Forum Discussion
Strong 4g Signal - Poor Download Speeds
Have you checked for network faults/problems in your area Davlon?
Check this online at https://www.three.co.uk/support/network_and_coverage/network_support, , using your postcode.
That said, SMARTY claim they don't inhibit bandwidth in any way - see the help article:
https://help.smarty.co.uk/en/articles/1155178-our-policy-on-data-shaping-and-network-throttling
Three UK, SMARTY's owner and parent, do have an active bandwidth management policy, so these two positions don't appear to corroborate.
Hi Chalkychap - I did check coverage and status and both reported good/ok. The setup is for use in a static caravan I recently bought - so, I’ll be using it properly in the DN17 postcode area about 45 miles away from my current Wakefield testing area . I’ve already researched the coverage at DN17 and it’s very good, plus it’ll be less populated than Wakefield.
I’ll report back in the next couple of days and report the caravan performance. I’ve bought another manufacturer hub as well just to cover that base, which I’ll try if the current one is poor at DN17.
As a side point - my iPhone is BT mobile and that does 70mb download acting as a hotspot in exactly the same Wakefield location.
thanks Dave…
Can guarantee if you check the signal of your destination before you move, it will state there are no problems.
When you get to the location it will state there is a problem and engineers are working on it,also there is a huge amount of users at the moment that's causing slow speeds.
They're liars and such a bad company. It's why they offer a tempting price on their Unlimited plan. They collect a lot of money from the 1st top ups and don't care that majority of customers don't top up the next month.
Quick bucks and then they'll run to be never heard of again. Well under the title Smarty anyway
Totally agree with this, this company is a farce.
We travelled the length of the UK and had the exact same excuses at every post code we stopped at from their help desk.
I'd cut your loses and leave. They're a bunch of crooks
TTHF Totally ridiculous accuse the company of being crooks......unless you have some documentary evidence that you can present to Trading Standards, local police etc.
There are many people who have their needs met and therefore find the service just fine. I accept that it's not apparently working for you and that is indeed unfortunate. The good thing is that you are now tied in for less than a month - although you could get a fresh sim with another provider right now and port your number to them, thus wasting what is left on this service that doesn't do it for you.
We have had plenty of posts recently about people using Smarty as a replacement for a replacement in static caravans - The likes of Strandloper MSF and I have answered many questions on such scenarios - The issue you are experiencing is because static caravans have metal sub frames, which act as a signal blocker.
Some people have had success fitting an antenna to the roof of their caravans. May be worth investigating this for your static caravan.
How do you check the coverage Davlon?
All the online coverage checkers are based on computer models, which rely on making numerous assumptions to create the models. This means that predicted coverage at any given location is sometimes different to actual coverage at the given location.
BT Mobile use EE's network, and it's generally true to say this network has more features and functionality than other UK networks. There's a clear price premium for this though.
Hi Chalkychap - I just used the basic Smarty coverage checker and signalchecker.co.uk. The advantage of 3 is you can test without entering into a 2 year contract - so I’m happy however it goes. What I can’t get my head around is the major speed performance for ‘upload’, my last test was 0.6 download 17.8m upload… it kinda speaks to a congestion problem as download is utilised more, so my good signal is reflected by the good upload results??
Okay Davlon, there's around 85 million mobile customers in the UK, and the big four networks market share is approximately:
Three UK - 9.3m customers, 296,000 cell antennas, 31.5 customers/antenna
Vodafone UK - 16.9m customers, 383,000 cell antennas, 44 customers/antenna
EE - 26.1m customers, 490,500 cell antennas, 53 customers/antenna
O2 - 31.3m customers, 490,100 cell antennas, 64 customers/antennaThese crude statistics suggest Three should perform well, but Three utilise something they call TrafficSense™ to manage demand on their mobile network. Here's what Three UK currently say about this:
It’s the way we manage traffic on our network to give you the best possible experience. We’re always making sure to meet network demand in the right way, so our approach might change. Right now, here’s how TrafficSense™ works.
We’re here for you, which means we want your experience to be seamless. In times of high congestion or network issues, we might need to take steps such as rerouting bandwidth from quieter places to places with higher demand. It’s only to make sure things are running smoothly across our network.
Nothing there to explain how this could impact one's experience with mobile data down/up throughput. Network congestion, due to large numbers of concurrent users is no doubt a factor.
