Three 5G Home Broadband - Speeds to good to be true?

martco

if you know your local area well is there any way to check precisely what masts have what hardware installed? (4g 5g LTE etc?) is that info published anywhere? or do ya have to know a friendly engineer :) ?

I was hoping for 5g as I'm stuck in a pocket of VDSL without hope of any improvement ever it seems....now I do live about 300M line of sight from what I think is the main mobile mast serving the area, perched atop a business building on the main street, afaik both 3 and Eir have plant on it (seems the tool I used last time I checked into this maybe gone or I just can't remember lol) BUT when I look on comreg mobile coverage map it claims that I am served by both 3 and Eir "very good" for "outdoor" coverage

my intent was to buy my own router (there's a fella on Adverts selling latest Huawei cpe...or maybe likes of a Mikrotik Chateau) and run off a 5g sim only plan BUT I don't have any 5g android handset to test/verify signal info on to hand and I didn't want to spend money on a test only to fail and be out of pocket...I'm thinking if I could verify at least the mast had the carrier kit aboard carrier there would be a very fair chance I'm on a winner...?

anyone know howto check what's actually installed on a mast carrier side?

Gatling

I've had it 12 months now and barely get more than 60mps while it's adequate it's definitely not great either it's definitely not giving 5g speeds my contract is up as of this week so I'll be changing to another provider

smuggler.ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121567215#Comment_121567215

check links in the post #25

check with mobile provider website for coverage

zoom_cool

I had it bad contention in my area mast oversubscribed. Good speed in early morning to mid afternoon about 150mbps evening to night would drop to 10mbps

ctgarvey

Great thread. Has anyone gone for 5G THREE Broadband in Moyville/Rathfarnham/Ballyboden area? Is it useable? Is it even 50% as good as virgin broadband? The trustpilot reviews of three broadband are awful. If i look at the https://www.nperf.com/ map for my area, i am surrounded by 4G colour only.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891257#Comment_121891257

If you can get 50Mb+ on a wired/cable connection then I would never recommend mobile broadband over it to be honest. A wired connection isn't all that more expensive than what Three are pricing theirs at either.

If you can get fibre to the home then it's a no-brainer.

Three's broadband in particular tend to be massively oversold relative to the capacity they have available.

And while it may be briliiant for you this week, day or night, for what you need, 6 months into a 24 month contract it could nosedive if loads of your neighbours sign up.

Or, as many during Covid found out, it might be fine for working from home during the day when most are at an office or at school. Everyone suddenly forced to stay home and the networks completely fell apart.

Orebro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891312#Comment_121891312

"Everyone suddenly forced to stay home and the networks completely fell apart." - this is simply not true, including for Three - the networks managed to deal with record levels of volume and there wasn't any that buckled under the pressure. Many on this forum have excellent experience with Three speeds including myself and it was a godsend while waiting for the fibre rollout - it is an excellent solution if you are waiting for fibre or don't have a better landline alternative.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891356#Comment_121891356

Well you've just proven my point - it worked great for you. Which has absolutely no bearing on it working well for someone else in another area or for it continuing to work well as usage in your surrounding area changes 6, 12, 18 months into a typical 24 month contract.

In our area in the peak of Covid (rural), but when schools were back open, you'd easily get 280Mb+ on Three between around 11pm and 1pm.

From around 2pm onwards it would decline rapidly. Jitter and packet loss would shoot through the roof. Video calls or remote desktop sessions were virtually impossible from about 3pm. By 8pm it could barely manage a Netflix stream.

When the schools were off as well during that time then you might as well have been shouting out the window than trying to do a video call at any time of the day.

Once Covid ended and the area has since largely been upgraded to FTTP, Three easily sustains a minimum of 100Mb+ day or night but packet loss and latency still goes through the roof from early evening which suggests congestion is still happening somewhere further into their network core.

Orebro

Well that sounds like an oversubscribed mast, different conversation.