

3's network page doesn't show any issues - but we all know that it's about as useful as a chocolate tea pot.

I also wondered whether the tethering was triggering something on the network to enable CA, where as for some unknown reason the traffic from the phone directly wasn't. Who knows as when it comes to Three all i know is inconsistency is their middle name. Unfortunately O2 and Vodafone in my area are far inferior, however I no longer use 4G service for my internet so it doesn't effect my day to day experience - i just like to play around.

Edited by gary333 (Tue 01-Jun-21 20:45:12)

If you have an android phone you can run cellmapper, and it will show the cell site number for the 4G LTE transmission (eNodeB) and you should see the band you’re connected to. You can then look up that eNodeB on the cellmapper.net website, and you might find out what the mast is transmitting.

Three could be using 5 MHz of Band 20 (800 MHz) and 15 MHz of Band 3 (1800 MHz). You might be lucky and also have some Band 32 (1500 MHz) or some Band 1 transferred to LTE (2100 MHz).

Many phones only use secondary carriers when data is being used, you can sometimes see this in a speed test in steps of increasing speed. Depending on the phone it is possible the device is enabling CA for tethering.

There is also a difference in tethering for upload and download, not all masts and handsets support download CA, and it may also depend on the quality of signal from your handset back to the mast.

So many variables

In reply to a post by jchamier:

If you have an android phone you can run cellmapper, and it will show the cell site number for the 4G LTE transmission (eNodeB) and you should see the band you’re connected to. You can then look up that eNodeB on the cellmapper.net website, and you might find out what the mast is transmitting.

Three could be using 5 MHz of Band 20 (800 MHz) and 15 MHz of Band 3 (1800 MHz). You might be lucky and also have some Band 32 (1500 MHz) or some Band 1 transferred to LTE (2100 MHz).

Many phones only use secondary carriers when data is being used, you can sometimes see this in a speed test in steps of increasing speed. Depending on the phone it is possible the device is enabling CA for tethering.

There is also a difference in tethering for upload and download, not all masts and handsets support download CA, and it may also depend on the quality of signal from your handset back to the mast.

So many variables

I don't have an Android phone, however I can see from the engineer menu within my iPhone X what is going on. The phone is connected to the cell that i expected it to be, which I know has bands 1,3 & 20 but no band 32.

CA is enabled when the phone is tethering and I perform a speedtest. As expected CA is deactivated when no/low data is being used. It's interesting to note (as I don't recall seeing this anywhere else) but the phone is setup to use 3internet APN within the mobile data settings, however when connected by tethering the actual APN it's using is 3hotspot as reported in the engineer menu. The reason this is interesting as i have seen a number of people report the 3internet APN has been flakey recently - thus this might explain the differences in speeds.

I can see the lead band the phone is connected to is band 20 with the phone reporting 5mhz of bandwidth (dl_bw 25) and the CA band being band 3 with 15mhz of bandwidth reported (dl_bandwidth).

Edited by gary333 (Tue 01-Jun-21 22:11:31)

Ugh, different APN for tethering. And iOS won’t let you override that. Engineering mode doesn’t work properly on my 12, guessing the new modem.

Doesn’t surprise me Three are the ones doing this. I’ve not currently got a 3 contract SIM and my PAYG is in my OnePlus. My EE and Vodafone are on iOS and I see the same APN for tethering.

Apple gives the networks the tools to hang themselves!?

Edited by jchamier (Tue 01-Jun-21 22:30:23)

I haven't tested the speeds when tethering, but just from observation they seem to be as fast as using the phone on its own.

I've been using a VPN for all the tests, to avoid any possible selective effects.

I've only used one (free) VPN and it doesn't multistream. So speedtest.net and tbb give poor results.