[cjl]

For the past ten days or so - since the very end of May - our Three mobile broadband connection at home has plummetted. Sometimes it works for a few minutes but then it goes back to dead slow or not at all (eg taking several minutes to load the Google Home page, and sometimes simply giving up). Three Customer Services tell us that we've got fabulous 3G coverage in our area. Someone in a Three shop says this is rubbish and they changed the coverage a couple of weeks ago (which makes sense). Someone in Orange said that Three rent the 3g coverage from Orange and that Orange didn't renew the contract a few weeks ago - which also makes sense. But no one can tell us for sure what's happening. Meanwhile we can't really function with speeds that are mainly zero and occasionally just acceptable. Can anyone out there help?

[3g-g]

Hi cjl,

The most probable explanation to your drop in speed is an upturn in use of three services in and around where you are, if there's now a larger number of users working from the same three mast as you it'll make things slower until 3 up the capacity supplied to their mast. Perhaps trying your connection at less busy times (late night, early morning) would confirm that its a capacity thing.

As far as the Orange explanation, that's false. Three use Oranges 2G network for voice traffic when out of Three 3G coverage, their 3G networks are completely separate of each other.

Good luck in trying to get your speeds back to an acceptable level!

[Ben]

Are you definitely connected to 3G or HSDPA signal? This is normally indicicated in some way by a light on the modem - on mine I get green for 2G, blue for 3G and turquoise for HSDPA.

Lol @ what the Orange person told you. Unfortunately you can't trust retail staff for advice, even at the independents! (sorry getti!) :D

[cjl]

Thanks Ben and 3g-g for replying. We've now abandoned Three and moved to Orange. It works better - i.e. it works - but it's still pretty slow, and slower than Three was when we first took it out in March. The fact that Three agreed to terminate our contracts suggests that the know something has got worse in our area.
So is it just a question of how many people are using the network? It seems a shame that we're getting such poor coverage here at home, as mobile broadband is our only option (no landline or cable coverage here). Are things going to get better, or are the networks always going to be playing catch-up with the number of subscribers? One day in the future I'm sure we'll all laugh about how slow things are at the moment like we laugh at 1980s fashion, but I'm not laughing yet...

[Ben]

Please could you run some speed tests and let us know what you're getting on Orange?

http://www.speedtest.net/

Sometimes it doesn't work very well on mobile connections, but have a few tries and see what results you get for ping, up, and down.

Did you look at Vodafone or T-Mobile's 3G Broadband offerings? Orange would not have been my next choice...

[3g-g]

Whereabouts in the UK are you cjl if you've no landline or cable connection?! Are you getting a 3G connection on Orange? If it's a 2G one the speeds will still be pitiful! Put some info down and we'll see if we can find out why you're still not seeing romping high speed 3G!