Data speed survey

Down 364mbps Up 19.1 5G router 08:58hrs 18/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

Probably my last post for a while but some interesting observations. I am some distance from the mast my 3/Smarty comes from, the coverage checker suggests outdoor coverage for 5G where I am and I’m towards the outer edge of that, the router however is in an upstairs window on the closest side of the house to the cell site, I’m not using an external aerial… yet.

With the above setup/constraints it can be observed that through the night and early morning 4G & 5G perform the same and have almost identical signal strength, as the day progresses 4G improves in strength peaking at around late afternoon whereas in an almost linear opposite 5G degrades until late dusk when it picks up again and the two match each other. I assume this is either brought on by atmospherics or radio noise from the sun being up, years of listening to MW pirate radio taught me that certain times of the day were worse than others for weak radio reception/stronger interference.

The variance in strength of 4/5G here means the router at least for part of the day can be seen to firstly be firmly affixed to 5G, then flip flop between 4 & 5, then sit on 4G until the strength of 5 picks up again as darkness falls. This means that for part of the day cycle the speed is massive and for the other its slow or ridiculously slow (depending on 3 throttling things).

Sorry if I’ve waffled on but hopefully this is of interest to someone.

Borrowed a 5G router to do a little trial, even though I’m on the edge of the outdoor coverage area I get 3 bars of signal and…

Down 264mbps Up 19.4 5G router 12:55hrs 16/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

We’ll see what bandwidth variations this suffers from.

Down 80.6mbps Up 1.54mbps 4G router 11:30hrs 16/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

Blisteringly fast, I guess 3 aren’t forcibly throttling Smarty’s bandwidth today then…

Down 1.38mbps Up 1.85mbps 4G router 18:10hrs 15/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

Unusable rubbish, pitiful bandwidth all day today.

Down 1.42mbps Up 1.20mbps 4G router 12:19hrs 15/04/26 Abingdon Oxon

Down 1.39mbps Up 2.99mbps 4G router 08:15hrs 15/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

Down 1.52mbps Up 0.7mbps 4G router 08:15hrs 14/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

And back to poor again… Down 3.53mbps Up 0.67mbps 4G router 15:48hrs 11/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.

Now I don’t need it… Down 70.8mbps Up 2.09mbps 4G router 11:29hrs 11/04/26 Abingdon Oxon.