Unfortunately, this deal has expired 6 days ago.
*
315°
162 Posted 3 April 2023
Three 5G Home broadband + £80 Premium Quidco / Topcashback + 3 months free then £20pm /24m - £420 ( £16.20pm effect) @ Quidco / Three
Shared by
sajidtg
Joined in 2010
5,975
3,707
About this deal
This deal is expired. Here are some options that might interest you:
Community Updates
Edited by a community support team member, 3 April 2023
162 Comments
sorted byPing is always less than 40ms, absolutely perfect for gaming with no lags or connection issues and obviously great for streaming, browsing etc.
I'd expect this deal to have better speeds seeing as the router would be an upgrade in my case. A bonus to using 3 direct would be the capability of having proper port forwarding as well which smarty can't utilise unfortunately.
Was tempted to go for this offer previously but didn't want to be tied into a contract.
I'd say go for it and have a mess about in the cooling off period to see if you want to keep it, if not return it.
I band lock my router so it doesn't bounce off slower cell towers so in the near 2 years of having it up and running, there have been no issues.
I think a lot of the complaints are due to the fact that mobile broadband is variable by nature. Don’t buy this if you want consistent speeds. All kinds of variables like the time of day, congestion on the network, even weather conditions will affect the speeds. But if it lets you order at your address it should always be a usable speed at least.
Also if you are an online gamer don’t bother. You’ll have a higher latency and less stability than a fixed line fiber connection - But this is still totally fine for things like web browsing, streaming videos, and downloading files.
If you find it’s not for you. Just cancel in the cooling off period. The first 14 days are nice and easy to get out of. 30 day satisfaction guarantee is more of a hassle.
BT have had some pretty good routers in recent years especially. It’s not surprising that you’re finding other free ISP provided routers aren’t as good as BT - Most other companies aren’t either.
Also, since you got it last year do you definitely have the router that’s pictured in this deal? Or do you have the earlier ZTE one that’s a different shape? That one has worse WiFi than this does.
Three ZTE MC801A (5G) - Grade A Boxed with 6 Month warranty - £119.99 With free delivery
cgxuk.co.uk/thr…tml
Any next best ?
Thank you Kodabear
And which SIM card they use with
Just check - upon discontinuing contract with Three
The included router package must be returned to Three
Therefore I am considering this too.
Not too shabby for smarty... Upload speed took a hit with this speed test, normally over twice that. Best £15 a month spent.
I have this 5G system from 3. The speed is ok, but that signal randomly drops out 3 to 5 times a day! It usually takes between 15 to 30 mins to recover on its own. Restarting the router on its own will 'fix' it, but it's a massive pain.
I've contacted 3 and they are playing dumb on the whole thing. There are multiple forum and Reddit posts of people experiencing the same thing. Just avoid this as it's more hassle than it's worth.
Very impressed with the speeds. I have put the 3 5G router in the loft facing the 5G tower (around 500m away) with a CAT6 cable back to my existing Mikrotik router.
Yes the speed do vary - but never seen it drop below 200mbps at any point.
Here's a taster of my Internet / Network setup:
Also be careful if you take it out, it says you can return to store but they refused to do it and trying to get it cancelled took some time due to very poor customer services, we had to call a few times and keep chasing them up
Can this router be turned into modem only mode so I can use my TP Link as the main router?
I can't even get pass the 'coverage check'
On my top floor, I have a full 5G coverage checked using my Pixel 6.
I went ahead and put the 30 day notice in to Vodafone this morning and will stick with 3 5g for now. I was out of contract with them and paying £35 for just 48mbps so this saves me a few quid and also not get locked into a new contract waiting for full fibre to reach my place.
hotukdeals.com/com…268 (edited)
My setup uses this as a modem with IP passthrough enabled, this fronts an ASUS AIMesh system consisting of a number of RT AC86Us. Works a treat and (for me) was only £10 p/m.
EE's coverage checker by comparison is a LOT better...with full 5G available as stated it would be (inside and outside). What's interesting is that this router when on 4G+ is significantly slower than an iPhone 13 on the same 4G+ network.
Basically, we found this hub to be totally unusable, which is a great shame given that it's very cost effective. If it works for you, then great
I signed up when there was £80 Quidco cashback with an additional cashback bonus of £50 - it has all tracked and if it pays, combined with the 3 month free this will average out at £12.08/month for the 2 year contract.
All depends upon what the 3 service is like in your area.
Spent an hour or so slowly moving it around in a spare room at different angles and looking at the fluctuations in the signal to find the best spot. When it's really pissing it down with rain it does slow down a bit but this is infrequent.
I game online (COD etc), ping is fine for me at around 30ms (i'm an old gamer though from Doom/Quake days and 56k modems so compensation is something that can't be taught!), down/up speed wise I get about 400mb/30, the mast is about a mile away from the house, maybe a little more.
I was having problems of it completely dropping out for about 10 minutes about 2-3 times a day a few months ago but this seems to have gone since i've positioned it better, I thought it was firmware related but it's not been updated since then so it coulnd't have been.
I'm happy with a rolling contract for £24 so if anything comes in the meantime I can switch. Just had CityFibre dig up the streets a few weeks ago so keeping an eye on that.
The only way to make it connect to 4G only is to move the router to a position where signal is not as good - which I've had to do. Now I'm getting d/l speeds of 30-40.
They said 5G was the future - but it's not if you're too far away to get a good signal, but close enough that it chooses 5G over 4G. It'll choose 5G or 4G+ at 1 bar signal strength, over 4G at 4 bars!
If I don't lock on to the 5g tower then I get horrendous 4g+ speeds like you're experiencing. I figured this out the first day or two I got set up, that was almost 2 years ago. Haven't had an issue since. I suggest you look into band locking to help your speeds out.
Don't gamble if you do not get 5G signal.
My sister has it and she is regularly on 400mbs+ and hasn't had a single issue in the 6 months she's had it so far.
Gives a fairly consistent 100mb download speed on 4g which is faster than I'll ever need and way better than I can get on a wired connection.
Quidco cashback recently came through for me too.
Main issue is the connection seems to drop out once or twice a day but comes back as soon as you reset the router