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It seems that Three didn't invest much on 4G (hence the low speeds), but they fixed that with 5G. They now own a lot of spectrum (Three 160MHz, EE 120MHz, O2 10

It seems that Three didn't invest much on 4G (hence the low speeds), but they fixed that with 5G. They now own a lot of spectrum (Three 160MHz, EE 120MHz, O2 100MHz, Vodafone 90MHz) and at least in central London you can see difference. On 5G, I often see 2x higher speeds on Three/Smarty than I do on Vodafone. But again, 5G. Performance on Three's LTE is completely different. I believe they rank last on 4G speed tests here in London, behind EE, Vodafone, and O2. I didn't have a positive opinion about them (used them for a year and then left, this was 5 years ago), but some people were getting interesting speeds with their 5G[0], so I ordered a Smarty SIM (30 day plan) just to test. While not as stable, it's certainly cheaper and faster than my FTTC connection (60Mbps/15Mbps for £30/month). EE has always been very good in this area, even indoors - I was getting 150Mbps/15Mbps inside my flat, then moved to Vodafone which gives me similar speeds as my wired connection - but as you said, contracts are a problem. I'm not going do a 12 or 24 contract just to test 5G :-P Anyway, if you have access to 5G equipment (a phone, 5G modem, etc) and have 5G coverage, test again. You may see completely different results compared to 4G. --- [0] https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,23787.30.html https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,23787.30.html ; https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26761.0.html https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26761.0.html

tomxor 5y ago
I don't see how 5G will make Three faster if the bottleneck is backhaul, but maybe my assumption was wrong - I had excellent reception and maxed out the carrier aggregation on Three so it seems weird that it would be the LTE part that's the bottleneck.
- celsoazevedo 5y ago
  If the problem in your area is the backhaul, then you're right, 5G won't help. However, at least in some areas, Three's problem isn't the backhaul. It's too many customers and not enough wireless capacity for 4G (and even 3G): https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum I've been testing Smarty (Three) and Vodafone in London. Almost every time Vodafone's LTE is faster and more stable than Three's LTE. On 5G it's different: not only Three has better coverage, but their speeds are often twice as fast. According to "Network Signal Guru" (needs root and Android, but it's an interesting app), Three uses 100Mhz of the N78 band while Vodafone only deploys 50Mhz. Not a surprise as they have more 3.5GHz spectrum than Vodafone, but shows the advantage they have on 5G. By the way, I went to one of your early comments and you also mentioned EE. In the UK, networks share some infrastructure. EE and Three have MBNL ( https://mbnl.co.uk/ https://mbnl.co.uk/ ) while Vodafone and O2 have CTIL ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTIL ). If you live somewhere with shared towers/fibre and there are backhaul limitations, this may explain why you can't get good speeds on both EE and Three.

tomxor 5y ago

I don't see how 5G will make Three faster if the bottleneck is backhaul, but maybe my assumption was wrong - I had excellent reception and maxed out the carrier aggregation on Three so it seems weird that it would be the LTE part that's the bottleneck.

celsoazevedo 5y ago
If the problem in your area is the backhaul, then you're right, 5G won't help. However, at least in some areas, Three's problem isn't the backhaul. It's too many customers and not enough wireless capacity for 4G (and even 3G): https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum I've been testing Smarty (Three) and Vodafone in London. Almost every time Vodafone's LTE is faster and more stable than Three's LTE. On 5G it's different: not only Three has better coverage, but their speeds are often twice as fast. According to "Network Signal Guru" (needs root and Android, but it's an interesting app), Three uses 100Mhz of the N78 band while Vodafone only deploys 50Mhz. Not a surprise as they have more 3.5GHz spectrum than Vodafone, but shows the advantage they have on 5G. By the way, I went to one of your early comments and you also mentioned EE. In the UK, networks share some infrastructure. EE and Three have MBNL ( https://mbnl.co.uk/ https://mbnl.co.uk/ ) while Vodafone and O2 have CTIL ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTIL ). If you live somewhere with shared towers/fibre and there are backhaul limitations, this may explain why you can't get good speeds on both EE and Three.