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My parents have a (crappy) wireless internet provider. During most evenings and weekend, they're lucky to get even 0.5Mbps. At the same time, Netflix works fine

My parents have a (crappy) wireless internet provider. During most evenings and weekend, they're lucky to get even 0.5Mbps. At the same time, Netflix works fine, and the speed on fast.com (Netflix-run) will be a few Mbps (I don't remember exactly). In the daytime on weekdays, they usually get a few Mbps from any speed test and generally everything feels fast. This lets me deduce the ISP is way over-subscribed on their upstream internet connection, but also has a Netflix appliance. What's frustrating is if they complain enough, the company will send a tech out who will "adjust" their antenna, or suggest it's a line-of-sight problem and they need a bigger tower, should cut down some trees, etc.

Reason077 7y ago
> "My parents have a (crappy) wireless internet provider. During most evenings and weekend, they're lucky to get even 0.5Mbps." Sounds like my experience on Three UK here in London. Just awful! Vodafone and O2 are at least 20X faster at peak times despite Three actually having a significantly stronger 4G signal at my flat. Absolute joke of a network. I'm so angry that I was basically tricked into a 12 month contract with them.
- martinald 7y ago
  The problem with Three is they don't have enough spectrum especially in densely populated areas, they definitely have invested a lot in backhaul capacity. 99% of cellular data problems are nothing to do with backhaul or peering, it's spectrum usage. Some good news: they are aggressively rolling out SDL (supplementary downlink) which will really improve things. They also announced today their 5G network (which has by far the most spectrum of all UK carriers) has went live. I would expect insanely good speeds on that network. But yeah, turns out selling unlimited data/tethering/roaming/text/minutes for as low as £11/month isn't a good business strategy. Generally though: EE is good everywhere. Vodafone is good in North London, O2 better in South London. Three generally awful everywhere.
  - 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
    > The problem with Three is they don't have enough spectrum especially in densely populated areas Isn’t this argument basically debunked? Places like South Korea and Japan have no issues whatsoever with extremely fast wireless internet at a fraction of the price.
    - mprev 7y ago
      I’d guess it’s a reference to the specific allocation of spectrum that Three has relative to its competitors.
      - Reason077 7y ago
        Here's a really interesting site showing how the UK's 3G/4G/5G spectrum is allocated. https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum It's pretty clear that Three's spectrum is woefully lacking compared to the others, except on 5G and the LTE SDL band 32 (both not widely deployed yet). Especially problematic when you consider that Three are the ones who have been selling super cheap unlimited data packages for the last couple of years!
  - Reason077 7y ago
    I've found 5G speeds on Vodafone to be quite variable. I have a weak 5G (Vodafone) signal at my flat, and at times I've seen it as high as 130 Mbit, but at other times it drops to 1-2 Mbit or vanishes completely. Where as on 4G I get a consistent 20-30 Mbit all day long. I suppose this will improve when they build out the network more, but even in locations with strong 5G signal the speed seems to vary a lot. Seems like 3's 5G network has still not actually launched, but they're now promising it "by the end of February". Is 3's SDL in addition to their carrier aggregation ("4G+") rollout? Because I already have that and it doesn't seem to have helped much!
    - martinald 7y ago
      Keep in mind that current 5G deployments in the UK (and I think the world) bond 4G and 5G together. This often causes problems if the 4G is heavily congested. Vodafone's London 5G deployment is still pretty spotty, it will get a lot better. Plus it uses a very high frequency band (3.5GHz). When the 700MHz band gets added in a couple of years it will be a lot more consistent. Yes, SDL is on LTE1500, LTE Band 32. It is another carrier to aggregate with the other ones. Both 3 and Vodafone have some spectrum in that band, IIRC 3 has a lot more. It will really help with overloaded cells in the short term.
- ksec 7y ago
  The internet is an interesting place. On one hand you have people saying 4G is good enough, and say 5G is hype only ( It is over hype, but surely not hype ), on the other hand you have people complaining about 4G capacity. It seems most people when discussing 4G or 5G have absolutely no idea what Capacity and Bandwidth is about. They only care about absolute speed.
mlyle 7y ago
It could be the actual wireless link that's oversubscribed, with QOS favoring Netflix. If it is the wireless link, getting link budget up does really help.

Reason077 7y ago

> "My parents have a (crappy) wireless internet provider. During most evenings and weekend, they're lucky to get even 0.5Mbps." Sounds like my experience on Three UK here in London. Just awful! Vodafone and O2 are at least 20X faster at peak times despite Three actually having a significantly stronger 4G signal at my flat. Absolute joke of a network. I'm so angry that I was basically tricked into a 12 month contract with them.

martinald 7y ago
The problem with Three is they don't have enough spectrum especially in densely populated areas, they definitely have invested a lot in backhaul capacity. 99% of cellular data problems are nothing to do with backhaul or peering, it's spectrum usage. Some good news: they are aggressively rolling out SDL (supplementary downlink) which will really improve things. They also announced today their 5G network (which has by far the most spectrum of all UK carriers) has went live. I would expect insanely good speeds on that network. But yeah, turns out selling unlimited data/tethering/roaming/text/minutes for as low as £11/month isn't a good business strategy. Generally though: EE is good everywhere. Vodafone is good in North London, O2 better in South London. Three generally awful everywhere.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
  > The problem with Three is they don't have enough spectrum especially in densely populated areas Isn’t this argument basically debunked? Places like South Korea and Japan have no issues whatsoever with extremely fast wireless internet at a fraction of the price.
  - mprev 7y ago
    I’d guess it’s a reference to the specific allocation of spectrum that Three has relative to its competitors.
    - Reason077 7y ago
      Here's a really interesting site showing how the UK's 3G/4G/5G spectrum is allocated. https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum It's pretty clear that Three's spectrum is woefully lacking compared to the others, except on 5G and the LTE SDL band 32 (both not widely deployed yet). Especially problematic when you consider that Three are the ones who have been selling super cheap unlimited data packages for the last couple of years!
- Reason077 7y ago
  I've found 5G speeds on Vodafone to be quite variable. I have a weak 5G (Vodafone) signal at my flat, and at times I've seen it as high as 130 Mbit, but at other times it drops to 1-2 Mbit or vanishes completely. Where as on 4G I get a consistent 20-30 Mbit all day long. I suppose this will improve when they build out the network more, but even in locations with strong 5G signal the speed seems to vary a lot. Seems like 3's 5G network has still not actually launched, but they're now promising it "by the end of February". Is 3's SDL in addition to their carrier aggregation ("4G+") rollout? Because I already have that and it doesn't seem to have helped much!
  - martinald 7y ago
    Keep in mind that current 5G deployments in the UK (and I think the world) bond 4G and 5G together. This often causes problems if the 4G is heavily congested. Vodafone's London 5G deployment is still pretty spotty, it will get a lot better. Plus it uses a very high frequency band (3.5GHz). When the 700MHz band gets added in a couple of years it will be a lot more consistent. Yes, SDL is on LTE1500, LTE Band 32. It is another carrier to aggregate with the other ones. Both 3 and Vodafone have some spectrum in that band, IIRC 3 has a lot more. It will really help with overloaded cells in the short term.
ksec 7y ago
The internet is an interesting place. On one hand you have people saying 4G is good enough, and say 5G is hype only ( It is over hype, but surely not hype ), on the other hand you have people complaining about 4G capacity. It seems most people when discussing 4G or 5G have absolutely no idea what Capacity and Bandwidth is about. They only care about absolute speed.

mlyle 7y ago

It could be the actual wireless link that's oversubscribed, with QOS favoring Netflix. If it is the wireless link, getting link budget up does really help.