4G Download Slow but Upload fast in Bude

[RA48]

all the providers in bude are rubbish at the moment. i live here!

its entirely due to the networks being swamped by staycation tourist use. actually its fine between around 1am and 6am when presumably all the visitors are sleeping!

night-time is the only time i can get any work done!

i for one will be truly glad when the holiday season is over!

[mikeliuk]

Hi @RA48 ,

Just out of interest, how do things look if you force 3G instead of 4G?

[EssexBoyEE]

Can you put the EE Router SIM in a Phone stand in the Garden etc and do some Speed and Signal testing.

[RA48]

to give an indication of just how bad the 4g is in Bude:-

this morning at 0430am i got down 44.9 megs, up 13.23 megs. pretty good!

but yesterday day time:-

Ping   / download / upload 

1000am  83ms / 0.09 Mbps / 2.4 Mbps

1130 am 36ms / 0.17 Mbps / 0.41 Mbps

1230 am 46ms / 0.97 Mbps / 0.48 Mbps

1330 am 46ms / 0.23 Mbps / 0.86 Mbps

1430 am 49ms / 0.13 Mbps / 1.36 Mbps

1530 unable to connect!

5 miles north at kilkhampton (with few tourists and different mast) all is fine with good speeds all day

all the above by ookla on an S8.

i will try 3g later and let you know if that makes a difference

[mikeliuk]

Making a note that typically I don't see that down and up are impacted at the same time. It would be good to check SINR is comparable between tests and ideally better than 10 dB. It's worth double checking with fast.com as this early morning I saw 27 Mbps with Ookla speedtest but 38 Mbps with fast.com. Ookla speedtest on a mobile doesn't seem to be as good as I remember it as I cannot find a way to choose a server in the mobile mode, nor to share the results.

Typically on a congested network, I see down is impacted but up remains reasonable. I predict that when the 4G network is badly impacted, 3G might perform better. If both are equally bad, there would be a mystery as I guess many mobiles default to 4G so the 3G network should be less impacted.

Here is my connection having a bit of a slow day, 27.7 Mbps down/26.7 Mbps up (RS-SINR 10 dBm to 16 dBm): https://www.speedtest.net/result/12037841135

fast.com remains better than the server speedtest picked:

33

Mbps

Latency

 

Unloaded

31 ms

 

Loaded

582 ms

 

Upload

Speed

25 Mbps

[bristolian]

Those are all valid points, I would also bear in mind that Band 1 refarming from 3G > 4G can also play a part here.

Most web browsing and basic mobile data usage is DL-heavy, but video calling impacts DL & UL equally.

[RA48]

ok guys. well i just tested again at 1120. the 4g is marginally better download today (i guess visitors are now leaving as schools back and the town does seem a little quieter)

results below. as you will see, 3g is equally bad,

ping/down /up

4g:-  52 / 1.34 / 0.28

3g:- 49 / 1.34 / 0.33

as i said before roll on autumn!

[mikeliuk]

Hi @RA48 ,

I'm sad for you as I was previously with Three and saw similar congestion issues with laughable under 1 Mbps down. The saving grace was often getting around 6 Mbps down on 3G.

You may be interested to check the average performance in your area in the OpenSignal app to see if everyone has things this bad.

Might be worth a Hail Mary in reporting it as a fault when it persists when all the tourists should be asleep and neither watching Netflix nor streaming their antics.

I suspect you have a good handle on the situation and I learned to tolerate the regular occurrence with Three over 24 months. Good luck!