Three UK’s Home Broadband Users Suffer Intermittent Connectivity

Some customers of mobile network operator Three UK, specifically those who are taking one of their 4G and 5G powered unlimited Three Home Broadband packages, have – for the best part of a year – been complaining about an intermittent connectivity problem that is sporadically disrupting their use of various internet services.

The issue, which has in recent months been experienced by members of ISPreview’s forum and is also covered via a 41-page thread on Three’s forum (here), first surfaced in late 2023 and has thus far proven tricky for the operator to identify and resolve. Part of the reason for this may be because mobile connectivity is inherently quite variable and this can make it difficult to spot something more specific, particularly if it’s intermittent.

The problem itself appears as if it could be some sort of fault within Three’s network routing/peering or internet-filtering system that causes sporadic problems for some users on active connections. For example, in some cases it throws up “Secure Connection Failed” (SSL / HTTPS) notices when loading certain websites (similar to if an SSL certificate had expired) or will pause the loading of a website mid-page, which usually goes away after a few refreshes.

In other cases the issue may cause problems when attempting to login to certain online services, such as Xbox Live, PSN, Battlenet, various banking apps and so forth (several attempts may be needed before the login process succeeds). Customers affected by the issue have also reported stuttering while streaming videos via Disney+ and some other platforms, as well as connection drops during online multiplayer games etc.

The problem doesn’t appear to be related to a specific mobile router (Hub), as it occurs in the same way on several of the operator’s supplied devices (e.g. ZTE MC801A, Zyxel NR5103EV2 etc.) – irrespective of whether you’re connected to it via wires (LAN) or WiFi (WLAN). Changing the operator’s APN profile or trying different DNS servers also has no impact.

Example Customer Complaint 1

“I am experiencing it all the time, especially in the evening when I am using the internet at home most. Sometimes I need to force the refresh 3,4 times before the page loads up correctly.”

Example Customer Complaint 2

“I have had the same issues related here. It started happening a few months ago, it was fine for a year or so and I contacted support. They’ve swapped me from a Huawei hub to a Zytel hub, got a replacement SIM and it’s all still happening. Connection is good with fast speeds but often get the connection failed error when loading websites or checking out. Reloading the page will fix it. It happens on all devices, when people come to visit it happens on their devices too. Happens on my ethernet cable connected devices too.”

Example Customer Complaint 3

“I was seeing this issue months and months ago but (maybe coincidentally) by introducing a mesh network in the house, it went away. It’s back with a vengeance now though – I’m seeing the same PS Networking issues this last 2 days to the point where I’m nearly banned for the season from Overwatch due to the number of dropped connections on game start.”

Example Customer Complaint 4

“I also see that all the issues reported over the last 6 months or so by various users are now hitting me at once: really high latency when making a connection, inability to use banking apps reliably, stuttering when streaming from Disney+, SSL errors when using github,com and as mention above, connection drops when connecting to online games. I’m seeing that roughly 7 out of 10 Overwatch games disconnect when attempting to connect to the server which means I’m now banned until the end of the season (mid October). Great, I’m obviously less than impressed.”

However, customers affected by the issue did find that using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) usually resolved the problem, although VPNs are not a complete solution and won’t work well for every single situation and service. But if you are suffering from this then using a VPN is at least a temporary way to avoid the annoyance. One free option that some people use is Cloudflare WARP.

A Three spokesperson told ISPreview:

“We are aware of some connectivity issues affecting a small number of home broadband users. We are investigating these and will update customers as soon as possible. We continue to encourage our customers to report issues so that we can optimise the home broadband service.”

We should point out that this is by no means the first time that we’ve heard about such issues occurring on Three’s network, particularly the SSL error, which has periodically occurred in the past too. Quite why it crops up we don’t yet know, but the operator is actively analysing data from a number of live traces in order to identify the root cause.

The latest issue did appear to crop up during part of the operator’s IPv6 rollout, which initially disrupted some VPN clients and device connectivity to their Hub, but we don’t currently believe this to be the cause of the above problem (although it can’t yet be ruled out).

Finally, one of Three UK’s customers has just been told that Three’s “Major Incidents” team is now working with Nokia on this problem, “who in turn are working with Microsoft“. Make of that what you will. Meanwhile, the long.. wait for a solution continues.

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