Three - Speeds Around Guildford/Surrey Area

DAnDan

DAnDan

DAnDan

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22 Feb 2008
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So I've just got myself a one month SIM only package to test out Three to see if it's worth moving over.

However, the speeds I'm getting so far are shocking! It's currently downloading at between 40 and 60 KB/s, which is next to useless. This is on H (HSDPA) so really should be a lot better.

Just wondering if there's anyone else around Guildford with Three, and how you're finding the signal/speeds?
 
DAnDan said:
So I've just got myself a one month SIM only package to test out Three to see if it's worth moving over.

However, the speeds I'm getting so far are shocking! It's currently downloading at between 40 and 60 KB/s, which is next to useless. This is on H (HSDPA) so really should be a lot better.

Just wondering if there's anyone else around Guildford with Three, and how you're finding the signal/speeds?
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I moved last month from TMobile to a Three PAYG sim to try it out. I work in the centre of Guildford and get about 10Mbs download and 2Mbs upload. Have to say that I've been very impressed with Three and will probably take a sim only contract next week.
 
I'm hoping there's some kind of issue, or it's just this general area and the rest isn't as bad.

I'm trying it again now and it's sitting between 200 and 400 KB/s, which is better, but still pretty pathetic really.

Unlimited data is fantastic, but at this speed is there really much point in it!?
 
Every single day for the last 6 months between 3 and 12 am I get less than 512k speeds. 60KB/s what an absolute joke, they need to fix the mast round my area or something or there is just too many connecting to it.
Tried giffgaff as well and its exactly the same!! Wtf! After 12am I get 10meg so just have traffic shaping I don't know but it's a joke when you can't stream YouTube or do things strenuous on a UNLIMTED package.. These company's are a nightmare.
Oh btw I'm in the south east.
 
crazybones said:
DAnDan - where are you in Guildford as I'm near the station and have much faster speeds than you. Could it be in your configuration?
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I'm on the University campus. As far a I can tell it's configured properly. I've checked the APN settings and they're all fine, and it's definitely connecting to the HSPDA network.

After midnight the speeds did get a lot better, still not fantastic, but not bad enough to be worth complaining about. But if they're useless during the day that doesn't help me sadly.

Could I ask what sort of speeds you get at various times?
 
Was with 3 about 18 months ago, shocking speeds then that don't seem to have improved.

What I found worse was the lack of customer service when you had a complaint. They have good deals but sadly they are not the complete package for me.
 
Tried it in the office now, was sat between 100 and 400 KB/s... Admittedly it's only a few hundred metres from where I tried it yesterday, but it's poor!
 
I'm near the Fire Station and get between 4-6Mbps down every single time i run Speedtest. (Nexus 5).

Hope you get to the root of the problem mate.
 
Dirk said:
I'm near the Fire Station and get between 4-6Mbps down every single time i run Speedtest. (Nexus 5).

Hope you get to the root of the problem mate.
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Thanks! Can I ask what your speeds are like in the general area/a little further away?

It's a slight bit better today. Running a download earlier it peaked at just over 1 MB/s for about 20 seconds, but then dropped down to 20 KB/s straight after.

Sent a help request to Three via their website, but it seems they can only assist if I call their Indian call centre, which I can't do at the moment as I'm not using the 3 SIM, and don't have time to actually make the call today, hence why I tried using emails/their website in the first place!

Will be able to test a few more areas over the weekend, so hopefully they might perform better and I can just put it down to this being a bit of a dark spot?
 
AlecR said:
I'm near to Alton so not far from Guildford.

Speeds on Three are fine during the day and usually during the evening too, but sometimes after 6PM they drop from around 20Mbps down to 6 or under.
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If 6 Mb/s was about the lowest it went to then I'd be pretty happy at the moment! So far the max I've seen is around that, and that only lasted for less than half a minute before going back to the standard 0.8Mb/s (<100 KB/s).
 
I'll be back in Guildford on Monday or Tuesday, so will try and run a test at the Cathedral roundabout near the uni and in the centre.

Today, I was in Aldershot and that has 4G enabled! On just 2 bars, I got 21.69 Mbs down and 10.09 Mbs up with a ping of 67.

I then drove to Farnham and there does appear to be an issue there as I obtained 8.24 down, 2.43 up with a ping of 79 on 3G at Sainsbury's but in the centre of town, the ping went to 773 or similar in repeated tests!

As soon as I headed South down the A325 towards Bordon, the ping returned to normal.
 
Check that they aren't faffing with masts with reference to upgrading them to 4G.

The same happened in my area for about 12 days whilst they were done then speeds returned to normal
 
crazybones said:
I'll be back in Guildford on Monday or Tuesday, so will try and run a test at the Cathedral roundabout near the uni and in the centre.

Today, I was in Aldershot and that has 4G enabled! On just 2 bars, I got 21.69 Mbs down and 10.09 Mbs up with a ping of 67.

I then drove to Farnham and there does appear to be an issue there as I obtained 8.24 down, 2.43 up with a ping of 79 on 3G at Sainsbury's but in the centre of town, the ping went to 773 or similar in repeated tests!

As soon as I headed South down the A325 towards Bordon, the ping returned to normal.
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Sounds like the mast is congested or has a fault of some sort.. despite the high ping was the speed in the centre of Farnham good?
 
So Three got back to me, apparently they're not aware of any fault in my area. I guess that means the speeds are genuine and it's just a terrible area for the network.

I tested it about 15 miles away and got much better speeds, up to around 12 Mb/s. Still not the fastest, but enough that I wouldn't be complaining.
 
I'm just going to leave this here:

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